Rachael Panizzo

Rachael Panizzo is a biologist and a volunteer author at BioNews the charity and publication whose aim is to provide balanced and timely comment on genetics, assisted conception, embryo/stem cell research and related areas.

Will neuroscientific understanding undermine our sense of self?

Reporting on more and more experiments that predict action before conscious intention, Nature, the leading science journal, ran the sensationalist headline: "Neuroscience vs philosophy: Taking aim at free will". But is there really such a stark distinction? What applies to an a quasi-automated act

By Rachael Panizzo

/ 28 Nov 2011

Genetic medalling – what do genes tell us about sporting ability?

Genetic causation in sporting ability challenges our notions of the level playing field. But we can use the knowledge we are developing to undermine the importance of race and emphasise the person

By Rachael Panizzo

/ 2 Aug 2011

What if Value were just Fact about brain-states?

The Moral Landscape, by Sam Harris, is the latest assault by the "new atheists" on their favourite targets. But does it offer anything beyond classical utilitarianism?

By Rachael Panizzo

/ 4 May 2011

Manufacturing people and reproductive technology

Our idea of unnaturalness is a product of myth, not science. Reproductive technology is represented and imagined today as playing God has been in ages past. A review of Philip Ball's "Unnatural: the heretical idea of making people" invites the question of whether these representations have any mor

By Rachael Panizzo

/ 1 Apr 2011