Nature Versus Nurturing the Death Penalty

post from The Scientific Activist on 24 August 2006 07:14:31 PM. © The Scientific Activist

Shelley of Retrospectacle asks fellow ScienceBloggers:

"Are you for or against the death penalty, or (if its conditional), in what cases? Furthermore, do you believe that societies that sanction war are hypocritical for opposing the death penalty?"

I'm against the death penalty, and I would agree that if a society uses war as a tool of foreign policy, it would be hypocritical to oppose the death penalty. Fortunately (or, rather, unfortunately) for the US, that doesn't seem to be an issue. In addition to the usual arguments against the death penalty (not a deterrent, risk of executing the innocent, inconsistent application, etc. ) here's another reason to question it. From the archives:

(9 May 2006) In a strongly-worded editorial and an accompanying news special report (subscription required), last Thursday's Nature magazine challenged the humaneness of lethal injections and advocated for continued abstention by the medical community to put an end to the death penalty once and for all.

The special report lays out the issue:

Do no harm. Nearly all US MDs and PhDs recite this three-word oath instinctively when asked why they object to helping with executions. "It violates our ethical oath and erodes public trust," says Priscilla Ray, head of ethics at the American Medical Association (AMA), which prohibits members from participating in executions. Even helping to design a more humane protocol would disregard the AMA code, Ray says. "Formulating a way to kill somebody would violate the spirit of the policy."
As a result of that stance, lethal injections--the dominant method of execution in the United States--are generally carried out by technicians without scientific or medical training, and the protocol does not seem to have been reviewed in 30 years. Typically, prisoners are injected with three drugs in sequence meant to knock out, paralyze and then kill. But many experts are concerned that because of that lack of training, the first drug does not always knock the condemned out properly, leaving him or her paralyzed but excruciatingly conscious as the lungs stop moving, and burning potassium chloride races towards the heart.

The death penalty has quite a bit going against it, from charges of unequal application to different demographics to the sometimes realized nightmare of killing an innocent person. The challenges at hand, though, focus on the suitability of what was supposed to be a more humane alternative to the electric chair: the lethal injection.

One of the most damning indictments of lethal injections as a means of capital punishment came from a 2005 article in The Lancet, which found that 43% of inmates undergoing lethal injection may be conscious when the fatal and excruciatingly painful dose of potassium chloride is delivered, due to insufficient doses of the anesthetic sodium thiopental. The results of the study were considered controversial, though, because they relied solely on postmortem examinations. Regardless, they deserve consideration.

Since I'm writing this from Oxford University, currently at the center of a large animal rights movement, I found the following passage of the Lancet article particularly interesting:

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European Chemistry Congress

post from Sciencebase Science Blog on 24 August 2006 07:00:00 PM. © Sciencebase Science Blog

The very first European Chemistry Congress starts Sunday and runs till the end of the month. The event is being held in Budapest, Hungary, at Loránd Eötvös University, and promises to be an astounding affair showcasing chemical sciences in Europe and bringing together chemical and molecular scientists from industry, academia and government institutions across Europe [...]

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Free Climate Change DVD...just tell me where to
send it.

post from Climate Change Action on 24 August 2006 06:11:00 PM. © Climate Change Action

Quite simply, I have created a dvd of numerous internet videos about climate change. These videos are all from various universities around the US and are about climate/ecology/energy and even what you can do about the problem.They vary from 50-600Mb each and from 10min to nearly 2hrs. Most are suitable for a general audiance, some require a little technical/scientific background and some are

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Video of the Week: Berkely Energy Forum with
Joseph Romm

post from Climate Change Action on 24 August 2006 05:52:00 PM. © Climate Change Action

A really superb video this week...do yourself a favour and watch it, then ask yourself what you can do about the greatest challenge of our time. The "Rosenfeld Effect" Energy Symposium discussed the role of increased energy efficiency in California, in China, and on a global scale; the intersection of energy and safe drinking water in the developing world; the twin challenges of mitigating

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Researchers restore memory lost in mice with
Alzheimer's

post from Science Blog - on 24 August 2006 05:25:39 PM. © Science Blog -

Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have successfully restored normal memory and synaptic function in mice suffering from Alzheimer's disease. The study was published today on the website of the journal Cell.

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Electrical Walks

post from Muton on 24 August 2006 04:42:00 PM. © Muton

Yesterday I went on an unusual art type thing in Birmingham. It was called 'Electrical Walks' by the artist Christina Kubisch and was based at the Ikon Gallery Basically you wore a pair of silly looking headphone things (see picture) that converted the radio waves generated by electrical devices into sound. It was extremely interesting and gave a completely new perspective on the city with things like security barriers suddenly becoming very prominent where usually they are passed by unnoticed. The most prominent sound though was the almost constant hum of Alternating current becoming overwhelming in places but fading to silence in a few places that were far from buildings. Other noisy things included cash machines, some lights sounded like a large and annoying insect flying aroud a large outdoor television buzzed and chittered in a very strange way and wandering past a taxi rank i could hear the drivers talking. It should theoretically be quite easy to make your own so you can experince this strange new world from the comfort of your own corner of this planet.

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Twins!

post from Pharyngula on 24 August 2006 04:12:55 PM. © Pharyngula

The situation on the right wing must be getting bad when you can't even tell Jack Kemp and Phyllis Schlafly apart anymore.

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Factories in the Future

post from CR4 on 24 August 2006 04:10:00 PM. © CR4

BRodda writes:Alex Soojung-Kim Pang of the Institute for the Future has written a great essay about how technology is moving to the factory floor and changing the very nature of the manufacturing process. Equating it to the evolution of the music studio, a change from a place to make record music...

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FDA Approves Over-the-Counter Access for Plan B
for Women 18 and Older

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced approval of Plan B, a contraceptive drug, as an over-the-counter (OTC) option for women aged 18 and older. Plan B is often referred to as emergency contraception or the "morning after pill." It contains an ingredient used in prescription birth control pills--only in the case of Plan B, each pill contains a higher dose and the product has a different dosing regimen. Like other birth control pills, Plan B has been available to all women as a prescription drug. When used as directed, Plan B effectively and safely prevents pregnancy. Plan B will remain available as a prescription-only product for women age 17 and under.

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Addressing the issues

Jaime made a thoughtful comment here regarding yesterday's "hater" post. I started responding in the thread but it's become more of a post itself, but it's become more of a treatise. Hope I don't scare Jamie away (since it's noted that s/he is unlurking to make it):

i read the post, and the comments, and the stuff on here, so i will unlurk to make my 2 cents. there is bad science in evolution like in any field these days but no one seemed to address the issues - some complained about the crappy font and 2 regulars on here used the 'you're stupid' argument on him.
tara also can be a little guilty for snipping parts of sentences for her convenience. the guy/girl also said 'Obviously we are not against evolution but we go apeshit over bad science' ... the quote she used was from a different one on reconciling religion and evolution.
Maybe they came here and just saw the real crazies, like pharyngula and whatever and wrote that post. so what does everyone do in response? they go crazy like he said. if sb is so balanced and open to all scientists, let's make sure we continue to show it.

My thoughts after the jump.

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