Greetings everyone,
Happy Father’s Day to the dad’s out there.
Inshallah one day I will be the one receiving breakfast instead of making it.
Enjoy today’s newsletter!
A little imagination goes a long way in Fes.
—Tahir Shah (1966-)
✏️ On Moral Philosophy
How to act justly in the world has never been clear to me. To listen to your peers is certainly not a solution — man is the worst judge of himself, and certainly a suboptimal guide for others. But there is one man-made maxim that I recently encountered which, to me, provides great guidance on how to live. This is the categorical imperative.
It comes from the German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s 1785 work Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals:
Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.
It reminds me of utilitarianism. Now that I write this, I realize that most moral philosophies are just different roads to the same goal — the well-being and prosperity of the self and humanity at large. The moral individual is sacrificial in cases that benefit the greater good, is self-preserving in cases when human instinct and common sense would consider it the right and natural act, and altruistic and collaborative at all times.
At scale, our individual actions are too minuscule to make any real impact on the course of things. But at the interpersonal level, our actions have great weight. We are examples, by default, for those around us, and thus have a duty to strive for righteousness for our immediate circle of influence, and subsequently humanity at large. Maxims like the categorical imperative and the Golden Rule are distillations of this very realization: our lives matter, even though they seemingly don’t.
Premeditatio malorum — the premeditation of evils.
A Stoic exercise to help you realize that, even if the worst to occur, you will be okay.
💡 Food for Thought
Judgement is for none but God.
🔗 Sunday Best
Investigating divergent thinking and creative ability in surgeons (IDEAS): a survey protocol
Published Alex Thabane et al in BMJ Open! More to come :)
Introduction A strong pipeline of creative ideas and individuals is critical if we are to tackle the complex healthcare challenges we will face in the 21st century. The field of creativity is severely underinvestigated in the context of surgery, and it is of interest to explore the level and nature of creativity in surgeons, across various specialties and backgrounds. Identifying the areas of surgery with strong and weak levels of creativity, as well as the predictors of high creativity among surgeons, may aid in the selection and training of future surgeons.
Methods and analysis A convenience sample of surgeons from the Department of Surgery and McMaster University will be used for the recruitment of participants. The Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults, a three-part test of divergent thinking ability, will be administered to measure the level and nature of creativity among surgeons. Descriptive analyses and multiple linear regression models are planned to synthesise the results of the survey and identify predictors of divergent thinking ability among surgeons.
Industry sponsorship bias in cost effectiveness analysis: registry based analysis
Published by Feng Xie & Ting Zhou in the BMJ.
Sponsorship bias in CEAs is significant, systemic, and present across a range of diseases and study designs. Use of CEAs conducted by independent bodies could provide payers with more ability to negotiate lower prices. This impartiality is especially important for countries that rely on published CEAs to inform policy making for insurance coverage because of limited capacity for independent economic analysis.
AI and the Dangers of Illiberal Thinking
A 2023 Commencement Speech by Hamza Yusuf, President of Zaytuna College
In his farewell address to the graduating BA and MA classes of 2023, President Hamza Yusuf discusses the challenges of artificial intelligence and the loss of liberal arts education
To get what you love, you must first be patient with what you hate.
—Imam Al-Ghazali (1058-1111)
Thanks for coming!
AT