Michael Cook's Profile

The most recent review of 174 condom related prevention approaches, however, concluded that sexual risk reduction interventions do not increase unsafe sexual behaviour.⁹ I

Smoak ND, Scott-Sheldon LA, Johnson BT, Carey MP. Sexual risk reduction interventions do not inadvertently increase the overall frequency of sexual behavior: a meta-analysis of 174 studies with 116,735 participants. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr 2006;41:374-84

in their vituperation

asked

“long term concurrent” sexual relationships in which one individual might have more than one long-term partner at one time, with those partners overlapping for months or years.  Concurrency links people together in a giant web of ongoing sexual relationships that creates ideal conditions for the spread of HIV; if one person in the network contracts HIV, everyone else is put at risk.

In The Invisible Cure, I try to show that it is possible to do this in ways that are morally neutral and respectful of people’s cultures. I advocate using the language of science to show how networks of concurrent sexual partnerships promote the spread of HIV, and why serial monogamy is safer, even if the serial monogamists are having more partners. Then it becomes obvious that condoms alone won’t stop the virus, because so much transmission is taking place in longer term relationships in which condoms are seldom used.  Therefore, a collective shift in sexual norms, especially partner reduction, is crucial. This information is coming far too late for a lot of people though.

LEHRER: Do you think the current economic downturn is attributable, in some way, to our failure to cultivate the right kind of minds?

 

GARDNER: Without question, the answer is yes. What came to govern decisions everywhere, including my own university was a reckless disregard for experience, due diligence, caution and contemplating the down side of decisions. If anything, “deciders” were selected and rewarded on the basis of whether they could cut corners and whether they could make it appear as if they were gaining ever greater profits.

 

I don’t want to claim that we were seers. But my colleagues and I began our GoodWork Project in 1994-’95, when we were skeptical of the claim that 'markets are self-adjusting and always lead to the best outcomes." In order for markets to work, one needs wise policies, wise policymakers, tough regulation and, above all, individuals who behave in an ethical way and demand ethical behavior from others.

 

Now 15 years later, people are approaching us from many sectors saying, "How do we secure good work? How can the young people, the future leaders of America, become good workers and citizens?" We certainly don’t have all the answers, but I'd like to think that we can prevent more damage and help orient individuals toward responsible behaviors—actions that in the long run serve the general welfare, and not primarily the pockets of the so-called “masters of the universe.”

To be sure, science is a social enterprise, conducted in the service of the metaorganism—We the People—that is funding the work, and it bears a profound responsibility to respect its roots. But to distort the process of inquiry through the imposition of political or religious filters amounts to a narrowing of vision, a corruption of imagination, and a threat to our freedom as beings endowed with intellect.

only free and rigorous inquiry, and not authoritarian dicta, can provide the reliable information required for our physical survival. Open inquiry is also the best ticket to developing the tools that will allow us to fulfill our moral obligations to others in need, and to the planet itself. Perhaps most important, progress in science is essential for a continued sense of our national purpose as participants in a historic experiment in freedom and self-governance, as one people joined by a common future rather than a common past, a future we cherish not only for ourselves but for the sake of the generations ofAmericans to come.

Prosperity and the country's almost unlimited abundance were dominating forces in the growth of America. Niebuhr foresees the danger of an excessive national pursuit of gratification. In 1952, a powerful agent of mass gratification, television, was rapidly invading American homes. "Television," he writes, "may represent a threat to our culture analogous to the threat of atomic weapons to our civilization."

to me

sial, is th

uestra tarea consiste en conseguir que el pan sea suficientemente abundante
en la mesa de la humanidad y no en fomentar el control artificial de nacimientos
- que sería irracional - , a fin de disminuir el número de comensales en el
banquete de la vida»(32).

e 1987, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, e