The recent discussions about alternative sources of human embryonic stem cells , while stirring new interest in the developmental potential of the various abnormal embryos or constructs proposed as such sources, also raise questions about the potential of the derived embryonic stem cells. The data on the developmental potential of embryonic stem cells that seem relevant for ethical considerations and aspects of patentability are discussed. Particular attention is paid to the meaning of “totipotency, omnipotency and pluripotency” as illustrated by a (...) comparison of the developmental potential of three-dimensional clusters of blastomeres , embryonic stem cells, somatic or stem cells or other somatic cells. This paper focuses on embryoid bodies and on direct cloning by tetraploid complementation. Usage and patenting of these cells cannot be considered to be ethically sound as long as totipotency and tetraploid complementability of embryonic stem cells are not excluded for the specific cell line in question. Testing this poses an ethical problem in itself and needs to be discussed in the future. (shrink)

Nad barjem je veter in moker je zrak, uši imam v tuniki, v nosu prehlad. Z neba štropotajo nalivi dežja, vojak sem na zidu, ne vem sploh, zakaj. Po sivem kaménju se plazi megla, dekle imam v Tungriji, jaz pa spim sam.

British accounts of medical ethics concentrate on confidentiality to the exclusion of wider questions of privacy. This paper argues for consideration of privacy within medical ethics, and illustrates through the television series `Hospital', what may go awry when this wider concept is forgotten.

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This paper considers the relationship between G. H. von Wright's solution to the paradoxes of confirmation and his "Principal Theorem of Confirmation". The former utilizes the order of our knowledge of the qualities of confirming instances of an hypothesis; the latter states the way in which an instance contributes to the probability of an hypothesis. It is shown that these two, as stated by von Wright, are logically incompatible. Then the most thorough possible emendation of the paradoxes solution is considered, (...) and it is shown that this still prohibits use of the "Principal Theorem" to confirm hypotheses stating necessary causal conditions, and to confirm by deliberate experiment hypotheses stating sufficient causal conditions. It is concluded that any solution of the paradoxes must rest solely upon the relation of the data to the hypothesis involved. (shrink)

A good edition of the Catalepton has long been wanted: and Birt's recently Published ‘Erklärung,’ despite some obvious defects, may fairly be regarded as good book. It is at any rate fresh, interesting, and stimulating. The text is the whole, though not always, sensible. The commentary is full without being too full. But, more valuable still, both commentary and introduction constantly bring home to one the probability that nearly all the poems in this collection are genuinely Vergilian— ‘Jugendverse und Heimatpoesie (...) Vergils.’ No editor before Birt has brought before us so clearly the environment out of which these poems came. (shrink)