Sep 9, 2018 07:17 PM
When is it OK For Archaeologists to Dig Up the Dead?
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2...5NNTVInaS4
EXCERPT: . . . We packed excavated skeletons in boxes labeled “bananas” and referenced the fruit when discussing the project in public. Our team had legal approval and scientific justification, but those bananas represent a conundrum: When is it acceptable for archaeologists to disturb the dead?
The short answer: “There’s no blanket answer… Sometimes, yes definitely. And sometimes it’s the right thing to do, not to excavate,” says Duncan Sayer, an archaeologist who has written a book on the ethics of burial excavations.
To appreciate his point, consider some hypotheticals. Could archaeologists exhume your grandparents or great-grandparents? What about your ancestors 1,000 years back? Does it matter whether burials were intentional — tombs filled with precious goods — or accidental, like a landslide that fatally engulfed people? Do an ancient culture’s beliefs about the afterlife make a difference? What if a cemetery is threatened by rising sea level or construction of a much-needed metro line?
I could keep spinning scenarios, but you get it: whether to dig or not, depends.
To be clear: “It’s not okay to excavate human remains simply because we’re archaeologists and that’s what we do,” says Sayer, who’s also a lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire, England.
So then, when is it okay?
MORE: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2...5NNTVInaS4
The Ethics of Consciousness Hunting
http://nautil.us/issue/64/the-unseen/the...ss-hunting
EXCERPT: . . . Routley, it turned out, was not in a vegetative state. In fact, he and patients like him required a new classification, which later researchers would call cognitive motor dissociation (CMD).
[...] As it stands, our appraisal of the subjective states of nonresponsive patients is almost entirely guesswork—and our guesses are often lethal. Thirty-two percent of patients with severe brain injury die in hospitals, and 70 percent of these do so as a result of life-sustaining treatment being withdrawn, often within a few days of their injury, and long before their prognosis is certain. In many cases, the decision is made by families and physicians trying to avoid the worst-case scenario, in which the patient remains permanently unconscious. But this means giving up any chance of a good recovery. And some of these patients are actually conscious.
For truly vegetative patients, it does seem clear that life is not worth living. They no longer have the capacity to experience any aspect of life, positive or negative. They are not benefitted by continued treatment, and would not be harmed by having it withdrawn. These patients should be allowed to die. But CMD patients can, in principle, have positive experiences, including pleasure. They can still do things they enjoy, like watching hockey on TV, or even going to the movies.
[...] The ability to distinguish CMD from vegetative patients could save lives worth living. A little less than a fifth of patients who are behaviorally non-responsive at the bedside are CMD rather than vegetative. Many are removed from life support on the mistaken assumption that they are vegetative. [...] Given these options, it is hard to argue that we do no have an ethical obligation to apply some kind of functional neuroimaging—either fMRI or EEG—to every patient before they are diagnosed as being in a vegetative state. ...
MORE: http://nautil.us/issue/64/the-unseen/the...ss-hunting
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2...5NNTVInaS4
EXCERPT: . . . We packed excavated skeletons in boxes labeled “bananas” and referenced the fruit when discussing the project in public. Our team had legal approval and scientific justification, but those bananas represent a conundrum: When is it acceptable for archaeologists to disturb the dead?
The short answer: “There’s no blanket answer… Sometimes, yes definitely. And sometimes it’s the right thing to do, not to excavate,” says Duncan Sayer, an archaeologist who has written a book on the ethics of burial excavations.
To appreciate his point, consider some hypotheticals. Could archaeologists exhume your grandparents or great-grandparents? What about your ancestors 1,000 years back? Does it matter whether burials were intentional — tombs filled with precious goods — or accidental, like a landslide that fatally engulfed people? Do an ancient culture’s beliefs about the afterlife make a difference? What if a cemetery is threatened by rising sea level or construction of a much-needed metro line?
I could keep spinning scenarios, but you get it: whether to dig or not, depends.
To be clear: “It’s not okay to excavate human remains simply because we’re archaeologists and that’s what we do,” says Sayer, who’s also a lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire, England.
So then, when is it okay?
MORE: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2...5NNTVInaS4
The Ethics of Consciousness Hunting
http://nautil.us/issue/64/the-unseen/the...ss-hunting
EXCERPT: . . . Routley, it turned out, was not in a vegetative state. In fact, he and patients like him required a new classification, which later researchers would call cognitive motor dissociation (CMD).
[...] As it stands, our appraisal of the subjective states of nonresponsive patients is almost entirely guesswork—and our guesses are often lethal. Thirty-two percent of patients with severe brain injury die in hospitals, and 70 percent of these do so as a result of life-sustaining treatment being withdrawn, often within a few days of their injury, and long before their prognosis is certain. In many cases, the decision is made by families and physicians trying to avoid the worst-case scenario, in which the patient remains permanently unconscious. But this means giving up any chance of a good recovery. And some of these patients are actually conscious.
For truly vegetative patients, it does seem clear that life is not worth living. They no longer have the capacity to experience any aspect of life, positive or negative. They are not benefitted by continued treatment, and would not be harmed by having it withdrawn. These patients should be allowed to die. But CMD patients can, in principle, have positive experiences, including pleasure. They can still do things they enjoy, like watching hockey on TV, or even going to the movies.
[...] The ability to distinguish CMD from vegetative patients could save lives worth living. A little less than a fifth of patients who are behaviorally non-responsive at the bedside are CMD rather than vegetative. Many are removed from life support on the mistaken assumption that they are vegetative. [...] Given these options, it is hard to argue that we do no have an ethical obligation to apply some kind of functional neuroimaging—either fMRI or EEG—to every patient before they are diagnosed as being in a vegetative state. ...
MORE: http://nautil.us/issue/64/the-unseen/the...ss-hunting