An Ethics Case for Sports Professionals...

We have been following the story for a few days now and thought it might be an interesting case for the blog.

According to a story on NPR on October 5, American speedskater Simon Cho has admitted to yielding to pressure from his coach, Jae Shu Chun, and tampering with another skater's blades at the World Short  Track Team Championships in Poland earlier this year.  Cho won a bronze medal in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and is now the world champion in the 500 meter short track event.

Cho claims that Jae Su Chun, the head coach of the U.S. Speedskating short track team, approached him at the March 2011 championship event in Poland and asked him to tamper with a Canadian rival's skates. Cho alleges that he refused to a number of times before he finally relented.

The article goes on to describe charges of physical, psychological, and verbal abuse that have been lodged against Coach Chun by current and former speedskaters from the U.S. team, and the power that a coach has over their athletes.

If  these allegations are proven to be correct, what kind of punishment do you think would be fair for Coach Jae Shu Chun? And perhaps more interesting, what, if any kind of punishment should Simon Cho face, remembering that he came forward on his own and admitted his wrongdoing, and taking into account the pressure he faced from his coach?

New Study Shows that Many Science Faculty Have Subtle Gender Biases and Favor Male Students

The New York Times on Monday reported on a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that science faculty exhibit a bias against female students that could contribute to the gender disparity in this field. The researchers interviewed 127 science faculty and asked them to rate a student with either a male or female name for a laboratory management position. Faculty participants rated the male applicant as significantly more qualified for the position then the identical female applicant, and selected a higher starting salary, $26,508 for the female student, and $30,328 for the male student.. Both female and male faculty were found to exhibit bias against the female students, and the bias had no relation to the faculty's age, sex, teaching field or tenure status. 

IIT Ethics Bowl Team

IIT's Ethics Bowl team is meeting  Mondays and Wednesdays from 12:50-1:40 in Siegal Hall to discuss the cases for the APPE Regional Ethics Bowl on December 2, 2012 at Loyola University. If you are interested in joining our discussions, feel free to stop by!

What impact should biological tests have on the sentencing of criminals?

In the August 17th edition of Science Magazine an article reports on an interesting study done by the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. In the study, 181 state trial judges were asked to review the details of mock case and were asked to imagine how they would rule in a sentencing hearing.  In the case, the imaginary Jonathan Donahue is convicted of beating the manager of a fast food restaurant so badly that he is left brain damages. The details of the case make it clear that Mr. Donahue is a textbook psychopath. All of the judges who participated in the study read testimony from a psychiatrist who testified that Donahue had been diagnosed as a psychopath. However, some of these judges also read testimony from a neurobiologist who presents results of a genetic test that Donahue possessed a specific genetic variant linked to violent behavior.

The judges who read this biological explanation of why Donahue may have behaved in this way handed out moderately smaller sentences, 13 years, as compared with judges who only saw the testimony from the psycholgist, who game Donahue 14 years. The authors of this study concluded that the introduction of expert testimony giving a biological explanation for behaviors can be a "double-edged sword in the courtroom."  They could either be seen as evidence that a defendant is hard-wired for bad behavior and destined to re-offend, or it could be seen as evidence that the defendant's behavior was out of his control.

Should genetic tests and brain scans that show biological factors for individuals' behavior be allowed as evidence in sentencing hearings of this kind?

In Mock Case, Biological Evidence Reduces Sentences by Greg Miller. Science Magazine. Vol. 377, no. 6096. p. 788.

Discover IIT Days

Know a high school student who might be interested in attending the Illinois Institute of Technology? Urge them and their parents to attend Discover IIT Days on August 4, 2012 from 8:30 a.m. to 3 pm. Students will get a tour of the campus, information on academic programs and campus life, as well as information about the admission and financial air process.

You can find out more information and register Discover IIT here.

What Limits Are Needed for Research Involving Highly Infectious Viruses?

Back in January of 2012, a number of top influenza researchers agreed to a voluntary moratorium on any research involving contagious, lab-altered forms of one strain of bird flu. This week, a number of flu researchers are meeting in New York for the annual conference of the U.S. government-funded Centers for Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance. One part of the agenda for this conference will be to discuss  if the moratorium should be lifted, or if it should stay in place.

Some scientists and researchers are concerned that if mutant bird flu viruses somehow got out of the lab, they could cause a devastating pandemic. Others argue that lifting this ban is crucial to making sure that public health officials are reading for any possible threat of a flu pandemic that might emerge naturally, as bird flu viruses mutate in the wild.

Meanwhile, the U.S. National Institutes of Health will be watching and and participating in the conversation about what should be done about overseeing research involving high-risk pathogens. To read more, check out NPR's article, "Bird Flu Researchers To Meet About Research Moratorium" from  July 24, 2012.

The World Health Organization will also be having an open meeting sometime next year on these issues, and has recently released some guidelines on what kinds of risk-control measures should be used by labs researching mutant bird flu viruses.

Are these kinds of voluntary guidelines enough, or do international governments need to step in and provide some oversight when research involves the use of highly contagious viruses? Or, should it be up to the scientific community to decide when research of this kind should continue, and what kinds of limitations should be put in place to protect the public?

Japan Commission finds Fukushima a "profoundly man-made disaster"

The Japanese government's Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission concluded in a report released last week that the nuclear incident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant was a "profoundly man-made disaster," rather than a result of a natural disaster.

The earthquake of March 2011 which hit at a magnitude of 9.0, was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan, as well as one of the most powerful earthquakes ever measured. It sent a 133 foot tsunami crashing onto the coast that killed over 15,000 people and triggered the chain of events leading to the nuclear disaster.

The commission found that the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO)  had many opportunities for taking preventative measures prior to when the earthquake and tsunami hit.   The commission criticized TEPCO as being too quick to dismiss earthquake damage as a cause of the fuel meltdowns at three of  of the plant's six reactors, which overheated when the site lost power. TEPCO has contended that the plant withstood the earthquake, and instead placed the blame on the tsunami  that followed. TEPCO executives that the earthquake followed by the huge tsunami was beyond the scope of contingency planning.

According to the commission, the Fukushima nuclear incident shows the danger of "regulatory capture" in which a government agency acts on behalf of the industry it tries to oversee instead of representing  the public interest. The Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, part of the economy industry that promotes nuclear energy, allowed TEPCO to delay upgrades and ignore problems, the report found. The report  faults the Japanese nuclear industry and regulators for not learning lessons from Three Mile Island or the Chernobyl disaster  in the Ukraine, and also cites lack of communication between scientists and the government in sharing information that could help improve the safety of Japanese nuclear plants.

The commission ended its report by calling for the creation of an independent and professional nuclear regulatory body to help build a stronger safety culture in the Japanese nuclear industry.

Read more:

Tabuchi, Hiroko. "Inquiry Declares Fukushima Crisis a Man-Made Disaster." New York Times. July 5. 2012
"Official Fukushima Report  Blames Japanese Culture, Not Nuclear Power". The Atlantic. July 11, 2012
Normile, Dennis. "Commission Spreads Blame for 'Manmade' Disaster." Science Magazine. July 13, 2012.