Concerns about exploiting the poor or economically disadvantaged in clinical research are widespread in the bioethics community. For some, any research that involves economically disadvantaged individuals is de facto ethically problematic. The economically disadvantaged are thought of as “venerable” to exploitation, impaired decision making, or both, thus requiring either special protections or complete exclusion from research. A closer examination of the worries about vulnerabilities among the economically disadvantaged reveals that some of these worries are empirically or logically untenable, while others (...) can be better resolved by improved study designs than by blanket exclusion of poorer individuals from research participation. The scientific objective to generate generalisable results and the ethical objective to fairly distribute both the risks and benefits of research oblige researchers not to unnecessarily bar economically disadvantaged subjects from clinical research participation. (shrink)

This paper explores the evolution of the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights , which was adopted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 2005. While the draft UDBHR generated controversy among bioethicists, the process through which it evolved excluded mainstream bioethicists. The absence of peer review affects the declaration’s content and significance. This paper critically analyses its content, commenting on the failure to acknowledge socioeconomic and other factors that impede its implementation. The UDBHR outlines ideal (...) standards but fails to provide guidance that can be readily applied in different settings. It strives for universality but does not contribute to understanding of universal or global bioethics.The Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights was developed through multinational consultation over several years. It was officially adopted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in October 2005.1 This paper explores the process of drafting the UDBHR, critically analyses its content and considers its status in the context of global bioethics. It comments on the UDBHR’s failure to acknowledge or respond to socioeconomic and other factors that impede attempts to implement it. The paper concludes that the process of drafting the declaration excluded a necessary group of stakeholders and that the UDBHR therefore fails to provide the guidance it aims to offer.Identifying a need to develop universally applicable ethical guidelines within a context of cultural pluralism, Unesco began developing a draft Declaration on Universal Norms on Bioethics. A near final draft was posted on Unesco’s website in February 2005 and replaced in June 2005 with the version subsequently adopted as the UDBHR. Stakeholder consultation on the draft involved hundreds of people in many diverse nations. These were seemingly limited to consultations with Unesco affiliates, however, and public comment was not solicited. …. (shrink)

Education is so strongly emphasized in the Chinese culture that academic success is widely regarded as the only indicator of success, while too much physical activity is often discouraged because it drains energy and affects academic concentration. This study investigated the relations among academic achievement, self?esteem, school conduct and physical activity level. The participants were 333 Chinese pre?adolescents (aged 8?12) in Hong Kong. Examination results and conduct grades were obtained from the school records. Global self?esteem was measured with the Physical (...) self?description questionnaire (PSDQ), while physical activity patterns of the children were assessed with the Physical activity questionnaire for children (PAQ?C). Results showed that high academic achievers consistently attained better school conduct marks. However, physical activity level was quite an independent entity that was related neither to academic achievement nor school conduct. Furthermore, regression analyses showed that only academically high?achieving boys and physically active boys had higher self?esteem. (shrink)

Sir Richard Phillips was a London-born author and publisher of educational textbooks who used a vast array of pseudonyms, including that of Reverend C. C. Clarke. Phillips' marketing techniques - the systematic borrowing of famous authors' names for his textbooks, along with the multiplication of easy to produce related educational products - were key to his success. No doubt meant as an accessible encyclopaedia, this 40th edition of 1834 - attributed to Phillips himself - is a surprisingly vast and heterogeneous (...) survey, which compiles natural and man-made curiosities across the world. The Himalayas and Mont Blanc share a chapter with the Peak of Derbyshire; famous rivers lead to mysterious subterranean forests; and Stonehenge is closely followed by St Paul's cathedral. Halfway between reference book and textbook, this richly illustrated volume is a fascinating catalogue of the world's wonders as perceived in the early nineteenth century. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophers interested in value theory appear to be largely concerned with questions of the following sort:What is value?What is the meaning of the word ‘good’?Does the attribution of value to an object have a cognitive, or merely an emotive, significance?The first question is metaphysical; to ask it is analogous to asking in physics:What is matter?What is electricity?The others are generally treated as semantical questions; to ask them is analogous to asking in statistics:What is the meaning of the word ‘probable’?Does (...) an attribution of probability express an objective fact, or merely a subjective attitude? (shrink)

Lazare Carnot was the unique example in the history of science of someone who inadvertently owed the scientific recognition he eventually achieved to earlier political prominence. He and his son Sadi produced work that derived from their training as engineers and went largely unnoticed by physicists for a generation or more, even though their respective work introduced concepts that proved fundamental when taken up later by other hands. There was, moreover, a filial as well as substantive relation between the work (...) of father and son. Sadi applied to the functioning of heat engines the analysis that his father had developed in his study of the operation of ordinary machines. Specifically, Sadi's idea of a reversible process originated in the use his father made of geometric motions in the analysis of machines in general. (shrink)