An invitation to dialogue between "people of good will" in the belief that the complexity of the problems of life ban the opposition between a secular camp, nestled in the defense of science, and religious matters of abstract principles in safeguarding closed dramatically inadequate. Science collides increasingly with positions that are opposed to his conquests in the name of religion or ethics. Most of the time this opposition is resolved in a double-dogmatism. On one hand, the inflexibility of those, especially in the Catholic hierarchy today, believes it has access to a transcendent truth or otherwise superior to empirical knowledge. The other is opposed to the rigidity of those who, from within the scientific world, tend to present their knowledge as certainties, thereby ignoring or pretending to ignore the limits. The failure of these two weaknesses dogma disguised as seen in the debate, almost daily, on topics such as climate change, stem cells, the artificial prolongation of life and perhaps unwanted and death. Most of us have the feeling of being "acted out" in these discussions, without ever really understanding what the facts are and what would be the right decisions.
The book does not pretend to give answers, but says some simple assumptions that allow you to share a method of participatory deliberation on issues relevant to society. The first is that science is not a recipe to find the "right" answers to ethical dilemmas and political contemporary society. The second is that the knowledge produced by science are still the best we have to light (not dictate) the choices and above all to discard the options are no longer sustainable.
Satolli Roberto, a doctor, hospital left the profession to devote himself entirely to information and communication on health. In 1993 he founded the agency Zelig of information, communication and medical education. He is responsible since 2001 of the operative information and communication within the national guidelines, board member of the Group in 2003 for scientific research and the Italian Cochrane Steering Committee; President since 2005, the Independent Ethics Committee of the National Cancer Institute of Milan. Among his recent books: Historical Dictionary of health (with George Cosmacini and Giuseppe Gaudenzi, Einaudi 1997), cloning and his double (with Fabio Terragni, Garzanti 1998), Letter to a doctor about the treatment of man (Yale University Press 2003) . Published by Feltrinelli in 1992, life death miracles - medicine, genetics, law: conflicts and prospects (with Stefano Nespor and Amedeo Santosuosso).
Paolo Vineis, MD, is Professor of Environmental Epidemiology at Imperial College London and Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University in New York, directs the Life sciences section of the ISI Foundation in Turin. His main field of activity is research into environmental causes of cancer and the interaction of genetic susceptibility. He has published over 400 scientific articles and several books: The twilight of probability (Einaudi 1999), Misconceptions bioethics (Code 2006). He has edited, The Molecular Epidemiology of Chronic Diseases (with Chris Wild and Seymour Garte, Wiley, 2008).
"The two dogmas"
objectivity of science and ethical fundamentalism
Satolli Roberto and Paolo Vineis
Contributions: Ignazio Marino
FELTRINELLI
Collection: Fields of knowledge
Pages: 192
Price: Euro 16
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