"Those protesting in New York have been circulating a list of grievances, most of which are aimed at corporations that they say are too powerful and often unethical. Among the complaints: bank executives received “exorbitant” bonuses not long after receiving taxpayer bailouts and companies have “poisoned the food supply through negligence” and “continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate better pay and safer working conditions."
This true story occurred in 1386 in Falaise, Normandy, France. A sow was sentenced to be ‘mangled and maimed in the head and forlegs, and then to be hanged, for having torn the face and arms of a child and thus caused its death…As if to make the travesty of justice complete, the sow was dressed in man’s clothes and executed on the public square near the city hall at the expense to the state of ten sous and ten deniers, besides a pair of gloves to the hangman.’ (from E.P. Evans: The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals). (via Round the Water Trough: Pig pig - Hung for Murder)
"Few could argue that WikiLeaks didn’t perform journalistic functions in April when it released video taken from an Army helicopter of a 2007 incident where Army pilots fired on civilians in Baghdad, killing 17 Iraqis, including two employees of the Reuters news agency, and wounding two children. In addition to editing and captioning the video, WikiLeaks interviewed the Iraqi families about the incident. The release of the video, which Reuters had sought for years but had been denied, was widely covered by U.S. news organizations."
— In WikiLeaks fight, U.S. journalists take a pass | McClatchy
"L’humanité n’a pas attendu les missionnaires (lesquels, pour une bonne part, n’étaient guère moraux dans leurs rapports avec les « indigènes ») pour développer une conscience morale, et l’on peut même avancer que les choses se sont sans doute passées à l’inverse de ce que pensent les partisans des valeurs chrétiennes : ce n’est pas le message de l’Evangile qui a rendu les gens moraux, c’est bien plutôt parce qu’ils avaient déjà une conscience morale et un souci de l’autre que de nombreuses personnes ont été séduites par le message de tolérance et de respect de l’Evangile."
— [Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières] Cessons de parler de « valeurs chrétiennes »
"Most of the drugs used in animal agriculture and in human medicine are functionally identical. That’s one reason why the overuse of antibiotics in animals is such a concern: When organisms become resistant on the farm to drugs used on livestock, they are becoming resistant to the exact same drugs used in humans."
— Update: Farm Animals Get 80 Percent of Antibiotics Sold in U.S. | Wired Science | Wired.com
"In fact, the best evidence that traditional journalism may no longer be an effective watchdog is the unprecedented series of front page stories that even this relatively low-level, if voluminous, stash of cables produced: If journalists had the resources and access they needed, they might have broken some of these stories a long time ago. (As Assange told the Sydney Morning Herald earlier this year, “How is it that a team of five people has managed to release to the public more suppressed information, at that level, than the rest of the world press combined? It’s disgraceful.”)"
"Anyone familiar with David’s life—as a baby, after a botched circumcision, he underwent an operation to change him from boy to girl—would have understood that the real mystery was how he managed to stay alive for 38 years, given the physical and mental torments he suffered in childhood and that haunted him the rest of his life."
— Why did David Reimer commit suicide? - By John Colapinto - Slate Magazine
"
American scientists deliberately infected prisoners and patients in a mental hospital in Guatemala with syphilis 60 years ago, a recently unearthed experiment that prompted U.S. officials to apologize Friday and declare outrage over “such reprehensible research.”
The U.S. government-funded experiment, which ran from 1946 to 1948, was discovered by a Wellesley College medical historian. It apparently was conducted to test if penicillin, then relatively new, could prevent infection with sexually transmitted diseases. The study came up with no useful information and was hidden for decades.
"— The Associated Press: US apologizes for 1940s STD study in Guatemala
In order to accomplish the task of scaring a child, John B. Watson took an eleven month old baby and showed him a rat, a rabbit and several fuzzy things. Whenever little Albert tried to play with the objects he was shown a loud noise would be played in the background. This was repeated over and over again until Albert became scared of anything that was white and fuzzy including blankets and beards. In case you were wondering Albert remained terrified of old Santa Claus-looking men for the whole duration of the experiment.
Once the baby was terrified of the world around him, Watson returned him to the parents. He didn’t try to erase the results of the conditioning or monitor the child as he grew up. No one knows what happened to little Albert with several theories arguing that he ended up committing suicide. While this is probably an exaggeration, one thing is for sure: that child didn’t enjoy any Christmases for the rest of his life.
(via 5 Unethical Experiments Done in the Name of Science - Weird Worm)
"
In December, a British journal retracted 70 papers from a Chinese university, all by the same two lead scientists, saying the work had been fabricated. “Academic fraud, misconduct and ethical violations are very common in China,” said professor Rao Yi, dean of the life sciences school at Peking University in the capital. “It is a big problem.”
Critics blame weak penalties and a system that bases faculty promotions and bonuses on number, rather than quality, of papers published.
Early last year, Internet users found that the deputy principal of Anhui Agricultural University had committed plagiarism in as many as 20 papers. The university removed him from his post but allowed him to continue teaching.
In June, the principal of a traditional Chinese medicine university in the city of Guangzhou was accused of plagiarizing at least 40 percent of his doctoral thesis from another paper.
And in March, the state-run China Youth Daily reported a 1997 medical paper had been plagiarized repeatedly over the past decade. At least 25 people from 16 organizations copied from the work, and more doctors are expected to be named as the investigation by two students using plagiarism-detecting software continues, the report said.
Fang Shimin, an independent investigator of fraud, said he and his volunteers expose about a hundred cases every year, publicizing them on a Web site titled “New Threads.”
"— Rampant cheating hurts China’s research ambitions - Yahoo! News
"
A new study has found magnetic fields can be used to confuse a region in the brain that controls a person’s sense of morality. Using a powerful magnetic field, scientists are able to scramble the moral centre of the brain, making it more difficult for people to separate innocent intentions from harmful outcomes.
Young and her colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging to locate an area of the brain known as the right temporo-parietal junction (RTPJ), which other studies had previously related to moral judgments.
“This study and other recent studies like it are enabling us to peer into the very brain activity that underlies and enables legal judgments,” says Jones. “Understanding how legal decisions actually work is a potentially important step toward helping decisions be as fair, just and effective as they can be.”
"— Magnets can manipulate morality: study › News in Science (ABC Science)
