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Domain: hedweb.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to hedweb.com.

Stories · 2

  1. Mega-Cash Prizes and Revolutionary Science

    Education · · posted by ryuzaki0 · from the big-piles-of-cash-often-motivate-people dept. · 134 comments
    Bruce G Charlton writes "A new paper in Medical Hypotheses suggests that very big cash prizes could specifically be targeted to stimulate 'revolutionary' science. Usually, prizes tend to stimulate 'applied' science — as in the most famous example of Harrison's improved clock solving the 'longitude' problem. But for prizes successfully to stimulate revolutionary science the prizes need to be: 1. Very large (and we are talking seven figure 'pop star' earnings, here) to compensate for the high risk of failure when tackling major scientific problems, 2. Awarded to scientists at a young enough age that it influences their behavior in (about) their mid-late twenties — when they are deciding on their career path, and: 3. Include objective and transparent scientometric criteria, to prevent the prize award process being corrupted by 'political' incentives. Such mega-cash prizes, in sufficient numbers, might incentivize some of the very best young scientists to make more ambitious, long-term — but high-risk — career choices. The real winner of this would be society as a whole; since ordinary science can successfully be done by second-raters — but only first-rate scientists can tackle the toughest scientific problems."

  2. Princeton Prof Advocates Euthanizing Handicapped Babies

    Education · · posted by ryuzaki0 · from the scary-ideas-that-make-you-think dept. · 559 comments
    GolemII pointed us to this story at The Nando Times about Peter Singer, who teaches bioethics at Princeton, and some of the ruckus he's stirred up by suggesting that parents of severely disabled infants should be allowed to kill them painlessly in order to save them from a life of suffering. (more below.)

    An earlier idea of Singer's, that a human life is not necessarily more valuable than an animal's, led (at least in part) to the founding of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals [PETA] and the Animal Liberation Front.

    We're running this here -- after some serious soul-searching -- because Singer raises thorny ethical questions that make people think in new ways even when they don't agree with him, and if there's one thing Slashdot readers are good at, it's coming up with unique reactions to controversial ideas that cause most people to shut down their critical thinking abilities and issue emotional, knee-jerk responses.

    The floor is now open. Please try to treat this as an important ethical discussion, not as flamebait. It's a serious -- if frightening -- subject, and the debate now being carried on about it in academic circles will no doubt affect the way we treat our fellow humans and other life forms, both organic and cybernetic, in the 21st century and beyond.