Sensing evil

Human insecurity dominates today's headlines: ongoing conflicts in Palestine and Cote d'Ivoire; international terrorism and criminal networks; HIV/AIDS pandemic; growing economic inequalities; and apparent diminishing relevance of multilateralism. Perhaps starkest example of tension between rhetorical commitment to human security and imperatives of state security is military action in Iraq. Is it possible during this time of escalating tensions and international animosities to wholeheartedly embrace a fundamental reorientation in our thinking about security? Over last decade, debate about broadening conceptualization of security has been ongoing at United Nations (1) and among many governments, prominent individuals, international commissions, (2) scholars, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). (3) In 2000, some 180 states endorsed Millennium Declaration's goal of attaining freedom from fear and freedom from want for all people, capturing normative shift in security discourse. How can this commitment and these ideals be brought to bear on severe and multiple crises affecting people in twenty-first century? One answer comes from Commission on Human Security in its publication of Human Security Now in May 2003. (4) Work has focused on six broad interrelated areas of conflict and poverty: protection of people in violent conflict, on move, and in postconflict situations; and measures to overcome economic insecurity, improve health and health services, and impart knowledge and skills. To facilitate its work, commission organized regional consultations and hearings to solicit views of concerned individuals and grassroot organizations. (5) The commission's treatment of human security is suggestive rather than comprehensive; it serves as a catalyst for further thinking and practical applications. It is now incumbent upon governments, international organizations, scholars, and practitioners to move beyond commission's conceptual steps and recommendations. A Conceptual Shift The new security discourse has enveloped idea that security of people needs to be placed ahead of other security concerns. (6) The Commission on Human Security embraced this movement beyond traditional state-centric view of security. It defines human security as vital core of all human lives in ways that enhance human and human fulfillment. This means protecting vital freedoms--fundamental to human existence and development. Human security means protecting people from severe and pervasive threats, both natural and societal, and empowering individuals and communities to develop capabilities for making informed choices and acting on their own behalf. Vital freedoms refer to inalienable fundamental rights and that are laid down in Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights instruments. They also encompass their practical realization. Efforts have been made to identify and categorize threats confronting people under varying conditions in different parts of world. Skeptics view such typologies as unhelpful and have raised questions about value of human security. (7) The commission argues that emphasis of these lists should not be on threats and defensive measures deemed necessary to guard against such threats, but rather on creative and integrative effort to prevent these threats from emerging, or to decrease their negative impact when they do by fulfilling all aspects of people's vital freedoms. Strategies, Protection, and Empowerment Human security expands and reinforces, in Amartya Sen's words, the real that people enjoy. (8) People protected can exercise choices, and people empowered help prevent and mitigate impact of insecurities and devise improvements in protection infrastructure. …

In this article, we draw on narrative phenomenological (Mattingly 2010) and ethnographic projects to investigate how phenomenology may contribute to understanding how practical, experientially gained, expertise is cultivated in extraordinary circumstances. The lived world of autism provides a compelling context for such an exploration. Drawing on ethnographic data, we present arguments related to how a phenomenological approach to understanding autism can be productive by examining the cultivation of expertise and the contagion of knowledge and understanding. Family expertise that is grounded in lived experience often reveals the limitations of both public knowledge and scientific evidence and is generative of a kind of practical knowledge that warrants diffusion. Consideration is given to the specific contributions of a phenomenological approach to understanding autism and learning in collective engagements. Contagion as both a facilitative and positive phenomenon and a potentially stressful or harmful development is discussed.

I think everyone is aware that there is a major distinction between what is considered acceptable scientific evidence and what is considered to be appropriate legal, political, or religious evidence. I think, too, that most people understand that there are also major distinctions between what is considered to be acceptable evidence among the various scientific disciplines. Some sciences are primarily observational in nature, some are primarily experimental, and many are both.

The role of different sciences in the development of each other is quite clear and undeniable. Today, the application of scientific and laboratory facilities for discovering the truth and collecting evidence has increasingly extended and almost dominated the old methods. Hence, the era of probative evidence has been introduced as the age of scientific and legal evidence convergence. Meanwhile, applying the evidence provided through biotechnological methods has become commonplace among judges for achieving the certainty and getting persuaded. On the other hand, the right to life is on the top of the list of fundamental rights inherited to the human beings which accurse the action of physically removing any person or a group of persons for any specific and non-specific reason. Self-determination is another basic human right which knows people possessing the fundamental right to determine their own destiny by birth. In a legal biological system, scientific experiments providing physical, chemical, and mechanical evidence from laboratory and biological examinations will be taken as the basis of criminal evidence, known as forensic biotechnology. In the present paper, the role of forensic biotechnology in establishing the above-mentioned human rights is summarized.