Ethical Record Articles

London Thinks – I Think you’ll Find its a bit More Complicated Than That!

Author, doctor and extremely fast speaker, Ben Goldacre, spoke to a sold out audience in the Main Hall of Conway Hall for the third London Thinks event on 1 December 2014. The talk centered on Goldacre’s view that we need to be better at measuring risks and benefits when it comes to administering drugs with […]

The Price of Being Human: My fight against the Mullahs 

First there was the Shah’s dictatorship, then that of Khomeini and the mullahs. Iran has been suffering for a long time. The totalitarian theocracy has executed over 120,000 of the opposition. Azam was a young Iranian girl who grew up in the poor quarters of Tehran.  Her father, as a supporter of the mullahs, did not think she should […]

London Thinks – Leaving Hate Behind

Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss – An Evening With The Unbelievers

Burne-Jones Talking

Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898), Pre- Raphaelite artist and friend of William Morris, was known to exclaim, “Belong to the Church of England? Put your head in a bag!” The Catholic Church and its services were “wicked.” The Methodists produced “psychical difficulties” in the artist and a mosaic commission for the decoration of St. Paul’s Cathedral was […]

Bertrand Russell and World War I

Bertrand Russell was born in 1872 into the Liberal aristocracy; his grandfather had twice been prime minister, and it is said that his grandmother, who brought him up after his parents’ early death, wished to groom him to one day become her husband’s successor. Instead, Bertie, once at Cambridge, became seized by the great issues of philosophy and mathematics, […]

Radical Opposition to World War I

On the declaration of war against Germany, four members of Asquith’s cabinet offered their resignations – John Burns, John Morley, John Simon and Lord Beaumont. They were joined by one junior Minister, Charles Trevelyan. These resignations demonstrate that the Liberal Government was far from united – and there is a case that in fact there was a majority of […]

How humanity might avoid devastation

Global Crises Threaten Humanity The future of humanity is threatened by grave global problems. There is the problem of war, over one hundred million people having been killed in countless wars during the course of the twentieth century (which compares unfavourably with the twelve million or so killed in wars during the nineteenth century). And […]

Should we spend billions looking into deep space?

I will talk about big basic science projects and the huge tax payers money required, and in particular what is involved in setting up and running a large expensive space program, where there is no very obvious return to the man-in-the-street. This is a very real and important question for humanity. I will discuss and […]

Has human prosperity already peaked?

Has human prosperity peaked already? Will the future bring only greater poverty and more turmoil? Is it too late for us to take preventive action? Do we have any real leadership in the world, or are we merely drifting? These questions sound hyperbolic and we must hope they will prove just that. But the signs […]

Who owns children? Social visibility and status near cradle and grave

The most vulnerable groups in society – children and older people, have ill-defined social status, independently of their legal rights. Dr Ginn will explore with those attending how social visibility, status and respect at the ‘bookends of life’ dramatically vary across cultures and in history; and how the tension between safeguarding and liberty can best […]

Climate Change – the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

Scientists first warned of the possible effects of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions in the early 1970s. By the mid to late 1980’s, there was a consensus view that if emissions remain unabated a range of catastrophic impacts on humanity could ensue. In the intervening period this perspective has remained unchanged and has largely been reinforced by […]