Science & Technology

Tony C., Chaos, and the Ethics of Blame

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

“And then one night

The kid in right

Lies sprawling in the dirt.

The fastball struck him square—he’s down!

Is Tony badly hurt?”

Just about everyone who lived in Boston, Massachusetts in 1967 knows that bit of doggerel, an epic poem written to commemorate the Boston Red Sox miracle “Impossible Dream” pennant that year. Tony, “the kid in right,” was Tony Conigliaro, or Tony C. for short, the 22-year-old Italian stud from nearby Swampscott who was ticketed for the Hall of Fame. Tony had everything: looks, talent, an adoring hometown public and a flair for the dramatic—everything but luck. On August 19, 43 years ago today, an errant pitch from Angels starter Jack Hamilton struck him in the face, nearly killing him. The beaning began a series of events that turned “The Tony Conigliaro Story” from a feel-good romp to an epic tragedy. He was never quite the same after the beaning, though he bravely played three more seasons with a hole in his vision he never told anyone about. He quit, tried pitching, actually made a second comeback that was derailed by injuries, and quit again. He was about to become the Red Sox cable TV color man when he suffered an inexplicable heart attack that left him brain-damaged and an invalid until his death, at only 45, in 1990.

Since 1967, there has been a storyline connected with Tony C.’s beaning, and it resurfaces every year. Let’s have an enthusiastic Red Sox blogger tell the tale: Continue reading →

Ethics, Ethics, Everywhere…

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Stories with ethical implications are popping up everywhere, in many fields. I’m running hard to keep up; if you want to join the race, here are some recent developments and notes:

  • A prominent Harvard professor and respected researcher just retracted a major paper and has been put on leave, as an investigation showed irregularities in his methods and results. “This retraction creates a quandary for those of us in the field about whether other results are to be trusted as well, especially since there are other papers currently being reconsidered by other journals as well,’’ wrote one scientist. “If scientists can’t trust published papers, the whole process breaks down.’’
  • A Wisconsin lawyer bought a farm from his own client in a bankruptcy matter, a classic conflict of interest. The lawyer’s defense was amusing: since his license had been suspended, he no longer had a fiduciary duty to his now former client. The court canceled the sale. The story is on the Legal Profession Blog.

The Fake Fight, the Injured Officer, and the Forgotten Fable

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

In the wake of a high-profile case in which a black teen was apparently beaten by an arresting police officer, an Indianapolis African-American minister decided that a simulation of an arrest situation might be revealing. James Harrington, a pastor at Mt. Vernon Missionary Baptist Church, asked Police Sgt. Matthew Grimes to speak at an anti-violence symposium, but he had a surprise for the officer. Harrington had arranged for actors to stage a fight in the crowd—a test, Harrington said later, of Grimes’ response to a fight between two black men. Grimes attempted to break up the faux fight, and seriously injured his back. Continue reading →

Congressional Ethics and Race: A Quiz

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

QUESTION ONE: If you are the House Ethics Committee, and you find that investigations of two prominent House members have resulted in convincing evidence of serious wrongdoing and ethics violations, and they both are African-American, the most ethical course is to: Continue reading →

Gallup Poll: Trust in Freefall

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The Gallup poll has released its survey of the public’s trust in various institutions, and also shows whether the public’s trust has increased and decreased over the past year. No surprises: virtually every institution has lost public trust, with only the medical system and big business (which hit a historic low in 2009) improving more than a percentage point.

The bottom of the barrel? Why Congress, naturally. You had to ask?

And the biggest drop in trust since last year, by far, goes to the institution of the Presidency, down 15%. No other institution declined half as much.

For a system of government uniquely dependent on mutual trust, this poll is more than bad news. It is a warning. Continue reading →

Al Gore, Bill Cosby and the Ethics of Flawed Messengers

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

We can wait until the whole sordid mess plays out, but as someone who has spent a lot of time researching and training managers about sexual harassment, it is all but certain that Al Gore’s reputation is a goner. One accusation of sexual harassment can be and often is a false alarm. When more allegations of the same type begin to surface after one accuser has broken the dam, however, it is a sure sign that the accused is a serial harasser. The National Enquirer, which has a nose for sleaze (see: John Edwards) is reporting that two more masseuses in two different locales have reported in-room encounters with Gore that echo that of the Portland masseuse whose complaint about Gore was first stifled by her environmentalist friends, and later by the Portland police. This news puts in a new perspective Gore’s unseemly defenses of Bill Clinton’s conduct when Al was Veep, and may even begin to solve the mystery of why the “Love Story” Gores ended in divorce.  Al, in other words, probably really is a “crazed sex poodle.”

Will this development greatly damage his ability to exercise influence in the climates change debate? Of course it will. Continue reading →

“Genetic Surveillance” and Law Enforcement Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The “Grim Sleeper” serial killer was caught because California authorities found a partial DNA match with an individual in its database. That meant that the killer was probably related to the owner of that DNA, and indeed he was. We see this approach on the various “C.S.I” shows, but in real life using family DNA to identify a criminal is relatively rare, because only two states, Colorado and California, permit a  “familial search,” the use of DNA samples taken from convicted criminals to track down relatives who may themselves have committed a crime.

Why only two? The science is reliable, and a familial search can narrow the pool of suspects to the point where solving a crime becomes inevitable. Nevertheless, civil libertarians argue that the technique raises privacy concerns. Michael Risher, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, told the New York Times there was the possibility of innocent people being harassed in the pursuit of a crime. “It has the potential to invade the privacy of a lot of people,” he said. Continue reading →

Bark-Off Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Bark-Off is a product you can see being pitched on cable TV almost any time of the day, a seemingly sinister gadget that allows you to stop your dog from barking, just like Adam Sandler does with his magic remote control in “Click.” The thing emits a high-pitched sound (“Not painful!” the commercial says) that only dogs can hear, and it distracts them enough to make them stop yapping.

As a dog owner, I find the Bark-Off vaguely creepy; I don’t like the idea off controlling the behavior of living creatures with electronic devices. Still, all the reviews of the product indicate that it isn’t painful and it does work for most dogs. Philosophically I object to it, because I think a dog owner should have more respect for his dog than to treat him like Christmas tree lights on a Clapper, but I can’t honestly say Bark-Off is unethical. Continue reading →

Nefredo v. Montgomery County: Ethical Treatment for Fortune-tellers

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Or should that be “ethical treatment for charlatans”?

In the case of Nefredo v. Montgomery County, the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that it was an infringement of the Right of Free Speech for the Montgomery County, Md., to deny a business license to a fortune-teller on the basis of a County ordinance that declared charging a fee for fortune-telling services was a crime. The ordinance states:

“Every person who shall demand or accept any remuneration or gratuity for forecasting or foretelling or for
pretending to forecast or foretell the future by cards, palm reading or any other scheme, practice or device shall be subject to punishment for a class B violation as set forth in section 1-19 of chapter 1 of the County Code; and in any warrant for a violation of the above provisions, it shall be sufficient to allege that the defendant forecast or foretold or pretended to forecast or foretell the future by a certain scheme, practice or device
without setting forth the particular scheme, practice or device employed…” Continue reading →

Ethics Audit: the Deep-Water Oil-Drilling Ban Saga

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

President Obama’s ban on deep-water oil drilling in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil disaster pits important ethical values against each other: fairness vs. responsibility. On both sides of the equation is prudence. New Orleans federal judge Martin Feldman over-ruled the ban and issued an injunction against it, saying in effect that there was no contest: the ban isn’t fair, prudent, or responsible.

The Obama Administration’s ethical argument supporting the ban goes something like this: Continue reading →