The Journal of Philosophy, Science & Law

Prior to the year 2001, the phenomenon of Internet criminal fraud was not globally associated with Nigeria. Since then, however, the country had acquired a world-wide notoriety in criminal activities, especially financial scams, facilitated through the use of the Internet. This is not to say that computer-related crimes were alien to the country. It is, however, remarkable that the perpetration of cyber crimes involving Nigerians and traceable to Nigeria became so rampant that questions might be legitimately raised as to why the problem became so pronounced from around that year. It is further remarkable that the attempt to launch Nigeria into the digital age coincided with the unprecedented rise in computer-related financial crimes in the country. In this paper, it is argued that the problem arose as a direct consequence of the lapses in the 2001 National Policy for Information Technology (NPFIT). The argument is based on an analysis of the various provisions of the Policy, with specific focus on the lack of proactive security provisions in it and in its subsequent implementation, in the wider context of global experiences of, and efforts to deal with, cyber security breaches as at the time of the formulation and implementation of the NPFIT.

The current use of animals to test for potential teratogenic effects of drugs and other chemicals dates back to the thalidomide disaster of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Controversy surrounds the following questions: 1. What was known about placental transfer of drugs when thalidomide was developed? 2. Was thalidomide tested on animals for teratogenicity prior to its release? 3. Would more animal testing have prevented the thalidomide disaster? 4. What lessons should be learned from the thalidomide disaster regarding animal testing for teratogenicity? We review the literature in order to address these questions.

The paper considers the legal tools that have been developed in German pharmaceutical regulation as a result of the precautionary attitude inaugurated by the Contergan decision (1970). These tools are (i) the notion of “well-founded suspicion”, which attenuates the requirements for safety intervention by relaxing the requirement of a proved causal connection between danger and source, and the introduction of (ii) the reversal of proof burden in liability norms. The paper focuses on the first and proposes seeing the precautionary principle as an instance of the requirement that one should maximise expected utility. In order to maximise expected utility certain probabilities are required and it is argued that objective Bayesianism offers the most plausible means to determine the optimal decision in cases where evidence supports diverging choices.

While the overwhelming majority of professions do not regulate the use of performance enhancements, athletics has become a lightning rod. Analysis of the current policies regulating athletic enhancements reveals that drawing the line on what is permitted is an ethically and politically arbitrary process, and sport governing bodies hold athletes to a different standard. The World Anti-Doping Agency uses “the spirit of sport” as criteria for banning enhancements while recent findings in genomics reveals the spirit of being human is to take advantage of what is available for survival. These contradictions question the reasoning and validity of the current regulations of athletic enhancements.

The article, meant to address philosophers and scientists as well as the interested layman, expresses the views of a physicist on the strong impact that contemporary science has on the traditional approach to metaphysics, implying an in-depth revision of many concepts that have been happily used for centuries. The implications of taking seriously the main message of contemporary neurosciences – there is nothing else than interacting atoms in our brains – are explored. Free will, and its reconciliation with scientific determinism, is used as an illustration. Contemporary science has shed new light on the circularity of knowledge and allows for a clearer separation between science and metaphysics, between knowledge and religious beliefs. At the same time it reveals the fundamental inability of knowledge at unravelling mysteries such as knowing why the world exists, rather than nothing.