Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity--A Review Article

Contemporary economics is currently undergoing a crisis as reflected by a decline in its influence on public policy discourse. The abject failure of academic economics to effectively address issues of the transitional economies or to produce a satisfactory explanation of the East Asian economic crisis has added to this negative image. This paper reviews Francis Fukuyama's recent book, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity to present an interdisciplinary perspective on many of the topics economists have come to claim as theirs only. According to Fukuyama, there are many issues in societal behavior that cannot be satisfactorily explained by the assumption of rational economic agents. He believes that social capital is a major contributing factor in building economic prosperity around the world.Economics

Integrating Public Deliberation into Engineering Systems: Participatory Technology Assessment of NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission

We discuss an experiment employing participatory technology assessment (pTA), a public deliberation method for eliciting lay citizen input prior to making decisions about science and technology, to inform upstream engineering decisions concerning technical aspects of NASA's Asteroid Initiative. In partnership with NASA, the Expert and Citizen Assessment of Science and Technology network conducted a pTA-based forum on NASA's Asteroid Initiative in late 2014. The goal of the exercise was to assess citizens' values and preferences about potential asteroid detection, asteroid mitigation, and exploration-based technologies associated with NASA's Initiative. This paper discusses the portion of the forum that focused on the Asteroid Redirect Mission, an effort to redirect an asteroid into lunar orbit that astronauts can study. The forum sought public input on two options for performing the mission that NASA included in technical assessments to make a down select decision: Option A (capturing a 10-meter-diameter asteroid) or Option B (redirecting a several-meter-diameter boulder from the surface of a larger asteroid). We describe the values and perceptions participants had about Option A and B, how these results were used by NASA managers, and the impact the results of the participatory technology assessment had on the down select

Researching the future: scenarios to explore the future of human genome editing

Abstract Background Forward-looking, democratically oriented governance is needed to ensure that human genome editing serves rather than undercuts public values. Scientific, policy, and ethics communities have recognized this necessity but have demonstrated limited understanding of how to fulfill it. The field of bioethics has long attempted to grapple with the unintended consequences of emerging technologies, but too often such foresight has lacked adequate scientific grounding, overemphasized regulation to the exclusion of examining underlying values, and failed to adequately engage the public. Methods This research investigates the application of scenario planning, a tool developed in the high-stakes, uncertainty-ridden world of corporate strategy, for the equally high-stakes and uncertain world of the governance of emerging technologies. The scenario planning methodology is non-predictive, looking instead at a spread of plausible futures which diverge in their implications for different communities’ needs, cares, and desires. Results In this article we share how the scenario development process can further understandings of the complex and dynamic systems which generate and shape new biomedical technologies and provide opportunities to re-examine and re-think questions of governance, ethics and values. We detail the results of a year-long scenario planning study that engaged experts from the biological sciences, bioethics, social sciences, law, policy, private industry, and civic organizations to articulate alternative futures of human genome editing. Conclusions Through sharing and critiquing our methodological approach and results of this study, we advance understandings of anticipatory methods deployed in bioethics, demonstrating how this approach provides unique insights and helps to derive better research questions and policy strategies

Additional file 1 of Researching the future: scenarios to explore the future of human genome editing

Supplementary Material

Governing with public engagement: an anticipatory approach to human genome editing.

In response to calls for public engagement on human genome editing (HGE), which intensified after the 2018 He Jiankui scandal that resulted in the implantation of genetically modified embryos, we detail an anticipatory approach to the governance of HGE. By soliciting multidisciplinary experts input on the drivers and uncertainties of HGE development, we developed a set of plausible future scenarios to ascertain publics values-specifically, their hopes and concerns regarding the novel technology and its applications. In turn, we gathered a subset of multidisciplinary experts to propose governance recommendations for HGE that incorporate identified publics values. These recommendations include: (1) continued participatory public engagement; (2) international harmonization and transparency of multiple governance levers such as professional and scientific societies, funders, and regulators; and (3) development of a formal whistleblower framework

Performance of EuroSCORE II in Predicting Early Mortality after Mitral, Aortic or Mitral & Aortic Valve Surgery Patients in National Heart Foundation Hospital and Research Institute

10.3329/bhj.v34i1.41903Bangladesh Heart Journal34111-2

Global citizen deliberation on genome editing

No abstract available