This next in my series on Brain donation is of necessity going to seem partisan as the principal objection to this particular programme cannot help but be critical of the organization that is sponsoring it since the objection in part has to do with the climate of public opinion surrounding autism that has been created by organizations such as autism speaks. I cannot deal with the middle of my three strands of objection - "The ethical implications for the target population in terms of the repercussions in that community" without considering that climate.

To recap the history of autism briefly:

This time I am going to have to declare an interest before starting. Autism Speaks is not an organisation I particularly favour, for the most part because of the nature of their publicity and advertising, which is not what I am dealing about here.

I have to acknowledge that Autism speaks do have a lot of money and influence which is why it is impossible to talk about the ethics of autism research without touching upon them somewhere.

There is bad science and then there is bad science, that is to say there is science which does not meet with the standards of care and objectivity through lack of skill, and competence and then there is science which is rotten to the core, because either it’s practice, or it’s ends are unethical.

Which of the two is most predominant I could not say, it would require me to make up a best guess statistic, which might be bad in both senses.   However whilst the former is unethical if there is no intent to take on board the critics and corners continue to be cut, I do not regard it in anything like the same light as science which is downright unethical by any measure.

Welcome to my new blog, which stands somewhere between the hurly burly of my personal blog and the quiet backwater of my academic blog.

Why this blog?

I currently have a book in preparation, on this topic, which is proceeding alongside my research, and I want this blog to become a public reflection of that, helping me to focus my ideas, and also for me to share my avenues of thinking.

It has concerned me for sometime, that knowledge for knowledge sake is not always a good thing if it is pursued without regard either to the consequences of the research for public policy, or the consequences of the research to the ‘stakeholder’ group either as recipients of that public policy or as the actual ‘subjects’ of the research itself.