An Analysis of the Ethics of Peer review

My article, "An Analysis of the Ethics of Peer Review and Other Traditional Academic Publishing Practices.", has been published in the peer reviewed International Journal of Social Science and Humanity. The article considers the ethical aspects of academic publishing including such issues as peer review, copyright transfer, pricing policy and the permanence of journals. In my analysis, I found there to be many ethical failings in these areas, in the traditional practices. I also suggest solutions to these problems.

Please have a read, if you are interested to see a glimpse of how I structure my ethical thinking.

The article can be found here: http://www.ijssh.org/abstract/36-H058.htm

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Posted by Valentine Cawley

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Nick Clegg's dilemma.

Nick Clegg now faces a peculiar dilemma, one that is most unenviable in many ways. He is stuck between doing the right thing, by his principles, or the right thing, by his ambition. It seems likely that he cannot have both.

Nick Clegg's principles dictate that he should support the party that won the "most votes and most seats" in the General Election of Great Britain, 2010. Now, this would be the Conservative (Tory) Party. They won the most seats - at 306 - but not enough to be able to rule, successfully, without the backing of another party. So, Nick Clegg's principles state that he should support the Conservatives and come to some sort of coalition deal with them. That would satisfy what he says are his moral guiding principles, in this situation. However, there is a complication. Nick Clegg's ambition is to secure electoral reform, such that proportional representation is introduced into Britain. This would mean that the Liberal Democrats would play a much greater role in government FOREVER, were it enacted. At every subsequent election, the Liberal Democrats would secure a significant number of seats and are likely to have real power, forever after.

Yet, the party offering a referendum on proportional representation is NOT the Conservatives, but the Labour Party. The Conservatives have offered an "inquiry" on electoral reform, but, as yet, have not stated that they would offer a referendum on PR (though their stance may soften and change, which must be Nick Clegg's hope). What heightens the importance of this situation, is that the Liberal Democrats only have this one chance to secure proportional representation, because only in a rare hung parliament, do they have this bargaining power. This is the first hung parliament in well over thirty years - and Nick Clegg might be dead and gone before the next one.

Thus, Nick Clegg must choose between his principles or his ambitions. He must choose to back the Conservatives, and probably lose the chance of bringing in proportional representation (unless circumstances change) or he can choose his ambitions, and secure proportional representation through Labour's referendum.

The choice is even more complicated than it seems. You see, if Nick Clegg chooses to support the Labour Party (which lost around a 100 seats in the election), he would forever tarnish the name of his party, in many eyes, by supporting a party that has failed Britain. Should he turn his back on his principles, and go for his ambitions, Nick Clegg could destroy the Liberal Democrats.

Thus, Nick Clegg's choices are far from easy. With the Conservatives, he may abide by his principles, but alienate sectors of his own party. With Labour, he may succeed in his electoral reform ambitions, but ruin the reputation of his party, with the nation, for thrusting aside his principles and siding with a party that has singularly failed Britain, in recent years.

I hope Nick Clegg has a wisdom as great as his apparent charm - for now, what he needs, is more of the former, than the latter - though the latter may win over any objections within his own party, and without.

I should point out that I know Nick Clegg. We were at Robinson College, at Cambridge University together. We were exact contemporaries. However, I did not keep touch with him, after I left. It seems surreal, however, that one of the first people I met at Cambridge University (for he was one of the people present in my first few social gatherings at Cambridge), should turn out to be in a position of real power, in the UK, now. Nick Clegg must choose whom to back and thus, which party to empower to become Britain's government. Should he choose well, history will thank him for it. Should he choose poorly, history will damn him. So, he is faced with great opportunity and great peril. He has the chance, as few have, to write himself into the history books. He also has the chance to forever mar whatever good name he has.

Nick Clegg now faces a true and searching test of character. For it is character that will decide the fate of the UK and of Nick Clegg himself. Should he choose principles, over ambition, he will seen by history to have been a man of integrity. Should he choose ambition, over principles, he could very well permanently empower his party, in British politics, and himself, for the duration of his life - but lose the good will of history, for how it might judge his nature.

Now, cannot be an easy time for Nick Clegg. Nor is it an easy time for the UK. I hope Nick Clegg reflects carefully on his decisions and comes to the choice that is best for the country, and not just for his party, or self - for in the end, that is what politics should be about: serving the best long-term interests of one's country. Now, more than at any time, in living memory, Britain needs decisions of integrity from its politicians. I hope Nick Clegg proceeds, therefore, to be guided by a sense of what is right, for his nation and earns, thereby, the respect and thanks of posterity.

Best of luck Nick, on the days ahead, for Britain's sake.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to:
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Is President Obama an ethical man?

Is President Obama an ethical man? Now, some of you are already reacting in surprise at the very asking of the question, but it is one that has to be asked.

I find it very strange to consider, but it seems to me that George Bush has more ethical backbone than President Obama, even though Bush was considered wrong about his wars by most people. I say this being surprised even to have to say it.

I shall explain. President George W. Bush was against the use of embryonic stem cells in medical research. His stance was a simple one: embryonic stem cells can only be obtained through the murder of unborn children. President George W. Bush thought it wrong and unacceptable that medical research should seek to "save lives" of those with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, through murdering embryos. He thought that America should not support such research. Instead, the Republicans advocated NON-embryonic sources of stem cells as lines of research - adult stem cells and others.

President Obama is reversing this Bush era policy of a ban on embryonic stem cell research. President Obama has decided that the murder of unborn embryos, to further research into disease for older humans, is the right way for America to go. He says that it is holding back research to have such a ban. Well, to my mind, that statement makes President Obama an ethical pygmy. He cannot see that it is inherently evil to kill unborn children to save adults. Under no circumstances can it ever be viewed as right or justifiable. The unborn child has a right to live, to dismember the embryo to harvest its stem cells is to murder it. President Obama is advocating the murder of embryonic children to save adults. What makes this worse, is that research in recent years has shown that there are other ways to produce stem cells that do not require embryos to be destroyed. An ethical President would endorse those ways. President Obama has, rather insultingly, to all Christians, been compared to Jesus Christ, in his campaign marketing photographs. There has been the building of him into a saintly figure. Well, the last time I checked, saints don't endorse the murder of little children to save adults.

Now, I was impressed by President Obama's general presentation of himself in the campaign. I thought he was the best at personally "selling" himself. But there is a difference between being good at managing one's image and being a good man, in heart and mind. A good man is, in my view, an ethical man - and President Obama is showing, quite clearly, in these early decisions, that he lacks moral insight. The biggest irony of this situation is that George W. Bush, who is always portrayed as a stupid man, seems to have greater moral understanding than President Obama, who is always portrayed as a "brilliant" man.

President Obama is also reversing a "conscience rule" that gives healthcare workers the legal right not to treat patients, with abortion or contraception, if it is against their ethical principles. So, not only is Obama not an ethical man, he wants to BAN being ethical. Under President Obama, medical staff will lose the right to be guided by their own ethics.

This is a very interesting development. It seems that President Obama is not only an unethical man, in some ways, but one who is waging a legislative war against ethical behaviour. I find it curious that more mileage is not being made of this in the mainstream media in the US. President Obama is eroding the ethical standing of the United States, and doing it in the most charming of ways.

I never thought I would write a post like this, because it never occurred to me (though it should have) that the image making seen in the electoral process was just an image, without real substance.

I think it will become clear, in the coming year, that Obama, while an effective leader and a charismatic man, might be lacking in the moral dimension that is so important in guiding a nation. If the leader of a nation is not a moral man, that nation becomes capable of great crimes, in the world.

The irony, of course, is that Bush, while clearly a moral man, was involved in what some see as a great crime in the Middle East.

It remains to be seen if the less ethical Obama, will turn out to be less criminal on the world stage, than his more ethical forebear. At this time, it is not really possible to predict the outcome, except to say this: a lot of unborn children will now be murdered in a race to save old people, from old people's diseases, under Obama's new embryonic stem cell directive. That is the kind of crime that stains the conscience of a race, forever. (That is, when they wake up to what they have done...which can take generations.)

Perhaps President Obama would like to show the way, and ask Michelle to provide all the unborn embryos to be mashed up and dismembered for science? Perhaps then he might actually come to a moral understanding of what he has just ordered should take place.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

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