Bioethics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioethics

Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, medicine, and technologies. It proposes the discussion about moral discernment in society (what decisions are "good" or "bad" and why) and it is often related to medical policy and practice, but also to broader questions as environment, well-being and public health. Bioethics is concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, theology and philosophy. It includes the study of values relating to primary care, other branches of medicine ("the ethics of the ordinary"), ethical education in science, animal, and environmental ethics, and public health.

Etymology

The term bioethics (Greek bios, "life"; ethos, "moral nature, behavior") was coined in 1927 by Fritz Jahr in an article about a "bioethical imperative" regarding the use of animals and plants in scientific research. In 1970, the American biochemist and oncologist Van Rensselaer Potter used the term to describe the relationship between the biosphere and a growing human population. Potter's work laid the foundation for global ethics, a discipline centered around the link between biology, ecology, medicine, and human values. Sargent Shriver, the spouse of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, claimed that he had invented the term "bioethics" in the living room of his home in Bethesda, Maryland, in 1970. He stated that he thought of the word after returning from a discussion earlier that evening at Georgetown University, where he discussed with others a possible Kennedy family sponsorship of an institute focused around the "application of moral philosophy to concrete medical dilemmas".

Purpose and scope

The discipline of bioethics has addressed a wide swathe of human inquiry; ranging from debates over the boundaries of lifestyles (e.g. abortion, euthanasia), surrogacy, the allocation of scarce health care resources (e.g. organ donation, health care rationing), to the right to refuse medical care for religious or cultural reasons. Bioethicists disagree among themselves over the precise limits of their discipline, debating whether the field should concern itself with the ethical evaluation of all questions involving biology and medicine, or only a subset of these questions. Some bioethicists would narrow ethical evaluation only to the morality of medical treatments or technological innovations, and the timing of medical treatment of humans. Others would increase the scope of moral assessment to encompass the morality of all moves that would possibly assist or damage organisms successful of feeling fear.

The scope of bioethics has evolved past mere biotechnology to include topics such as cloning, gene therapy, life extension, human genetic engineering, astroethics and life in space, and manipulation of basic biology through altered DNA, XNA and proteins. These (and other) developments may affect future evolution and require new principles that address life at its core, such as biotic ethics that values life itself at its basic biological processes and structures, and seeks their propagation. Moving beyond the biological, issues raised in public health such as vaccination and resource allocation have also encouraged the development of novel ethics frameworks to address such challenges. A study published in 2022 based on the corpus of full papers from eight main bioethics journals demonstrated the heterogeneity of this field by distinguishing 91 topics that have been discussed in these journals over the past half a century.

Principles

Hippocrates Refusing the Gifts of Artaxerxes by Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson, 1792

One of the first areas addressed by modern bioethicists was human experimentation. According to the Declaration of Helsinki (1964) published by the World Medical Association, the essential principles in medical research involving human subjects are autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice. The autonomy of individuals to make decisions while assuming responsibility for them and respecting the autonomy of others ought to be respected. For people unable to exercise their autonomy, special measures ought to be taken to protect their rights and interests.

In US, the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research was initially established in 1974 to identify the basic ethical principles that should underlie the conduct of biomedical and behavioral research involving human subjects. However, the fundamental principles announced in the Belmont Report (1979)—namely, respect for persons, beneficence and justice—have influenced the thinking of bioethicists across a wide range of issues. Others have added non-maleficence, human dignity, and the sanctity of life to this list of cardinal values. Overall, the Belmont Report has guided lookup in a course centered on defending prone topics as properly as pushing for transparency between the researcher and the subject. Research has flourished within the past 40 years and due to the advance in technology, it is thought that human subjects have outgrown the Belmont Report, and the need for revision is desired.

Another essential precept of bioethics is its placement of cost on dialogue and presentation. Numerous dialogue based bioethics organizations exist in universities throughout the United States to champion precisely such goals. Examples include the Ohio State Bioethics Society and the Bioethics Society of Cornell. Professional level versions of these organizations also exist.

Many bioethicists, in particular scientific scholars, accord the easiest precedence to autonomy. They trust that every affected person ought to decide which direction of motion they think about most in line with their beliefs. In other words, the patient should always have the freedom to choose their own treatment.

Medical ethics

Medical ethics is a utilized department of ethics that analyzes the exercise of clinical medicinal drug and associated scientific research. Medical ethics is based on a set of values. These values consist of the appreciation for autonomy, beneficence, and justice.

Main article: Medical ethics

Ethics affects medical decisions made by healthcare providers and patients. Medical ethics is the study of moral values and judgments as they apply to medicine. The four main moral commitments are respect for autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. Using these four principles and thinking about what the physicians' specific concern is for their scope of practice can help physicians make moral decisions. As a scholarly discipline, medical ethics encompasses its practical application in clinical settings as well as work on its history, philosophy, theology, and sociology.

Medical ethics tends to be understood narrowly as applied professional ethics; whereas bioethics has a more expansive application, touching upon the philosophy of science and issues of biotechnology. The two fields often overlap, and the distinction is more so a matter of style than professional consensus. Medical ethics shares many principles with other branches of healthcare ethics, such as nursing ethics. A bioethicist assists the health care and research community in examining moral issues involved in our understanding of life and death, and resolving ethical dilemmas in medicine and science. Examples of this would be the topic of equality in medicine, the intersection of cultural practices and medical care, ethical distribution of healthcare resources in pandemics, and issues of bioterrorism.

Medical ethical concerns frequently touch on matters of life and death. Patient rights, informed consent, confidentiality, competency, advance directives, carelessness, and many other topics are highlighted as serious health concerns.

The proper actions to take in light of all the circumstances are what ethics is all about. It discusses the difference between what is proper and wrong at a certain moment and a particular society. Medical ethics is concerned with the duties that doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare providers have to patients, society, and other health professionals.

The health profession has a set of ethical standards that are relevant to various organizations of health workers and medical facilities. Ethics are never stagnant and always relevant. What is seen as acceptable ethics now may not be so one hundred years ago. The hospital administrator is required to have a thorough awareness of their moral and legal obligations.

Medical sociology

The practice of bioethics in clinical care have been studied by medical sociology. Many scholars consider that bioethics arose in response to a perceived lack of accountability in medical care in the 1970s. Studying the clinical practice of ethics in medical care, Hauschildt and Vries found that ethical questions were often reframed as clinical judgments to allow clinicians to make decisions. Ethicists most often put key decisions in the hands of physicians rather than patients.

Communication strategies suggested by ethicists act to decrease patient autonomy. Examples include, clinicians discussing treatment options with one another prior to talking to patients or their family to present a united front limited patient autonomy, hiding uncertainty amongst clinicians. Decisions about overarching goals of treatment were reframed as technical matters excluding patients and their families. Palliative care experts were used as intermediaries to guide patients towards less invasive end-of-live treatment. In their study, Hauschild and Vries found that 76% of ethical consultants were trained as clinicians.

Studying informed consent, Corrigan found that some social processes resulted in limitations to patients choice, but also at times patients could find questions regarding consent to medical trials burdensome.

The most prevalent subject is how social stratification (based on SES, gender, class, ethnicity, and age) affects patterns of behavior related to health and sickness, illness risk, disability, and other outcomes related to health care. The study of health care organization and provision, which encompasses the evolving organizational structures of health care organizations and the social psychology of health and health care, is another important approach. These latter research cover topics including connections between doctors and patients, coping mechanisms, and social support. The description of other important fields of medical sociology study emphasizes how theory and research have changed in the twenty-first century.

Perspectives and methodology

Bioethicists come from a wide variety of backgrounds and have training in a diverse array of disciplines. The field contains individuals trained in philosophy such as Deryck Beyleveld of Durham University, Daniel Brock of Harvard University, Baruch Brody of Rice University, Arthur Caplan of NYU, Joseph Fins of Cornell University, Frances Kamm of Rutgers University, Daniel Callahan of the Hastings Center, Peter Singer of Princeton University, and Julian Savulescu of the University of Oxford; medically trained clinician ethicists such as Mark Siegler of the University of Chicago; lawyers such as Nancy Dubler of Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Jerry Menikoff of the federal Office for Human Research Protections; political scientists like Francis Fukuyama; religious studies scholars including James Childress; and theologians like Lisa Sowle Cahill and Stanley Hauerwas.

The field, formerly dominated by formally trained philosophers, has become increasingly interdisciplinary, with some critics even claiming that the methods of analytic philosophy have harmed the field's development. Leading journals in the field include The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, the Hastings Center Report, the American Journal of Bioethics, the Journal of Medical Ethics, Bioethics, the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, Public Health Ethics, and the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. Bioethics has also benefited from the process philosophy developed by Alfred North Whitehead.

Another discipline that discusses bioethics is the field of feminism; the International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics has played an important role in organizing and legitimizing feminist work in bioethics.

Many religious communities have their histories of inquiry into bioethical issues and have developed rules and guidelines on how to deal with these issues from within the viewpoint of their respective faiths. The Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths have each developed a considerable body of literature on these matters. In the case of many non-Western cultures, a strict separation of religion from philosophy does not exist. In many Asian cultures, for example, there is a lively discussion on bioethical issues. Buddhist bioethics, in general, is characterized by a naturalistic outlook that leads to a rationalistic, pragmatic approach. Buddhist bioethicists include Damien Keown. In India, Vandana Shiva is a leading bioethicist speaking from the Hindu tradition.

In Africa, and partly also in Latin America, the debate on bioethics frequently focuses on its practical relevance in the context of underdevelopment and geopolitical power relations. In Africa, their bioethical approach is influenced by and similar to Western bioethics due to the colonization of many African countries. Some African bioethicists are calling for a shift in bioethics that utilizes indigenous African philosophy rather than western philosophy. Some African bioethicists also believe that Africans will be more likely to accept a bioethical approach grounded in their own culture, as well as empower African people.

Masahiro Morioka argues that in Japan the bioethics movement was first launched by disability activists and feminists in the early 1970s, while academic bioethics began in the mid-1980s. During this period, unique philosophical discussions on brain death and disability appeared both in the academy and journalism. In Chinese culture and bioethics, there is not as much of an emphasis on autonomy as opposed to the heavy emphasis placed on autonomy in Western bioethics. Community, social values, and family are all heavily valued in Chinese culture, and contribute to the lack of emphasis on autonomy in Chinese bioethics. The Chinese believe that the family, community, and individual are all interdependent of each other, so it is common for the family unit to collectively make decisions regarding healthcare and medical decisions for a loved one, instead of an individual making an independent decision for his or her self.

Some argue that spirituality and understanding one another as spiritual beings and moral agents is an important aspect of bioethics, and that spirituality and bioethics are heavily intertwined with one another. As a healthcare provider, it is important to know and understand varying world views and religious beliefs. Having this knowledge and understanding can empower healthcare providers with the ability to better treat and serve their patients. Developing a connection and understanding of a patient's moral agent helps enhance the care provided to the patient. Without this connection or understanding, patients can be at risk of becoming "faceless units of work" and being looked at as a "set of medical conditions" as opposed to the storied and spiritual beings that they are.

Islamic bioethics

Bioethics in the realm of Islam differs from Western bioethics, but they share some similar perspectives viewpoints as well. Western bioethics is focused on rights, especially individual rights. Islamic bioethics focuses more on religious duties and obligations, such as seeking treatment and preserving life. Islamic bioethics is heavily influenced and connected to the teachings of the Qur'an as well as the teachings of Muhammad. These influences essentially make it an extension of Shariah or Islamic Law. In Islamic bioethics, passages from the Qur'an are often used to validate various medical practices. For example, a passage from the Qur'an states "whosoever killeth a human being ... it shall be as if he had killed all humankind, and whosoever saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he saved the life of all humankind." This excerpt can be used to encourage using medicine and medical practices to save lives, but can also be looked at as a protest against euthanasia and assisted suicide. A high value and worth are placed on human life in Islam, and in turn, human life is deeply valued in the practice of Islamic bioethics as well. Muslims believe all human life, even one of poor quality, needs to be given appreciation and must be cared for and conserved.

The Islamic education on sensible problems associated to existence in normal and human lifestyles in unique can be sought in Islamic bioethics. As we will see later, due to the fact of interconnectedness of the Islamic regulation and the Islamic ethics, the Islamic bioethics has to reflect on consideration on necessities of the Islamic regulation (Shari‘ah) in addition to ethical considerations.

To react to new technological and medical advancements, informed Islamic jurists regularly will hold conferences to discuss new bioethical issues and come to an agreement on where they stand on the issue from an Islamic perspective. This allows Islamic bioethics to stay pliable and responsive to new advancements in medicine. The standpoints taken by Islamic jurists on bioethical issues are not always unanimous decisions and at times may differ. There is much diversity among Muslims varying from country to country, and the different degrees to which they adhere by Shariah. Differences and disagreements in regards to jurisprudence, theology, and ethics between the two main branches of Islam, Sunni, and Shia, lead to differences in the methods and ways in which Islamic bioethics is practiced throughout the Islamic world. An area where there is a lack of consensus is brain death. The Organization of Islamic Conferences Islamic Fiqh Academy (OIC-IFA) holds the view that brain death is equivalent to cardiopulmonary death, and acknowledges brain death in an individual as the individual being deceased. On the contrary, the Islamic Organization of Medical Sciences (IOMS) states that brain death is an "intermediate state between life and death" and does not acknowledge a brain dead individual as being deceased.

Islamic bioethicists look to the Qur'an and religious leaders regarding their outlook on reproduction and abortion. It is firmly believed that the reproduction of a human child can only be proper and legitimate via marriage. This does not mean that a child can only be reproduced via sexual intercourse between a married couple, but that the only proper and legitimate way to have a child is when it is an act between husband and wife. It is okay for a married couple to have a child artificially and from techniques using modern biotechnology as opposed to sexual intercourse, but to do this out of the context of marriage would be deemed immoral.

Islamic bioethics is strongly against abortion and strictly prohibits it. The IOMS states that "from the moment a zygote settles inside a woman's body, it deserves a unanimously recognized degree of respect." Abortion may only be permitted in unique situations where it is considered to be the "lesser evil".

Islamic bioethics must take into account both moral concerns and the requirements of the Islamic law (Shari'ah) due to the interdependence of Islamic law and Islamic ethics. In order to avoid making a mistake, everything must be thoroughly examined, first against moral criteria and then against legal ones.

Despite the fact that Islamic law and morality are completely in agreement with one another, they may have distinct prescriptions because of their diverse ends and objectives. One distinction, for instance, is that Islamic ethics seeks to teach those with higher desires how to become more perfect and closer to God, but Islamic law seeks to decrease criteria for perfection or pleasure in both realms that are doable for the average or even lower than average. However, there may be situations where something is not against Islamic law but is nonetheless condemned by Islamic ethics. Or there can be circumstances that, while not required by Islamic law, are essential from an ethical standpoint. For instance, while idle conversation is not strictly forbidden by Islamic law, it is morally unacceptable since it wastes time and is detrimental to one's spiritual growth.

Islamic bioethics' first influences Islamic bioethics is founded on the Qur'an, the Sunnah, and reason (al-'aql), much like any other inquiry into Islam. Sunni Muslims may use terms like ijmaa' (consensus) and qiyas in place of reason (analogy). Ijmaa' and qiyas as such are not recognized by Shi'a since they are insufficient proofs on their own.

Christian bioethics

In Christian bioethics it is noted that the Bible, especially the New Testament, teaches about healing by faith. Healing in the Bible is often associated with the ministry of specific individuals including Elijah, Jesus and Paul. Being healed has been described as a privilege of accepting Christ's redemption on the cross. Jesus endorsed the use of the medical assistance of the time (medicines of oil and wine).

The principle of the sacredness of human life is at the basis of Catholic bioethics. On the subject of abortion, for example, Catholics and Orthodox are on very similar positions. Catholic bioethics insists on this concept, without exception, while Anglicans, Waldensians and Lutherans have positions closer to secular ones, for example with regard to the end of life.

In 1936, Ludwig Bieler argued that Jesus was stylized in the New Testament in the image of the "divine man" (Greek: theios aner), which was widespread in antiquity. It is said that many of the famous rulers and elders of the time had divine healing powers.

Contemporary bioethical and health care policy issues, including abortion, the distribution of limited resources, the nature of appropriate hospital chaplaincy, fetal experimentation, the use of fetal tissue in treatment, genetic engineering, the use of critical care units, distinctions between ordinary and extraordinary treatment, euthanasia, free and informed consent, competency determinations, the meaning of life, are being examined within the framework of traditional Christian moral commitments.

Feminist bioethics

Feminist bioethics critiques the fields of bioethics and medicine for its lack of inclusion of women's and other marginalized group's perspectives. This lack of perspective from women is thought to create power imbalances that favor men. These power imbalances are theorized to be created from the androcentric nature of medicine. One example of a lack of consideration of women is in clinical drug trials that exclude women due to hormonal fluctuations and possible future birth defects. This has led to a gap in the research on how pharmaceuticals can affect women. Feminist bioethicists call for the necessity of feminist approaches to bioethics because the lack of diverse perspectives in bioethics and medicine can cause preventable harm to already vulnerable groups.

This study first gained prevalence in the field of reproductive medicine as it was viewed as a "woman's issue". Since then, feminist approaches to bioethics has expanded to include bioethical topics in mental health, disability advocacy, healthcare accessibility, and pharmaceuticals. Lindemann notes the need for the future agenda of feminist approaches to bioethics to expand further to include healthcare organizational ethics, genetics, stem cell research, and more.

Notable figures in feminist bioethics include Carol Gilligan, Susan Sherwin, and the creators of the International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics, Mary C. Rawlinson and Anne Donchin. Sherwin's book No Longer Patient: Feminist Ethics in Health Care (1992) is credited with being one of the first full-length books published on the topic of feminist bioethics and points out the shortcomings in then-current bioethical theories. Sherwin's viewpoint incorporates models of oppression within healthcare that intend to further marginalize women, people of color, immigrants, and people with disabilities. Since created in 1992, the International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics has done much work to legitimize feminist work and theory in bioethics.

In 2001, American professor Mary C. Rawlinson published The Concept of A Feminist Bioethics, an article criticizing traditional male-centric views on ethics. Rawlinson points out that traditional philosophical thought centralizes men and leaves women as an "other" or an accessory to men. As a result, the philosophy of "feminist bioethics" contradicts bioethics because women's rights are seen as a separate order from human rights. Finally, Rawlinson makes several recommendations for how women's experiences and bodies could reshape fundamental ethical principles, including acceptance, mutual respect, and the establishment of bodily autonomy for women.

Environmental bioethics

Bioethics, the ethics of the life sciences in general, expanded from the encounter between experts in medicine and the laity, to include organizational and social ethics, environmental ethics. As of 2019 textbooks of green bioethics existed.Particular emphasis on responsibility toward ecosystems, including resource conservation, environmental protection, and considerations of intergenerational justice.

Animal bioethics

Main Article: Animal ethics

Animal bioethics is the study of animal-human dynamics, and how animals should be treated by humans. In a scientific framework, ethical issues of consideration include animal testing and eponymous taxonomy (the ethics of naming species after people). Biologists W. M. S. Russell and R. L. Burch developed the “3 R’s”, a set of 3 guidelines outlining recommended procedures to promote animal respect and reduce the amount of animals used in scientific research. They include determining alternatives to animal use (replacement), minimizing the number of animals used (reduction), and mitigating animal suffering if they are used in research (refinement).

Eponymous taxonomy

Taxonomy is the classification of animals in biological disciplines. Some species such as Aleiodes gaga are named after real people, which can be controversial, as in the case of Anophthalmus hitleri, a species of beetle hunted to endangerment by Nazi memorabilia collectors. Critics of eponymic naming conventions such as Guedes et. al argue that eponymous taxonomy is a form of scientific colonization because scientists from colonizing nations often had a stake in naming species native to countries in the Global South. Supporters of eponymous taxa argue that “famous” taxonomies are important for conservation efforts, as species of interest would be brought to public attention.

Ethical issues in gene therapy

Gene therapy involves ethics, because scientists are making changes to genes, the building blocks of the human body. Currently, therapeutic gene therapy is available to treat specific genetic disorders by editing cells in specific body parts. For example, gene therapy can treat hematopoietic disease. There is also a controversial gene therapy called "germline gene therapy", in which genes in a sperm or egg can be edited to prevent genetic disorder in the future generation. It is unknown how this type of gene therapy affects long-term human development. In the United States, federal funding cannot be used to research germline gene therapy.

The ethical challenges in gene therapy for rare childhood diseases underscore the complexity of initiating trials, determining dosage levels, and involving affected families. With over a third of gene therapies targeting rare, genetic, pediatric-onset, and life-limiting diseases, fair participant selection and transparent engagement with patient communities become crucial ethical considerations. Another concern involves the use of virus-derived vectors for gene transfer, raising safety and hereditary implications. Additionally, the ethical dilemma in gene therapy explores the potential harms of human enhancement, particularly regarding the birth of disabled individuals. Addressing these challenges is vital for responsible development, application, and equitable access to gene therapies. The experience with human growth hormone further illustrates the blurred lines between therapy and enhancement, emphasizing the importance of ethical considerations in balancing therapeutic benefits and potential enhancements, especially in the rapidly advancing field of genomic medicine. As gene therapies progress towards FDA approval, collaboration with clinical genetics providers becomes essential to navigate the ethical complexities of this new era in medicine.

Professional practice

Bioethics as a subject of expert exercise (although now not a formal profession) developed at the beginning in North America in the Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, in the areas of clinical / medical ethics and research ethics. Slowly internationalizing as a field, since the 2000s professional bioethics has expanded to include other specialties, such as organizational ethics in health systems, public health ethics, and more recently Ethics of artificial intelligence. Professional ethicists may be called consultants, ethicists, coordinators, or even analysts; and they may work in healthcare organizations, government agencies, and in both the public and private sectors. They may also be full-time employees, unbiased consultants, or have cross-appointments with educational institutions, such as lookup centres or universities.

Models of bioethics

American ethicists Tom Beauchamp and James Childress developed Principles of Biomedical Ethics, a set of four principles that include autonomy, nonmaleficence (avoiding harm), beneficence (doing good), and justice. Today, the four principles are used by bioethicists to assess ethical considerations such as childhood vaccinations and patient autonomy. One facet of the principles that Beauchamp and Childress defend is the idea that a set of universal morals can be created and applied to a given situation. Critics of this philosophy argue that it is not possible to assign universal morality to social values.

According to Ihor Boyko's book "Bioethics", there are three models of bioethics in the world:

• Model 1 is "liberal" when there are no restrictions.
• Model 2 is "utilitarian", when what is prohibited is allowed for one person or a group of persons, if it is useful and beneficial for the majority of people.
• Model 3 is "personalistic", where the human person is considered an inviolable integrity.

Learned societies and professional associations

The field of bioethics has developed national and international learned societies and professional associations, such as the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, the Canadian Bioethics Society, the Canadian Association of Research Ethics Boards, the Association of Bioethics Program Directors, the Bangladesh Bioethics Society and the International Association of Bioethics.

Education

Bioethics is taught in courses at the undergraduate and graduate level in different academic disciplines or programs, such as Philosophy, Medicine, Law, Social Sciences. It has become a requirement for professional accreditation in many health professional programs (Medicine, Nursing, Rehabilitation), to have obligatory training in ethics (e.g., professional ethics, medical ethics, clinical ethics, nursing ethics). Interest in the field and professional opportunities have led to the development of dedicated programs with concentrations in Bioethics, largely in the United States, Canada (List of Canadian bioethics programs) and Europe, offering undergraduate majors/minors, graduate certificates, and master's and doctoral degrees.

Training in bioethics (usually clinical, medical, or professional ethics) are part of core competency requirements for health professionals in fields such as nursing, medicine or rehabilitation. For example, every medical school in Canada teaches bioethics so that students can gain an understanding of biomedical ethics and use the knowledge gained in their future careers to provide better patient care. Canadian residency training programs are required to teach bioethics as it is one of the conditions of accreditation, and is a requirement by the College of Family Physicians of Canada and by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.

Criticism

As a field of study, bioethics has also drawn criticism. For instance, Paul Farmer noted that bioethics tends to focus its attention on problems that arise from "too much care" for patients in industrialized nations while giving little or no attention to the ethical problem of too little care for the poor. Farmer characterizes the bioethics of handling morally difficult clinical situations, normally in hospitals in industrialized countries, as "quandary ethics". He does not regard quandary ethics and clinical bioethics as unimportant; he argues, rather, that bioethics must be balanced and give due weight to the poor.

Additionally, bioethics has been condemned for its lack of diversity in thought, particularly concerning race. Even as the field has grown to include the areas of public opinion, policymaking, and medical decision-making, little to no academic writing has been authored concerning the intersection between race–especially the cultural values imbued in that construct–and bioethical literature. John Hoberman illustrates this in a 2016 critique, in which he points out that bioethicists have been traditionally resistant to expanding their discourse to include sociological and historically relevant applications. Central to this is the notion of white normativity, which establishes the dominance of white hegemonic structures in bioethical academia and tends to reinforce existing biases.

These points and critiques, along with the neglect of women's perspectives within bioethics, have also been discussed amongst feminist bioethical scholars.

However, differing views on bioethics' lack of diversity of thought and social inclusivity have also been advanced. For example, one historian has argued that the diversity of thought and social inclusivity are the two essential cornerstones of bioethics, albeit they have not been fully realized.

In order to practice critical bioethics, bioethicists must base their investigations in empirical research, refute ideas with facts, engage in self-reflection, and be skeptical of the assertions made by other bioethicists, scientists, and doctors. A thorough normative study of actual moral experience is what is intended.

Issues

Research in bioethics is conducted by a broad and interdisciplinary community of scholars, and is not restricted only to those researchers who define themselves as "bioethicists": it includes researchers from the humanities, social sciences, health sciences and health professions, law, the fundamental sciences, etc. These researchers may be working in specialized bioethics centers and institutes associated with university bioethics training programs; but they may also be based in disciplinary departments without a specific bioethics focus. Notable examples of research centers include, amongst others, The Hastings Center, the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, the Centre for Human Bioethics.

Areas of bioethics research that are the subject of published, peer-reviewed bioethical analysis include:

• Abortion
• Alternative medicine
• Animal rights
• Applied ethics
• Artificial insemination
• Artificial life
• Artificial womb
• Assisted suicide
• Biocentrism
• Biological agent
• Biological patent
• Biopiracy
• Biorisk
• Blood transfusion
• Body modification
• Brain–computer interface
• Chimeras
• Circumcision
• Cloning
• Cognitive liberty
• Confidentiality (medical records)
• Conflict of interest in the healthcare industry
• Consent
• Contraception (birth control)
• Cryonics
• Disability
• Ecocide
• End-of-life care
• Eugenics
• Euthanasia (human, non-human animal)
• Exorcism
• Faith healing
• Feeding tube
• Gain-of-function research
• Gene theft
• Gene therapy
• Genetic testing
• Genetically modified food
• Genetically modified organism
• Genomics
• Great Ape Project
• HeLa cells
• Human cloning
• Human enhancement
• Human experimentation in the United States
• Human genetic engineering
• Human population planning
• Iatrogenesis
• Infertility treatments
• Intersex
• Life extension
• Life support
• Lobotomy
• Medicalization
• Medical malpractice
• Medical research
• Medical torture
• Mediation
• Mitochondrial donation
• Moral obligation
• Moral status of animals
• Nanomedicine
• Neuroethics
• Neuroenhancement
• Nazi human experimentation
• Ordinary and extraordinary care
• Overtreatment
• Organ donation
• Organ transplant
• Pain management
• Parthenogenesis
• Patients' Bill of Rights
• Placebo
• Pharmacogenetics
• Political abuse of psychiatry
• Population control (non-human animals)
• Prescription drug prices in the United States
• Procreative beneficence
• Professional ethics
• Psychosurgery
• Quality of life (healthcare)
• Quaternary prevention
• Recreational drug use
• Reproductive rights
• Reproductive technology
• Reprogenetics
• Research ethics
• Resource allocation
• Sex reassignment therapy
• Sperm and egg donation
• Spiritual drug use
• Stem cell research
• Sterilization (medicine)
• Suicide
• Surrogacy
• Transsexuality
• Transhumanism
• Transplant trade
• Triage
• Tubal ligation
• Vaccination controversy
• Xenotransfusion
• Xenotransplantation

Quantum chemistry

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_chemistry 

Simulated electron localization function (ELF) map of a furan (C₄H₄O) molecule. Colour indicates the magnitude of the ELF field, which reflects the degree of electron localisation at each point in the molecular plane.

Quantum chemistry, also called molecular quantum mechanics, is a branch of physical chemistry focused on the application of quantum mechanics to chemical systems, particularly towards the quantum-mechanical calculation of electronic contributions to physical and chemical properties of molecules, materials, and solutions at the atomic level. These calculations include systematically applied approximations intended to make calculations computationally feasible while still capturing as much information about important contributions to the computed wave functions as well as to observable properties such as structures, spectra, and thermodynamic properties. Quantum chemistry is also concerned with the computation of quantum effects on molecular dynamics and chemical kinetics.

Quantum chemistry studies focused on the electronic ground state and excited states of atoms, molecules, and ions. Such calculations allow chemical reactions to be described with respect to pathways, intermediates, and transition states. Spectroscopic properties may also be predicted. Typically, such studies assume the electronic wave function is adiabatically parameterized by the nuclear positions (i.e., the Born–Oppenheimer approximation). A wide variety of approaches are used, including semi-empirical methods, density functional theory, Hartree–Fock calculations, quantum Monte Carlo methods, and coupled cluster methods.

Understanding electronic structure and molecular dynamics through the development of computational solutions to the Schrödinger equation is a central goal of quantum chemistry. Progress in the field depends on overcoming several challenges, including the need to increase the accuracy of the results for small molecular systems, and to also increase the size of large molecules that can be realistically subjected to computation, which is limited by scaling considerations — the computation time increases as a power of the number of atoms.

History

Some view the birth of quantum chemistry as starting with the discovery of the Schrödinger equation and its application to the hydrogen atom. However, a 1927 article of Walter Heitler (1904–1981) and Fritz London, is often recognized as the first milestone in the history of quantum chemistry. This was the first application of quantum mechanics to the diatomic hydrogen molecule, and thus to the phenomenon of the chemical bond. However, prior to this a critical conceptual framework was provided by Gilbert N. Lewis in his 1916 paper The Atom and the Molecule, wherein Lewis developed the first working model of valence electrons. Important contributions were also made by Yoshikatsu Sugiura and S.C. Wang. A series of articles by Linus Pauling, written throughout the 1930s, integrated the work of Heitler, London, Sugiura, Wang, Lewis, and John C. Slater on the concept of valence and its quantum-mechanical basis into a new theoretical framework. Many chemists were introduced to the field of quantum chemistry by Pauling's 1939 text The Nature of the Chemical Bond and the Structure of Molecules and Crystals: An Introduction to Modern Structural Chemistry, wherein he summarized this work (referred to widely now as valence bond theory) and explained quantum mechanics in a way which could be followed by chemists. The text soon became a standard text at many universities. In 1937, Hans Hellmann appears to have been the first to publish a book on quantum chemistry, in the Russian  and German languages.

In the years to follow, this theoretical basis slowly began to be applied to chemical structure, reactivity, and bonding. In addition to the investigators mentioned above, important progress and critical contributions were made in the early years of this field by Irving Langmuir, Robert S. Mulliken, Max Born, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Hans Hellmann, Maria Goeppert Mayer, Erich Hückel, Douglas Hartree, John Lennard-Jones, and Vladimir Fock.

Electronic structure

The electronic structure of an atom or molecule is the quantum state of its electrons. The first step in solving a quantum chemical problem is usually solving the Schrödinger equation (or Dirac equation in relativistic quantum chemistry) with the electronic molecular Hamiltonian, usually making use of the Born–Oppenheimer (B–O) approximation. This is called determining the electronic structure of the molecule. An exact solution for the non-relativistic Schrödinger equation can only be obtained for the hydrogen atom (though exact solutions for the bound state energies of the hydrogen molecular ion within the B-O approximation have been identified in terms of the generalized Lambert W function). Since all other atomic and molecular systems involve the motions of three or more "particles", their Schrödinger equations cannot be solved analytically and so approximate and/or computational solutions must be sought. The process of seeking computational solutions to these problems is part of the field known as computational chemistry.

Valence bond theory

Main article: Valence bond theory

As mentioned above, Heitler and London's method was extended by Slater and Pauling to become the valence-bond (VB) method. In this method, attention is primarily devoted to the pairwise interactions between atoms, and this method therefore correlates closely with classical chemists' drawings of bonds. It focuses on how the atomic orbitals of an atom combine to give individual chemical bonds when a molecule is formed, incorporating the two key concepts of orbital hybridization and resonance.

A covalent bond is formed when there is an overlap of half-filled atomic orbitals from two atoms, which together form an electron pair. The strength and energy of the system is dependent on the amount of overlap. As the atoms move together, their orbitals start to overlap and the electrons begin to feel the attraction of both nuclei. There is also a repulsion that begins to occur, which becomes very strong when the atoms are too close together. The ideal and most stable length between the two atoms is the bond distance, which is when the repulsive and attractive forces balance resulting in the lowest energy configuration.

Orientation of the orbitals can have a large affect on what bonds are formed, including if any is formed. When there is a direct overlap of one atomic orbital from each atom, a sigma (σ) bond is formed. This can be created from two s-orbitals, an s-orbital and a p-orbital, or two p-orbitals. A pi (π) bond is formed from a side-to-side overlap of two p-orbitals. The pi bond only forms if the phases of the overlapping p-orbitals are the same.

Molecular orbital theory

The MO diagram of the trihydrogen cation.

Main article: Molecular orbital theory

An alternative approach to valence bond theory was developed in 1929 by Friedrich Hund and Robert S. Mulliken, in which electrons are described by mathematical functions delocalized over an entire molecule. The Hund–Mulliken approach or molecular orbital (MO) method is less intuitive to chemists but predicts spectroscopic properties better than the VB method. As opposed to VB theory, MO theory does not focus just the overlap of electron density in one area causing a bond but instead describes the whole molecule as one system. This leads to a more complex understanding of the system. This approach is the conceptual basis of the Hartree–Fock method and further post-Hartree–Fock methods.

MO calculations result in orbitals or wavefunctions and energies for a molecule, which can be filled with electrons from two different atomic orbitals. These atomic orbitals come from separate atoms resulting in molecular orbitals being linear combinations of atomic orbitals.

Density functional theory

Main article: Density functional theory

The Thomas–Fermi model was developed independently by Thomas and Fermi in 1927. This was the first attempt to describe many-electron systems on the basis of electronic density instead of wave functions, although it was not very successful in the treatment of entire molecules. The method did provide the basis for what is now known as density functional theory (DFT). Modern day DFT uses the Kohn–Sham method, where the density functional is split into four terms; the Kohn–Sham kinetic energy, an external potential, exchange and correlation energies. A large part of the focus on developing DFT is on improving the exchange and correlation terms. Though this method is less developed than post Hartree–Fock methods, its significantly lower computational requirements (scaling typically no worse than n³ with respect to n basis functions, for the pure functionals) allow it to tackle larger polyatomic molecules and even macromolecules. This computational affordability and often comparable accuracy to MP2 and CCSD(T) (post-Hartree–Fock methods) has made it one of the most popular methods in computational chemistry.

Chemical dynamics

A further step can consist of solving the Schrödinger equation with the total molecular Hamiltonian in order to study the motion of molecules. Direct solution of the Schrödinger equation is called quantum dynamics, whereas its solution within the semiclassical approximation is called semiclassical dynamics. Purely classical simulations of molecular motion are referred to as molecular dynamics (MD). Another approach to dynamics is a hybrid framework known as mixed quantum-classical dynamics; yet another hybrid framework uses the Feynman path integral formulation to add quantum corrections to molecular dynamics, which is called path integral molecular dynamics. Statistical approaches, using for example classical and quantum Monte Carlo methods, are also possible and are particularly useful for describing equilibrium distributions of states.

Adiabatic chemical dynamics

Main article: Born–Oppenheimer approximation

In adiabatic dynamics, interatomic interactions are represented by single scalar potentials called potential energy surfaces. This is the Born–Oppenheimer approximation introduced by Born and Oppenheimer in 1927. Pioneering applications of this in chemistry were performed by Rice and Ramsperger in 1927 and Kassel in 1928, and generalized into the RRKM theory in 1952 by Marcus who took the transition state theory developed by Eyring in 1935 into account. These methods enable simple estimates of unimolecular reaction rates from a few characteristics of the potential surface.

Non-adiabatic chemical dynamics

Main article: Vibronic coupling

Non-adiabatic dynamics consists of taking the interaction between several coupled potential energy surfaces (corresponding to different electronic quantum states of the molecule). The coupling terms are called vibronic couplings. The pioneering work in this field was done by Stueckelberg, Landau, and Zener in the 1930s, in their work on what is now known as the Landau–Zener transition. Their formula allows the transition probability between two adiabatic potential curves in the neighborhood of an avoided crossing to be calculated. Spin-forbidden reactions are one type of non-adiabatic reactions where at least one change in spin state occurs when progressing from reactant to product.

Ecological resilience

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_resilience

Lake and Mulga ecosystems with alternative stable states

In ecology, resilience is the capacity of an ecosystem to respond to a perturbation or disturbance by resisting damage and subsequently recovering. Such perturbations and disturbances can include stochastic events such as fires, flooding, windstorms, insect population explosions, and human activities such as deforestation, fracking of the ground for oil extraction, pesticide sprayed in soil, and the introduction of exotic plant or animal species. Disturbances of sufficient magnitude or duration can profoundly affect an ecosystem and may force an ecosystem to reach a threshold beyond which a different regime of processes and structures predominates. When such thresholds are associated with a critical or bifurcation point, these regime shifts may also be referred to as critical transitions.

Human activities that adversely affect ecological resilience such as reduction of biodiversity, exploitation of natural resources, pollution, land use, and anthropogenic climate change are increasingly causing regime shifts in ecosystems, often to less desirable and degraded conditions. Interdisciplinary discourse on resilience now includes consideration of the interactions of humans and ecosystems via socio-ecological systems, and the need for shift from the maximum sustainable yield paradigm to environmental resource management and ecosystem management, which aim to build ecological resilience through "resilience analysis, adaptive resource management, and adaptive governance".Ecological resilience has inspired other fields and continues to challenge the way they interpret resilience, e.g. supply chain resilience.

Definitions

The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report defines resilience as, “not just the ability to maintain essential function, identity and structure, but also the capacity for transformation.” The IPCC considers resilience both in terms of ecosystem recovery as well as the recovery and adaptation of human societies to natural disasters.

The concept of resilience in ecological systems was first introduced by the Canadian ecologist C.S. Holling in order to describe the persistence of natural systems in the face of changes in ecosystem variables due to natural or anthropogenic causes. Resilience has been defined in two ways in ecological literature:

1. as the time required for an ecosystem to return to an equilibrium or steady-state following a perturbation (which is also defined as stability by some authors). This definition of resilience is used in other fields such as physics and engineering, and hence has been termed ‘engineering resilience’ by Holling.
2. as "the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks".

The second definition has been termed ‘ecological resilience’, and it presumes the existence of multiple stable states or regimes.

For example, some shallow temperate lakes can exist within either clear water regime, which provides many ecosystem services, or a turbid water regime, which provides reduced ecosystem services and can produce toxic algae blooms. The regime or state is dependent upon lake phosphorus cycles, and either regime can be resilient dependent upon the lake's ecology and management.

Likewise, Mulga woodlands of Australia can exist in a grass-rich regime that supports sheep herding, or a shrub-dominated regime of no value for sheep grazing. Regime shifts are driven by the interaction of fire, herbivory, and variable rainfall. Either state can be resilient dependent upon management.

Theory

Three levels of a panarchy, three adaptive cycles, and two cross-level linkages (remember and revolt)

Ecologists Brian Walker, C S Holling and others describe four critical aspects of resilience: latitude, resistance, precariousness, and panarchy.

The first three can apply both to a whole system or the sub-systems that make it up.

1. Latitude: the maximum amount a system can be changed before losing its ability to recover (before crossing a threshold which, if breached, makes recovery difficult or impossible).
2. Resistance: the ease or difficulty of changing the system; how “resistant” it is to being changed.
3. Precariousness: how close the current state of the system is to a limit or “threshold.”.
4. Panarchy: the degree to which a certain hierarchical level of an ecosystem is influenced by other levels. For example, organisms living in communities that are in isolation from one another may be organized differently from the same type of organism living in a large continuous population, thus the community-level structure is influenced by population-level interactions.

Closely linked to resilience is adaptive capacity, which is the property of an ecosystem that describes change in stability landscapes and resilience. Adaptive capacity in socio-ecological systems refers to the ability of humans to deal with change in their environment by observation, learning and altering their interactions.

Human impacts

Resilience refers to ecosystem's stability and capability of tolerating disturbance and restoring itself.  If the disturbance is of sufficient magnitude or duration, a threshold may be reached where the ecosystem undergoes a regime shift, possibly permanently. Sustainable use of environmental goods and services requires understanding and consideration of the resilience of the ecosystem and its limits. However, the elements which influence ecosystem resilience are complicated. For example, various elements such as the water cycle, fertility, biodiversity, plant diversity and climate, interact fiercely and affect different systems.

There are many areas where human activity impacts upon and is also dependent upon the resilience of terrestrial, aquatic and marine ecosystems. These include agriculture, deforestation, pollution, mining, recreation, overfishing, dumping of waste into the sea and climate change.

Agriculture

See also: agricultural expansion

Agriculture can be used as a significant case study in which the resilience of terrestrial ecosystems should be considered. The organic matter (elements carbon and nitrogen) in soil, which is supposed to be recharged by multiple plants, is the main source of nutrients for crop growth. In response to global food demand and shortages, however, intensive agriculture practices including the application of herbicides to control weeds, fertilisers to accelerate and increase crop growth and pesticides to control insects, reduce plant biodiversity while the supply of organic matter to replenish soil nutrients and prevent surface runoff is diminished. This leads to a reduction in soil fertility and productivity. More sustainable agricultural practices would take into account and estimate the resilience of the land and monitor and balance the input and output of organic matter.

Deforestation

The term deforestation has a meaning that covers crossing the threshold of forest's resilience and losing its ability to return to its originally stable state. To recover itself, a forest ecosystem needs suitable interactions among climate conditions and bio-actions, and enough area. In addition, generally, the resilience of a forest system allows recovery from a relatively small scale of damage (such as lightning or landslide) of up to 10 percent of its area. The larger the scale of damage, the more difficult it is for the forest ecosystem to restore and maintain its balance.

Deforestation also decreases biodiversity of both plant and animal life and can lead to an alteration of the climatic conditions of an entire area. According to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, carbon emissions due to land use and land use changes predominantly come from deforestation, thereby increasing the long-term exposure of forest ecosystems to drought and other climate change-induced damages. Deforestation can also lead to species extinction, which can have a domino effect particularly when keystone species are removed or when a significant number of species is removed and their ecological function is lost.

Climate change

Climate resilience is a concept to describe how well people or ecosystems are prepared to bounce back from certain climate hazard events. The formal definition of the term is the "capacity of social, economic and ecosystems to cope with a hazardous event or trend or disturbance". For example, climate resilience can be the ability to recover from climate-related shocks such as floods and droughts. Different actions can increase climate resilience of communities and ecosystems to help them cope. They can help to keep systems working in the face of external forces. For example, building a seawall to protect a coastal community from flooding might help maintain existing ways of life there.

Overfishing

It has been estimated by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation that over 70% of the world's fish stocks are either fully exploited or depleted which means overfishing threatens marine ecosystem resilience and this is mostly by rapid growth of fishing technology. One of the negative effects on marine ecosystems is that over the last half-century the stocks of coastal fish have had a huge reduction as a result of overfishing for its economic benefits. Blue fin tuna is at particular risk of extinction. Depletion of fish stocks results in lowered biodiversity and consequently imbalance in the food chain, and increased vulnerability to disease.

In addition to overfishing, coastal communities are suffering the impacts of growing numbers of large commercial fishing vessels in causing reductions of small local fishing fleets. Many local lowland rivers which are sources of fresh water have become degraded because of the inflows of pollutants and sediments.

Dumping of waste into the sea

Dumping both depends upon ecosystem resilience whilst threatening it. Dumping of sewage and other contaminants into the ocean is often undertaken for the dispersive nature of the oceans and adaptive nature and ability for marine life to process the marine debris and contaminants. However, waste dumping threatens marine ecosystems by poisoning marine life and eutrophication.

Poisoning marine life

According to the International Maritime Organisation oil spills can have serious effects on marine life. The OILPOL Convention recognized that most oil pollution resulted from routine shipboard operations such as the cleaning of cargo tanks.  In the 1950s, the normal practice was simply to wash the tanks out with water and then pump the resulting mixture of oil and water into the sea. OILPOL 54   prohibited the dumping of oily wastes within a certain distance from land and in 'special areas' where the danger to the environment was especially acute. In 1962 the limits were extended by means of an amendment adopted at a conference organized by IMO. Meanwhile, IMO in 1965 set up a Subcommittee on Oil Pollution, under the auspices of its Maritime Safety committee, to address oil pollution issues.

The threat of oil spills to marine life is recognised by those likely to be responsible for the pollution, such as the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation:

The marine ecosystem is highly complex and natural fluctuations in species composition, abundance and distribution are a basic feature of its normal function. The extent of damage can therefore be difficult to detect against this background variability. Nevertheless, the key to understanding damage and its importance is whether spill effects result in a downturn in breeding success, productivity, diversity and the overall functioning of the system. Spills are not the only pressure on marine habitats; chronic urban and industrial contamination or the exploitation of the resources they provide are also serious threats.

Eutrophication and algal blooms

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution calls nutrient pollution the most widespread, chronic environmental problem in the coastal ocean. The discharges of nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrients come from agriculture, waste disposal, coastal development, and fossil fuel use. Once nutrient pollution reaches the coastal zone, it stimulates harmful overgrowths of algae, which can have direct toxic effects and ultimately result in low-oxygen conditions. Certain types of algae are toxic. Overgrowths of these algae result in harmful algal blooms, which are more colloquially referred to as "red tides" or "brown tides". Zooplankton eat the toxic algae and begin passing the toxins up the food chain, affecting edibles like clams, and ultimately working their way up to seabirds, marine mammals, and humans. The result can be illness and sometimes death.

Sustainable development

Further information: Sustainable development

There is increasing awareness that a greater understanding and emphasis of ecosystem resilience is required to reach the goal of sustainable development. A similar conclusion is drawn by Perman et al. who use resilience to describe one of 6 concepts of sustainability; "A sustainable state is one which satisfies minimum conditions for ecosystem resilience through time". Resilience science has been evolving over the past decade, expanding beyond ecology to reflect systems of thinking in fields such as economics and political science. And, as more and more people move into densely populated cities, using massive amounts of water, energy, and other resources, the need to combine these disciplines to consider the resilience of urban ecosystems and cities is of paramount importance.

Academic perspectives

The interdependence of ecological and social systems has gained renewed recognition since the late 1990s by academics including Berkes and Folke and developed further in 2002 by Folke et al. As the concept of sustainable development has evolved beyond the 3 pillars of sustainable development to place greater political emphasis on economic development. This is a movement which causes wide concern in environmental and social forums and which Clive Hamilton describes as "the growth fetish".

The purpose of ecological resilience that is proposed is ultimately about averting our extinction as Walker cites Holling in his paper: "[..] "resilience is concerned with [measuring] the probabilities of extinction” (1973, p. 20)". Becoming more apparent in academic writing is the significance of the environment and resilience in sustainable development. Folke et al state that the likelihood of sustaining development is raised by "Managing for resilience" whilst Perman et al. propose that safeguarding the environment to "deliver a set of services" should be a "necessary condition for an economy to be sustainable". The growing application of resilience to sustainable development has produced a diversity of approaches and scholarly debates.

The flaw of the free market

The challenge of applying the concept of ecological resilience to the context of sustainable development is that it sits at odds with conventional economic ideology and policy making. Resilience questions the free market model within which global markets operate. Inherent to the successful operation of a free market is specialisation which is required to achieve efficiency and increase productivity. This very act of specialisation weakens resilience by permitting systems to become accustomed to and dependent upon their prevailing conditions. In the event of unanticipated shocks; this dependency reduces the ability of the system to adapt to these changes. Correspondingly; Perman et al. note that; "Some economic activities appear to reduce resilience, so that the level of disturbance to which the ecosystem can be subjected to without parametric change taking place is reduced".

Moving beyond sustainable development

Berkes and Folke table a set of principles to assist with "building resilience and sustainability" which consolidate approaches of adaptive management, local knowledge-based management practices and conditions for institutional learning and self-organisation.

More recently, it has been suggested by Andrea Ross that the concept of sustainable development is no longer adequate in assisting policy development fit for today's global challenges and objectives. This is because the concept of sustainable development is "based on weak sustainability" which doesn't take account of the reality of "limits to earth's resilience". Ross draws on the impact of climate change on the global agenda as a fundamental factor in the "shift towards ecological sustainability" as an alternative approach to that of sustainable development.

Because climate change is a major and growing driver of biodiversity loss, and that biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, significantly contribute to climate change adaptation, mitigation and disaster risk reduction, proponents of ecosystem-based adaptation suggest that the resilience of vulnerable human populations and the ecosystem services upon which they depend are critical factors for sustainable development in a changing climate.

In environmental policy

Scientific research associated with resilience is beginning to play a role in influencing policy-making and subsequent environmental decision making.

This occurs in a number of ways:

• Observed resilience within specific ecosystems drives management practice. When resilience is observed to be low, or impact seems to be reaching the threshold, management response can be to alter human behavior to result in less adverse impact to the ecosystem.
• Ecosystem resilience impacts upon the way that development is permitted/environmental decision making is undertaken, similar to the way that existing ecosystem health impacts upon what development is permitted. For instance, remnant vegetation in the states of Queensland and New South Wales are classified in terms of ecosystem health and abundance. Any impact that development has upon threatened ecosystems must consider the health and resilience of these ecosystems. This is governed by the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 in New South Wales  and the Vegetation Management Act 1999 in Queensland.
• International level initiatives aim at improving socio-ecological resilience worldwide through the cooperation and contributions of scientific and other experts. An example of such an initiative is the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment whose objective is "to assess the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being and the scientific basis for action needed to enhance the conservation and sustainable use of those systems and their contribution to human well-being". Similarly, the United Nations Environment Programme aim is "to provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations.

Environmental management in legislation

Ecological resilience and the thresholds by which resilience is defined are closely interrelated in the way that they influence environmental policy-making, legislation and subsequently environmental management. The ability of ecosystems to recover from certain levels of environmental impact is not explicitly noted in legislation, however, because of ecosystem resilience, some levels of environmental impact associated with development are made permissible by environmental policy-making and ensuing legislation.

Some examples of the consideration of ecosystem resilience within legislation include:

• Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (NSW)  – A key goal of the Environmental Assessment procedure is to determine whether proposed development will have a significant impact upon ecosystems.
• Protection of the Environment (Operations) Act 1997 (NSW)  – Pollution control is dependent upon keeping levels of pollutants emitted by industrial and other human activities below levels which would be harmful to the environment and its ecosystems. Environmental protection licenses are administered to maintain the environmental objectives of the POEO Act and breaches of license conditions can attract heavy penalties and in some cases criminal convictions.
• Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 (NSW)  – This Act seeks to protect threatened species while balancing it with development.

History

The theoretical basis for many of the ideas central to climate resilience have actually existed since the 1960s. Originally an idea defined for strictly ecological systems, resilience in ecology was initially outlined by C.S. Holling as the capacity for ecological systems and relationships within those systems to persist and absorb changes to "state variables, driving variables, and parameters." This definition helped form the foundation for the notion of ecological equilibrium: the idea that the behavior of natural ecosystems is dictated by a homeostatic drive towards some stable set point. Under this school of thought (which maintained quite a dominant status during this time period), ecosystems were perceived to respond to disturbances largely through negative feedback systems – if there is a change, the ecosystem would act to mitigate that change as much as possible and attempt to return to its prior state.

As greater amounts of scientific research in ecological adaptation and natural resource management was conducted, it became clear that oftentimes, natural systems were subjected to dynamic, transient behaviors that changed how they reacted to significant changes in state variables: rather than work back towards a predetermined equilibrium, the absorbed change was harnessed to establish a new baseline to operate under. Rather than minimize imposed changes, ecosystems could integrate and manage those changes, and use them to fuel the evolution of novel characteristics. This new perspective of resilience as a concept that inherently works synergistically with elements of uncertainty and entropy first began to facilitate changes in the field of adaptive management and environmental resources, through work whose basis was built by Holling and colleagues yet again.

By the mid 1970s, resilience began gaining momentum as an idea in anthropology, culture theory, and other social sciences. There was significant work in these relatively non-traditional fields that helped facilitate the evolution of the resilience perspective as a whole. Part of the reason resilience began moving away from an equilibrium-centric view and towards a more flexible, malleable description of social-ecological systems was due to work such as that of Andrew Vayda and Bonnie McCay in the field of social anthropology, where more modern versions of resilience were deployed to challenge traditional ideals of cultural dynamics.