Human Genes and Animal Rights Monday 18 January 2010 Leeds Salon welcomes science broadcaster and writer Jeremy Taylor discuss his new book NOT A CHIMP: The Hunt for the Genes that Make Us Human, and debate whether the concept of 'rights' should be extended to chimpanzees and other primates.  Humans are primates. Our closest relatives are the great apes, chimpanzees closest of all. The mapping of the human and chimpanzee genomes has revealed that we differ by a mere 1.6% of our genetic code. In addition, it is argued that chimpanzees demonstrate remarkable human-like capacities for tool-making and use, language, mathematics, and even emotional intelligence and moral behaviour.
As a consequence of our genetic and apparent similarities, should the concept of 'rights' be extended to include chimpanzees and other primates? Recently, allied activist groups in Austria, New Zealand and Spain have campaigned for rights for chimpanzees and for them to be acknowledged as "nearly human". While bioethicist Peter Singer has long called for the extension of "basic rights", first to the Great Apes, and eventually to all sentient beings which, he believes, should possess the right to life, liberty, and not to endure cruelty and torture. However, what can such 'rights' mean? For Jeremy Taylor humans are unique. And the extension of rights to other species makes no sense, as to possess rights one has to be able to understand and exercise them. For some, this argument amounts to 'speciesism', evoking comparisons with concepts such as 'racism' and 'sexism'. But for Taylor the claims of human-chimp equivalence, both in behaviour and genes, are exaggerated. The genetic difference between us and chimps is much greater than the 1.6% figure implies, as those genes are responsible for important genetic regulations on which our uniqueness is based. Those relatively small differences in genetic code make profound differences in cognition and bahaviour. As such, Taylor argues, we should put aside such distractions as "ape rights" in search of other forms of adequate protection for the host of plant and animal species now at risk. But do you agree? Are humans simply remodelled apes? Chimps with a tweak? Is the difference between our genomes so miniscule it justifies the argument that our cognition and behaviour must also differ from chimps by barely a whisker? Or if "chimps are us" should we grant them human rights? Or is this one of the biggest fallacies in the study of evolution? NOT A CHIMP argues that these similarities have been grossly over-exaggerated - we should keep chimps at arms' length. About the author  Jeremy Taylor is a freelance television producer/director, specialising in popular science programs, who has recently turned to book writing with NOT A CHIMP. In a previous career he was a stalwart producer of the BBC's flagship science series HORIZON. His love is evolutionary biology and he has made a number of films with an evolutionary theme including PLAYING WITH MADNESS for the BBC, and MINDREADERS for Channel 4.
Reviews for Not a Chimp Ewen Callaway, New Scientist, 13 August 2009 Georgina Ferry, Guardian, 25 July 2009 Peter Forbes, Independent, 16 July 2009 Sanjida O'Connell, Telegraph, 30 June 2009 Helene Guldberg, Spiked Review of Books, Issue 25, June 2009 For more reviews go to see Jeremy's blog.
What is the morality behind drugs policy? 9 December 2009  The drugs debate has long been dominated by the question of whether drugs should be prohibited or legalised, and of what kind of regulation is likely to minimise harm. While advocates of prohibition warn of the dangers of drugs and suggest that legalisation would make it worse, pro-legalisers insist that drug use is inevitable, and that prohibition only makes it riskier. But neither side has much to say about whether drug use is morally desirable, and if not, why not? The ongoing debate about reclassifying cannabis, for example, hinges not on whether dope turn users into degenerate hippies and dropouts so much as its effects on their mental health. Is this a reasonable argument for greater restrictions, or should we be free to choose our own poison, whatever its ill effects?
If drugs could be made completely safe, would their use be all right? Is there any place for drugs in the good life? Are drugs a means to expand our horizons and experiences, or a harmless recreational choice? Or are they a pernicious influence, Should politicians use the law to send a moral message? About the speakers  Dolan Cummings is the editorial and research director of the Institute of Ideas, editor of Culture Wars, and co-founder of the civil liberties campaiging organisation the Manifesto Club.
 Graham Aitken is co-founder and current member of the Board of Directors of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, UK.
 Darryl Bickler is a non-practising solicitor who formerly worked as a practiioner in human rights and criminal law, and is a founding member of Drugs Equality Alliance.
Readings Just Say No to this ‘radical rethink’ on drugs, by Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, spiked, 12 March 2007 Drugs reclassification: smoke signals, by James Douglass, Free Society, Tuesday June 24, 2008 Great moments in the drug war Kulturkampf, by Nick Gillespie, Reason, May 30, 2008 Choosing life, by Dolan Cummings, Culture Wars, 12 June 2009 Britain’s drug debacle, by Melanie Phillips, Daily Mail, 3 November 2008 Psychiatrists and drug companies are thoroughly redefining normal behaviour, by Christopher Lane, Battles in Print, 25 September 2007 Doping the Masses: Exposing Britain's unholy alliance between alcohol prohibitionists and marijuana reformers, by Brendan O'Neill, Reason, December 1, 2009
The Case Against Vetting 2 December 2009  Leeds University Liberty Society, in conjunction with Leeds Salon, have invited Josie Appleton of the Manifesto Club to discuss the issue of adult vetting.
Over the last few years, concerns about child protection have led to the ever more stringent regulation of interactions between adults and children. The recent case of the Ofsted inspection into the home of two policewomen that were told they could not babtsit for each other unless they were vetted and officially registered as childminders, gave rise to cries of 'health and safety gone mad'. But is it right to vet teachers, youth and sport club volunteers and other adutls who work with children? Or, is the craze for vetting undermining the capacity of adults to look out for children?
Rethinking Global Politics A Leeds Salon event in conjunction with Leeds Summat and Together for Peace November 2009  As part of T4P's weekend of debate, conversation, culture and cabaret, 'Leeds Summat', we have invited David Chandler to discuss what we mean today when we talk about a 'global' world or 'global politics', drawing on themes from his latest book Hollow Hegemony: Rethinking Global Politics, Power and Resistance.
Even before the credit crunch it was commonplace to describe the world we live in as 'global', or to preface discussions with an acceptance that the world was rapidly 'globalising'. In his presentation, David Chandler will seek to question what it means politically to understand the world in global terms. Why is it that the world has become global? When did global consciousness develop and what does it express about ourselves and our social and political relationships? Why do we think of ourselves as global citizens, with global responsibilities? Can politics even exist in a global world? Or is global politics just nation-based politics writ large or does it express a very different normative content? About the Speaker  David Chandler is Professor of International Relations, Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster. He is the Editor of the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, and author of numerous books on human rights, democracy and international relations, including: Bosnia: Faking Democracy After Dayton (2000); Constructing Global Civil Society (2004); From Kosovo to Kabul and Beyond (2005); and Empire in Denial: The Politics of State-Building (2006). Visit his website here.
Relevant Readings 'War Without End(s): Grounding Global War', by David Chandler from Security Dialogue, Vol. 40, No. 3 (2009). 'Demystifying Globalism', by Philip Hammond, Spiked Review of Books, Issue 27, September 2009.
Rethinking Freedom in the Age of Health and Safety A Battle of Ideas Satellite event produced by Leeds Salon October 2009  ASBOs, bans on smoking and drinking in public places, the fight against obesity and regulation of school meals, parenting orders and the vetting of adults working with children and vulnerable people are only a few examples of the seemingly unstoppable rise of legislation and regulation designed to control people's behaviour in areas of personal and civic life that were previously free from state interference. In 2005 then Prime Minister Tony Blair acknowledged that only a few years before the British people would not have found these changes 'acceptable'. For example, interference in the family through parenting orders 'would have either seemed somewhat bizarre or dangerous and indeed there are still people who see this as an aspect of the nanny state, or that we are interfering with the rights of the individual.'
Yet the erosion of such 'individual rights' has proceeded unhampered and at increasing pace. For the most part, these developments are neither presented nor experienced as infringements on liberty, but rather as commonsense measures to improve the health, security and wellbeing of all. Is it really worth standing up for the right to smoke or drink wherever we please, to behave without consideration for others and to expose children to unnecessary risks? Should we welcome state guidance and regulation designed to help us lead healthy and happy lives? Or do we lose something when individuals must defer to a benevolent state? Are our political leaders exploiting 'health and safety' to impose laws and regulations that are incompatible with a democracy of free citizens, or are they just responding to popular demand? Can indeed citizens be free that value health and safety above all things? Are restrictions of individual liberties a price worth paying for the sake of our communal life, or might they actually harm civil society? Speakers  Cath Follin, City Centre Manager, Leeds City Council
 Dr Phil Hadfield, Senior Research Fellow at the School of Law, University of Leeds, author of Nightlife and Crime: Social Order and Governance in International Perspective, Oxford University Press, 2009 and Bar Wars: Contesting the Night in Contemporary British Cities, Oxford University Press, 2006, winner of the Hart Early Career Book Prize 2007.
 Dr Stuart Waiton, Sociology Lecturer at the University of Abertay Dundee, author of The Politics of Antisocial Behaviour: Amoral Panics, Routledge, 2008.
 Yvonne Crowther, Youth Manager, Cardinal Youth and Community Centre, South Leeds
Chair Dolan Cummings, editorial and research director of the Institute of Ideas, editor of Culture Wars. Readings 'Curbing loutish alcohol misuse', Alan Johnson MP, The Guardian Comment is Free, 31 August 2009 'Booze Bans - the new frontier of joyless regulation', Henry Porter, The Guardian Comment is Free, 28 June 2008 'Robbed by the police: alcohol confiscation and the hyperregulation of public space', Manifesto Club Report, June 2009 'The new face of law 'n' order', David Clements, Spiked Review of Books, January 2008
Energise! A Future for Energy Innovation July 2009  President Barack Obama has made energy and climate change the centrepiece of his programme to revive America's economy. China, India and the East want and need more energy. Meanwhile, Britain's shortage of electricity generation could bring about power cuts.
Energise! argues that you shouldn't feel guilty about your carbon footprint. The way to deal with global warming is to build a bigger, better energy supply , not to invite the state to meter your family's every use of energy at home and in the car. Taking an in-depth view of the past, present and future of energy and climate change, Energise! sets out a programme for innovation in nuclear, carbon-based and renewable energy. That programme is one in which governments and industry do what they are supposed to do: enable people to get on with their lives. Speaker  James Woudhuysen, Visiting Professor of Forecasting and Innovation at De Monfort University, writer and journalist, will be discussing Energise! A Future for Energy Innovation, by James Woudhuysen and Joe Kaplinsky (Beautiful Books, 2009).
From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and Its Legacy June 2009  On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Rushdie fatwa, "From Fatwa to Jihad" tells, for the first time, the full story of this defining episode and explores its repercussions and resonance through to contemporary debates about Islam, terror, free speech and Western values. When a thousand Muslim protesters paraded through a British town with a copy of Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" before ceremoniously burning the book it was an act motivated by anger and offence as well as one calculated to shock and offend. It did more than that: the image of the burning book became an icon of the Muslim anger. Sent around the world by photographers and TV cameras, the image announced a new world. Twenty years later, the questions raised by the Rushdie Affair - Islam's relationship to the West, the meaning of multiculturalism, the limits of tolerance in a liberal society - have become some of the defining issues of our time. Taking the Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa as his starting point, Kenan Malik examines how radical Islam has gained hold in Muslim communities, how multiculturalism contributed to this, and how the Rushdie affair transformed the very nature of the debate on tolerance and free speech.
Speaker  Kenan Malik, author of From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and Its Legacy, broadcaster and regular panellist on Radio 4’s The Moral Maze.
Book reviews, interviews and related articles After the Fatwa, the Free Speech Wars, Kenan Malik, spiked review of books, April 2009 Britain Since the Fatwa, Faisal Gazi, Guardian, 14 April 2009 Lisa Appignanesi, Independent, 10 April 2009 Marcus Dubois, politics.co.uk, 9 April 2009 Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times, 5 April 2009 Why the Fatwa is Still a Burning Issue, Robert McCrum, Observer, 5 April 2009 Stuart Kelly, Scotsman, 5 April 2009 Lindsay Jones, New Humanist, March-April 2009
Global Citizenship in the School Curriculum April 2009  As the school curriculum in Britain and in the U.S. has changed from a subject-centred and national approach towards a child-centred and multicultural one, global citizenship - a new set of values to do with respecting the environment, diversity, and human rights – has been imposed on almost every subject and geography in particular.
For its supporters, the turn towards global citizenship represents a belated opening of education to the real problems facing the world. It is a change that has the potential to connect children’s lives to global problems and to show how, by modifying their lifestyles, individuals can contribute to the wellbeing of the planet and of humanity. For its critics, the teaching of global citizenship is a moralistic attempt at behaviour modification which undermines the integrity of school subjects and children’s understanding of the world. Far from creating better citizens, it fails to develop children’s capacity for autonomous judgment. Speakers  Alex Standish, Assistant Professor of Geography, Western Connecticut State University, author of Global Perspectives in the Geography Curriculum: Reviewing the Moral Case for Geography, (Routledge, 2009).
 Dr Vanessa Pupavac, Lecturuer in International Relations, School of Politics and International Relation, University of Nottingham, author of Children's Rights and the New Culture of Paternalism; The Disciplining of Desires and Emotions.
Interesting articles Keep ‘Global Issues’ Out of the Classroom, Spiked 18 Dec 2008 Geography lessons sacrificed in favour of trendy causes, Daily Telegraph 20 Jan 2009
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