Another week, another scandal featuring a famous writer. This time, it’s Time magazine columnist Fareed Zakaria, who has acknowledged lifting—virtually verbatim—parts of a New Yorker magazine article for one of his own pieces. Now comes word that, in one of his own books, he included without attribution a passage from a book written by Clyde Prestowitz, and published three years earlier. At the risk of plagiarizing myself, it’s worth noting that I had a non-encounter with Zakaria quite similar to the one I had with the disgraced science writer Jonah Lehrer. Like Lehrer, ... Read More
Get Stressed, Stop Organics, Become A Better Person
May 21, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Do you want to be a better person? First, get stressed out. And whatever you do, don’t go near organic food. Those are the counterintuitive implications of two newly published studies. One finds that exposure to organic foods reduces willingness to help others, while the other reports high levels of stress can increase trustworthiness and sharing. Kendall Eskine, a psychologist at Loyola University New Orleans, examined the psychological impact of organics in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. His work builds on the concept of “moral licensing”—the notion ... Read More
Men’s Morals Are Malleable
April 30, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Considering the purchase of a used car, but unsure whether the seller — who assures you the car runs like a dream — is trustworthy? New research suggests an easy way to increase the odds you’ll get the product you’ve been promised: Buy it from a woman. When it comes to negotiating a deal, “Males more readily justify moral misconduct by minimizing its consequences or otherwise excusing it,” write Laura Kray of the University of California, Berkeley, and Michael Haselhuhn of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Their study finds “a robust pattern by which men are more ... Read More
Study: Ethical People More Satisfied With Life
November 2, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
“The just man is happy, and the unjust man is miserable,” Plato declares in The Republic. A noble thought, to be sure, but Socrates’ most famous student didn’t have data to back up his belief. Harvey James, on the other hand, does. The University of Missouri economist finds a relationship between life satisfaction and low tolerance for unethical conduct. He discussed his findings, first published in the journal Kyklos, with Miller-McCune staff writer Tom Jacobs. The research “I found a correlation between how people responded to ethics questions and their satisfaction with life. ... Read More
Charting Genomes: Old Hairs Create New Headaches
September 22, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Nearly a century ago in the outback of southwestern Australia, an eminent English anthropologist snipped off a dreadlock from an Aborigine at a fuel stop along the just-built transcontinental railroad. The 20 red to brown hairs in that clay-encrusted clump now have produced a genetic profile that researchers say defines how some of the first modern humans populated the world. The ancient DNA links Aborigines to one of the earliest groups of Homo sapiens, a group that had left Africa about 70,000 years ago, then lived in the Middle East before spreading east. A Danish-led team reports ... Read More
Fixing the FCC, America’s Broken Regulator
May 25, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker announced earlier this month that she's leaving the agency for a job as the senior vice president of government affairs for Comcast-NBC Universal. The decision wasn't particularly surprising or even unusual. Public servants exit government all the time for K Street suites where their expertise is more profitable. Baker's timing, however, caused an uproar: In January, she voted to approve the merger of Comcast and NBC, creating the very company for which she'll be lobbying later this summer. Politicians and pundits denounced what looked like a ... Read More
Fifth Period: Life and Death Decision-making
April 4, 2010 • By • 1 Comment
Siska Brutsaert's biology students had gotten down the basics of stem cells, the early-stage cells many scientists believe could one day treat a variety of diseases. So in January, she asked them to apply that knowledge to a real-world bioethical dilemma: Was it acceptable to use the cells if they were taken from human embryos? Why or why not? There was a catch, though: The 18 students in her class at Bard High School Early College, a public school in Manhattan, would defend the rationale of a public figure with whom they might not agree, based on the names they drew. That posed a challenge ... Read More
Going ‘Glocal’
February 16, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
No, that wasn't a typo — glocalization is a real word, and it's one you may want to know before jumping into the "Jihad vs. McWorld" fray. A little background: For many scholars and activists, globalization is a dirty word, signifying a homogenizing force that spreads American values like consumption and individualism to every corner of the globe. Others contend that while globalization has certainly facilitated the spread of people, information and technology, it also has inspired people to passionately preserve their local cultures and identities, as is evident in, say, the rapidly ... Read More
Do Panels Dispense Advice or Rationales?
December 10, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
Back during the Thanksgiving recess, while most of us were otherwise occupied with Black Friday plans, holiday menus and party crashers, President Obama quietly signed into existence Executive Order No. 13521. The order creates a new Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, replacing the Bush-era council Obama disbanded over the summer. The administration simultaneously announced the top two scholars on the commission - University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann and Emory University President James Wagner — with the remaining 11 members yet to be determined. In ... Read More
Moral Dilemma of ‘What Have You Done For Me Lately?’
December 1, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
In business, there's little better than beating expectations. Investors, analysts and pundits (especially now) love the pleasantly surprising corporate underdog that reports much larger than expected quarterly or yearly earnings. Often, these CEOs are subsequently lauded and profiled in Time or the Wall Street Journal as high-flying innovators or game-changers who have "injected new life" or even "resurrected" the fortunes of a struggling or startup firm. It must do wonders for an ego to "single-handedly" direct a corporation toward fertile ground — until you're asked to do it again. ... Read More
