This happened
This week, the leading medical journal, The Lancet, Published a special supplement on sport and medicine. Its contents include a number of ethical commentaries including:
Essay: Prosthetics for athletes
McCarvill S
pages S10-S11
Feature: Gene doping
Pincock S
pages S18-S19
Viewpoint: Legalisation of performance-enhancing drugs
Kayser B, Mauron A, Miah A
page S21
Essay: Transsexual athletes—when is competition fair?
Ljungqvist A, Genel M
pages S42-S43
After a fascinating series of presentations at the Stockholm meeting, we concluded proceednigs with a drafting of a declaration on gene doping. I think of particular interest was the stance taken on the use of genetic tests. This might raise a number of challenges for those who are already using them, though the declration does not forbid the use of such tests.
Frank Furedi just published a piece in The Spectator. The full article is on his website, but here's a quote:
"Deference to the authority of the celebrity, makeover guru or healer is underwritten by the decline in the influence of conventional forms of authority. That is why the frequently asserted claim that we live in an age characterised by the ‘death of deference’ bears little relationship to reality. Yes, it has become fashionable to treat traditional forms of authority — monarchy, church, parliament — with derision. Criticism of traditional institutions has become so prevalent that it bears all the hallmarks of classical conformism. Scientists, doctors and other professionals have also experienced an erosion of authority. But the diminishing influence of conventional authority has been paralleled by the rise of a new ‘alternative’ one. We don’t trust politicians but we have faith in the pronouncements of celebrities."
The content reminds me of an earlier posting related to the film 'What the Bleep Do we Know?', though it does seem to follow this emerging thread on the public intellectual as celebrity.
From 4-5 December, the World Anti-Doping Agency hosts its second Gene Doping symposium in Stockholm Sweden. They have already issues a press release for this meeting and, like the NYC meeting in 2002, the proceedings are closed to the media and by invitation only. At the meeting, I will give a reply to Dr Thomas H. Murray, President of The Hastings Center as part of a session on the ethics and policy implications of gene doping for sport.
One of the greatest catalysts for media coverage at the first meeting was Lee Sweeney's statement that he had been contacted by coaches and athletes who wish to enrol in gene therapy trials, in order to boost their performances. For the media and many other interested parties, this made the issue real and present.
It is likely that this meeting will present some advance on whether detection will be possible and I will argue for a re-definition of the ethics of sport based on a couple of recent pieces I have written. The first - published in the journal Public Understanding of Science - will advance a critique on the way in which gene doping has been discussed in society; the second - published in the European Journal of Sport Science - will argue that anti-doping policy should be replaced with a 'performance policy'.
Together, my conclusion will state that a rejection of gene transfer on the basis of current arguments implied and explicit within anti-doping policy is not justified. The two references are as follows:
Miah, A. (2005). "Genetics, cyberspace and bioethics: why not a public engagement with ethics?" Public Understanding of Science 14(4): 409-421.
Miah, A. (2005). "From anti-doping to a 'performance policy': sport technology, being human, and doing ethics." European Journal of Sport Science 5(1): 51-57.
How long will it be before we ditch the sports arena and compete as athletes - or view as spectators - within an entirely virtual reality? This is the subject of a new book I am writing for The MIT Press, tentatively titled 'CyberSport: Digital Games, Ethics and Cultures'. It will be written with a colleague of mine in Australia, Dr Dennis Hemphill. The subject of this book will feature in a Sky One (television) production to be broadcast on December 2 in the United Kingdom. The programme is about sport and technology generally, and it rounds off with a segment about the prospect of making sports virtual.
This project develops some thoughts that have been hanging around for the last five years. An early example of how they work out can be found in this piece:
Miah, A. (2002) Immersion and Abstraction in Virtual Sport, Research in Philosophy and Technology, 21, 225-233
At the Celebrity Culture conference, we very nearly had that panel on academic celebrity. On the Monday morning drive down to Ayr, Phil, David P. Marshall (Keynote) and I debated the potential merit of raising this subject in the programme, which is implict of many debates surrounding the public intellectual. However, as the conference kicked-off, Phil and I became embroiled in the media frenzy, David lost his luggage, Diane couldn't get into the country, the fire-alarm went off and, in any case, we didnt really have enough time on the programme to put it together.
So, perhaps a follow-up meeting on this subject is in order? I mention this now after having seen Prospect Magazine's list of Global Public Intellectuals. Noam Chomsky tops the bill followed by:
Position Name Total votes
2 Umberto Eco 2464 3 Richard Dawkins 2188 4 Václav Havel 1990 5 Christopher Hitchens 1844 6 Paul Krugman 1746 7 Jürgen Habermas 1639 8 Amartya Sen 1590 9 Jared Diamond 1499 10 Salman Rushdie 1468 11 Naomi Klein 1378 12 Shirin Ebadi 1309 13 Hernando De Soto 1202 14 Bjørn Lomborg 1141 15 Abdolkarim Soroush 1114 16 Thomas Friedman 1049 17 Pope Benedict XVI 1046 18 Eric Hobsbawm 1037 19 Paul Wolfowitz 1028 20 Camille Paglia 1013 21 Francis Fukuyama 883 22 Jean Baudrillard 858 23 Slavoj Zizek 840 24 Daniel Dennett 832 25 Freeman Dyson 823 26 Steven Pinker 812 27 Jeffrey Sachs 810 28 Samuel Huntington 805 29 Mario Vargas Llosa 771 30 Ali al-Sistani 768 31 EO Wilson 742 32 Richard Posner 740 33 Peter Singer 703 34 Bernard Lewis 660 35 Fareed Zakaria 634 36 Gary Becker 630 37 Michael Ignatieff 610 38 Chinua Achebe 585 39 Anthony Giddens 582 40 Lawrence Lessig 565 41 Richard Rorty 562 42 Jagdish Bhagwati 561 43 Fernando Cardoso 556 44= JM Coetzee 548 44= Niall Ferguson 548 46 Ayaan Hirsi Ali 546 47 Steven Weinberg 507 48 Julia Kristeva 487 49 Germaine Greer 471 50 Antonio Negri 452 51 Rem Koolhaas 429 52 Timothy Garton Ash 428 53 Martha Nussbaum 422 54 Orhan Pamuk 393 55 Clifford Geertz 388 56 Yusuf al-Qaradawi 382 57 Henry Louis Gates Jr. 379 58 Tariq Ramadan 372 59 Amos Oz 358 60 Larry Summers 351 61 Hans Küng 344 62 Robert Kagan 339 63 Paul Kennedy 334 64 Daniel Kahnemann 312 65 Sari Nusseibeh 297 66 Wole Soyinka 296 67 Kemal Dervis 295 68 Michael Walzer 279 69 Gao Xingjian 277 70 Howard Gardner 273 71 James Lovelock 268 72 Robert Hughes 259 73 Ali Mazrui 251 74 Craig Venter 244 75 Martin Rees 242 76 James Q Wilson 229 77 Robert Putnam 221 78 Peter Sloterdijk 217 79 Sergei Karaganov 194 80 Sunita Narain 186 81 Alain Finkielkraut 185 82 Fan Gang 180 83 Florence Wambugu 159 84 Gilles Kepel 156 85 Enrique Krauze 144 86 Ha Jin 129 87 Neil Gershenfeld 120 88 Paul Ekman 118 89 Jaron Lanier 117 90 Gordon Conway 90 91 Pavol Demes 88 92 Elaine Scarry 87 93 Robert Cooper 86 94 Harold Varmus 85 95 Pramoedya Ananta Toer 84 96 Zheng Bijian 76 97 Kenichi Ohmae 68 98= Wang Jisi 59 98= Kishore Mahbubani 59 100 Shintaro Ishihara 57
At the Celebrity Culture conference, we very nearly had that panel on academic celebrity. On the Monday morning drive down to Ayr, Phil, David P. Marshall (Keynote) and I debated the potential merit of raising this subject in the programme, which is implict of many debates surrounding the public intellectual.
However, as the conference kicked-off, Phil and I became embroiled in the media frenzy, David lost his luggage, Diane couldn't get into the country, the fire-alarm went off and, in any case, we didnt really have enough time on the programme to put it together.
So, perhaps a follow-up meeting on this subject is in order? I mention this now after having seen Prospect Magazine's list of Global Public Intellectuals.
Noam Chomsky tops the bill followed by:
Position Name Total votes
2 Umberto Eco 2464 3 Richard Dawkins 2188 4 Václav Havel 1990 5 Christopher Hitchens 1844 6 Paul Krugman 1746 7 Jürgen Habermas 1639 8 Amartya Sen 1590 9 Jared Diamond 1499 10 Salman Rushdie 1468 11 Naomi Klein 1378 12 Shirin Ebadi 1309 13 Hernando De Soto 1202 14 Bjørn Lomborg 1141 15 Abdolkarim Soroush 1114 16 Thomas Friedman 1049 17 Pope Benedict XVI 1046 18 Eric Hobsbawm 1037 19 Paul Wolfowitz 1028 20 Camille Paglia 1013 21 Francis Fukuyama 883 22 Jean Baudrillard 858 23 Slavoj Zizek 840 24 Daniel Dennett 832 25 Freeman Dyson 823 26 Steven Pinker 812 27 Jeffrey Sachs 810 28 Samuel Huntington 805 29 Mario Vargas Llosa 771 30 Ali al-Sistani 768 31 EO Wilson 742 32 Richard Posner 740 33 Peter Singer 703 34 Bernard Lewis 660 35 Fareed Zakaria 634 36 Gary Becker 630 37 Michael Ignatieff 610 38 Chinua Achebe 585 39 Anthony Giddens 582 40 Lawrence Lessig 565 41 Richard Rorty 562 42 Jagdish Bhagwati 561 43 Fernando Cardoso 556 44= JM Coetzee 548 44= Niall Ferguson 548 46 Ayaan Hirsi Ali 546 47 Steven Weinberg 507 48 Julia Kristeva 487 49 Germaine Greer 471 50 Antonio Negri 452 51 Rem Koolhaas 429 52 Timothy Garton Ash 428 53 Martha Nussbaum 422 54 Orhan Pamuk 393 55 Clifford Geertz 388 56 Yusuf al-Qaradawi 382 57 Henry Louis Gates Jr. 379 58 Tariq Ramadan 372 59 Amos Oz 358 60 Larry Summers 351 61 Hans Küng 344 62 Robert Kagan 339 63 Paul Kennedy 334 64 Daniel Kahnemann 312 65 Sari Nusseibeh 297 66 Wole Soyinka 296 67 Kemal Dervis 295 68 Michael Walzer 279 69 Gao Xingjian 277 70 Howard Gardner 273 71 James Lovelock 268 72 Robert Hughes 259 73 Ali Mazrui 251 74 Craig Venter 244 75 Martin Rees 242 76 James Q Wilson 229 77 Robert Putnam 221 78 Peter Sloterdijk 217 79 Sergei Karaganov 194 80 Sunita Narain 186 81 Alain Finkielkraut 185 82 Fan Gang 180 83 Florence Wambugu 159 84 Gilles Kepel 156 85 Enrique Krauze 144 86 Ha Jin 129 87 Neil Gershenfeld 120 88 Paul Ekman 118 89 Jaron Lanier 117 90 Gordon Conway 90 91 Pavol Demes 88 92 Elaine Scarry 87 93 Robert Cooper 86 94 Harold Varmus 85 95 Pramoedya Ananta Toer 84 96 Zheng Bijian 76 97 Kenichi Ohmae 68 98= Wang Jisi 59 98= Kishore Mahbubani 59 100 Shintaro Ishihara 57
I am a long-distance member for one of Yale's inter-disciplinary bioethics group, which soon receives a talk from Professor Deb Roy. Taking a closer look at Roy's work draws me even nearer to the work at MIT. I visited there in April this year and was struck by the breadth of creative invention taking place there. This project 10x Human-Machine Symbiosis is discussed in an outline paper available from its website, wher Roy explains ths relationship between art, science and design.
In my various travels, I have found the richest of environments where a range of disciplines and views inform an approach to a problem, where it is difficult to characterise researchers as having expertise in specific domains. The more intriguing researchers seem to be those who apply a set of understandings to a range of applications.
More recently, I have been drawn towards architecture in work related to technology - such as William Mitchell's 'city of bits' - to research surrounding media spectacles - the Situationist Internationale are integral to a course I wrote on Spectacle. Today, I was reading an article about Unifying Urbanism, which described a use of communication technology within the city to de-fragment its evolving character. I struggle to separate out disciplinary perspectives when writing about culture. Far too much is connected.
The launch of the SportsGeneTest in Japan was announced in the Washington Post in mid-September. Here is a quote from the press release: "GTG director, Professor Deon Venter, himself a former British Ironman Triathlon champion, attended the launch. Professor Venter commented, "Japan represents a significant market for the ACTN3 SportsGene Test(TM), with highly influential sporting and government bodies keen to explore the relationship between genetics and sporting performance. Japan is an extremely technologically-sophisticated country and is now taking a leadership position in the science of optimizing a person's sports potential according to their inherited genetic capabilities."
Frank Furedi just published a piece in The Spectator. The full article is on his website, but here's a quote: "Deference to the authority of the celebrity, makeover guru or healer is underwritten by the decline in the influence of conventional forms of authority. That is why the frequently asserted claim that we live in an age characterised by the ‘death of deference’ bears little relationship to reality. Yes, it has become fashionable to treat traditional forms of authority — monarchy, church, parliament — with derision. Criticism of traditional institutions has become so prevalent that it bears all the hallmarks of classical conformism. Scientists, doctors and other professionals have also experienced an erosion of authority. But the diminishing influence of conventional authority has been paralleled by the rise of a new ‘alternative’ one. We don’t trust politicians but we have faith in the pronouncements of celebrities."
The content reminds me of an earlier posting related to the film 'What the Bleep Do we Know?', though it does seem to follow this emerging thread on the public intellectual as celebrity.
Before this becomes incredibly out of date, I must mention the post-/trans- humanism session that took place at the conference on Ethics and Philosophy of Emerging Medical Technologies at Institut Borja de Bioetica, Universitat Ramon Llul, Barcelona, Spain in August 2005. The meeting was a joint annual meeting of the European Society for Philosophy of Medicine and Healthcare and the European Association of Centres for Medical Ethics. I gave a paper on Posthuman Medicine and Imagined Ethics, which discussed a number of the futuristic scenarios posed by trans/post humanists, asking what legitmacy they have in critical, current debates on medicine and health care. It was particularly interesting to hear the term posthumanism in a number of papers, including Prof. Ruth Chadwick's keynote address on the definition and meaning of enhancement.
I do not think that posthumanism and transhumanism are informed by the same literature, nor are they speaking with the same intentions. I argued as much in my paper.
Other papers in my session, which itself was titled 'Transhumanism and Posthumanity" were:
F. torralba (Spain) What does posthumanity mean?
G. Weikert (Germany) Transhumanism - Hothouse of Mankind [this presenter did not attend]
We had a very engaging debate after the presentations, though I think there remains considerable skepticism for this proposed future, from within the medical community. Many doctors see the transformation of the human species within these terms, which is far from what they see as their role. This presents considerable challenges for advocates of technological enhancement; they have a considerable number of medical professionals to contend with.
In November 2003, Stelarc came to Glasgow to showcase his new Prosthetic Head project at the New Territories festival. I spoke with him about this project and even had a play with the Head itself. Just recently, he published a paper in CTHEORY on the project, which raises a number of questions related to artificial intelligence and posthuman art. The project itself was developed using AI and Stelarc seems to be a valuable exemplar for collaborative work in this area.
Julie Clarke's essay on the project, also published in CTHEORY is also worth reading.
The last I heard, Stelarc's next project was to have an ear surgically attached to his forearm, but he was struggling to find a surgeon who would agree to the procedure.
In April this year, I published a brief commentary about the American Academy of Pediatrics statement on performance-enhancing drugs in sport. This commentary was extended and published in the Sept 10 issue of The Lancet. Full reference as follows: Miah, A. (2005, Sept 10). "Doping and the child: an ethical policy for the vulnerable." The Lancet 366: 874-876.
I just saw this press release for the UNESCO General Conference: 15-09-2005 12:00 pm UNESCO’s supreme decision-making body, the General Conference, which meets every two years, will hold its 33rd session from October 3 to 21 at the Organization’s Headquarters in Paris. The session coincides with UNESCO’s 60th Anniversary celebrations and a special ceremony will take place on October 5.
Over 2,000 participants will attend the General Conference including a large number of ministers and several heads of state and of government. (A detailed calendar will be made available shortly.)
Three international standard-setting texts figure on the agenda of the General Conference: a Preliminary Draft of a Convention on the Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Contents and Artistic Expressions; a Draft International Convention against Doping in Sport; a Draft Declaration on Universal norms on Bioethics.
The General Conference will examine and adopt the Programme and Budget for 2006-2007 and prepare the Draft Programme and Budget for 2008-2009. The Conference will also name a Director-General for the next four years and renew half the membership of the Executive Board.
Many other subjects will also be examined, including an assessment and future prospects for the Education for All programme, as well as a strategy for establishing a global tsunami warning system.
In conjunction with the work of the General Conference, a round table on Education for All, aimed at education ministers will be held on October 7-8. A second round table on basic science will be organized for science ministers on the afternoon of October 5. A Youth Forum will take place before the start of the General Conference from September 30 to October 2.
I wonder if there is any connection between the bioethics declaration and the doping in sport convention. I suspect not, but would like to be wrong!
Information about an event: Please join us Oct. 11 for the inaugural talk in our new Genetics Perspectives on Policy Seminars (GenePOPS) series, designed to explore and illuminate some of the critical issues at the intersection of human genetics and public policy. Hosted by the Genetics and Public Policy Center, a partnership between Johns Hopkins University and The Pew Charitable Trusts, GenePOPS will feature some of the nations leading scientists, medical practitioners, policymakers, patient advocates, and ethicists as they discuss issues as wide ranging as genetic privacy, reproductive genetics, gene doping in sports, and safety and efficacy of commercial genetic tests.
Our first program features a panel discussion of the science, ethics, and regulation of genetically enhanced athletic prowess. Are the scientific tools available today to use gene therapy or germline modification to boost athletic performance, and if so, should they be used? Would the procedure be detectable through existing tests?
What kinds of pressures would athletes feel to use gene doping if it were available? Would parents be likely to choose genetic athletic enhancement for their children?
Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2005 Kenney Auditorium, Johns Hopkins University 1740 Massachusetts Ave., N.W. 4:00 p.m., reception to follow
PANEL: Dr. Kathy Hudson, Director, Genetics & Public Policy Center (moderator) Ms. Melissa Dalio Mierke, Exercise Physiologist and USA Triathlon National Champion Dr. Tom Murray, Director, The Hastings Center (Chair, Ethical Issues Review Panel, World Anti-Doping Agency) Dr. Bengt Saltin, Director, Center for Muscle Research, Copenhagen University (Member, Scientific Board, World Anti-Doping Agency) Dr. H. Lee Sweeney, Chair and Professor of Physiology, Department of Physiology, University of Pennsylvania
Contact: Rick Borchelt (202.663.5978); rborche1@jhu.edu ) Audrey Huang (202.663.5979); ahuang18@jhu.edu
Please RSVP to Rick or Audrey at the contact information above.
Yesterday, I interviewed for The Kojo Nnamdi Show (Washington, USA) on the subject of gene doping. It was one of the more interesting, on-air debates I have had on this subject and we covered a lot of ground. Other guests included: Dr. Gary Wadler, Sports physician, clinical associate professor of medicine at New York University and expert on sports doping
Richard Pound, Chairman, World Anti-Doping Agency
Jose Canseco, Former all-star baseball player and author of the book “Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big”
Osagie Obasogie, Project Director on Race, Disability, and Eugenics, Center for Genetics and Society.
It was particularly nice to debate with Gary Wadler and Richard Pound whom I have not met in person. It appeared to me that the gene doping debate is a rich subject for society, in part for the reasons i have argued elsewhere. It does seem to provoke alarm bells which suggest that more is at stake than the usual concerns surrounding doping. Genetic science and technology does not have the same connotations for people as drug use.
This is quite useful from my perspective because it could yield a new kind of debate about doping and even transform the way in which anti-doping takes place.
The Celebrity Culture conference took place this week. We received around 100 delegates with over 80 presentations. The conference generated a minor media storm, which took over my time during the meeting. Janet Street Porter even took time out to offer a commentary. The conference website remains online.
Before I forget, I must mention something about the Barcelona meeting (Ethics and Philosophy of Emerging Medical Technologies, Institut Borja de Bioetica, Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona, Spain), since sport appeared in a good handful of papers including: Keynote paper on Therapy and Enhancement Professor Ruth Chadwick
Argued in favour of the term 'improvement' rather than enhancement, as a basis for characterising the ethical issues arising from emerging technologies.
Ethical norms for research on biomedical enhancement susing human subjects Professor Max Mehlman
Max has written considerably on genetic enhancement and regularly uses sport as a case study in his work. The military was also a theme and there are some great analogies between sport and the military.
Honorary session for Lennart Nordernfelt
Thomas Schramme developed a case to inquire into the concept of 'health' the focus of this session and a tribute to Nordenfelt who gave an introduction and reply. Schramme's case discussed Lily, an athlete who wanted to jump 2m. He argued that Nordernfelt's work would argue that her inability to jump this high would qualify as failing to meet a vital goal and that, therefore, we could characterise it as an illness that should be alleviated by medicine. In short, we would characterise her less than healthy.
Schramme rejected the idea that this inability should be characterised as an illness and rejected the idea that the realisation of all vital goals falls within the proper role of medcine. Nordenfelt agreed with Schramme's conclusion, but did not accept that Lily's interest to jump 2m could be described as a vital goal. Being the best is not a reasonable expectation, but being good is.
Athlete or Guinea Pig? Sports and Enhancement Research Nancy M.P. King and Richard Robeson
Argued that medicine for the athlete should be characterised as enhancement research, but currently it is not. This led to some interesting debates about whether sport technology should go through a more rigorous liability check and whether this should be connected to anti-doping policy. I argue for this in my 2005 piece in the European Journal of Sport Science, though their emphasis is on medical procedures. I wonder whether blood spinning might fall within this category.
Finally, there was my wee paper
Posthuman Medicine & Imagined Ethics Developed posthuman theory in relation to transhumanism and cyborgology and subsequently argued for the need to consider imagined ethical issues. Used the gene doping case as an example of an 'imagined ethical' debate.
This is the title of an article I recently published with Project Syndicate. Rather than repeat the entire article here, I will just paste links to its various translations: Is 'Gene Doping' Wrong? (English, by Andy Miah)
¿Es inaceptable el “dopaje genético”? (Spanish, Translated by Carlos Manzano)
Что плохого в «генетическом допинге»? (Russian, Translated by Николай Жданович)
Faut-il condamner le dopage génétique ? (French, Translated by Bérengère Viennot)
Ist „Gendoping“ verwerflich? (German, Translated by Anke Püttmann)
Je „genetický doping“ nesprávný? (Czech, Translated by Jiří Kobělka)
“基因兴奋剂”错了吗？ (Chinese, Translated by 许彬彬)
هل "تنشيط الجينات" خطأ؟ (Arabic, Translated by Ibrahim M. Ali
Volume 7 of Culture at the Olympics has just been published. The contents are proceedings from a symposium that took place at University of Glasgow in June 2005, in association with London 2012. Contents as follows:
| 7.1 | Exploring Internationalism: Scotland responds to London's Olympic Vision for Culture in 2012 pp1-8 |
| 7.2 | Welcome Presentation, pp.9-11 by Professor Adrienne Scullion |
| 7.3 | Special Address, pp.12-16 by Patricia Ferguson, Member of Scottish Parliament |
| 7.4 | Olympism and Internationalism, pp.17-23 by Jude Kelly, Chair Culture & Education, London 2012 |
| 7.5 | Culture at the Olympics: Intangible, invisible, but impacting, pp.24-34 by Beatriz Garcia & Andy Miah |
| [Also access the powerpoint presentation in pdf (8mb)] | |
| 7.6 | Discussion Session [transcript], pp.35-55 edited by Beatriz Garcia |
