Monday, February 22, 2010

“Cultural history colours thought about bioethics, evolution - Science Centric” plus 3 more

“Cultural history colours thought about bioethics, evolution - Science Centric” plus 3 more

Cultural history colours thought about bioethics, evolution - Science Centric

Posted: 22 Feb 2010 07:52 AM PST

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Cultural views of evolution can have important ethical implications, says a Duke University expert on theological and biomedical ethics. Because the popular imagination filters science through cultural assumptions about race, cultural history should be an essential part of biomedical conversations.

Amy Laura Hall, associate professor of Christian ethics at Duke University, argues that many popularised ideas about evolution assume that some human groups are more evolved than other human groups.

'I believe that evolutionary biology, as depicted in the popular press, too often uncritically reinforces ideas about race that privilege white, Western bodies and cultures. I see this at work today in new arguments for paternalism in Haiti, for example' says Hall, who appears on a Sunday morning panel at the AAAS annual meeting called 'Genetics and Ethics: Different Views on the Human Condition.'

The panel of scholars from the fields of genetics and theology will focus on how genetics and its medical applications are communicated to the general public.

Hall's current research looks at ways evolutionary biology is conveyed in the popular media. She cites examples of television documentaries about evolution that portray human evolution commencing in Africa, using images of dark-skinned people 'almost as living icons' to represent humanity at our genesis. 'When evolution is depicted as an upward slope, those representing the origin are also often perceived as the nadir,' she says.

Hall is looking at how these popular portrayals are reinforced in recent media coverage of the earthquake disaster in Haiti, coverage that she says depicts Haitians as more primal and less developed, and how this may influence relief efforts that are more paternalistic in nature.

'In order to seek more collaborative, less hierarchical models of international engagement or relief work, we need to discuss head-on the racist ways evolutionary biology has become dispersed,' she says.

'In order to collaborate, you have to consider your potential collaborators as adults, rather than as people further down a slope of human development, thus assuming a kind of tacit paternalism,' says Hall, whose training is as a moral theologian.

Hall's research in this area will be part of her forthcoming book on 'muscular Christianity,' a movement that crystallised during the Victorian era to reinforce virile Christianity and social Darwinism.

Hall is also involved in a project on neurobiology, poverty, virtue and vice with a group of researchers from Vanderbilt and Marquette Universities. Her most recent book is 'Conceiving Parenthood: American Protestantism and the Spirit of Reproduction' (Eerdmans, 2008).

Source: Duke University

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Obama lauds Dalai Lama's 'middle way' on Tibet - Rediff

Posted: 18 Feb 2010 10:55 AM PST

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Ignoring strong objections by China, United States President Barack Obama [ Images ] on Thursday met exiled Tibet [ Images ]an spiritual leader Dalai Lama [ Images ], who is set to seek his help in resolving the vexed Tibet issue.

The two Nobel Peace Prize laureates met away from the cameras in the White House Map Room, in what is being billed as a low-key meeting, which the US administration calls private. But an angry China has warned that the meeting could worsen relations between the two powerful countries.

The Map Room in the mansion is the place where presidents stage private meeting. The parleys with the Dalai Lama are not taking place at the more stately Oval Office where Obama frequently meets with world leaders.

Terming it as an important meeting, Dalai Lama's Special Envoy Lodi Gyari said the 74-year-old Buddhist monk will speak about Tibet, and the two are also likely to discuss global concerns.

"His Holiness will be asking the President to help find a solution in resolving the Tibet issue that would be mutually beneficial to the Tibetan and Chinese people," Gyari said in a statement issued soon after the arrival of the Dalai Lama in Washington on Wednesday.

The visit comes despite stiff opposition from China, which urged the Obama administration to cancel the meeting, warning that it would damage Sino-US ties.

Analysts said the meeting will be muted because a public appearance by Dalai Lama and Obama would enrage China, which believes that official foreign contact with the monk infringes on its sovereignty over Tibet.

"China resolutely opposes the visit by the Dalai Lama to the United States, and resolutely opposes US leaders having contact with the Dalai Lama," according to foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu.

Image: President Barack Obama meets with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the Map Room of the White House on Thursday | Photograph: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

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CAPITAL CULTURE: Even Barack Obama Needs a BFF - ABC News

Posted: 22 Feb 2010 09:42 PM PST

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Even a president needs to have a BFF or two.

Meet Chicago businessman Marty Nesbitt and hospital executive Eric Whitaker. There's a good chance you may have seen them already.

They're regulars at President Barack Obama's side: tagging along when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway, buying shave ice during the president's Hawaii vacation, shooting hoops in Washington, climbing a lighthouse on Martha's Vineyard off the Massachusetts coast and attending A-list White House parties.

Nesbitt and Whitaker are part of a long tradition of those who serve as first friends to the man in the Oval Office. Being a friend to the president is an important job description.

"You need somebody to talk to — or not talk to — about what's going on," said Paul Light, a presidential historian at New York University. "You wouldn't want to vacation with (presidential chief of staff) Rahm Emanuel, for goodness sake."

President Bill Clinton had his circle of friends from Arkansas. President George W. Bush leaned on buddies from Texas, notably pal Don Evans, who moved to Washington to be commerce secretary.

"It's like when Laura is around," Bush once said, likening Evans to the first lady. "I view him as somebody who knows me well, is not afraid to give me his opinion, has my best interest at heart."

By all appearances, that's the kind of relationship Obama has with Nesbitt, who runs a parking company, and Whitaker, an executive at the University of Chicago Medical Center where first lady Michelle Obama used to work.

The two men and their families joined the Obamas for their winter vacation in Hawaii, where cameras caught them sampling island treats and hitting the golf course. Back in Washington, Nesbitt and Obama turned up in black track suits to head for the basketball court at Fort McNair last fall for a private game of hoops. And that was Whitaker riding bikes with Obama and his family during the president's vacation on Martha's Vineyard last summer.

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CAPITAL CULTURE: Even Barack Obama needs a BFF or two; Chicago friends ... - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Posted: 22 Feb 2010 09:06 PM PST

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Nesbitt and Whitaker had seats at the table last month when the president and first lady celebrated her 46th birthday at Restaurant Nora in Washington, scored coveted invitations to the Obamas' first state dinner and mingled on the South Lawn during the Obamas' Fourth of July barbecue.

The Rev. Carolyn Yeldell Staley, a friend of Clinton's since their high school days in Arkansas, fondly remembers Clinton's assistant calling to invite her to movie nights with the president at the White House theater.

Such friendships, she said, are "the link to life that's normal."

Obama's friendships with Nesbitt and Whitaker stretch back years before he rose to prominence. Stories have been written about how he and Whitaker played basketball together when they were in graduate school at Harvard and how Nesbitt, whose family lives in Obama's South Side neighborhood, met him years ago.

"There are so many connections between the two of us, it's kind of hard to pinpoint how we actually got to know each other," Nesbitt told the Los Angeles Times in 2008.

Obama spoke last summer about the importance of his friendship with Nesbitt.

"Having somebody who has been there when you are down as well as when you are up is invaluable," he told The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch.

Discretion is a big part of a presidential friendship, Staley said.

"That's what friends are in everyday life and nothing changes just because a person's president," she said.

In that spirit, although Nesbitt and Whitaker are routinely photographed in Obama's company, both declined to comment for this story. So did the White House.

Obama aides did confirm that the two friends had flown for free on Air Force One as guests of the president on official trips, including the trip to Oslo, Norway, to accept the Nobel. The two made their own arrangements to travel to Hawaii.

Despite their best efforts to keep a low profile, Nesbitt and Whitaker do attract plenty of attention for their presence at the president's side.

"If you read the papers, you wouldn't know that I actually have a day job," Whitaker said when he appeared before a sold-out crowd at the City Club of Chicago last April.

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