Event Archive

January 19, 2023
Lunchtime Workshop Series: Karen Kovaka, "Democratic Values in Science: Which Value Judgments?"

February 2, 2023
Lunchtime Workshop Series: Zinhle Mncube, "Are Race-Inclusive Kidney Function Estimating Equations Adequate for Individualized Prediction?"

February 17, 2023
Data Analytic Working Group Brunchtime Meeting: Christopher Kelty, "Absurd Resistance: Practical Ethics and Political Governance of Animals in Los Angeles"

February 24, 2023
Data Analytic Working Group Lunchtime Meeting: Katie Shilton, "Excavating Awareness and Power for Trustworthy Data Science"

March 1, 2023
Institute for Practical Ethics special guest lecture ft. Gregory Kaebnick, "Synthetic Biology and the Reinvention of Nature"

April 6, 2023
Lunchtime Workshop Series: Sarah Hartley, "Expert Views on the Role of Engagement in Gene Drive Risk Assessment"

April 13, 2023
Lunchtime Workshop Series: Ahmad Elabbar, "Expertise, Moral Subversion and the Failure of Climate Regulation"

April 14, 2023
Data Analytic Working Group Lunchtime Meeting: Rob Reich, "The Interplay of Technology, Ethics, and Policy"

April 19, 2023
Chatting GPT
This program is offered by UC San Diego in partnership with San Diego Supercomputer Center, Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute, and Institute for Practical Ethics
View Program Details >>

May 4, 2023
Lunchtime Workshop Series: Anne Le Goff, "Exploring the Ethics of Future Reproductive Technologies: Public Perceptions of In Vitro Gametogenesis"

May 5-7, 2023
Workshop on Intervening in Nature (WIN) conference on Catalina Island

May 19, 2023
Data Analytic Working Group Lunchtime Meeting: Angèle Christin, "Beyond 'The Algorithm': Fields, Drama, and Extreme Content Among Vegan Influencers"

May 25, 2023
Lunchtime Workshop Series: Philip Brey, "Ethical Challenges of the Metaverse" 

May 5-7, 2023
Workshop on Intervening in Nature (WIN) conference on Catalina Island

Oct. 10, 2023
Workshop Series: Viktoria Cologna, "The role of trust in science for individual and collective action on climate change"

Nov. 16, 2023
Workshop Series: Derek Halm, "Epistemic and ethical concerns with hybridization and conservation"

Nov. 30, 2023
Workshop Series: Jon Rueda Etxebarria, "My Body, My Lab? The Ethics of Self-Experimentation with Do-It-Yourself Genetics"

Dec. 4, 2023
We are all Latourians Now symposium

November 8, 2022
The Role of Conscience in the Practice of Medicine and the Rule of Law conference

November 3, 2022
Lunchtime Workshop Series: Craig Callender, Practical Ethics co-director, “When Are Bans on Research (Funding) Okay?”

October 27, 2022
Lunchtime Workshop Series: Fernando Aguiar, Practical Ethics visiting scholar, “'In the Sweat of Thy Face Shalt Thou Eat Bread': Freedom, Responsibility, and the Moral Value of Effort”

October 19, 2022
2022 annual keynote featuring guest Naomi Oreskes, Harvard University, “Funding Matters”

October 14, 2022
Data Analytic Working Group: Janaki Srinivasan, “The Political Lives of Information: Information and the Production of Development in India”

September 29, 2022
Five-Year Celebration and Social

May 27, 2022
Kadija Ferryman, Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, author of "Fairness in Precision Medicine" and "Ethical Machine Learning in Health Care"
Organized by the Working Group on Data Analytic Governance and Accountability

May 13, 2022
Julie Cohen, Georgetown University School of Law, author of "Between Truth and Power" and "Configuring the Network Self"
Organized by the Working Group on Data Analytic Governance and Accountability

April 29, 2022
Davide Carpano and Bolun Zhang, UC San Diego Dept of Sociology, presenting on open-source software as a model for standards
Organized by the Working Group on Data Analytic Governance and Accountability

April 21, 2022
Special Guest Lecture by Dr. Benjamin Franta: "Fossil Fuel Funding on Campus: What to Do?"

April 15, 2022
Anna Lauren Hoffman, University of Washington School of Information, author of "Where Fairness Fails" and "Terms of Inclusion"

April 4, 2022
Frank Pasquale, Brooklyn Law School, author of "The Black Box Society" and "New Laws of Robotics
Organized by the Working Group on Data Analytic Governance and Accountability, a joint event with the Science Studies Program

March 31, 2022
Kyoto Prize laureate Bruno Latour presenting “Radically Re-examining ‘Modernity’ by Developing a Philosophy that Focuses on Interactions Between Technoscience and Social Structure”

“From Principles to Virtues – A New Approach to Ai Ethics”
Date: Nov. 8, 2021
Speaker: Thilo Hagendorff, University of Tübingen

Thilo Hagendorff defines four basic Ai virtues: justice, honesty, responsibility and care, all of which represent specific motivational settings that constitute the very precondition for ethical decision making in the Ai field.

“Global Regulation of Human Heritable Genome Editing: The Future or a Flop?”
Date: Nov. 4, 2021
Speaker: Bonginkosi Shozi, UC San Diego Institute for Practical Ethics

Changes to the human genome is not something that affects a single country, but potentially the human species as a whole, and so there have been calls for global regulation on both research and clinical applications of heritable genome editing. But is such a thing viable?

Machine Learning Political Orders, a Data Analytic Governance and Accountability working group meeting
Date: Oct. 13, 2021
Speaker: Louise Amoore, Duraham University

Genealogies of Data junior scholars workshop
Date: May 24, 2021

Fourteen junior scholars from eight international institutions presented their current research, with discussion led by leading scholars from Rice University, Tufts University, the AI Now Institute, Colgate University and Twitter Engineering. The five closed sessions were chaired by leading industry experts.

Science & Democracy Webinar Series: "Justifying Public Funding for Science"
Date: March 10, 2021
Speaker: Prof. Zeynep Pamuk, UC San Diego Department of Political Science

Algorithmic Imagination and the Ethics of Meaning, a Data Analytic Governance and Accountability working group meeting
Date: March 8, 2021
Speaker: Ed Finn, founding director of the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University

“Donor 9623 and the Strange Business of Making Babies”
Date: Feb. 3, 2021
Speaker: Dov Fox, Professor of Law and director of the Center for Health Law Policy and Bioethics, University of San Diego

Co-sponsored by the Biomedical Ethics Seminar Series

When scores of aspiring parents turned to the fertility industry to start families, they chose a remarkable young man to be the biological father of their children. He was a music prodigy and gifted athlete who had a genius IQ, movie-star looks and perfect health. Except it was all a lie. Dov Fox examines the case of “Donor 9623,” about the complex forces and competing agendas behind the biggest reproductive hoax of our time. Watch the full presentation >>

“The Limits of Democratizing Science: When Scientists Should Ignore the Public”
Date: Jan. 29, 2021
Speaker: S. Andrew Schroeder, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Claremont McKenna College

Global Ethics of Climate Change
Date: Jan. 19, 2021
Speakers: Veerabhadran Ramanathan, Wael Al-Delaimy and Laura Zwicker, moderated by Institute for Practical Ethics co-director Craig Callender

Working Group on Active Genetics Workshop
Date: Dec. 4, 2020
Topic: “Ethical Considerations for Gene Drives”
Spekaers: Athmeya Jayaram and Daniel Callies, postdoctoral scholars, Institute for Practical Ethics

Institute for Practical Ethics Keynote Speaker >>
Date: Dec. 3, 2020
Topic: "How Not to Destroy the World with AI"
Speaker: Stuart Russell, Smith-Zadeh Chair in Engineering, UC Berkeley

Working Group on Active Genetics Workshop
Date: Nov. 6, 2020
Topic: “Gene Drives, COVID-19, and Trust in Science: Preliminary findings from an interview study in Mexico”
Speaker: April Hovav, postdoctoral scholar, Institute for Practical Ethics

Event: Countertechnologies @ The Edgelands Conference
Date: Feb. 28 and Feb. 29, 2020
Location: Friday: East African Community and Cultural Center (San Diego) / Saturday: Cine Tonalá (Tijuana)

This conference aims to initiate new conversations, modes of organizing, and creative interventions that seek to undo violence of borders. Please see the conference website for more information about the speakers and schedule of events.

Event: Lunchtime Workshop Series
Title: Severe Weather Event Attribution: Why Values Won’t Go Away
Date: Feb. 28, 2020
Speaker: Prof. Eric Winsberg, University of South Florida

Event: Countertechnologies @ The Edgelands
Title: AI at the Edgelands
Date: Feb. 20, 2020
Location: Atkinson Hall Auditorium, UC San Diego
Speaker: Prof. Lucy Suchman, Department of Sociology, Lancaster University

Separated by one of the most militarized borders in the world, the cities of Tijuana and San Diego experience the rapid integration and recombination of new technologies of policing and surveillance with labor and migration control. How do AI and other emergent technologies reshape possibilities for life in the San Diego and Tijuana region? How do communities most affected by new technologies of militarism, police, and border enforcement invent counter-technologies that offer alternative ways of imagining geography, community, safety, and innovation?

Event: Lunchtime Workshop Series
Title: Genopolitics: Biotechnology Norms and the Liberal International Order
Date: Feb. 3, 2020
Guest speaker: Prof. Jonathan D. Moreno, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

Abstract: The emerging issues in biotechnology governance represent a useful stress test for the future of the norms inherent in the liberal international order (LIO).  Although not as explicit or well understood or enforced as weapons treaties, trade arrangements, or monetary institutions, the norms around biotechnology are very much a product of the post-World War II liberal consensus.  Today all eyes are on China and President Xi's assertion of the reemergence of the "middle kingdom," including its ambitions in biotechnology. As the smoke clears around the case of the edited embryos, China has committed itself to the international governance efforts now underway, including forthcoming recommendations by a World Health Organization Expert Advisory Committee. An underlying complication is the tension between a globalized scientific community of which China is very much a part and a governmental system that may have somewhat different goals. 

Event: Data Governance and Accountability Working Group
Title: Privacy and Ethics at a Large University
Date: Jan. 16, 2020
Guest speaker: Pegah Parsi, JD, MBA, Campus Privacy Officer, UC San Diego

Abstract: The Campus Privacy Office considers various ethical issues surrounding privacy practices on campus, such as student predictive analytics, surveillance, and data use in research. The 2013 Privacy and Information Security Initiative report to the UC president called on campuses to develop privacy balancing tests for reviewing initiatives and projects. However, the report is silent on underlying ethical frameworks to guide such a balancing process. In this meeting, the Campus Privacy Officer will lead a dialogue on how various ethical frameworks and values may shape privacy practices at a large university. Takeaways from the dialogue will guide future work of the UC San Diego privacy program.

This working group is supported through partnerships with the Division of Arts and Humanities, Halicioglu Data Science Institute, and the Program in Science Studies.

Event: Data Governance and Accountability Working Group
Title: What is Media Manipulation?
Date: Monday, December 2, 2019
Time: 12:15 to 1:45 pm
Location: The Village 15-A

Speaker: Dr. Joan Donovan, Harvard Kennedy School. 

Abstract: Journalists face a barrage of information and they must make choices about which stories to cover based on available source materials. Some stories, though, are just that, stories. Our research maps and tracks attempts by “media manipulators” to influence journalists and bait them into picking up false stories. During breaking news events, media manipulators act quickly to establish their narratives by creating and seeding content in order to trick journalists into covering specific highly politicized wedge issues. Manipulators often rely on the speed and ubiquity of social media, which has quickened the pace of news, to make wide scale distribution of polarizing hoaxes possible. Manipulation campaigns are planned and executed across multiple platforms online simultaneously in an effort to capture a wide audience of both everyday users and to ensnare journalists. Broadly, we refer to these tactics as “source hacking,” a versatile set of techniques for feeding false information to journalists, investigators, and the general public during breaking news events or across highly polarized wedge issues. In this paper, we examine four different methods of "source hacking" and show how media manipulators rely on the specific affordances of sociotechnical platforms to surface false information and consequently sway and/or set media agendas. While most journalists are trained to spot savvy public relations, promotional content, and to avoid publishing propaganda, in this networked media environment, hoaxes assume new forms and often mask themselves as social movements. In order for journalists to effectively spot and debunk these hoaxes, theory and methods for addressing source hacking must be developed and widely disseminated across journalism schools and newsrooms.

This working group is supported through partnerships with the Division of Arts & Humanities, Halicioglu Data Science Institute, and the Program in Science Studies.

Event: Lunchtime Workshop Series
Title: Revising, Correcting, and Transferring Genes
Date: Friday, November 22, 2019
Time: 11:30 am to 1:00 pm
Location: Philosophy Seminar Room, H&SS 7077

Speaker: Visiting Scholar Prof. Bryan Cwik, Portland State University.

Abstract: The distinction between ‘germline’ and ‘somatic’ gene editing (like the distinction between ‘therapy’ and ‘enhancement’) is held to be very consequential in the ethics of human gene editing.  Multiple conferences of scientists, ethicists, and policymakers, and multiple professional bodies, have called for moratoria on germline gene editing, and editing of human germline cells is considered to be an ethical ‘red line’ that either never should be crossed at all, or should only be crossed with great caution and care.  However, as translational research on germline gene editing has progressed, it has become clear that not all germline interventions are alike: the genes targeted, intended and unintended outcomes, and mechanisms of different germline interventions make a significant moral difference, when it comes to ethical questions about research, regulation, clinical application, and medical justification.  In this paper, I argue that, rather than lumping all germline interventions together, we should distinguish between revising, correcting, and transferring genes.  I argue for replacing the category of ‘germline intervention’ and the ‘germline’/’somatic’ distinction with this new tripartite taxonomy.  I assess the consequences of this move for the ethics of gene editing, especially with regards to justification and regulation of future clinical applications and human subjects research.

Event: Data Governance and Accountability Working Group
Title: Privacy and Property
Date: Thursday, November 7, 2019
Time: 3:00 to 4:30 pm
Location: SSB 107

Dr. Jacob Sparks, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Practical Ethics, will give a lecture on his current research.

There is a growing tendency to conceive of personal data as a kind of property and to view privacy issues in terms of the protection of a certain kind of property right. Call this way of thinking about privacy the ownership model. In regulatory contexts, the ownership model expresses itself in calls for companies to adopt clear language in their user agreements, to give users greater control over how their data is used, and, in general, to make the basic exchange at the heart of many technology companies – access to a platform in exchange for a user’s personal data – more transparent, open, and fair. Such recommendations are clearly worthwhile, but there are reasons to be suspicious of the ownership model. Treating personal data as property implies that it is alienable, and thus has the potential to create perverse economic incentives for individuals to relinquish their privacy.

We own many different kinds of things and the rights constitutive of ownership are highly varied. So, to decide if the ownership model is beneficial from a privacy perspective, we need to be clear about the exact bundle of rights involved in the ownership of personal data. For example, must these property rights include the right to transfer your data to others, as we assumed above?

This talk surveys and critically examines some extant proposals for how to assign property rights in personal data, and attempts to identify a bundle of rights that both protects what is valuable in privacy and is plausibly seen as a kind of ownership. Among the most challenging problems for an ownership model of privacy is the question of original ownership, the issue of information fertility, i.e. the fact any set of personal data can be used to infer new information about data subjects, and a mismatch between the level of contextual sensitivity of property rights and privacy rights.

This working group is supported through partnerships with the Division of Arts & Humanities, Halicioglu Data Science Institute, and the Program in Science Studies.

Event: Biomedical Ethics Seminar Series
Title: End of Life Liberty: Empowering Dying Patients with Choices
Date: Monday, November 4, 2019
Time: 4:30 to 6:30 pm
Location: UCSD, Medical Education and Telemedicine Building, Room 145

Guest speaker: Kathryn L. Tucker, JD, Executive Director of the End of Life Liberty Project and Adjunct Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law.

Abstract: Kathryn Tucker will provide an overview of the evolving changes in law and medicine governing patient autonomy at the end of life over the past 2 decades.  What has been learned? What changes ought be considered?  Can we move to normalize the practice of aid in dying within the practice of medicine? Do some states offer a model for practice governed by standard of care? Do psychedelic medicines offer a new palliative tool for patients with anxiety? What is the status of the research, and federal, state and local law governing psychedelic substances.

This event is co-sponsored by the Institute for Practical Ethics.

Event: Data Governance and Accountability Working Group
Title: Mapping Data Flows and Collaborative Processes (Interactive Workshop)
Date: Friday, October 25, 2019
Time: 10:00 to 11:30 am
Location: Atkinson Hall 5004

Guest speaker: Prof. Amelia Acker of the University of Texas at Austin.

Description: In this workshop, participants will explore the challenges and opportunities of studying data flows and collaborative action amongst small groups. While methods for investigating collaborative processes have concerned researchers for decades, developments in data-driven technologies and digital tools raise new challenges for studying processes, collaboration, and work. This workshop will bring together researchers to discuss methods for studying data flows and collaborative processes, providing an informal space for the improvement and extension of existing research projects. Participatory workflow analysis will be introduced, allowing participants to construct, evolve, and document workflows with data flow diagramming, mapping workflow patterns, and documenting collaborative processes. Participants are welcome to bring examples of data flows or collaboration with data-driven systems for us to map and analyze collectively.

This working group is supported through partnerships with the Division of Arts & Humanities, Halicioglu Data Science Institute, and the Program in Science Studies.

Event: Data Governance and Accountability Working Group
Title: Data Literacy, Constant Collection, and the Future of Access
Date: Thursday, October 24, 2019
Time: 3:00 to 4:30 pm
Location: SSB 107

Abstract: How does the constant collection of data influence people’s expectations of accessing the data they create? Libraries are intriguing sites to examine this question because a fundamental mission of libraries in the United States is to provide access to digital resources and information services to the public. In this talk I will discuss the impact that constant data collection has on access amongst different data cultures, unpacking how public institutions like libraries are confronting expanding data life cycles, data-driven infrastructures, and users’ data rights.

Based on two years of researching data literacy programs in a public library system serving teens and young adults, this talk describes values, competencies, and practices relating to data access amongst professional librarians and teens. My research is particularly concerned with characterizations of data fluency that rely on understandings of storage and transmission. While many scholars address this space from a privacy rights perspective, others have raised broader concerns about data literacy competencies related to acquiring technical skills such as programming, statistics, or research data management. As opposed to a skills gap approach, I will argue that unpacking and understanding data literacy and the future of access involves critically assessing what it means to constantly create data collected, transmitted, and then stored in for-profit platforms.

Bio: Prof. Amelia Acker (PhD, University of California, Los Angeles) is an assistant professor in the iSchool at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests focus on the emergence, standardization, and preservation of new forms of data created with mobile information and communication technologies. She has conducted ethnographic fieldwork with developers of mobile apps and software preservationists in the US, which is the subject of a forthcoming book on the future of archives. Currently, she is researching data literacy, social media metadata, and data infrastructures that support long-term cultural memory.

This working group is supported through partnerships with the Division of Arts & Humanities, Halicioglu Data Science Institute, and the Program in Science Studies.

Event: Data Governance and Accountability Working Group
Title: In search of a human-rights compatible internet: Lessons and questions from the Ranking Digital Rights project
Date: Thursday, October 10, 2019
Time: 3:00 to 4:30 pm
Location: SSB 107

Abstract: Since 2015 New America's Ranking Digital Rights project has produced four iterations of the RDR Corporate Accountability Index, which ranks some of the world's most powerful internet, mobile, and telecommunications companies on their disclosed policies and practices affecting users' freedom of expression and privacy. (See https://rankingdigitalrights.org/index2019) For the next iteration of the RDR Index, new indicators are being developed to evaluate company policies related to targeted advertising and the use of algorithms, automation, and machine learning. RDR Director Rebecca MacKinnon will give a preview of those new indicators, describe the research and consultation process used to develop them, and discuss their relationship to current policy debates about the power of digital platforms, online speech, democracy and human rights. In the ensuing discussion she hopes to learn about related research by UCSD students and faculty and explore potential areas of collaboration for the future.

This working group is supported through partnerships with the Division of Arts & Humanities, Halicioglu Data Science Institute, and the Program in Science Studies.

Event: Stem Cell Ethics: Human Brain Organoids Conference
Date: Friday, October 4, 2019
Location: Sanford Consortium

This conference was co-sponsored by the UCSD Stem Cell Program and the Institute for Practical Ethics.

Event: Data Governance and Accountability Working Group
Title: Interactive Workshop
Date: Friday, October 4, 2019
Location: Atkinson Hall 5004

This workshop was led by Prof. Anna Lauren Hoffmann of the University of Washington.

Event: Data Governance and Accountability Working Group
Title: Beyond Fairness: Justice, Discourse, and Violence in a Datafied World
Date: Friday, October 4, 2019
Location: SSB 107

Prof. Anna Lauren Hoffmann of the University of Washington delivered this lecture.

Event: Plenary Address of the Ethics and Social Implications of Gene Drive Conference
Title: The Ethics of Using Gene Drives in Conservation
Date: Thursday, May 9, 2019
Location: Roth Auditorium at Sanford Consortium

Professor Ronald Sandler of Northeastern University will deliver the plenary address.

Event: Ethics and Social Implications of Gene Drive Conference
Date: Friday, May 10, 2019
Location: Divisible Conference Room at Sanford Consortium

Schedule

8:30 – 9:00 am: Light Breakfast

9:00 – 9:15 am: Welcome: John Evans and Craig Callender, Co-Directors

9:15 – 11:45 am: Panel 1

• 9:15 – 9:45 am: Daniel Callies, Bednets or Biotechnology: Prioritizing Current or Future Persons?
• 9:45 –10:15 am: Paul B. Thompson, Social Amplification of Gene Drive Risks: Bioethics Beyond Informed Consent
• 10:15 – 10:45 am: Cinnamon Bloss, Genetic Engineering in the Golden State: California Residents’ Diverse Perspectives on Gene Drives for Vector Control
• 10:45 – 11:15 am: Claudia Emerson, The Ethics of Using Gene Drive for Malaria Elimination: The Philosophical and The Practical
• 11:15 – 11:45 am: Panel 1 Discussion

11:45 am – 1:00 pm: Lunch

1:00 – 3:00 pm: Panel 2

• 1:00 – 1:30 pm: Jennifer Kuzma, Integrating Science and Values in Risk Governance and Regulatory Review of Gene Drives 
• 1:30 – 2:00 pm: Christopher Preston, What’s New, What’s Old, and What’s Resonating in the Nascent Ethics of Gene Drives Discussion
• 2:00 – 2:30 pm: Ramya Rajagopalan, Ecologies of Susceptibility:  Gene Drives, Values, and Ethical Orientations
• 2:30 – 3:00 pm: Panel 2 Discussion

3:00 – 3:15 pm: Coffee Break

3:15 – 5:15 pm: Panel 3

• 3:15 – 3:45 pm: Yasha Rohwer, Gene drives, Species, and Compassion for Individuals in Conservation Biology
• 3:45 – 4:15 pm: Amy Zhou, Perceptions of Risk Among Gene Drive Stakeholders: Scientists, Conservationists, and Global Health Professionals
• 4:15 – 4:45 pm: Samuel Weiss Evans, Science Governance through Anomaly-Handling: The Case of Gene Drives 
• 4:45 – 5:15 pm: Panel 3 Discussion

5:15 – 5:30 pm: Wrap-up, Discussion, and Concluding Remarks: Craig Callender, Co-Director

Talk: “The Future of Nature: Conservation in the Anthropocene”
Date: April 24, 2019

The institute’s second yearly keynote address featured Emma Marris, an environmental journalist and author. Emma Marris is a reporter who explores conservation, ecology, energy, agriculture, food, language, books, and film. Her stories have appeared in National Geographic, Slate, The New York Times, and, above all, Nature, where she worked as a staffer for several years. In 2011, she published her first book, “Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World.”

Talk: Gene-drive before CRISPR -- the Evolutionary ABCs
Date: March 6, 2019
Location: HSS Building, Room 3027, UC San Diego

Prof. Elliott Sober is Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor in the Philosophy Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prof. Sober is also Visiting Tata Chancellor’s Professor of Philosophy at UC San Diego.

Abstract: CRISPR is a very new technology, but the evolutionary processes it induces have existed in nature for a very long time. My goal today is to explain the basic principles that allow one to understand those processes.

This event is sponsored by Department of Philosophy and the Gene Drive Working Group of the Institute for Practical Ethics.

Workshop: Evidence and the Scientific Method: Rigor vs. Use
Date: March 4, 2019
Location: HSS Building, Room 7077, UC San Diego

There is frequently a trade-off between the conclusions that can be established by rigorous research methods and the conclusions that we need for immediate use in policy and planning.

Talk: Inference Patterns in Clinical Reasoning (Brown Bag Lunch)
Date: February 25, 2019
Location: HSS Building, Room 7077, UC San Diego

Atocha Aliseda, Professor at the Institute for Philosophical Research, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, will deliver this guest talk.

Lecture: Deregulation by Code
Date: Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Location: CSE 1202

Speaker: Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, The Centre for Internet and Society, Delhi and Bangalore

At an event organised by a leading organisation supporting and investing in Indian digital start-ups in 2015, Nandan Nilekani offered this provocation: "are we at a WhatsApp Moment in finance?"

This talk is co-sponsored by the Institute for Practical Ethics, South Asia Initiative, Halicioglu Data Science Institute, Science Studies, Department of Communication, and Design@Large.

Seminar: Should Physicians Ever Challenge Patients’ Values? (Biomedical Ethics Series) 
Date: February 20, 2019
Location: Biomedical Research Facility II, Room 2A03

Dan Brudney, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago and Associate Faculty, MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics.

Workshop: Ethics and Policy Implications of Algorithms and Big Data  
Date: Friday, February 15 and Saturday, February 16, 2019
Location: The Forum at the Price Center (Friday) / The Village 15th Floor, Rooms 15A & 15B (Saturday)

In conjunction with the HDSI and Division of Social Sciences, the IPE is co-sponsoring Ethics and Policy Implications of Algorithms and Big Data. This workshop will address the rise of Big Data; the combination of the production and retrieval of large amounts of digital information with powerful algorithms on a hardware platform of ever-increasing capacity. It will gather social and computer scientists, activists, and practitioners interested in the ethics and policy implications of this technological revolution. We will survey the achievements, promises and technical challenges of Big Data, its effects on social inequalities and democracy, the cultural shift it is generating in the way we value knowledge, create art and conduct science, and the ways we may control it and influence its progress.

Please see the event website for more information.

Seminar: Patient Autonomy Since the National Research Act (Biomedical Ethics Series) 
Date: Wednesday, January 16, 2019
Time: 4:30 - 6:30 p.m.
Location: Biomedical Research Facility II, Room 2A03

Cathy Gere, Professor of History, UC San Diego, will explore some of the transformations in the idea of patient autonomy between the passing of the National Research Act in 1974 and the present. Undoing some of the standard narratives of bioethics, the talk will examine the whitewash of American human experimentation in the Belmont Report, the connection between AIDS activism and the deregulation of the pharmaceutical industry, the rise of direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicine, and some of the models of human decision-making coming out of neuroeconomics and behavioral economics. 

This event is co-sponsored by the Institute for Practical Ethics.

Symposium: Where Do Religion and Biomedical Research Ethics Meet? An Islamic Perspective
Date: Thursday, November 29, 2018
Time: 3:00 - 6:00 p.m. (Middle Eastern food will be served)
Location: MET Building, Room 145, UC San Diego School of Medicine

In the rapid advancements of biomedical science and technology, ethical principles are required to guide researchers and determine the impact on society and their health. Major religions and their moral values and processes can overlap with research ethical principles and guide, advance or prevent such technologies and their acceptance by large populations globally. The symposium will provide some insight about ethically challenging biomedical advances with a focus on the religion of Islam and its followers. We have an exciting line up of three UC San Diego faculty and three visiting faculty from Jordan University of Science and Technology.

This event is co-sponsored by the IPE's Faculty Seed Grant program.

Lecture: May We Make the World?: Religious and Ethical Questions - Gene Drives, Malaria and the Duties of History (Burke Lecture Series, History, UC San Diego)
Date: Thursday, November 15, 2018
Location: Great Hall, International House, UC San Diego

Laurie Zoloth, Ph.D., is Senior Advisor of the Provost, Programs in Social Ethics at the University of Chicago. A leader in the field of bioethics and Jewish studies, Laurie Zoloth’s research explores religion and ethics, drawing from Biblical and Talmudic texts to postmodern Jewish philosophy, including the writings of Emmanuel Levinas.  She studies the ethics of genetic engineering, stem cell research, synthetic biology, social justice in health care, and the pedagogy of science and medicine. She also studies the practices of inter-religious dialogue and the role of religion public discussion and policy.

This event is co-sponsored by the Institute for Practical Ethics.

Seminar: Brain Death Uncertainty: Growing Challenges to Its Legal Status (Biomedical Ethics Series)
Date: November 19, 2018
Location: Medical Education and Telemedicine Building (MET), Room 145

The determination of death by neurological criteria, commonly known as "brain death," has been legally settled for nearly 40 years in the United States. However, that consensus has become increasingly unraveled. This talk reviews three new types of court challenges to the legal status of brain death in the United States.

1. The law in every state declares that if an individual has sustained "irreversible" cessation of "all" functions of the "entire" brain, they are dead, but the diagnostic tests that clinicians use are not designed to, and cannot, evaluate or ascertain this information.
2. A requirement that clinicians obtain surrogate consent to administer the apnea test, a key component of brain death assessment. Families that have successfully objected to the apnea test have been able to prevent clinicians from declaring the patient dead.
3. The contention that clinicians must indefinitely accommodate religious objections to brain death.

This event is co-sponsored by the Institute for Practical Ethics.

Seminar: Illness, Challenges to the Self, and the Power of Empathic Curiosity (Biomedical Ethics Series)
Date: Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Time: 4:30 - 6:30 p.m.
Location: Medical Education and Telemedicine Building, Room 145

For clinicians to address the challenges to the self that their patients face in the wake of health losses, they need to recognize the emotional and social disruptions that illness can trigger. Physicians and other healthcare providers also need to recognize the role of their own emotional reactivity in prognosticating future quality of life when patients are in crises. More than contextual knowledge, this requires reflective awareness of how their own humanness and that of the patient co-construct implicit assumptions about the patient's future possibilities. The skill necessary for this is empathic curiosity, which is distinct from compassion and other positive attitudes in its aim of discovery--of knowing more about what in particular this individual patient is going through. Empathic curiosity can also be self-directed, and this is a crucial therapeutic tool not only for physicians but for patients to use in their own long-term healing.

Jodi Halpern, M.D., Ph.D. is Professor of Bioethics and Medical Humanities at UC Berkeley and co-founder of the Berkeley Group for the Ethics and Regulation of Innovative Technologies. Her work brings together psychiatry, philosophy, affective forecasting and decision neuroscience. Her first book, From Detached Concern to Empathy: Humanizing Medical Practice was called a “seminal work” by JAMA. Her upcoming book Remaking the Self in the Wake of Illness critically analyzes narratives of resiliency. Halpern’s current scholarship elucidates how innovative technologies, including AI, VR and genetic engineering, change relationships in unexpected ways. Halpern also leads a research program examining the emotional beliefs that motivate people to participate in novel gene modification clinical trials and is extending this work to neuro-technology. Halpern is invited to present her work internationally, including at the 2018 meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. See jodihalpern.com

This event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP on Eventbrite. 

This event is co-sponsored by the Institute for Practical Ethics.

Lecture: Ethical Boundaries of Research with Human Embryos
Date: Wednesday, October 3, 2018
Time: 5:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Location: Fleet Science Center, Community Forum

Since stem cells were first cultured from human embryos in 1998, the ethical considerations surrounding this technology have been widely debated, leading to establishment of specific limits on how this research is conducted and funded. Join us for this program to learn more about these scientific advances, to discuss the implications of these discoveries for improving human health, and to consider how ethical norms can best be integrated into research and practice.

Speakers: Dr. Mana Parast, M.D., Ph.D.; Dr. Louise Laurent, M.D., Ph.D.; and Prof. John H. Evans, Co-Director of the Institute for Practical Ethics.

Co-sponsored by the Institute for Practical Ethics and the Division of Arts and Humanities.

This event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP on Eventbrite.

Lecture: The Human Contexts of Computation and Data: Infrastructures, Institutions, and Interpretations
Date: Wednesday, May 9, 2018
Time: 4:00 pm
Location: CSE Building, Room 1202

Please RSVP on Eventbrite.

Dr. Stuart Geiger is a staff ethnographer and postdoctoral scholar at the UC-Berkeley Institute for Data Science. He studies the infrastructures and institutions that support the production of knowledge, focusing on how advances in computation and data are changing how we know what we know. He completed his Ph.D at UC-Berkeley in the School of Information and the Berkeley Center for New Media, and his work has been published in venues including CSCW, CHI, ICWSM, American Behavioral Scientist, Information, Communication & Society, and Big Data & Society. He is a methodological and disciplinary pluralist, integrating approaches from across the humanities, the interpretivist and quantitative social sciences, and computer, information, and data science. Stuart is also a founding member of UC-Berkeley’s cross-departmental working groups on Data Science Studies, Algorithms in Culture, and Algorithmic Fairness & Opacity.

Abstract: 

The statistical techniques and computational infrastructures of artificial intelligence and data science are increasingly built into products, platforms, organizations, and institutions of all kinds. Yet the collection, curation, and analysis of data has always been as social as it is technical. Even in the most automated, “data-driven” systems, there is always human labor in designing, developing, deploying, documenting, debating, maintaining, managing, manipulating, training, triaging, translating, using, and not using such systems. In focusing on the human contexts of computation and data across the pipeline, we gain key insights into various issues across fields, as well as new possibilities for collaboratively producing knowledge. I will discuss several cases from my ethnographic research empirically studying institutions and infrastructures that support the production and distribution of knowledge. These include: how Wikipedians automate quality control while seeking to keep humans in the loop and uphold their principles of openness and decentralization; how targets of coordinated harassment campaigns on Twitter developed tools to help moderate their own experiences; the academic career paths of those who practice and support data science; the sustainability of open source communities that develop and maintain key software tools; and the interpretation of findings made from large-scale analyses of social data.

This event is co-sponsored by Design@Large and the Institute for Practical Ethics.

Seminar: Using Theatre to Foster Ethics and Science Conversations (Biomedical Ethics Series)
Date: Wednesday, May 16, 2018
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.
Location: Medical Teaching Facility, Room 175

UCSD School of Medicine

CME credit available

Light refreshments

Abstract

It is widely understood that one of the most important determinants of ethical behavior is an organization's culture, and that culture is not defined simply by an ethical code, online training, or even a single classroom course. One potentially valuable tool to induce the necessary reflection, conversation, and empathy is the staging of live theatre. Staged readings of academic dramas are an economical, engaging, and useful approach to foster a culture of ethics in science. Join us for this discussion of goals, recent staged readings, and possible implications for UC San Diego.

Speaker Bios

Emily Roxworthy, Department of Theatre and Dance, UCSD

http://theatre.ucsd.edu/people/faculty/phd/EmilyRoxworthy/index.htm 

Michael Kalichman, Director, Research Ethics Program/Dept. of Pathology, UCSD

https://ethics.ucsd.edu/about/staff/kalichman.html

Open to the UCSD community and interested others.

Visitor parking information:  http://blink.ucsd.edu/facilities/transportation/visitor/index.html

Workshop and Lecture:  Prof. Virginia Eubanks, Political Science, SUNY Albany

Dr. Eubanks will lecture on Wednesday at 4pm in CSE1202. Thursday at 4pm, she will lead a workshop discussion on how researchers engage in public debates on inequality. She has generously made herself available for one-on-one meetings during her visit as well. Please share with relevant networks.

Her visit is co-sponsored by the Design Lab and the Institute for Practical Ethics.

Wednesday, May 2: Lecture - Automating Inequality (4:00 pm in CSE 1202)

Today, automated systems control which neighborhoods get policed, which families attain needed resources, and who is investigated for fraud. While we all live under this new regime of data analytics, the most invasive and punitive systems are aimed at the poor.

Thursday, May 3: Workshop: Methods and Message (4:00 pm in MCC 250)

How do we make our choices around methods, storytelling, and political engagement matter when we intervene in public debates on issues of inequality? Stories about science and technology are particularly challenging as they often implicitly reproduce dominant narratives of inequality. Join Virginia Eubanks, author of Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police and Punish the Poor for a conversation about academic research, long-form journalism, and how we chose to frame our messages. We welcome participation of people in any stage of writing, reporting, community, or academic work. 

		The Institute for Practical Ethics celebrates its official launch at the University of California, San Diego with an exciting lecture by Dr. Beth Shapiro, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Dr. Shapiro will deliver a talk entitled, "Can We, Should We, and Will We Bring Back Mammoths?" Dr. Shapiro's work focuses on using ancient DNA to infer evolutionary history and processes. Dr. Shapiro is the MacArthur Award-winning author of How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-Extinction, which considers the feasibility and desirability of bringing back passenger pigeons, steppe bison, mammoth and other currently extinct species. Dr. Shapiro's lecture will be followed by a reception.
Date:		Thursday, April 19, 2018
Time:		5:00 pm to 7:00 pm
Location:		Atkinson Pavilion, The Faculty Club @ UC San Diego

Staged Reading: PURELY ACADEMIC, a play about science and ethics 
Date #1: Thursday, April 12, 2018
Time: 5:00 - 7:00 pm (refreshments at 4:30 pm)
Location: Room 107, Leichtag Biomedical Research Building

Date #2: Friday, April 13, 2018
Time: 4:00 - 6:00 pm (refreshments at 3:30 pm)
Location: Garren Auditorium, Biomedical Science Building

The Research Ethics Program is hosting staged readings of PURELY ACADEMIC, a play about science and ethics by Dr. David Abramson, a professor of computer science at the University of Queensland in Australia.

Plot: Charles Mittleman (played by David Price) sets out to pursue a successful academic career. He knows exactly where he wants to be, and he aims to get there as quickly as possible. He gets a PhD and rises rapidly through the academic ranks, trampling anyone and anything that stands in his way—including his well‐intentioned mentor, Professor Holywell (Deanna Driscoll). Invincible, he reaches the pinnacle of his career and a bright future awaits, only for his past to return and challenge him.

This event is co-sponsored by the Institute for Practical Ethics through the Faculty Seed Grant Program.

Symposium: 4th Annual Public Health Research Day Symposium and Poster Session 
Date: Wednesday, April 4, 2018
Time: 1:30 to 5:00 pm
Location: Medical Education and Telemedicine Building (MET), UCSD School of Medicine Campus

Please RSVP here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PubHealthResDay

Symposium Presenters:

Ellen Wright Clayton, MD, JD (Rosalind E. Franklin Professor of Genetics and Craig-Weaver Professor of Pediatrics, Vanderbilt University), who will speak on the topic of "Putting Genomics in Context to Promote Health" and Douglas Zeidonis, MD, MPH (UC San Diego Associate Vice Chancellor of Health Sciences), who will address "The Future of Public Health at UC San Diego."

More than 100 posters showcasing public health research accomplishments and activities of the UC San Diego Public Health community.

For more information, please see here: http://publichealth.ucsd.edu/events.html#phrd4

For questions, please contact: Vsaddler@ucsd.edu

Lecture: Genetic Manipulation in the Age of Biocapitalism: Commerce, Consumers, and CRISPR/Cas-9
Date: Monday, March 26, 2018
Time: 2:00 to 3:00 pm
Location: Marilyn Farquhar Conference Room, Center for Neural Circuits and Behavior (CNCB)

Daniel Kevles will discuss historical and public policy issues related to modern genetics, especially the potential for applications of genome editing to emerging pressures toward a new eugenics movement in the U.S. and elsewhere. Prof. Kevles is a historian and ex-faculty chair at Cal Tech, emeritus professor of history and Law at Yale, and since his retirement, he is visiting professor at Columbia and NYU. He is best known for his 1985 book In the Name of Eugenics as well as for the 1998 The Baltimore Case.

Co-sponsored by the Tata Institute for Genetics and Society (TIGS), the Institute for Practical Ethics, and the Center for Genetic Therapies.

Please contact Kate O'Shaughnessy (koshaughnessy@ucsd.edu) for any questions about this event.

Seminar:  Art and Medicine (Biomedical Ethics Series)

Date: Wednesday, February 21, 2018
Time: 4:30 - 6:30 p.m.
Location: Biomedical Research Facility 2, Room 2A03

Ted Meyer, LA artist, will discuss art and medicine. RSVP REQUIRED: Email ethics@ucsd.edu  

Lecture:  Sociogenomics: An Emerging Ethos
Date: Thursday, January 25, 2018
Time: 12:30 – 1:50 p.m.
Location: Social Science Building (SSB) 101

Catherine Bliss, Assistant Professor of Sociology at University of California, San Francisco, and author of the forthcoming book, Social by Nature: The Promise and Peril of Sociogenomics (Stanford University Press 2018). Co-sponsored by the Department of Sociology and the Institute for Practical Ethics.

Seminar: Putting ‘Race’ on the Table: Voicing and Silencing Race and Ethnicity in News Coverage of Health and Medicine (Biomedical Ethics Series)
Date: Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Time: 4:30 - 6:30 p.m.
Location: Biomedical Research Facility 2, Room 1102

Dan Hallin, Professor, Dept. of Communication, UC San Diego.

Lecture: The Roads To and From the Paris Climate Agreement (Ethics in the Public Sphere Series)
Date: Friday, December 1, 2017
Time: 5:00 - 8:00 p.m. (Talk and Q&A, reception to follow)
Location: Faculty Club

Click here to read Prof. Light's lecture notes!

Andrew Light, University Professor of Philosophy, Public Policy, and Atmospheric Sciences, and Director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at George Mason University. He is also a Distinguished Senior Fellow in the Climate Program at the World Resources Institute in Washington, D.C. Organized by the Department of Philosophy. Co-sponsored by the Institute for Practical Ethics.

In December 2015, over 190 countries met in Paris for the 21st meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change where they succeeded in creating a new international climate agreement. Many have heralded the outcome as a groundbreaking achievement for international diplomacy and global climate action. Others have argued that the climate commitments that parties brought to the table in Paris are ultimately too weak to achieve the agreements’ lofty aspirations.  Whichever is true, the agreement is now undergoing an early and serious stress test with the announcement of the intended withdraw of the United States from the agreement. To better understand the significance of the Paris Agreement, and why it is worth fighting for its preservation, we will review the recent history of the UN climate negotiations, and how this outcome evolved from earlier failed attempts in this process, finally overcoming the immense hurdle of assigning responsibility for hitting global mitigation targets. From there we will look at what the future holds for global climate cooperation, including new opportunities for enhanced climate action.

Free and open to the public; no RSVP required.

Seminar: Race and Medicine (Biomedical Ethics Series)
Date: Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Time: 4:30 - 6:30 p.m.
Location: Medical Teaching Facility (MTF), Room 175

Michael O. Hardimon, PhD, Professor of Philosophy, will discuss race and medicine.

Seminar: Euthanasia (Biomedical Ethics Series)
Date: Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Time: 4:30 - 6:30 p.m.
Location: Medical Teaching Facility (MTF), Room 175

Faye Girsh, PhD, Former President of the Hemlock Society, will discuss euthanasia.

Workshop: Skepticism and Open-mindedness in Science
Date: Friday, October 6, 2017
Time: 10:00 am to 5:00 pm
Location: The Village 15A 

Confirmed speakers include Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University, David Brin, science fiction author, Jamy Ian Swiss, magician and skeptic, Ken Wharton, physicist, Asheley Landrum, psychologist, and others.

Organized by Craig Callender and V. S. Ramachandran. Co-sponsored by the Institute for Practical Ethics and the Science Studies Program.

For more information, please see the event website here.