In _Beyond Animal Rights_, Josephine Donovan and Carol J. Adams introduced feminist "ethic of care" theory into philosophical discussions of the treatment of animals. In this new volume, seven essays from _Beyond Animal Rights_ are joined by nine new articles-most of which were written in response to that book-and a new introduction that situates feminist animal care theory within feminist theory and the larger debate over animal rights. Contributors critique theorists' reliance on natural rights doctrine and utilitarianism, which, they (...) suggest, have a masculine bias. They argue for ethical attentiveness and sympathy in our relationships with animals and propose a link between the continuing subjugation of women and the human domination of nature. Beginning with the earliest articulation of the idea in the mid-1980s and continuing to the theory's most recent revisions, this volume presents the most complete portrait of the evolution of the feminist-care tradition. (shrink)

Over the years, companies have adopted hiring algorithms because they promise wider job candidate pools, lower recruitment costs and less human bias. Despite these promises, they also bring perils. Using them can inflict unintentional harms on individual human rights. These include the five human rights to work, equality and nondiscrimination, privacy, free expression and free association. Despite the human rights harms of hiring algorithms, the AI ethics literature has predominantly focused on abstract ethical principles. This is problematic for two reasons. (...) First, AI principles have been criticized for being vague and not actionable. Second, the use of vague ethical principles to discuss algorithmic risks does not provide any accountability. This lack of accountability creates an algorithmic accountability gap. Closing this gap is crucial because, without accountability, the use of hiring algorithms can lead to discrimination and unequal access to employment opportunities. This paper makes two contributions to the AI ethics literature. First, it frames the ethical risks of hiring algorithms using international human rights law as a universal standard for determining algorithmic accountability. Second, it evaluates four types of algorithmic impact assessments in terms of how effectively they address the five human rights of job applicants implicated in hiring algorithms. It determines which of the assessments can help companies audit their hiring algorithms and close the algorithmic accountability gap. (shrink)

In a project The Hastings Center is now running on the future of prenatal testing, we are encountering clear examples, both in established law and in the practices of individual providers, of failures to respect women's reproductive autonomy: when testing is not offered to certain demographics of women, for instance, or when the choices of women to terminate or continue pregnancies are prohibited or otherwise not supported. But this project also raises puzzles for reproductive autonomy. We have learned that some (...) clinicians and patients do not discuss the fact that prenatal testing can lead to a decision about whether to terminate a pregnancy—they just don't talk about it. And while the decision whether to agree to prenatal screening and diagnostic testing is to be made with women's free and informed consent, many screening tests have been routinized in such a way that some women do not even recall agreeing to testing, while others feel that agreeing to testing is what their clinicians expect of them or that the testing is necessary to protect themselves and their families from the significant financial hardship of raising a child with a disability. In the face of these pressures, can one really say that women are freely choosing to undergo testing or are freely choosing to continue or terminate a pregnancy following receipt of test results? The reality of these pressures is requiring us to consider expanding the scope of our investigation beyond the clinical encounter to the broader context—to think harder about what reproductive autonomy means and how best to enhance it. (shrink)

Many scientists and doctors hope that affordable genome sequencing will lead to more personalized medical care and improve public health in ways that will benefit children, families, and society more broadly. One hope in particular is that all newborns could be sequenced at birth, thereby setting the stage for a lifetime of medical care and self‐directed preventive actions tailored to each child's genome. Indeed, commentators often suggest that universal genome sequencing is inevitable. Such optimism can come with the presumption that (...) discussing the potential limits, cost, and downsides of widespread application of genomic technologies is pointless, excessively pessimistic, or overly cautious. We disagree. Given the pragmatic challenges associated with determining what sequencing data mean for the health of individuals, the economic costs associated with interpreting and acting on such data, and the psychosocial costs of predicting one's own or one's child's future life plans based on uncertain testing results, we think this hope and optimism deserve to be tempered.In the analysis that follows, we distinguish between two reasons for using sequencing: to diagnose individual infants who have been identified as sick and to screen populations of infants who appear to be healthy. We also distinguish among three contexts in which sequencing for either diagnosis or screening could be deployed: in clinical medicine, in public health programs, and as a direct‐to‐consumer service. Each of these contexts comes with different professional norms, policy considerations, and public expectations. Finally, we distinguish between two main types of genome sequencing: targeted sequencing, where only specific genes are sequenced or analyzed, and whole‐exome or whole‐genome sequencing, where all the DNA or all the coding segments of all genes are sequenced and analyzed.In a symptomatic newborn, targeted or genome‐wide sequencing can help guide other tests for diagnosis or for specific treatment that is urgently needed. Clinicians use the infant's symptoms (or phenotype) to interrogate the sequencing data. These same complexities and uncertainties, however, limit the usefulness of genome‐wide sequencing as a population screening tool. While we recognize considerable benefit in using targeted sequencing to screen for or detect specific conditions that meet the criteria for inclusion in newborn screening panels, use of genome‐wide sequencing as a sole screening tool for newborns is at best premature. We conclude that sequencing technology can be beneficially used in newborns when that use is nuanced and attentive to context. (shrink)

Contains eight contributions which extend feminist ethic-of-care theory to the issue of animal well-being. As a group, the essays aim to suggest ways that theorists can move beyond the notion of animal rights to establish care as a basis for the ethical treatment of animals. Annotation c. by Book.

The ‘body’ has remained the pivotal and essential mechanism for analysis within disability scholarship. Yet while historically conceptualized as an individual’s fundamental feature, the ‘disabled identity’ has been more recently explained as a function of ‘normalcy’ through social, cultural political, and legal discriminations against difference and deviancy. Disability studies’ established tradition of consultation with philosophical endeavour remains apparently unwilling to exploit or utilize Martin Heidegger’s understanding of ‘Being’ and interpretation of Dasein as a possible framework for unravelling the complexities of (...) contemporary discrimination and oppression of those others. This paper in tracing Heidegger’s explanation of humankind, inspired by arguments proposed by Cerbone (Int J Philos Stud 2:209–230, 2000) and in consultation with Levin (The body: classic and contemporary readings, Blackwell, Malden, 1999), Aho (2009), Malpas (Heidegger’s topology: being place, world, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2008), and Rae (Hum Stud 33:23–39, 2010) among others, will interpret the ‘embodied’ reality of ‘Being,’ of being-disabled-in-the-world as primarily involved within the practical context and structured according to impersonal, normative social norms, rather than detached, theoretical contemplation or observance. (shrink)

Laffin, Josephine On 31 October 2017 it will be five hundred years since Martin Luther posted his Ninety-Five Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, the date traditionally hailed as the start of the Lutheran Reformation. Another anniversary is a personal one: it is twenty-five years since I began teaching Reformation history. It seems an appropriate time, therefore, to pause and reflect on the significance of this task.

Trying to obtain a medical history from a patient, I listen to her story. She’s a difficult patient, as in noncompliant, narcotic-seeking chronic-pain-in-the-ass patient. There’s a Physician’s Field Guide to the Difficult Patient, a chapter for each type. If you stop to listen, to question the words used, you may never finish this medical..

The Oxford Handbook of Economic Inequality presents a new and definitive analysis of economic inequality in developed countries. Bringing together the world's top scholars, this comprehensive and authoritative volume contains an impressive array of original research on topics in economic inequality.

Dasein’s struggle is an investigation of the writings of Martin Heidegger to consider whether his thoughts and beliefs would be useful and / or insightful in addressing contemporary society and its discriminatory practices towards disabled people. Heidegger‟s basic existential being Dasein, is in constant interaction and interconnection with others as it negotiates its best possibilities of Being-in-the-world. This pursuit of an „authentic‟ existence is interpreted as a struggle for individuality, acceptance, engagement and resistance to social conformity and anonymity. Developing the (...) analysis through the theme of „Being‟ the paper‟s discussion is centred on Critical Disability Studies and the evolving Studies in Ableism. The interpretation is underpinned by the contemporary voice of disability, predominantly by autobiographical insights of Nancy Mairs‟ Waist-high in the world; A life among the nondisabled, together with other autobiographical, biographical and narrative texts. The paper presents an alternative perspective in the “endeavour to know” using Heidegger‟s philosophy to think differently about the experience of disability. (shrink)

The cornea was the first human solid tissue to be transplanted successfully, and is now a common procedure in ophthalmic surgery. The grafts come from deceased donors. Corneal therapies are now being developed that rely on tissue from living-related donors. This presents new ethical challenges for ophthalmic surgeons, who have hitherto been somewhat insulated from debates in transplantation and donation ethics. This paper provides the first overview of the ethical considerations generated by ocular tissue donation from living donors and suggests (...) how these might be addressed in practice. These are discussed in the context of a novel treatment for corneal limbal stem cell deficiency. This involves limbal cell grafts which are transplanted, either directly or after ex vivo expansion, onto recipient stem cell-deficient eyes. Where only one eye is diseased, the unaffected eye can be used as a source of graft tissue. Bilateral disease requires an allogenic donation, preferably from a genetically related living donor. While numerous papers have dealt with the theory, surgical approaches and clinical outcomes of limbal stem cell therapies, none has addressed the ethical dimensions of this form of tissue donation. (shrink)

When the use of CRIsPR-Cas9 to edit DNA was first reported in 2012, it was quickly heralded by scientists, policymakers, and journalists as a transformative technology. CRISPR-Cas9 provides the means to change DNA in ways that either were not generally possible using previous genetic technologies or that were orders of magnitude more laborious or inefficient to undertake. CRISPR's possible applications were readily apparent and seemingly endless, from supercharging laboratory research to modifying insects that transmit disease to eliminating genetic conditions. By (...) 2015, Wired magazine was calling the discovery "The Genesis Engine."Against a backdrop of disappointing results from gene transfer... (shrink)

The opioid epidemic demands the development, implementation, and evaluation of innovative, research-informed practices such as diversion programs. Aritürk et al. have articulated important bioethical considerations for implementing diversion programs in resource-constrained service environments. In this commentary, we expand and advance Aritürk et al.’s discussion by discussing existing resources that can be utilized to implement diversion programs that prevent or otherwise minimize the issues of autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice identified by Aritürk et al.

This article is the lead piece in a special report that presents the results of a bioethical investigation into chimeric research, which involves the insertion of human cells into nonhuman animals and nonhuman animal embryos, including into their brains. Rapid scientific developments in this field may advance knowledge and could lead to new therapies for humans. They also reveal the conceptual, ethical, and procedural limitations of existing ethics guidance for human‐nonhuman chimeric research. Led by bioethics researchers working closely with an (...) interdisciplinary work group, the investigation focused on generating conceptual clarity and identifying improvements to governance approaches, with the goal of helping scholars, funders, scientists, institutional leaders, and oversight bodies (embryonic stem cell research oversight [ESCRO] committees and institutional animal care and use committees [IACUCs]) deliver principled and trustworthy oversight of this area of science. The article, which focuses on human‐nonhuman animal chimeric research that is stem cell based, identifies key ethical issues in and offers ten recommendations regarding the ethics and oversight of this research. Turning from bioethics’ previous focus on human‐centered questions about the ethics of “humanization” and this research's potential impact on concepts like human dignity, this article emphasizes the importance of nonhuman animal welfare concerns in chimeric research and argues for less‐siloed governance and oversight and more‐comprehensive public communication. (shrink)

Résumé Dans les situations sociomotrices, l’engagement des participants n’est pas seulement réductible aux communications directes. Il est surtout lié à l’émergence de systèmes de signes assurant la dynamique globale du jeu. Nous proposons d’appréhender la communication comme un système d’interaction global constitué de plusieurs canaux. On y retrouve les communications directes mais aussi quatre systèmes de signes : celui des praxèmes, des gestèmes, des gestes et des communications verbales. Ce travail interroge la place de chaque canal communicationnel dans deux sports (...) et deux jeux traditionnels. Nous recrutons trois groupes de 20 étudiants pour participer aux jeux mentionnés. Les communications sont filmées, décryptées, triées et catégorisées. On constate une forte prévalence des praxèmes dans les sports collectifs, tandis que la répartition des communications est plus équilibrée dans les jeux traditionnels. La quantité, la variabilité et l’organisation des signes sont sensibles à la logique interne. Globalement, cette recherche tend à montrer que les jeux sont un formidable laboratoire in vivo pour comprendre l’organisation des systèmes de signes. Spécifiquement, elle apporte des informations sur le pouvoir socialisant de la sémiotricité de chaque jeu et sur le renouvellement des pédagogies qu’elle peut engendrer. (shrink)

As COVID-19 spread, clinicians warned of mental illness epidemics within the coronavirus pandemic. Funding for digital mental health is surging and researchers are calling for widespread adoption to address the mental health sequalae of COVID-19. -/- We consider whether these technologies improve mental health outcomes and whether they exacerbate existing health inequalities laid bare by the pandemic. We argue the evidence for efficacy is weak and the likelihood of increasing inequalities is high. -/- First, we review recent trends in digital (...) mental health. Next, we turn to the clinical literature to show that many technologies proposed as a response to COVID-19 are unlikely to improve outcomes. Then, we argue that even evidence-based technologies run the risk of increasing health disparities. We conclude by suggesting that policymakers should not allocate limited resources to the development of many digital mental health tools and should focus instead on evidence-based solutions to address mental health inequalities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Two Poems JOSEPHINE BALMER The House Opposite (Walbrook, London, 78 CE) Give this note to the cooper Junius, just opposite the house of Catullus... —Bloomberg Writing Tablets, 14 I unpack my treasures of Syrian glass, plates sourced from the slopes of Vesuvius. The walls I paint with frail shoots of grass and a poppy—my own hidden message for those who know the poet, my namesake: a flower fallen (...) at the meadow’s edge... I had pictured myself as a pioneer composing stark, startling, northern poems as fêted (one day) as my famed forebear. Besides, I’d been priced out of Rome. Yet each word I write I later delete. I watch the starlings rising up at dusk above the teeming, cloud-fogged streets like a simile slipping out of grasp. I hear the drunken Rhenish equites chant their taproom verse, swilled in vomit our bleak reward for six months’ back pay. My voice still clogs with Londinium clay. All I am here is the house opposite the cooper, two doors from the brewer. The only lines that come, come in error and for them: barrels, bills, more calls for beer. arion 27.2 fall 2019 Catullus the Slave (Walbrook, London, 79 CE) To Catullus the slave of Romanius Faustinus: 2000 units, 65 denarii [lines struck through] —Bloomberg Writing Tablets, 70 Six months on, the ice kicked in. My page was frost-white, its lines still frozen. By the following year I had given up, sold everything— volcanic crockery to the cooper, ink-smudged glass to the brewer who was branching out to wine. When even that was not enough I sold myself to Romanius Faustinus, a scrawny Gallic works contractor (a literary man, he said, was worth more than most). I did his books. I counted bricks, tessera for mosaics shifting back into the face of Orpheus, accounts closed, nothing outstanding. I learnt silence where once I spoke— he owned the air, he owned my breath— so I mouthed the verse I used to quote, the finest Catullus (snr) had written: you pea-brain, hairy-legged hick whose farts are your best feature... And concurred re bastard Caesar: why did he ever eye up Britain, that cursed place, ugly and remote? two poems 136... (shrink)

The attempts of scholars and scientists to unravel the mystery of the ancestral origins of the Lemba are summarised, focusing on Tudor Parfitt's book, Journey to the Vanished City, and a study by an international group of genetic and social scientists. The impact of this research on identity questions is raised.

In recent years, we have been observing the phenomenon of an emerging scientific field: _digital transformation research_ (DTR). Due to the diversity and complexity of its object of research digital, transformation is not effectively researchable if confined to the boundaries of individual disciplines. In the light of Scientific/Intellectual Movement theory (Frickel and Gross 2005 ), we wonder how interdisciplinarity could and should be mobilized to further advance the development of the field of DTR. To answer this question, we (a) need (...) to understand how interdisciplinarity is conceived and (b) how it is considered in research practice by researchers in the emerging field. This is important, as scientists’ application of interdisciplinarity will highly influence an emerging field, shape its growth, consolidation as well as its academic establishment. We conducted six group discussions with 26 researchers from different disciplines and career levels (PhD students, postdocs, professors). The discussions were studied with a structuring qualitative content analysis. The results reflect the vagueness of the concept of interdisciplinarity. Interdisciplinarity is largely conceived as multidisciplinarity. Further, the interviewees mentioned more challenges than opportunities when it comes to interdisciplinary DTR. The present study widens the scientific understanding about how researchers of different career levels perceive, learn, and practice interdisciplinarity in DTR. It further provides valuable indications of how interdisciplinary research in an emerging field can be profitably shaped for practice. (shrink)

L’Union européenne nous invite à repenser les conditions et les attributs de la souveraineté traditionnellement rattachée aux États-nations. Dans cet article, est proposée une tentative de re-conceptualisation à partir des différentes définitions de la souveraineté, et de l’analyse d’un exemple : celui de la politique étrangère et de l’exercice diplomatique de l’Union européenne. En effet, la souveraineté possède toujours deux faces : une face interne qui se charge de définir la loi, le droit, et de les faire appliquer sur un (...) territoire délimité ; une face externe qui exporte et affirme les intérêts, les valeurs et les principes qui prévalent en interne. La politique étrangère et son outil principal qu’est l’action diplomatique, consistent dans l’expression vers l’extérieur de la souveraineté d’un corps politique. Nous nous interrogerons ainsi sur la nature de la souveraineté incarnée par l’Union européenne. (shrink)

Laffin, Josephine Review(s) of: Blessed and beautiful: Picturing the saints, by Robert Kiely, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010), pp.344, $49.95.

The UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) can, on the one hand, be considered vital for the global governance process—in the sense of urging international cooperation on the ethical, developmental, and standards aspects of lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS). On the other hand, the CCW may also embody a global trend that does not augur well for international solidarity, namely the lack of credible and comprehensive collaboration to advance global objectives of peace and security. In 2022, a majority of (...) the 125 nations that belong to the CCW requested limits on a specific type of lethal autonomous weapons: “killer robots.” Yet, most of the major global powers—namely the United States, Russia, and China—opposed not only a ban on LAWS but also on any restrictions on the development of these weapons, not least because the United States, Russia, and China are actively developing this weapons technology. While there is currently much focus on the technological evolution of LAWS, less has been written about how ethical values can exert influence on a growing global consciousness around factors such as power, technology, human judgment, accountability, autonomy, dehumanization, and the use of force. This introduction lays the groundwork for dealing with these issues. It does so by showing that all these factors warrant a pluralist approach to the global governance of LAWS, based on multiple grounds, including the military, tech, law, and distinctive theoretical-ethical orientations; the rationale being to combine this expertise into a collection for publication. Reflecting the contributing authors’ firsthand experiences of the ethics surrounding the management of LAWS to address decisive and critical questions at an expert level, it provides a framing for the collection, showing that the use of international legal mechanisms like the CCW are crucial to considering both the potential and the limits of LAWS, as well as what it can contribute to areas such as international law, human rights, and national security. (shrink)

In response to the discussion between William W. Morgan and Annette Kolodny in the Summer 1976 issue of Critical Inquiry I would like to address the issue of separating judgments based on feminism as an ideology from purely aesthetic judgments. Peripherally this included the issue of "prescriptive criticism," so labeled by Cheri Register in Feminist Literary Criticism: Explorations in Theory.1 In the same book, as Kolodny points out,2 I called for criticism that exists in the "prophetic mode." Kolodny indicates reservations (...) about both concepts without fully exploring the issue. I would like to explain my statement here and to explore further the issue of feminism and aesthetics. When I called for criticism in the prophetic mode, I did not intend to promote an idea of the critic as ideological prophet. Rather, as I explain in the context from which the term is taken,3 I am speaking of the engaged scholar who is concerned to influence the future by her/his work today. S/he chooses her/his work with an eye to encourage political and social changes. Obviously, for a feminist this translates into a concern for a future in which women will be free from many of the restrictions that have held them down in the past. Much feminist criticism is thus corrective criticism designed to redress the imbalance in current literary curricula, and more generally to reintroduce "the feminine" into the public culture. · 1. Cheri Register, "American Feminist Literary Criticism: A Bibliographical Introduction ," Feminist Literary Criticism: Explorations in Theory, ed. Josephine Donovan pp. 11-24.· 2. Annette Kolodny, "The Feminist as Literary Critic," Critical Inquiry 2 : 828.· 3. Josephine Donovan, "Critical Re-Vision," Feminist Literary Criticism, p. 81, n. 2. Josephine Donovan, currently working on a literary biography of Sarah Orne Jewett, has written "Feminist Style Criticism," "Sexual Politics in the Short Stories of Sylvia Plath," and has edited Feminist Literary Criticism: Explorations in Theory. Although the occasion for this response was the exchange between Annette Kolodny and William W. Morgan , the questions raised by Ms. Donovan have some bearing on other topics discussed in Critical Inquiry—e.g., the nature of accepted canons in the arts . In addition the question of how we may interpret literary works from the past that contain currently unacceptable representations of women has implications as well for how we respond to "objectionable" representations of ethnic and religious groups and even of social classes. The editors expect to see these issues explored further in the future. (shrink)

In a series of essays and letters published in 2010, commentators in bioethics debated the ethics of two interventions that aim to prevent or treat a symptom of a genetic condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which can cause “virilization” in affected baby girls—the development of atypical, sometimes masculine‐appearing, genitals. Surgeries are often performed to try to “normalize” both the appearance and the function of affected girls’ genitals, and a drug thought to prevent virilization is sometimes prescribed to pregnant women who (...) are likeliest to be carrying an affected fetus. The CAH debates suggest that there is profound disagreement in the field about whether preventing or treating virilization is an appropriate goal of medicine—or, indeed, parenting. Of course, that disagreement has its roots in ongoing debates about how to understand and react to a range of anatomical and behavioral differences, from short stature to deafness to hyperactivity, as well as ongoing debates about the limits of autonomy—in this case, parental autonomy, which is all the more complex. These issues are at the heart of bioethics. Yet it can be very difficult for us to talk and write respectfully and clearly about them. Here, I recount the debates, show how they lost focus, and attempt to explain why the question about how parents and physicians should respond to atypical genitalia in children is so important and difficult. I argue that it is not a question that should be answered based on a single principle or philosophical commitment. No one principle can do all of the work. For each individual or family that faces it, the question is shaped by details about particular interventions aimed at altering a particular difference and offered in a particular social and family context. Scholars in bioethics who hold an especially strong commitment to any one principle should advocate for their views, but they must also make room for and respect the kind of pragmatic, particularized decision‐making that parents sometimes engage in. (shrink)

Decoding Abortion Rhetoric: Communicating Social Change. By Celeste Michelle Condit.

The authors aim in this article to show why it is extremely difficult to expect representatives of missionary religions to engage in productive interreligious dialogue. The article demonstrates how the imperative to convert, which is rooted in a sense of epistemic authority that one holds the best version of truth, precludes interreligious dialogue among religionists. The authors note, on the one hand, that the primary condition for any dialogue is that each of those involved come to the dialogue intellectually humble. (...) On the other hand, the authors note that for missionary religionists to embrace intellectual humility requires a fundamental rethink of their claims of epistemological certainty and final epistemic authority. This implies abandoning the missionary mandate and witnessing built on a sense of intellectual certainty and pride. The authors therefore argue that intellectual humility is a necessary condition for productive interreligious dialogue. Because representatives of missionary religions claim certainty about the knowledge they espouse, what is paraded as interreligious dialogue is largely a myth. It will remain a mere concept that yields little to no tangible result unless these representatives embrace intellectual humility, which is more achievable within a secularist framework.Contribution: This research contributes to the seemingly easy but difficult discourse and practice about interreligious dialogue. It brings to the limelight a more appropriate conception of dialogue in the context of interreligious dialogue, and explains how side-lining that conception empties the predominant practice of interreligous dialogue. This contribution is useful to HTS, which focuses on theological and religious studies, as well as critical study of religions. (shrink)

Laffin, Josephine The archbishop of Adelaide, it must be acknowledged, did not play a prominent role at Vatican II. Matthew Beovich never gave a speech in the aula, the Council 'hall' inside St Peter's Basilica, nor did he prepare a written submission. At first glance, his seemingly minimal participation reinforces the damning judgment of Patrick O'Farrell that members of the Australian hierarchy were 'frequently uncomprehending and even resistant to the spirit of change'. With this from the doyen of Catholic (...) historians in Australia in the late twentieth century, it is not surprising that Ian Breward concluded in his survey of Australian religious history: 'Most Australian bishops were bemused observers of a process which shattered their convictions about the uniformity of the Roman Catholic Church. Australian contributions to Council debates were few. The pragmatism and traditionalism of the Australian Church stood nakedly exposed'. (shrink)

This first major study of feminist theory, which has been revised and completely reset, now takes the reader into the twenty-first century.

This book is aimed at those who wish to understand more about the molecular basis of life and how life on earth may change in coming centuries. Readers of this book will gain knowledge of how life began on Earth, the natural processes that have led to the great diversity of biological organisms that exist today, recent research into the possibility of life on other planets, and how the future of life on earth faces unprecedented pressures from human-made activities. Readers (...) will obtain a perspective on the potential risks of chemical or nuclear warfare, and the ever-increasing risks from human activities that are causing pollution and climate change with global heating. Readers will also learn about ongoing research efforts to generate “designer lifeforms” through synthetic biology and applications of artificial intelligence. The book makes an integrated, up-to-date, overview of topics often considered as separate fields. It should be valuable to students, teachers, and people who are concerned about the future of life. (shrink)