No. 1Spring 2003
No. 1
Spring 2003
Essays
Ageless Bodies, Happy Souls
Leon R. Kass on biotechnology and the pursuit of perfection
Military Technology and American Culture
Victor Davis Hanson on our character, our weapons, and our role in the world
Liberty, Privacy, and DNA Databases
Christine Rosen on the uses and dangers of genetic fingerprints
The Paradox of Conservative Bioethics
Yuval Levin on taboos, democracy, and the politics of biology
Bioethics and the Character of Human Life
Gilbert Meilaender on mortality, freedom, suffering, and the generations
The Future of Medical Technology
Scott Gottlieb on how the marriage of biology and silicon is transforming medicine
Artificial Intelligence and Human Nature
Charles T. Rubin on the project to make human beings extinct
The Rise and Fall of Sociobiology
Peter A. Lawler on the age’s three great illusions about human nature
State of the Art
Fertility Gone Mad
Pregnancy After Menopause, IVF Birth defects, & More
Bill Gates, the Prince
The Muddled Microsoft Case and Stone-Age Antitrust Laws
Mapping the Mind
Our New Techniques for Scanning the Psyche
HapMap—Revolution or Hype?
The Controversy Surrounding the Next Gene-Mapping Project
Satellites at Risk
The Next Homeland Security Challenge May Be in Space
Are We Ready for Terror?
The Latest Hart-Rudman Report and What It Missed
Oh, Behave!
Britain’s Nuffield Council Weighs in on Behavioral Genetics
Home is Where the Robot is
Vacuum Cleaners, Security Guards, and Old-Age Companions
Chinese Bioethics?
“Voluntary” Eugenics and the Prospects for Reform
The Dust Bites Another One
From Michael Crichton’s Prey to the Department of Nanotechnology
The Animal in Us
The Latest Advances in Xenotransplantation
‘Lift Your Eyes to the Heavens’
President Bush’s remarks on the loss of the space shuttle Columbia
Notes & Briefs
Nuclear Fusion, Censoring Science, Hyper-Healthcare, etc.
No. 2Summer 2003
No. 2
Summer 2003
Essays
Of Embryos and Empire
Eric Cohen on what the embryo debate can teach us about American civilization
The Nanotechnology Revolution
Adam Keiper on the science and politics of manipulating the very small
The New Face of War
David Skinner on whether new technologies make war more tolerable and more just
War and Techne
Gilbert Meilaender on the timeless truths of war
Why Conservatives Care About Biotechnology
Adam Wolfson on conservatives, biotechnology, and the American project
Human Nature is Here to Stay
Larry Arnhart on why biotechnology will not change our bodies, brains, and desires
Eugenics—Sacred and Profane
Christine Rosen on Orthodox matchmakers, IVF clinics, and genetic testing
State of the Art
Mercy and Drugs in Africa
Inside the Bush Administration’s New AIDS Policy
My Mother, the Embryo
IVF's Latest: She-Males, Fetal Eggs, and Children of the Unborn
Year of the Red Planet
An International Wave of Interplanetary Exploration
Clueless
Moral Silliness from Some Spokesmen of Science
Navel-Gazing
Bioethics and the Unbearable Whiteness of Being
Porn, Privacy, and Kids
Congressional Attempts to Make the Internet Child-Friendly
Carried Away with Convergence
The Merging of Nanotech, Biotech, Infotech, and Brain Sciences
Boys Will Be Boys
The Science of the Y Chromosome
Crackdown!
Stepping Up the Fight Against Music Piracy
Stopping Spam
As the Spam Problem Worsens, Congress Seeks a Remedy
Technology: The Great Enabler?
How Jayson Blair Conned the New York Times
‘Something History Will Not Forgive’
Excerpts from Tony Blair’s Speech to Congress, July 18, 2003
Notes & Briefs
Cloned Mules, Forgetful Mice, Camera Phones, etc.
No. 3Fall 2003
No. 3
Fall 2003
Essays
A New Vision for NASA
Adam Keiper on the trouble with NASA and the moral case for space exploration
Bioethics in Wartime
Eric Cohen on biology and the good life—in peace and in war
A Conversation with Nature
Steve Talbott on understanding our relationship with the natural world
From Biology to Biography
William Hurlbut on evolution and the ascent of the human person
Why Not Artificial Wombs?
Christine Rosen on the meaning of being born, not incubated
Does Digital Politics Still Matter?
Robert Atkinson and Shane Ham on the battles over information technology
The Politics of the WHO
Steven Menashi on the follies of the World Health Organization
State of the Art
‘Tis the Season?
Women off the Cycle, Men on the Pill
Caught in the Act
Tracking Cheating Hearts in the Cyber-Age
Bank on It
Britain Constructs a Universal Genetic Database
Out of Their Right Mind
Conservatism is Crazy, but Psychiatry is Here to Help
Edward Teller, RIP
The Controversial Life of the Father of the H-Bomb
Neil Postman, RIP
Culture, Technology, and the Modern Soul
The Science Journal Crisis
Disappearing Articles, Skyrocketing Costs, and Open Access
Paper and Pixel
The Web Takes Note of Books, Reference Books Discover the Web
Was Blind, But Now I See
Stem Cells, Genetics, and Bionics in the Quest for Sight
The Future of Satellites
New Problems and New Players in the Satellite Game
‘We’re the Dreamers’
Senators Hear Opposing Views on Piracy from Two Rappers
Notes & Briefs
Spammer Justice, Cloned Food, Solar Flares, etc.
No. 4Winter 2004
No. 4
Winter 2004
Science and Self-Government
Wilfred M. McClay on science and self-government
A More Child-Like Science
Steve Talbott on “better children”
Man or Machine?
Charles T. Rubin on “superior performance”
Methuselah and Us
Diana Schaub on “ageless bodies”
Restless Souls
Peter A. Lawler on “happy souls”
Essays
Romance in the Information Age
Christine Rosen on how technology is changing courtship
Imagining the Future
Yuval Levin on innovations, generations, and the biotechnology debates
The Kyoto Protocol: A Post-Mortem
S. Fred Singer on the politics of global climate change
The Scientist and the Poet
Paul A. Cantor on the surprising wrinkles in an age-old rivalry
The Right Plan
Adam Keiper on the plan and its critics
The Virtual Astronaut
Robert Park on the virtual astronaut
The Human Explorer
Robert Zubrin on the human explorer
State of the Art
The Age of Cloning
Breakthrough in South Korea, Stalemate in the Senate
Do Embryos Vote?
Stem Cell Politics in an Election Year
The Nanotech Schism
High-Tech Pants or Molecular Revolution?
Online Democracy
Why the Era of E-Voting Will Have to Wait
Life is Just a Game
The Rise of Video Games in American Culture
The Ideological Environmentalist
Challenging the Orthodoxy of “Green” Science
Click Twice and Call Me in the Morning
The Growing Underground Market in Prescription Drugs
History Repeating?
The Peculiar Comeback of Eugenics
Gatekeepers of Science
Peer Review Controversies at Home and Abroad
Power-Hungry China
The International Consequences of China’s Quest for Energy
‘The Seams that Hold Us Back’
Bill Gates on Hardware, Software, and the Next Step in Computing
Notes & Briefs
Face Transplants, Text-Message Weddings, Aerogel, etc.
No. 5Spring 2004
No. 5
Spring 2004
Essays
Energy Dreams and Energy Realities
Stephanie Cohen on liberals, conservatives, and the energy debate
The Democratization of Beauty
Christine Rosen on cosmetic surgery and American culture
The Dilemmas of German Bioethics
Eric Brown on the taboos of the Nazi past and the future of human dignity
The Legacy of Nazi Medicine
Naomi Schaefer on a powerful new exhibit at the U.S. Holocaust Museum
Technology and the Constitution
O. Carter Snead on how new technologies affect judicial interpretation
Nuclear 1914: The Next Big Worry
Henry Sokolski on the problem of nuclear proliferation in the age of terrorism
Getting Serious About IVF
Adam Wolfson on the new report from the President’s Council on Bioethics
Memory and the Movies
James Bowman on remembering and forgetting through the eyes of Hollywood
State of the Art
Dot-Com Terrorism
How Radical Islam Uses the Internet to Fight the West
Campaigning for Stem Cells
Research Advocates Launch a New Offensive for Funding
Daniel J. Boorstin, RIP
Historian, Critic, and American Man of Books
Gaga Over Google
More than a Search Engine, Less than a Mind
Life from Scratch
Promise, Peril, and Pathogens: Breakthroughs in Synthetic Biology
Science Goes Hollywood
Selective Outrage over the Latest Movie Inaccuracies
Red Planet, Wet Planet
Developments in the Search for Life on Mars
Miles Still to Go
DARPA and the Great Robot Race
The Science of Human Potential
Public Dialogue about Behavioral Genetics
One of Us
The Anatomy of Acceptance
‘The Course We Must Maintain’
Vice President Cheney on Proliferation and Cooperation
Notes & Briefs
Stamping Out Spam, Euthanasia News, Books Online, etc.
No. 6Summer 2004
No. 6
Summer 2004
Essays
The Human Face of Alzheimer’s
Colleen Carroll Campbell on the medical, ethical, and personal aspects of dementia
Stem Cells and the Reagan Legacy
Gilbert Meilaender on hubris and limits in the embryo research debate
Our Cell Phones, Ourselves
Christine Rosen on the consequences of ignoring the world around us
The Path Not Taken
Rand Simberg on the myths of the old space age and what comes next
Our Asterisked Heroes
Douglas Kern on human excellence in the age of performance-enhancing drugs
Film and TV in Anxious Times
Thomas S. Hibbs on fantasy film, reality TV, and American life after 9/11
State of the Art
The Assassin’s Mace
China’s Growing Military Might
The Stem Cell Race
John Kerry and the Democrats Search for an Issue
America at 10 M.P.H.
The Slow But Steady Rise of Segway
The Big Change
The End of Menopause and Its Meaning
It’s Getting Easier Being Green
Permaculture Goes Mainstream
Francis Crick, RIP
The Man, the Mind, and the Molecule
Doping for Seconds
The Shadow of Drugs on American Athletics
‘Higher Standards’
Eliot Spitzer on the Pharmaceutical Industry
Notes & Briefs
Nano News, Robot Nurses, Racing Sperm, etc.
No. 7Fall 2004 - Winter 2005
No. 7
Fall 2004 - Winter 2005
Essays
Science and Congress
Adam Keiper on science advice and the legacy of the Office of Technology Assessment
The Age of Egocasting
Christine Rosen on TiVo, iPod, and technologies of fetish
Human Growth Hormone and the Measure of Man
Dov Fox on height enhancement and the new tyranny of the normal
Acorns and Embryos
Robert P. George and Patrick Lee on moral standing and bad metaphors
The Tragedy of Equality
Eric Cohen on the uses of reason, the absurdity of disease, and the quest for justice
Human Frailty and Human Dignity
Leon R. Kass responds to Eric Cohen’s essay
The Crisis of Everyday Life
Yuval Levin responds to Eric Cohen’s essay
In What Sense Equal?
Amy Laura Hall responds to Eric Cohen’s essay
State of the Art
I’ve Got You Under My Skin
Tracking Technology Gets Personal
Black Box Ballyhoo
Voting Technology in the 2004 Election
Gray Matter in the Courtroom
Neuroscience as Legal Evidence
Debunking the Digital Classroom
Rethinking the Virtues of “Tech Literacy”
The Cloning Logjam
Treaty Talks Break Down at the United Nations
The Encyclopedia in Cyberspace
Wikipedia Makes Every Man an Editor
‘A Second Kind of Frontier’
The X Prize Triumph and the Future of Space Travel
No. 8Spring 2005
No. 8
Spring 2005
Essays
The Caregiving Society
Peter Augustine Lawler on caring for the old in an age of individualism
Getting Space Exploration Right
Robert Zubrin on making the Moon-Mars initiative work
Science Education and Liberal Education
Matthew B. Crawford on the trouble with today’s textbooks
Logic, DNA, and Poetry
Steve Talbott on how bad metaphors make for bad science
Daedalus and Icarus Revisited
Charles T. Rubin on science, the future, and the Haldane-Russell debate
Bioethics at the Movies
James Bowman on abortion, euthanasia, and Hollywood
State of the Art
The Embryo Wars
The U.N., Mitt Romney, and California Corruption
DNA Dragnets
The Uses and Abuses of Genetic Information
Blogs Gone Bad
The Darker Side of the Blogging Boom
Crimson Recriminations
Larry Summers vs. The Harvard Feminists
‘A Profound Loss as a Culture’
Debating Copyright in the Digital Age
Notes & Briefs
Space Tourism, Tsunami Hucksters, Artificial Friends, etc.
No. 9Summer 2005
No. 9
Summer 2005
Essays
Playgrounds of the Self
Christine Rosen on video games and modern identity
The Real Meaning of Genetics
Eric Cohen on the false fears and genuine dilemmas of modern genetics
The Computerized Academy
Matthew B. Crawford on information technology and the life of the mind
Technology and the Spirit of Ownership
Paul J. Cella III on private property as a cure for the ills of the technology age
Science, Technology, and The Public Interest
Excerpts from forty years of “a middle-aged magazine for middle-aged readers”
State of the Art
How We Measure Up
Is American Math and Science Education in Decline?
Shooting Not to Kill
America’s Development and Use of Non-Lethal Weapons
The New NASA
Mike Griffin Takes the Helm and Transforms the Agency
To Boldly Go
The end of Star Trek and Star Wars
Checking Terrorists at the Door
Small Hopes for The Real ID Act
‘An Unknowable Atom of Human Flesh’
Henry Hyde and Joe Barton on the Ethics of Stem Cell Research
Notes & Briefs
Russia’s Blackout, Los Alamos Woes, Paris Hilton, etc.
No. 10Fall 2005
No. 10
Fall 2005
Essays
Conservatives, Liberals, and Medical Progress
Daniel Callahan on politics, death, and the future of modern medicine
The Moral Education of Doctors
Philip Overby on shaping the souls of aspiring physicians
The Image Culture
Christine Rosen on Photoshop, PowerPoint, and our perception of reality
Buggy Software and Missile Defense
Mark Halpern on writing code and protecting the country
Love in the Age of Neuroscience
Mickey Craig and Jon Fennell on Tom Wolfe’s I Am Charlotte Simmons
Reconsideration
Francis Bacon’s God
Stephen A. McKnight reconsiders the religious foundations of the “New Atlantis”
Excerpt
The Aging Self
A selection from Taking Care, a report by the President’s Council on Bioethics
State of the Art
The Lessons of Katrina
Natural Horrors and Modern Technology
Relaunching NASA
Back to the Moon by 2018—Or Sooner
Bush-League Science
Are Republicans Conducting a “War on Science”?
Cicely Saunders, RIP
Remembering the Founder of the Hospice Movement
Hollywood’s Fertile Imagination
Baby-Making Goes Prime Time
Chief Justice at the Bedside
John Roberts and the End of Life
No. 11Winter 2006
No. 11
Winter 2006
Essays
The Age of Neuroelectronics
Adam Keiper on neural implants, brain-machine interfaces, and cyborg fantasies
The Trouble with the Turing Test
Mark Halpern on the fallacy of thinking computers
The Rhetoric of Extinction
Charles T. Rubin reviews four recent books on transhumanism
Are We Worthy of Our Kitchens?
Christine Rosen on expensive appliances and modern families
Who Owns the Genome?
Misha Angrist and Robert M. Cook-Deegan on intellectual property and genomics
Excerpt
The Rise of Guerrilla Media
Glenn Reynolds on blogs, Big Media, and the future of journalism
State of the Art
Human Cloning and Scientific Corruption
The South Korea Scandal and the Future of the Stem Cell Debate
The U.N.’s Net Gambit
Internationalizing Internet Governance
The $100 Laptop
A Flawed Plan to “Save the World”
Morals and the Mind
Michael Gazzaniga’s Ethical Brain
‘No Nation Can Afford to Ignore This Threat’
America Prepares for Avian Flu
Notes & Briefs
Science Education, Wikipedia’s Accuracy, Mozart’s Skull, etc.
No. 12Spring 2006
No. 12
Spring 2006
Essays
Biotechnology and the Spirit of Capitalism
Eric Cohen on the new commerce of the body
The Promise and Perils of Synthetic Biology
Jonathan B. Tucker and Raymond A. Zilinskas on regulating designer microbes
The Mislabeled Child
Brock L. Eide and Fernette F. Eide on the failure of kindergarten neurochemistry
The Many Casualties of Cloning
Richard M. Doerflinger on the lessons of the South Korean fraud
Reviews and Reconsiderations
The God Meme
Charles T. Rubin on Daniel Dennett’s unconvincing theory
Jules Verne: Father of Science Fiction?
John Derbyshire on Verne’s lesser-known works
Polio Stories
Philip J. Overby on the meaning of a forgotten epidemic
The Age of Female Computers
David Skinner on the burdens of pre-machine mathematics
A Clone’s Lament
James Bowman on life as a useful pre-cadaver
State of the Art
Censoring Scientists?
Lessons of the James Hansen Affair
Stem Cell Spin
The Bush Policy and Its Unreasonable Critics
Stuck with the Old, In with the New
NASA’s Budgetary Balancing Act
Addicted to Bad Data
Getting the Facts Straight on Ethanol
Apocalypse Averted
The BlackBerry Settlement and Patent Reform
‘Predators Are Becoming More Sophisticated’
Pornographers and Pedophiles Online
No. 13Summer 2006
No. 13
Summer 2006
Essays
Shop Class as Soulcraft
Matthew B. Crawford makes a case for the manual trades
Gifts of the Body
Gilbert Meilaender on organs, markets, and the ethics of transplantation
The Self-Portrait of a Scientist
Christine Rosen on wonder, mastery, and fame in scientific memoir
A Third Way on Network Neutrality
Robert D. Atkinson and Philip J. Weiser on the battle over broadband
The First Fourteen Days of Human Life
Patrick Lee and Robert P. George on the biology of the early embryo
The Myth of Thomas Szasz
Jeffrey Oliver on the legacy of psychiatry’s forgotten critic
Reviews and Reconsiderations
The Methanol Alternative
Robert Zubrin on how to alleviate our energy problems
Medicine Without Limits
Daniel P. Sulmasy on therapy, enhancement, and sophistry
Babies for Sale
Cheryl Miller on buying and selling our offspring
On the Shelf
Quick Takes on The Father of Surgery, Box Boats, Cloning and the Law, etc.
State of the Art
China’s Phony Science
Exposing Corruption, Plagiarism, and Fraud
Rethinking Peer Review
How the Internet is Changing Science Journals
Cyber-Insecurity
Computer Theft Puts Veterans’ Data at Risk
Sexist Science?
A “She Said, He Said” About Discrimination in the Lab
‘Stumbling into a Powerful Technology’
Baroness Greenfield on New Media and Young Minds
Notes & Briefs
Sex Selection, Chernobyl, Bottled Water, etc.
No. 14Fall 2006
No. 14
Fall 2006
Correspondence
The Beginning of Life; An Unbalanced Diagnosis; The Enhancement Wars; Three Cheers for Craftsmanship
Essays
The Paradox of Military Technology
Max Boot on American power and American vulnerability
The Moral Challenge of Modern Science
Yuval Levin on politics, ethics, and the scientific worldview
The Case for Kidney Markets
Benjamin Hippen on how to solve the kidney shortage
Is the Body Property?
Peter Augustine Lawler on rights, dignity, and organ sales
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Beyond the Right to Life
Wilfred M. McClay on the “Party of Death”
The Agony of Atomic Genius
Algis Valiunas on the tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
Cloning’s Apologist
Caitrin Nicol on Ian Wilmut’s defense of research cloning
C. S. Lewis Goes to the Laboratory
Thomas W. Merrill on the science and faith of Francis Collins
State of the Art
Too Speculative?
Henry Sokolski
The Dotcomrade
Brian Boyd
The Touchy-Feely Laboratory
Christine Rosen
Space Deals
Rand Simberg
Eco-Censorship
Iain Murray
Techno-Horror in Hollywood
Sonny Bunch
‘Oblivious’
Rush Holt on Science, Technology, and Congress
Notes & Briefs
Healthier People, Sicker Oceans, Electronic Books, etc.
No. 15Winter 2007
No. 15
Winter 2007
Essays
The Hydrogen Hoax
Robert Zubrin on energy charlatans and the politicians who love them
In Whose Image Shall We Die?
Eric Cohen on living well and dying well
The Language of Nature
Steve Talbott on how science drains meaning from experience
The Scientific Mind of Ben Franklin
Jerry Weinberger on America’s first Baconian
Reviews and Reconsiderations
The Red Plague
Cheryl Miller on how China bungled SARS
Psychiatry’s Healer
Philip J. Overby on the medical humanism of Paul McHugh
Our Childless Dystopia
James Bowman on P. D. James’s The Children of Men, as novel and film
Immortality Lite
Ross Douthat on the sublime and the foolish in Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain
Theory Wars, Again
Matthew B. Crawford on reason and relativism in the academy
State of the Art
Sucker-Me Elmo
Christine Rosen
The Electoral Politics of Stem Cells
Yuval Levin
Cloning Down Under
Michael Casey
Dead Body Porn
Thomas S. Hibbs
Back to the Moon, To Stay?
Jeff Foust
Bioethics and The Public Interest
A Journal’s Lasting Legacy
No. 16Spring 2007
No. 16
Spring 2007
Essays
China’s Space Ambitions—and Ours
Jeff Kueter on the Chinese threat to American space assets and what to do about it
The Right to Life and Human Dignity
Leon R. Kass on Thomas Hobbes as a teacher of dignity
Brave New World at 75
Caitrin Nicol on reading Aldous Huxley’s novel as its first readers did
Nanoethics as a Discipline?
Adam Keiper on the proliferation of professional nanotechnology criticism
Reviews and Reconsiderations
What’s Ailing Health Care?
James C. Capretta on markets, medicine, and the limits of government
The Half-Bound World
John Derbyshire reviews Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle
The Greening of Capitalism
Nick Schulz on environmentalism as corporate exhibitionism
The Problem with Plagiarism
Jeremy Lott on the timeless drama of the copycat
Political Pseudoscience
Matthew B. Crawford on why political science is not physics
State of the Art
Reforming NIH
Yuval Levin
Energy Incrementalism
Stephanie Cohen
Seeing and Believing
Peter Suderman
What Lies Within
Christine Rosen
Digilante Justice
Ruth Martin
‘A Critical Part of the Solution’
Al Gore and the Nuclear Debate
Notes & Briefs
Sonofusion, Burnt Sponges, Smelling Technosexual, etc.
No. 17Summer 2007
No. 17
Summer 2007
Essays
Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism
Christine Rosen on MySpace, Facebook, and the costs of social networking
Human Dignity and Public Bioethics
Gilbert Meilaender on dignity as a useful concept
Melancholy’s Whole Physician
Algis Valiunas reads Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy
Heroism, Modernism, and the Utopian Impulse
James Bowman on cowboys, communists, and dreams of perfection
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Drug Addiction and the Open Society
Lee Harris on freedom and self-mastery
Parenthood at Any Price
Cheryl Miller reviews Liza Mundy’s Everything Conceivable
Intimations of the Soul
Paul J. Cella III on idolatry in the Age of Machines
Devaluing Science
Jonathan H. Adler on scientists and politics
State of the Art
‘Less Morally Problematic Alternatives’
Yuval Levin
Soldiers for Rent
Habib Moody
The Man in the Moon
Stephen Bertman
Faces Disappearing
Richard W. Sams II
‘For Better or Worse’
Tony Blair on Politics and the Media
Notes & Briefs
Live Earth, Mr. Wizard, Solving Checkers, etc.
No. 18Fall 2007
No. 18
Fall 2007
Essays
Achieving Energy Victory
Robert Zubrin on how to win the war on terror by breaking free of oil
Ghosts in the Evolutionary Machinery
Steve Talbott on digital organisms and disembodied science
The Conquest of Space and the Stature of Man
Hannah Arendt on scientists, common sense, and man’s limitations
Nature, Man, and Common Sense
Patrick J. Deneen
Science and Totalitarianism
Rita Koganzon
Thumos in Space
Charles T. Rubin
Chariots in the Sky
Stephen Bertman
Our Proud Human Future
Peter Augustine Lawler
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Launching the Space Age
James E. Oberg on the dramatic story of Sputnik
The New Pioneers
Rand Simberg on the burgeoning private space industry
The Evangelical Ecologist
S.M. Hutchens on E. O. Wilson’s Earth-piety
The Painless Peace of Twilight Sleep
Cheryl Miller on an overlooked Edith Wharton gem
State of the Art
Shot in the Dark
Caitrin Nicol
Science Warrior
Yuval Levin
Unclassifiable
Christine Rosen
Card’s Game
Peter Suderman
‘Americans Will Not Like It’
Michael Griffin on the Global Space Economy
Notes & Briefs
Blackwater Fallout, Caves on Mars, Missing Mass, etc.
No. 19Winter 2008
No. 19
Winter 2008
Essays
Science and the Left
Yuval Levin on the past and future of the “party of science”
Neuroimaging and Capital Punishment
O. Carter Snead on brain scans and the conflicted aspirations of neuroscience
The Limits of Neuro-Talk
Matthew B. Crawford on the dangers of a mindless brain science
Blogging Infertility
Cheryl Miller on the lively and fractious community of “infertiles”
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Masters and Possessors of Nature
Thomas W. Merrill reads Descartes’ Discourse on Method
Shop Till You Drop?
Jeremy Lott on suburbs, bomb shelters, and bottled water
Sick and Famous
Christy Hall Robinson on celebrity patients as advocates
State of the Art
The Clipboard of the Future
James C. Capretta
Till Malfunction Do Us Part
Caitrin Nicol
The Moral Life of Cubicles
David Franz
‘The Steroids Era’
George Mitchell on Drugs in Baseball
Notes & Briefs
Green Collars, Plastic Bags, MySpace Gangsters, etc.
No. 20Spring 2008
No. 20
Spring 2008
Essays
In Defense of Biofuels
Robert Zubrin on ethanol and its critics
Health Care 2008: A Political Primer
James C. Capretta on how and why McCain's health care plan might work
Public Opinion and the Embryo Debates
Yuval Levin analyzes a revealing new poll on bioethics
Technology and Authenticity
Bruno Macaes on enhancement, action, and truth
Biotech Enhancement and Natural Law
Ryan T. Anderson and Christopher Tollefsen on distinctions in an age of novelty
The Myth of Multitasking
Christine Rosen on doing too much at once
The Technology of Memory
James Poulos on forgetting how to remember
The Motives That Ought to Encourage Us to the Sciences
A discourse by Montesquieu translated for the first time into English by Diana Schaub
Montesquieu’s Popular Science
Diana Schaub on the study of science and the life of the mind
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Einstein’s Quest for Truth
Algis Valiunas on the mind of the man behind relativity
At Home with Down Syndrome
Caitrin Nicol reads memoirs of gratitude
No. 21Summer 2008
No. 21
Summer 2008
Essays
Nuclear Policy and the Presidential Election
Henry Sokolski on nuclear matters and why they matter
Conservatives, Climate Change, and the Carbon Tax
Jim Manzi on the cost of thinking impractically about potential risk
Donated Generation
Cheryl Miller on releasing the identities of egg and sperm donors
Rethinking Public Opinion
Thomas Fitzgerald on the problems of polling
Technology, Culture, and Virtue
Patrick J. Deneen on Wendell Berry’s unnatured man
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Is Stupid Making Us Google?
James Bowman on the “Dumbest Generation”
We Are the Change We’ve Been Waiting For
Sebastian Waisman on the “Millennial Generation”
The World Made New
Rita Koganzon on Second Life and real life
The Brat Pack of Quantum Mechanics
John Derbsyhire on a pivotal year for modern physics
The Prudence of Neuroscience
Ivan Kenneally reviews The Heart of Judgment
State of the Art
An Animal to Save the World
Jonathan H. Adler
Taking the Earth’s Temperature
Jordan R. Raney
Pipeline Diplomacy
Adam Blinick
‘Leadership from the Bottom’
Wendell Berry on Rural Revival
Notes & Briefs
Chocolate DNA, Prozac for Puppies, ELIZA, etc.
No. 22Fall 2008
No. 22
Fall 2008
Essays
Petrodollar Science
Waleed Al-Shobakky on research and education in the Arab world
People of the Screen
Christine Rosen tells a tale of two literacies
Ten Years of “Death with Dignity”
Courtney S. Campbell on Oregon’s experience with physician-assisted suicide
Fixing American Health Care
Joseph V. Kennedy on cost, quality, and competition
Health Care with a Conscience
James C. Capretta on protecting Catholic hospitals
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Beyond Mankind
Charles T. Rubin on John Harris’s “sanshumanist” project
The Confused Congresswoman
Yuval Levin on Diana DeGette’s assault on reason
Green Bridge to Nowhere
Jonathan H. Adler on Gus Speth’s unsustainable environmentalism
State of the Art
Capturing Carbon
Jordan R. Raney
Staying Afloat
Peter Suderman
‘Categories of Warfare Are Blurring’
Robert Gates on the Tactics and Tools of Tomorrow’s Battles
Notes & Briefs
Eco-Vandalism, Noise Laws, the Billion-Dollar Click, etc.
No. 23Winter 2009
No. 23
Winter 2009
Essays
The Ethics of Counterinsurgency
Keith Pavlischek on irregular warfare and international law
Military Robots and the Laws of War
P. W. Singer on how unmanned systems are transforming armed conflict
Why Minds Are Not Like Computers
Ari N. Schulman on fundamental confusion about artificial intelligence
Reality and the Postmodern Wink
James Bowman champions curmudgeonliness as an antidote to cynicism
Nations, Liberalism, and Science
Peter Augustine Lawler on civil theology and civil biology
Socialism and Cancer
David Gratzer on how government ruins medicine
Reviews and Reconsiderations
The Great Breath of Hell
Algis Valiunas on the modern way of madness
Making Men Modern
Wayne Ambler on reform and recalcitrance in Twain’s Connecticut Yankee
No. 24Spring 2009
No. 24
Spring 2009
Essays
AIDS Relief and Moral Myopia
Travis Kavulla on African culture and the public health community
Embryos in Limbo
Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill on IVF and indecision about nascent life
What and When Is Death?
Alan Rubenstein on knowing human living to define human dying
Technocracy and Populism
Ivan Kenneally on President Obama and putting politics behind us
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Is Water a Human Right?
Kendra Okonski on market solutions to the world’s “water crisis”
In Search of Chinese Science
John Derbyshire on Joseph Needham, sinologist and scientist
The Virtual Public Square
Alan Jacobs reviews Richard John Neuhaus’s final book
The True Face of Digital Democracy
Sebastian Waisman on the Internet and civic engagement
State of the Art
The Road to Rationing
Paul Howard and David Gratzer
Keeping Books Safe
Elizabeth Mullaney Nicol
The Rise of Cyber-Schools
Liam Julian
Disability Politics
Ari Ne’eman
At the Gates of a Magical Garden
G. Anthony Gorry
Down in Flames
James E. Oberg
No. 25Summer 2009
No. 25
Summer 2009
Essays
A Space Program for the Rest of Us
Rand Simberg on the wrong lessons of Apollo and the right way to reach space
The Lost Prestige of Nuclear Physics
N. J. Slabbert on the American retreat from nuclear technology
Science and Medicine in Fiction
The Ambiguous Utopia of Iain M. Banks
Alan Jacobs on the “Culture” novels and the price of bliss
Plato in Space
Charles T. Rubin on science, politics, and faith in Neal Stephenson’s Anathem
Unchosen Lives
Caitrin Nicol on Jodi Picoult’s tales at the threshold
Creating Frankenstein
Jeremy Kessler on Victor’s monster and the Shelleys’ story
Reviews and Reconsiderations
The Fusion Illusion
Max Schulz on false starts, fraud, and the real promise of nuclear fusion
Too Hot to Handle
Jordan R. Raney throws cold water on climate extremists
Medicine and Moral Authority
Daniel P. Sulmasy reviews Jonathan Imber’s Trusting Doctors
State of the Art
Fighting Fake Drugs
Roger Bate
Test Ban Treaty, Take Two
Christopher A. Ford
Romancing the Atom
Robert R. Johnson
China’s Organ Market
S. Elizabeth Forsythe
Nutrition and Tradition
John Schwenkler
No. 26Fall 2009 - Winter 2010
No. 26
Fall 2009 - Winter 2010
Essays
The Future of Chemical Weapons
Jonathan B. Tucker on a neglected threat and what to do about it
The Financial Crisis and the Scientific Mindset
Paul J. Cella III on shadow banking and the returns of rationalism
On Bioethics in Public
Gilbert Meilaender reflects on the method and legacy of the President’s Council on Bioethics
Science and the Decline of the Liberal Arts
Patrick J. Deneen
The Technocratic American University
Ivan Kenneally
Human Dignity and Higher Education
Peter Augustine Lawler
The Soul of the Scientist of Man
Shilo Brooks
The Ivy League Lament
Rita Koganzon
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Darwin’s World of Pain and Wonder
Algis Valiunas on the great scientist’s spiritual torment
Cheap Thrills
Noemie Emery defends the American consumer
The Formation of Character
David Skinner on how we write and who we are
Why We Walk
Jennifer Graf Groneberg on the origins of man and the end of walking
Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Spirit of Science
The Editors kick off a series on scientific progress and the American literary genius
Wasting the Water of Life
Kevin Laskowski on “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” and the allure of immortality
Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment
Online only: A new critical edition of Hawthorne’s story
No. 27Spring 2010
No. 27
Spring 2010
Essays
Why Not Nuclear Disarmament?
Christopher A. Ford on the questions that disarmament advocates must answer
Proportionality in Warfare
Keith Pavlischek on the abuse of an important just war principle
The Tortured Logic of Obama’s Drone War
Hillel Ofek on the strategic, legal, and moral implications of targeted killing
The Most Useful Man Who Ever Lived
William Rosen on making heroes of inventors
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Scientists Fallen Among Poets
Algis Valiunas on what the Romantics learned from scientists, and vice versa
One Man’s Quantum Culture
Jeremy Axelrod reviews a memoir of strange science and swanky society
Avatar and the Flight from Reality
James Bowman on the sci-fi blockbuster and the mimetic tradition in art
From Cursive to Cursor
Alan Jacobs on whether it matters how we write
Bad Advice for Scientists
Ari N. Schulman reviews Unscientific America
Artful by Nature
Charles T. Rubin reads “The New Adam and Eve”
The New Adam and Eve
Online only: A new critical edition of Hawthorne’s story
State of the Art
A Regrettable Reform
David Gratzer
Going Nowhere
Robert Zubrin
Claude Lévi-Strauss, RIP
Travis Kavulla
Missing the Big Picture
Jeff Robbins
The Case for Boredom
Adam J. Cox
Avatars in the Workplace
G. Anthony Gorry
‘The Unique Worth of an Individual Human Life’
On conversing with and learning from Paul Ramsey
No. 28Summer 2010
No. 28
Summer 2010
Essays
Getting Over the Code Delusion
Steve Talbott on epigenetics and the demise of DNA as destiny
How Can I Possibly Be Free?
Raymond Tallis on the neuroscientific case against free will, and why it’s wrong
Hiding Behind the Screen
Roger Scruton on the risks of friendship and the costs of shirking them
Environmentalism as Religion
Joel Garreau on energy sinners and carbon Calvinism
Churchill on Science and Civilization
Justin D. Lyons on politics and the humanities, war and peace, in the age of science
Reviews and Reconsiderations
The Science of Self-Help
Algis Valiunas on goofy advice, dubious wisdom, and neuro-gurus
Disenchanting Determinism
Caitrin Nicol reviews novels by Richard Powers and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
From Hearth-Fires to Hell-Fires
Diana Schaub reads three tales on the flames of progress
Ethan Brand
Online only: A new critical edition of Hawthorne’s story
Earth’s Holocaust
Online only: A new critical edition of Hawthorne’s story
Fire Worship
Online only: A new critical edition of Hawthorne’s story
No. 29Fall 2010
No. 29
Fall 2010
Essays
What Neuroscience Cannot Tell Us About Ourselves
Raymond Tallis debunks the tropes of “neuromythology”
The Unbearable Wholeness of Beings
Steve Talbott confronts the language of organism-as-machine
The Trouble with Cyber Arms Control
Christopher A. Ford on why we should be wary of Russian and Chinese proposals
Humanism and Transhumanism
Fred Baumann on the utopian impulse and the ends of man
NASA’s Course Correction
Jeff Foust
Opening Space with a ‘Transorbital Railroad’
Robert Zubrin
In Search of a Conservative Space Policy
Rand Simberg
Reviews and Reconsiderations
The Climate of Climate Change
John Murdock examines four books on why we fight about global warming
Out of the Garden, Into the Laboratory
Jeremy Kessler on science as an answer to Original Sin
What Scientists Believe
Peter Lopatin on negotiating reason and revelation
History as Wall Art
Alan Jacobs reviews Cartographies of Time
State of the Art
Heading Off the Next Pandemic
Tevi Troy
The Untapped Potential of the NPT
Henry Sokolski
Slacking as Self-Discovery
Rita Koganzon
An American Education
Daniel Eugene Williams
The Digital Law Practice
Sam A. Mackie
No. 30Winter 2011
No. 30
Winter 2011
Essays
Why the Arabic World Turned Away from Science
Hillel Ofek on the lost Golden Age and the rejection of reason
What Do Organisms Mean?
Steve Talbott on how life speaks at every level
Proposing a ‘Coast Guard’ for Space
James C. Bennett on what ails America’s space sector and how to fix it
The Near Miracle of Male Infertility Treatment
Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill on creating infertile fathers
Locke, Darwin, and America’s Future
Peter Augustine Lawler on rights, nature, and progress
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Bridges and the Bottom Line
Adam J. White on why infrastructure must always be a matter of politics
You Can’t Handle the Truth
Jeremy Kessler reviews After Finitude by Quentin Meillasoux
The Last Temptation of Science
Algis Valiunas on “Rappaccini’s Daughter” and the crooked path to Paradise
Rappaccini’s Daughter
Online only: A new critical edition of Hawthorne’s story
No. 31Spring 2011
No. 31
Spring 2011
GPS and the End of the Road
Ari Schulman on the transformation of travel and discovery
The Particularities of Place
Wilfred M. McClay
The New Meaning of Mobility
Christine Rosen
Place-Conscious Transportation Policy
Gary Toth
The Rise of Localist Politics
Brian Brown
Frog: A Tale of Home
Justin Race
Essays
Could Terrorists Exploit Synthetic Biology?
Jonathan B. Tucker on the potential risks of “de-skilling” bioengineering
Transitional Humanity
Gilbert Meilaender on the longing to defeat mortality and transcend embodiment
Psychology’s Magician
Algis Valiunas on the life and career of Carl Jung, mystic scientist of the mind
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Why Bother with Marshall McLuhan?
Alan Jacobs on the man, the medium, and his message
The Challenge of Regulating Objectively
Jonathan H. Adler on cost-benefit analysis and the precautionary principle
Philosophy Is Here to Stay
Benjamin Storey takes on David Brooks’s social scientism
The Unmanning of America
Rita Koganzon on the rise of women and the fall of men
No. 32Summer 2011
No. 32
Summer 2011
Why We Need a ‘Stuck with Virtue’ Science
Peter A. Lawler and Marc D. Guerra on why in-between beings will always need virtue
The Case for Enhancing People
Ronald Bailey on why we should and will choose to make ourselves better
Liberation Biology, Lost in the Cosmos
Benjamin Storey responds to Ronald Bailey
Machine Morality and Human Responsibility
Charles T. Rubin on the paradoxes of the project to program virtue
The Problem with ‘Friendly’ Artificial Intelligence
Adam Keiper and Ari N. Schulman respond to Charles T. Rubin
The Science of Politics and the Conquest of Nature
Patrick J. Deneen on liberalism, Locke, and Darwin
Justice without Foundations
Robert P. Kraynak on morality in an age of scientific skepticism
State of the Art
Subject to Review
Tevi Troy
Doctors Go Digital
Jeffrey C. Rowe
Unleashing the Nuclear Watchdog
Henry Sokolski
The Folly of Internet Freedom
Eric R. Sterner
The World’s Most Popular Gun
Victor Davis Hanson
Global Warming and Federalism
David A. Murray
Health Food and the Double Helix
Whitney K. Franz
‘No Shortage of Gore’
Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito on the Constitution, Free Speech, and Technology
Notes & Briefs
Panhandling Robots, Shifting Fat, Facebook Depression, Etc.
No. 33Fall 2011
No. 33
Fall 2011
Essays
The Global War Against Baby Girls
Nicholas Eberstadt on the mounting casualties of sex-selective abortion
Christianity and the Future of the Book
Alan Jacobs on scrolls, screens, and how technologies of reading shape theology
Evolution and the Illusion of Randomness
Stephen L. Talbott on survival, fitness, and the purposiveness of organisms
What Consciousness Is Not
Raymond Tallis unwinds the work of David Chalmers, philosopher of mind
Abraham Maslow and the All-American Self
Algis Valiunas on why the prophet of self-actualization was more than just a New Age icon
A Far Other Butterfly
Wilfred M. McClay on “The Artist of the Beautiful” and the meeting of the spiritual and material realms
The Artist of the Beautiful
Online only: A new critical edition of Hawthorne’s story
No. 34Winter 2012
No. 34
Winter 2012
A Witherspoon Council Report
Preface
A Letter from the Chairmen of the Witherspoon Council on Ethics and the Integrity of Science
The Stem Cell Debates
Lessons for Science and Politics
Appendices
The Science of Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Appendix A
The Promise of Stem Cell Therapies
Appendix B
Stem Cell Research Funding: Policy and Law
Appendix D
No. 35Spring 2012
No. 35
Spring 2012
Essays
Infrastructure Policy: Lessons from American History
Adam J. White on roads, rails, canals, and the politics of nation-building
The Population Control Holocaust
Robert Zubrin reveals the international campaign of coerced sterilization and abortion
Love, Yiddish, and the Problem of Bioethics
Darren J. Beattie on science and our erotic longing for knowledge
Psychotherapy and the Pursuit of Happiness
Ronald W. Dworkin on the fraught path from Freud to friendship
The Political Science of James Q. Wilson
Jeremy Rozansky and Josh Lerner on the scholar of order, culture, and character
Reviews and Reconsiderations
What Is the Body Worth?
Ari N. Schulman on patient exploitation and the bad case for human tissue markets
Paid Parenthood
Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill on why people sell their eggs and sperm
Friendship Does Not Compute
Peter Lopatin on the pathologies that arise from digital relationships
Points of Light
Ian Marcus Corbin on grace and despair in the films The Tree of Life and Melancholia
The Truth About Human Nature
Lee Perlman on imagination, rationality, and honesty in Gulliver’s Travels
No. 36Summer 2012
No. 36
Summer 2012
Essays
The Sources and Uses of U.S. Science Funding
Joseph V. Kennedy on how the public and private sectors pay for R&D
Putting Health in Perspective
Yuval Levin on how prioritizing health shapes our politics
How Not to Label Biotech Foods
Jonathan H. Adler on mandates, markets, and the “right to know”
The Architecture of Evil
Roger Forsgren on the lessons of Albert Speer, master architect of the Third Reich
Reviews and Reconsiderations
The Physicists at Fifty
Samuel Matlack reconsiders the classic play about science, civilization, and insanity
The Dark and Starry Eyes of Ray Bradbury
Lauren Weiner on the wonderful weirdness of the late author
The Blessing of Children
Gilbert Meilaender on the curious case for extinction in Why Have Children?
Mental Disorder or Neurodiversity?
Aaron Rothstein reviews books on embracing, not fixing, mental differences
Interventionist Conservation
Travis Kavulla on the myth of pristine wilderness and the need to manage nature
No. 37Fall 2012
No. 37
Fall 2012
Essays
Yucca Mountain: A Post-Mortem
Adam J. White on how President Obama killed the planned nuclear-waste repository
Property Rights in Space
Rand Simberg on the legal framework needed to settle the final frontier
The Folly of Scientism
Austin L. Hughes on why scientists shouldn’t trespass on philosophy’s domain
The Marvelous Marie Curie
Algis Valiunas on the passions and struggles of radiation’s pioneer
Reviews and Reconsiderations
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions at Fifty
Matthew C. Rees looks back on the debates over the Thomas Kuhn classic that brought us the “paradigm shift”
Bioethics Without Ethics
Brendan Foht reviews Jonathan D. Moreno’s The Body Politic
Doctors Within Borders
Caitrin Nicol revisits Anne Fadiman’s tale of two cultures and the life of Lia Lee
The Possibility of Progress
Jeremy Kessler reads “The Hall of Fantasy,” a too-cautionary tale
The Hall of Fantasy
Online Only: A new critical edition of Hawthorne’s story
No. 38Winter/Spring 2013
No. 38
Winter/Spring 2013
Do Elephants Have Souls?
Caitrin Nicol on the evidence for non-human intelligence, awareness, and emotion
Born to Run
Noemie Emery considers the good, the bad, and the ugly of horseracing
Dog’s Best Friend
Diana Schaub on disciplining pets and mastering ourselves
Essays
St. Francis, Christian Love, and the Biotechnological Future
William B. Hurlbut reflects on hubris and humility, suffering and redemption
Character Formation and the Origins of AA
Lewis M. Andrews on the forgotten legacy of early American college presidents
Swords into Syllogisms
Randal R. Hendrickson on Steven Pinker and reason’s progress against violence
Portrait of the Artist as a Caveman
Micah Mattix on just-so storytelling and the “art instinct”
The Evolutionary Ethics of E. O. Wilson
Whitley Kaufman on the moral paradoxes of sociobiology
Moderately Socially Conservative Darwinians
Peter Augustine Lawler on the surprisingly traditional values of evolutionary psychologists
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Criminal Elements
James Bowman on Breaking Bad and breaking with the Enlightenment
The Imperfectionist
Christine Rosen on Evgeny Morozov’s case against digital salvation
Experiments in Democracy
Jeremy Rozansky reviews Jim Manzi’s new book on data-driven public policy
Jurassic Generation
Ari N. Schulman on the unintended consequences of the twenty-year-old dinosaur movie
No. 39Summer 2013
No. 39
Summer 2013
Essays
Philanthropy’s Original Sin
William A. Schambra on U.S. foundations’ legacy of support for eugenics, and the charitable alternative to scientific progressivism
Science and Non-Science in Liberal Education
Harvey C. Mansfield on the confidence of scientists and the need for philosophy
The Secular Religions of Progress
Robert H. Nelson on economic philosophies, environmentalism, and growth
The Good Doctor
Daniel P. Sulmasy remembers the late Dr. Edmund Pellegrino
The Golem and the Limits of Artifice
Charles T. Rubin on what the Jewish legend can (and cannot) teach us about bioethics
Disenchantment and Its Discontents
Joseph Bottum on why Catholics need not choose between science and wonder
Redeeming Technologies
Timothy Dalrymple on how Evangelicals embrace technological innovation
The Trouble with the New “Islamic Science”
Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad on trying to read the Koran like a science textbook
Implicit Science in Hindu Thought
Varadaraja V. Raman on the foreshadowing of modern science in ancient Hinduism
Science through Buddhist Eyes
Martin J. Verhoeven on the imperfect harmonizing of Buddhism with science
Science and the Search for Meaning
Peter Morales on Unitarian Universalism and what science and religion share
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Bringing Mind to Matter
Raymond Tallis on Thomas Nagel’s defiance of the materialist mainstream
The Conservative Record on Environmental Policy
Jonathan H. Adler disputes the notion that anti-regulation means anti-environment
No. 40Fall 2013
No. 40
Fall 2013
Essays
Me, My Genome, and 23andMe
Austin L. Hughes on the oversold and underwhelming science of personal genomics
Why and How We Should Break OPEC Now
Robert Zubrin explains what the U.S. energy boom means for the oil cartel, and argues that we should kick them while we’re up
Scientism in the Arts and Humanities
Roger Scruton on why art is more than matter and meme
Tocqueville on Technology
Benjamin Storey responds to critics who say the student of democracy ignores technology
Brave New World, Plato’s Republic, and Our Scientific Regime
Matthew J. Franck compares the utopian visions of Huxley and Plato
Reviews and Reconsiderations
The Hollowness of Radical Bioethics
John Sexton on why leftist bioethics needs philosophical anthropology
When Finance Met Physics
R. McKay Stangler on why stock trading isn’t rocket science
No. 41Winter 2014
No. 41
Winter 2014
Essays
Fantasy and the Buffered Self
Alan Jacobs on how the genre offers re-enchantment without risk
Toward a Conservative Policy on Climate Change
Lee Lane on clashing worldviews, green politics, and a path forward
Gambling with Global Warming
Lowell Pritchard on risk and uncertainty in environmental economics
The Sacred Power of the World
Stephen D. Blackmer on his improbable journey from eco-activism to the priesthood
Understanding Heidegger on Technology
Mark Blitz on what we can learn from the controversial German philosopher
The Genius and Faith of Faraday and Maxwell
Ian H. Hutchinson on how religion influenced the work of the two great nineteenth-century electricians
Who Needs a Liberal Education?
Gilbert Meilaender on specialization, job training, and the humanities
Machine Grading and Moral Learning
Joshua Schulz on the misguided appeal of automated grading and the rise of factory education
When Technology Ceases to Amaze
Robert Herritt on the banality of high-tech magic
No. 42Spring 2014
No. 42
Spring 2014
The Great War at 100
The Invention of the War Machine
M. Anthony Mills and Mark P. Mills on how the war shaped science, technology, and military-industrial research
The Forgotten Honor of World War I
James Bowman responds to progressive historians who consider the war a mistake that could have been avoided
Essays
My Brain and I
Roger Scruton offers an alternative to the grand ambition of the neurophilosophers
The Optimistic Science of Leibniz
Marc E. Bobro on the Enlightenment thinker’s encyclopedic project of physics and faith
A Feeling for Pain
Ronald W. Dworkin on the trouble with scientific explanations in anesthesiology
Evolution and Ethics, Revisited
Gertrude Himmelfarb considers T. H. Huxley’s rebuttal of an early form of scientism
Liberty and the Environment
Ronald Bailey on whether modern societies and free economies are antithetical to the flourishing of the natural world
Remembering Thomas P. Hughes
G. Pascal Zachary on the influential historian of technology and society
No. 43Summer/Fall 2014
No. 43
Summer/Fall 2014
Essays
Losing Liberty in an Age of Access
James Poulos on the implications of the cultural shift away from ownership
Correlation, Causation, and Confusion
Nick Barrowman on some misconceptions about statistics in science and everyday life
Confronting the Technological Society
Samuel Matlack revisits Jacques Ellul’s classic analysis of technique
Modernity and Our American Heresies
Peter Augustine Lawler explains how our Puritan and Lockean founders built better than they knew
The Neuroscience of Despair
Michael W. Begun on the trouble with seeing depression solely as a brain malfunction
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Regarding Life at the Beginning
Gilbert Meilaender on a perceptive new book about abortion and our encounter with the unborn
The Tools of Their Tools
Evan Selinger and Jathan Sadowski review Nicholas Carr’s book on automation
In Defense of Prejudice, Sort of
Ari N. Schulman on Enlightenment overreach and today’s new rationalists
No. 44Winter 2015
No. 44
Winter 2015
Essays
Vaccines and Their Critics, Then and Now
Aaron Rothstein on the history and errors of the anti-vaccination movement
Virtual Reality as Moral Ideal
Matthew B. Crawford on learning how to live in a world that resists our will
Philanthropy in Science, Technology, and Medicine
Selections from The Almanac of American Philanthropy
Church, Heresy, and Pure Religion
Rob Iliffe on Newton's unorthodox theology and his project to restore Christianity
The Problem of Alchemy
William R. Newman asks whether Newton truly was “the last of the magicians”
Cosmos and Apocalypse
Stephen D. Snobelen on physics, prophecy, and the myth of Newton's clockwork universe
The Book of Nature, the Book of Scripture
Andrew Janiak on reconciling natural philosophy with biblical literalism
The Strange Tale of Newton’s Papers
Sarah Dry on the unpublished manuscripts and their author's changing image
No. 45Spring 2015
No. 45
Spring 2015
Essays
The Ebola Gamble
Ari N. Schulman on how public health authorities put reassurance before protection
Biotech Enhancement and the History of Redemption
Gilbert Meilaender on visions of perfection, theological and technological
The Man Who Thought of Everything
Algis Valiunas on the grand scientific vision and the moral myopia of Linus Pauling
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Competing to Conform
James Poulos reviews Peter Thiel’s Zero to One
Faith, Fact, and False Dichotomies
Austin L. Hughes on the lazy atheism in Jerry Coyne’s new book
The Politics of Digital Shaming
Rita Koganzon on Internet mobs and their outrage at everyday speech
Socially Just Science
Brendan P. Foht on politically correcting science and scientifically correcting politics
Love Conquers All
Jenna Silber Storey and Benjamin Storey read The Blithedale Romance, a novel of utopian hopes and human passions
No. 46Summer 2015
No. 46
Summer 2015
No. 47Fall 2015
No. 47
Fall 2015
Essays
Oil and World Power
Lee Lane on what the oil and gas boom means for America’s geopolitical standing
Miss Marple and the Problem of Modern Identity
Alan Jacobs on being known by one’s neighbors versus being known by the state
The Flawed Economics of Laudato Si’
W. David Montgomery on why the encyclical’s moral teaching requires better policy
Is Pope Francis Anti-Modern?
M. Anthony Mills on the encyclical’s critique of “the technocratic paradigm”
Two Approaches to Climate Action
Brendan P. Foht contrasts the encyclical with the recent Ecomodernist Manifesto
Searching for Other Earths
Sara Seager on how — and why — we look for exoplanets
Meaning in a Silent Universe
Marcelo Gleiser on overcoming our sense of cosmic angst
The Fine-Tuning of Nature’s Laws
Luke A. Barnes on what physics tells us about the improbability of life
Remembrance
The Humble Scientist
Chase W. Nelson on the character and career of his late teacher, Austin L. Hughes
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Attention Deficit
Diana Schaub reviews Matthew B. Crawford’s book about an increasingly limited resource
A Reductionist History of Humankind
John Sexton reviews Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens
Einstein’s Masterpiece
Michael W. Begun retraces the path to general relativity on the theory’s 100th anniversary
The X-Files and the Demon-Haunted World
Ari N. Schulman on why we want to believe
No. 48Winter 2016
No. 48
Winter 2016
Essays
Gene Editing: New Technology, Old Moral Questions
Brendan Foht on using CRISPR to help patients and design our descendants
Attending to Technology
Alan Jacobs offers an aphoristic critique of social media, commentary, and our credulity before algorithms
The Myth of the Placebo Effect
Nick Barrowman on the shaky science underlying a popular idea
Biomedicine and Its Cultural Authority
Joseph E. Davis on the origins of our “health society” and why holistic medicine doesn’t catch on
Hard to Believe
Robert Herritt on how we know what we know, and what to do when experts disagree
The Enduring Legacy of The Twilight Zone
Brian Murray on Rod Serling’s struggle to turn TV into an art form
Missing the Night Sky
Jacob Hoerger on light pollution, enlightenment, and our sense of finitude
No. 49Spring/Summer 2016
No. 49
Spring/Summer 2016
Saving Science
Daniel Sarewitz on why scientists must come out of the lab and into the real world
Two Cheers for the Retraction Boom
Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus praise the growing scrutiny of scientific publications
A Different Kind of Scientific Revolution
Barbara A. Spellman on the role of technological and demographic changes
Essays
Getting Over ‘Apolloism’
Rand Simberg on why the 1960s missions to the Moon are a bad template for today’s space program
Is There an ‘Unmet Need’ for Family Planning?
Rebecca Oas dismantles the concept behind efforts to increase global contraceptive use
European and American Views on Genetically Modified Foods
Orsolya Ujj on the cultural and philosophical differences that explain contrasting beliefs and policies on GMOs
Fiction in the Age of Screens
Erik P. Hoel on how today’s novelists cope with their HBO anxiety
Scientist, Scholar, Soul
Marc D. Guerra on Margaret Edson’s play Wit and the temptation to hide from matters of ultimate meaning
No. 50Fall 2016
No. 50
Fall 2016
Special Report
Sexuality and Gender
Findings from the Biological, Psychological, and Social Sciences
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No. 51Winter 2017
No. 51
Winter 2017
Special Issue
Information, Matter, and Life
Why Information Matters
Luciano Floridi on what philosophy and computer science can contribute to each other
The Limits of Information
Daniel N. Robinson on the gaps between scientific explanation and human experience
The Time of Our Lives
Raymond Tallis on physics, consciousness, and the arrow of information
What Is It Like to Know?
Ari N. Schulman on why we talk in circles about experience
Evolution and the Purposes of Life
Stephen L. Talbott on biology's unasked questions about the goal-directed activities of organisms
The Use and Abuse of ‘Information’ in Biology
Murillo Pagnotta on why there is more to biological development than genes
Mind Games
Charles T. Rubin on the film Ex Machina and breathing life into matter
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No. 52Spring 2017
No. 52
Spring 2017
Essays
Growing Pains
Paul W. Hruz, Lawrence S. Mayer, and Paul R. McHugh on problems with puberty suppression in treating gender dysphoria
Making Technological Miracles
Mark P. Mills defends the value of curiosity-driven science and proposes a new way to think about R&D
Darwin Made Me Do It
Michael Ruse on how the process of evolution gave us moral instincts but the theory of evolution undermines moral reasoning
On the Origin of Cooperation
Kevin N. Laland on how culture and nature worked together so we can work together
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Pop Goes the Physics
David Kordahl on what’s left out of Sean Carroll’s The Big Picture
ADD for All
Joseph E. Davis on Big Pharma, overdiagnosis, and the questions unasked about medicalization
Whose Motivation? Which Good?
James K. A. Smith on Christian Smith’s strawman of social science
Toward a More Human Medicine
Aaron Rothstein on doctors, parts, and persons
Grit, Gus, and Glory
George Weigel on restoring the reputation of a test pilot, astronaut, and unsung American hero
On the Shelf
Short reviews of books on the opioid epidemic, the crisis of authority, Silicon Valley, the “new eugenics,” and more
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No. 53Summer/Fall 2017
No. 53
Summer/Fall 2017
Correspondence
Must Science Be Useful?
Scientists and policy experts respond to Daniel Sarewitz’s “Saving Science”
Essays
The Undeath of Cinema
Alexi Sargeant on digital acting from beyond the grave
Wokeness and Myth on Campus
Alan Jacobs on why “free exchange of ideas” fails as a response to campus protest
Quantum Poetics
Samuel Matlack on why physics can’t get rid of metaphor
The Evangelist of Molecular Biology
Algis Valiunas on James D. Watson and his unfinished quest to master genetic destiny
Reviews and Reconsiderations
The Illusionist
David Bentley Hart on Daniel Dennett’s mindless materialism
Till Tomorrow
Adam Roberts on why farmers are the original time travelers
The Moral Case for High-Tech Weapons
Merav Ceren asks whether Israeli military innovation has made war more just
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No. 54Winter 2018
No. 54
Winter 2018
Essays
Algorithmic Injustice
Tafari Mbadiwe on how to keep criminal sentencing algorithms from entrenching racial inequality
Shakespeare’s Worlds of Science
Natalie Elliot on cosmic and atomic upheaval in Hamlet, King Lear, and Romeo and Juliet
The University the King Built
Waleed Al-Shobakky reports on a Saudi experiment to solve the West’s science malaise — and become a global research powerhouse
The Idea Incarnate
Kirsten A. Hall on when our thoughts run away from us
Responsible Frankensteins?
Brendan P. Foht on the conceit that embryo researchers can play God, but ethically
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Disenchantment, Actually
Doug Sikkema on how myths, true or false, shape the conditions of our experience
The Political Path to GPS
Anthony Paletta describes how war and peace forged the universal map
Lives of the Immortalists
Olga Rachello on the human stories of people who don’t want to be human
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No. 55Spring 2018
No. 55
Spring 2018
Essays
Google.gov
Adam J. White on whether growing calls to break up Google distract from a quiet alignment between “smart” government and the universal information engine
The Tech Backlash We Really Need
L. M. Sacasas on why Silicon Valley will only be strengthened by its present scandals unless we ask deeper questions
For the Love of Mars
James Poulos on why settling the Red Planet would lift us from our antihuman malaise
Richard Feynman and the Pleasure Principle
Algis Valiunas on how a cerebral hedonist became a scientific hero
Faith and the Fear of Death
Jonathan Jong on confronting our mortality from the lab and the altar
Encounter in the Vale
Jonathan Mosedale recounts a story of hiking, frailty, and glimpsing the divine
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Did Thomas Kuhn Kill Truth?
David Kordahl reviews filmmaker Errol Morris’s new book on whether the philosopher of science threw an ashtray at his head
The Joy of Cryptozoology
Clare Coffey on the Jersey Devil and the psychology of conspiracy theories
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No. 56Summer/Fall 2018
No. 56
Summer/Fall 2018
Correspondence
Why Do We Think We Are Disenchanted?
Debating The Myth of Disenchantment by Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm
Moon Direct
Robert Zubrin offers a purpose-driven plan to open the lunar frontier
The Return of the Space Visionaries
Rand Simberg on how space tycoons are bringing back the dream of truly settling the “high frontier” — and how policy can catch up
Lost on Mars
Micah Meadowcroft on why space colonization will disappoint you
Essays
How Facebook Deforms Us
L. M. Sacasas on the too-savvy idea that strengthening our social fabric can fix the platform that’s destroying it
What Happened to Bioethics?
Yuval Levin on why biomedical research doesn’t roil national politics anymore — and the thin hope offered by the last time it did
Jonas Salk, the People’s Scientist
Algis Valiunas on how the man who vanquished polio won the public’s love but never the respect of his peers
Why Data Is Never Raw
Nick Barrowman on the seductive myth of information free of human judgment
Time to Log Off
Ian Marcus Corbin on being online and recognizing inhumane arrangements for what they are
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No. 57Winter 2019
No. 57
Winter 2019
Essays
How Tech Utopia Fostered Tyranny
Jon Askonas argues that authoritarians’ love for digital technology is no fluke — it’s a product of Silicon Valley’s “smart” paternalism
Will Climate Change the Courts?
David A. Murray on the “children’s climate crusade” and the coming global campaign to transform the courts
While Bioethics Fiddles
Brendan P. Foht on the frivolous games academic ethicists play while baby manufacturing draws near
The Most Dangerous Possible German
Algis Valiunas on the ambiguous legacy of Werner Heisenberg, quantum genius and would-be inventor of the Nazi A-bomb
Robotic Souls
Charles T. Rubin asks what debates over machine consciousness mean for how we regard ourselves
Jihadi Digital Natives
P. W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking on how ISIS liked and posted its way to power
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Netflix and Nil
James Poulos on why being online turns us into nihilists
Make Physics Real Again
David Guaspari on why so many physicists have shrugged off the paradoxes of quantum mechanics
Modernity’s Spell
Clare Coffey on why debunking mesmerism only made it stronger
Steven Weinberg Glimpses the Promised Land
David Kordahl on how the sage of physics quarrels with politics and philosophy — and dreams of science’s last day
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No. 58Spring 2019
No. 58
Spring 2019
Essays
After Technopoly
Alan Jacobs on why getting beyond rationalism requires the return of myth
Our Uneasy Tranquility
Heather Zeiger asks whether the rising use of anti-anxiety pills should have us worried
Why Science Can’t Break the GMO Stalemate
Tess Doezema argues that studies won’t settle a debate about technocracy itself
Can Chess Survive Artificial Intelligence?
Yoni Wilkenfeld on how computers take the error out of human chess — and the adventure
The Inescapable Town Square
L. M. Sacasas on how social media combines the worst parts of past eras of communication
Preserving Real-Life Childhood
Naomi Schaefer Riley on why decency online requires raising kids who know life offline
How Not to Regulate Social Media
Shoshana Weissmann on proposed privacy and bot laws that would do more harm than good
The Four Facebooks
Nolen Gertz on misinformation, manipulation, dependency, and distraction
Do You Know Who Your ‘Friends’ Are?
Ashley May on why treating others well online requires defining our relationships
The Distance Between Us
Micah Meadowcroft on why we act badly when we don’t speak face-to-face
The Emergent Order of Twitter
Andy Smarick on why the platform should be fixed from the bottom up, not the top down
Imagine All the People
James Poulos on how the fantasies of the TV era created the disaster of social media
Making Friends of Trolls
Caitrin Keiper on finding familiar faces behind the black mirror
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No. 59Summer 2019
No. 59
Summer 2019
Essays
The New Kinship Engineering
Brendan P. Foht on why three-parent babies are being created not to prevent disease but to manufacture genetic relationships
In Search of Lost Time on YouTube
Laurence Scott on how the platform takes us to places where we ache to go again
First, Take No Stand
Aaron Kheriaty shows how on assisted suicide, the medical profession ducks behind “neutrality”
Crusoe at the Crossroads
Kirsten A. Hall on Robinson Crusoe, Lost, and why we keep returning to mysterious islands where science blurs with the supernatural
Analog Anchors for the Online Adrift
Ian Marcus Corbin on how Moleskine sells durability to ephemeral selves
NASA’s Next 50 Years
Robert Zubrin argues that a half-century after Apollo, it’s time for a real, and different, mission for our space agency
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Tell Him Something Pretty
Robert Herritt on Deadwood's lowly view of reason
Einstein in Athens
Benjamin Liebeskind on how modern physics is unwittingly echoing Aristotle, and still has much to learn from him
All Activities Monitored
Jon Askonas on how military drone surveillance is quietly creeping into policing, business, and everyday life
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No. 60Fall 2019
No. 60
Fall 2019
Essays
After Climate Despair
Matt Frost argues for energy abundance in a warming world
Reviving Expertise in a Populist Age
Zach Graves and M. Anthony Mills on why a Congress wary of technocracy defers to bureaucrats
Custodians of the Body
Alan Rubenstein on how our organ donation regime strikes the right balance between generosity to the living and respect for the dead
The Mars Decision
Robert Zubrin on how to show that American democracy can still do great things
Reviews and Reconsiderations
On the Monster Beat
Clare Coffey on why the civic needs the weird
Enlightenment Later
Kent Anhari on whether reason will survive rationalism
The Ancients’ Tech Anxiety
Charles T. Rubin on the shallowness of reading mythology as sci-fi
We All Wear Tinfoil Hats Now
Geoff Shullenberger on how fears of mind control went from paranoid delusion to conventional wisdom
Trouble for Hedgehogs
Michael M. Rosen asks whether generalists are due for a comeback
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No. 61Winter 2020
No. 61
Winter 2020
Essays
The Analog City and the Digital City
L. M. Sacasas on how online life breaks the old political order
The Science Before the War
M. Anthony Mills and Mark P. Mills on how the technological feats of World War II grew out of curiosity-driven research
Eat Me, Drink Me, Like Me
Tara Isabella Burton asks whether love in the attention economy is unreal
Turing and the Uncomputable
Algis Valiunas on logic come to life
Reviews and Reconsiderations
Must Growth Doom the Planet?
Ted Nordhaus argues that in an age of stagnation, calls to limit growth miss the real problems we face.
Do We Want Dystopia?
Stefan Beck on nightmare tech as the fulfillment of warped desire
The Mathematician and the Mystic
David Guaspari on Simone Weil, her brother André, and truths that do not converge
Why We Choose Surveillance Capitalism
Michael M. Rosen argues that Americans don’t care about privacy as much as they say
Inventing the Universe
David Kordahl asks whether quantum physicists are making things up as they go along
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No. 62Fall 2020
No. 62
Fall 2020
Correspondence
In What Sense Abundant?
Patrick J. Deneen, Jeffrey Bilbro, and Rich Powell respond to Matt Frost
Essays
Democracy and the Nuclear Stalemate
Taylor Dotson and Michael Bouchey on moving beyond political scientism
The New Net Delusion
Geoff Shullenberger on how 2010’s utopians became 2020’s prophets of doom
Science as Scorekeeping
Brendan Foht on why American political leaders should be players, not spectators
Gratuitous Display
Laurence Scott on the American diner and the viral tip
How We Reason About Covid Tradeoffs
Ben Peterson on why we need to talk more about human dignity
Mending the Healers
Brewer Eberly on whether med school can still offer moral formation
Reviews & Reconsiderations
Saving Ourselves
Tara Isabella Burton on real love as rebellion in TV’s Brave New World
The End of History and the Fast Man
Adam J. White on bidding farewell to America’s car culture — and its democratic virtues
Taking Carbon to Court
Jonathan H. Adler on why a legal victory was not a clear victory for the climate
Promoting the Useful Arts
Michael M. Rosen on why innovators need protection, not planning
Go West, Old Man
John Sexton asks whether we want decline
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No. 63Winter 2021
No. 63
Winter 2021
Introducing “Projects for Renewal”
How to rebuild our culture’s relationship with science and technology
Essays
From Tech Critique to Ways of Living
Alan Jacobs asks: If Neil Postman was right, so what?
Put Not Thy Trust in Nate Silver
Geoff Shullenberger on how simulation replaced reality
Recovering Old Age
Joseph E. Davis and Paul Scherz on retrieving our sense of what aging is for
The Case Against “STEM”
M. Anthony Mills on how blurring the line between science and tech puts both at risk
The Egghead Gap
Caleb Watney on China and why the U.S. needs to recruit international talent
A Scientist’s Mind, a Poet’s Soul
Algis Valiunas on the cosmic vision of Humboldt, the great naturalist-adventurer
Of Forests and Empire
Rebecca Burgess on the view from your Christmas tree
The Coronavirus Pandemic
Disarming Frontline Doctors
Devorah Goldman on how the quest to meet medicine’s “gold standard” puts patients at risk
Little Data, Big Headlines
Aaron Rothstein on overinterpreting Covid studies for clicks
Reviews & Reconsiderations
A Bioethics of the Strong
James Mumford on how liberal bioethics forgot its mandate
Why We Need a Technological Environmentalism
Robert Zubrin argues that saving the planet means going high-tech, not back to nature
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No. 64Spring 2021
No. 64
Spring 2021
Essays
Welcoming Our New Robot Overlords
Adam Elkus on how warnings of AI doom gave way to primal fear of primates posting
The Cop-Out of “Follow the Science”
Joseph M. Keegin on how feckless Covid leadership turned us against each other
Chasing the Sun
Nathan Beacom tells the extraordinary story of two Pacific voyages of discovery a thousand years apart
Math and Modernity
David Guaspari on how Descartes’s geometry quietly launched a revolution
Is Climate Change a Foreign Policy Issue?
Seaver Wang argues that opportunity now, not prophecies of doom, should spur America to become a global leader
The Danger of Fact-ist Politics
Taylor Dotson on building a politics of connection where fanatical certainty fails
Patents and the Common Good
Charles Duan on how a delicate balance between innovation and the public interest is at risk
Reviews & Reconsiderations
You Are Not Galileo
Tess Doezema on why it’s time to retire an exhausted trope
The Case Against the Case Against Space
Charles T. Rubin argues that if we had to solve the human condition before we tried anything new, we’d never try anything new
Why We Can’t Leave Nature Alone
Ted Nordhaus argues that we shouldn’t be so bashful about tinkering with the environment to save it
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No. 65Summer 2021
No. 65
Summer 2021
Essays
Redpilling and the Regime
Geoff Shullenberger on how claiming to be a daring outsider who speaks forbidden truths became a standard trope
The Demon of Bureaucratic Chaos
Tristan Abbey on how the Department of Energy does a lot without getting much done
Just Say No to Human–Monkey Chimeras
Brendan Foht on why we can’t trust the biotech industry to set its own rules on a disturbing new practice
Is It Time for a U.S. Department of Science?
M. Anthony Mills on why messy pluralism is what makes American research great
Dying, But Not Alone
Joshua Briscoe on why we can’t escape the social dimension of choosing how we die
Libidinal Liberalism
Oliver Traldi on whether banning bad behavior just makes it worse
Anthropology as Atonement
Algis Valiunas on why Claude Lévi-Strauss celebrated every culture but his own
Dance Till We Die
Ari Schulman on why Covid security theater failed
Bot Anxiety
Kent Anhari asks what happens to discourse when everyone fails the Turing Test
Reviews & Reconsiderations
Enough About “We”
Phil Christman on when sci-fi needs a little less sci and a little more fi
Can Machines Have Common Sense?
William Hasselberger on how “deep learning” hype misses a basic feature of human intelligence
Losing Ourselves
William Lombardo on why the prospect of loving machines is so sad
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No. 66Fall 2021
No. 66
Fall 2021
Essays
How to Fix Social Media
Nicholas Carr looks to the radio era for a way to solve our Big Tech crisis
Closer to Home
Addison Del Mastro on getting beyond the transportation debate of city versus suburb
Manufacturing Consensus
M. Anthony Mills on why science needs conformity, but not the kind it has now
Walmart, But for Space
Rand Simberg on why cheap rockets will change the design of everything we send up
All Pathology, All the Time
Joseph E. Davis asks what ails a culture that sees illness everywhere
What Is the CDC?
Ari Schulman has eleven ways of looking at the troubled agency
The Invention of Slavery
Diana Schaub reads Lincoln’s lectures on whether technology makes us free
Interview
Nuclear Dread as Memento Mori
Michael Shellenberger on “coming to peace with this radical technology”
Reviews & Reconsiderations
Statistics as Storytelling
Brad East on why America’s defining cultural artifact is the economics white paper
Modernity and the Fall
Caitrin Keiper shows one weird trick to re-enchant the world
Correspondence
Protagonist Earth
David E. Storey and Phil Christman ask how a good novel can be written about climate change
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No. 67Winter 2022
No. 67
Winter 2022
Build, Don’t Ban
Philip Wallach on how conservatives can end the Covid wars
Covid and the Brittle West
Bruno Maçães on why nimbleness, not collectivism, explains Asian democracies’ success
Bad Air
Leah Libresco Sargeant on why we should restore miasma theory
We Had a Plan
Tevi Troy on why Covid was a failure of execution, not strategy
Invaluable Servants, Impossible Masters
Joseph E. Davis on what we really need experts to be in a health crisis
End the State Monopoly on Facts
Adam J. White on why the CDC needs more competition
A Common-Good Agenda for Pandemic Policy
Tim Wainwright on why we need new public investment in our medical infrastructure
The Crisis of the Crisis
Geoff Shullenberger on whether Covid politics is the real emergency
Essays
How Tech Despair Can Set You Free
Samuel Matlack reads Jacques Ellul on the totalizing grip of “technique”
Why Aren’t We Talking About Nuclear Waste?
Dennis W. O’Leary on kicking the can when it’s full of spent uranium
StarCraft as Statecraft
Tristan Abbey on why defense strategy should update its favorite gaming metaphors
Interview
Science as Craftwork with Integrity
M. Anthony Mills asks Harry Collins how to strengthen science against populist critiques
Rule Social Media, or Be Ruled by It
Rachel Bovard
Destroy Social Media, or Be Destroyed by It
Antón Barba-Kay
We Still Don’t Know How to Fix Social Media
Martha Bayles
Don’t Wait for Silver Bullets for Social Media Reform
Nicholas Carr
Reviews & Reconsiderations
How Tech Reform Diminishes Us
Jeffrey Bilbro on social media critics who repeat the mistakes that got us here
The Twitter Surveillance State
Taylor Dotson asks why we became a nation of hall monitors
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No. 68Spring 2022
No. 68
Spring 2022
What Happened to Consensus Reality?
Introducing a new series by Jon Askonas
Reality Is Just a Game Now
And we’re all losing.
Therapy Beyond Good and Evil
James Mumford on why a nonjudgmental psychology is failing patients
Reality Minus
David Bentley Hart on the depressing fantasy of minds in simulated worlds
Reformation in the Church of Science
Andrea Saltelli and Daniel Sarewitz on how the truth monopoly was broken up
Hell Is Ourselves
Laurence Scott on the creepiness of an Internet that caters to who it thinks we are
Reading Ourselves to Death
Kit Wilson on text as unreality
Something Happened By Us: A Demonology
Alan Jacobs has a theory about why we’re going nuts online
Essays and Reviews
Danger: Caution Ahead
Gabrielle Bauer on how we let the precautionary principle run wild
Do Americans Care About Space?
John Konicki and James Pethokoukis read public polling on the final frontier
Surveillance Humanism
Paul Dicken warns that an unholy union of AI and HR is nigh
Sad Trek
Alan Rome on how an exhausted liberalism killed sci‑fi’s sunniest franchise
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No. 69Summer 2022
No. 69
Summer 2022
Reality: A Post-Mortem, Essay 3
How Stewart Made Tucker
A world of authentic, post-spin journalism: The dream Jon Stewart spent a decade making real is now America’s waking nightmare. What did he get so wrong? —
By Jon Askonas
Essays
The Case for a Pandemic Moonshot
Tom Ridge and Asha M. George on why next time we shouldn’t accept the same bad options
Unsustainable Alarmism
Taylor Dotson on why we can’t stay in crisis mode forever
Power Metals
Tristan Abbey asks exactly how bad China’s dominance of rare-earth elements is for America
The Technocrat’s Dilemma
Alexander Stern on how expert rule is destroying itself
Was Fusionism a Fluke?
Howe Whitman III reads Hayek and Lewis on what once unified the Right
Reviews & Reconsiderations
Stuck Between Climate Doom and Denial
Roger Pielke, Jr. on the failure of Unsettled, a popular critique of climate science
Can We Be Human in Meatspace?
Brad East asks if revolution against tech starts at home
The Supergenius at the End of the World
David Polansky on democracy as an obstacle to Muskian great men in Neal Stephenson’s sci-fi
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No. 70Fall 2022
No. 70
Fall 2022
Essays
A Nuclear Renaissance?
Thomas Hochman and Nate Hochman on whether U.S. atomic power is really due for a comeback
The Secret Life of Leftovers
Nat Watkins on how our ancestors gave us cheese and beer, but we’re leaving our children garbage
Bacon Bacon Shakespeare Spy
Sam Kahn on one brilliant madwoman’s quest to show that the Bard’s works were secretly penned by the father of science, at war with his own creation
How to Search for Life on Mars
Robert Zubrin, Steven Benner, and Jan Špaček on why we won’t find anything unless we stop refusing to look
Kitty Eats the Internet
Antón Barba-Kay on why cat memes fill a gaping void in our online lives
Middle Seat to the Moon
Charles T. Rubin on how to keep the thrill alive once billionaires make space travel routine
The Big Whimper
David Kordahl on why cosmology may not end with a bang
Correspondence
Is Morality Therapeutic?
Steven C. Hayes asks whether patients need to hear hard truths or make hard choices
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No. 71Winter 2023
No. 71
Winter 2023
Investigation
No Other Options
Alexander Raikin reveals a Canadian euthanasia regime that efficiently ushers the vulnerable to a “beautiful” death
Essays
Arcs of Life
Matthew Loftus on why a just society does not kill suffering people
Who’s Afraid of Cowardice?
Adam Roberts on what we can learn from heroes who run away
Can There Be a Conservative Futurism?
John Ehrett on why the retreat from time is not a winning answer to our tech malaise
The Long Delay Is Nearly Over
Alex Dubin on the return of human travel beyond Earth
The Joy of Losing Your Phone
Clare Coffey on why we still need the kindness of strangers
Driven Apart
Clare Coffey on the myth of the open road
How to Make Friends
Clare Coffey on going to a bar when fighting the system gets tough
Exchanges
Is Nuclear Returning Too Fast or Too Slow?
Thomas Hochman and Taylor Dotson discuss whether the industry can overcome its obstacles
Overthinking Heroism
Adam Roberts and Alan Jacobs discuss “Who’s Afraid of Cowardice?”
Reviews & Reconsiderations
A Humanism of the Abyss
Alan Jacobs on Oliver Sacks’s Awakenings and how identity keeps us apart
Still Truckin’
Nicholas Clairmont on the anti-car zeitgeist
When the Machine Opts In to You
Joel Cuthbertson on why the self-help response to oppressive tech makes the problem worse
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No. 72Spring 2023
No. 72
Spring 2023
Reality: A Post-Mortem, Essay 4
What Was the Fact?
Here lies a beloved friend of social harmony (ca. 1500–2000). It was nice while it lasted. —
By Jon Askonas
Essays
Out of the Wild
Samuel Matlack on why we can’t rid nature of us
What Does “Scientific Progress” Mean, Anyway?
M. Anthony Mills on the three rival visions of how to fix science
The Demise of the Garage Inventor
Joseph Joyce on how Hollywood forgot the tinkering dad
Selling the Drama
Katherine Dee eulogizes “humdog,” who led a tech backlash in the days of dial-up
Shallowfakes
James R. Ostrowski warns against exaggerating the AI disinfo threat
Why Were They Dropped?
Algis Valiunas on revisionist accounts of the fateful decision of 1945
Fusion and the Holy Grail
Tristan Abbey suggests choosing wisely
Reviews & Reconsiderations
Nature, Toothless and Declawed
Clare Coffey on Martha Nussbaum’s dubious case for animals as liberal subjects
Digital Appeasement
Bonnie Kristian on “meganets,” a TED-brain excuse for surrender without a fight
Human Resources
David Polansky on why Soylent Green was more prophetic than it seems
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No. 73Summer 2023
No. 73
Summer 2023
Why This AI Moment May Be the Real Deal
Ari Schulman on why this time, we should believe the hype
B.S. Jobs and the Coming Crisis of Meaning
Brian J. A. Boyd asks whether destroying pointless jobs is really worth celebrating
AI Can’t Beat Stupid
Adam Elkus on why predictions of AI apocalypse overrate the power of raw intelligence
The Dead Internet to Come
Robert Mariani on why our chatbot future is a lonely place right out of a paranoid delusion
Why I Fired My AI Agent
Clayton O’Dell opts out of assimilation
How the State Built This AI Moment
Tess Doezema and Nina Frahm on why the law isn’t lagging behind AI, it’s leading it
The Speech of the Dead
Daniel Walden writes against AI necromancy
Sam Altman Doesn’t Want To Be Your AI King
Louise Liebeskind on why he might be anyway
Editorial
Take No for an Answer on Genetic Engineering
Good news: The agonizing moral quandary of “designer babies” has been resolved. But will scientists accept democracy’s verdict?
Essays
Culture War as Imitation Game
Luke Burgis on the timeliness of René Girard’s case against idolizing politics
How Congress Was Saved
A Lover of Good Government reports from the year 2039 on how the spirit of efficiency reformed a once-maligned institution
The Masking Debate We Didn’t Have
M. Anthony Mills on why critics are repeating their opponents’ mistake
Resistance in the Arts
Alan Jacobs on why Substack won’t save us
Reviews & Reconsiderations
Clicks of Desire
Tara Isabella Burton on how the Internet obeys you
Humanity Does Not Strike Back
Charles T. Rubin on why the end of the human species would be bad, actually
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No. 74Fall 2023
No. 74
Fall 2023
Essays
Oiling the Chicken Machine
Garth Brown on how you’re already eating lab-made meat
The Downer About Uppers
Charles Fain Lehman on whether Adderall is feeding America’s drug crisis
The Fantasy of Energy Independence
Peter Z. Grossman on how U.S. energy policy got stuck at the gas station in 1973
In Your Face
John Fechtel on Vision Pro and Apple’s friction eliminators
The Open Sky
Lars Erik Schönander: cheap satellites + AI chatbots = “queryable Earth”
Who Is The New Atlantis For?
Ari Schulman on why throwing cold water on utopianism found an audience
If Scientists Were Angels
Louise Liebeskind on how we’re misreading the original New Atlantis
Missing the Manhattan Project
Ari Schulman on a moment when we still knew that science could conquer — and sin
Reviews & Reconsiderations
Warm Planet, Cool Heads
Nicholas Clairmont on a new book that warns against making the climate bucket too big
Wounded Healers
Algis Valiunas on why it often takes one “unquiet mind” to treat another
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No. 75Winter 2024
No. 75
Winter 2024
Did Exxon Make It Rain Today?
Ted Nordhaus on how the story of climate change and extreme weather is being oversold — and why building, not fear, is the answer
Space and the Wild
Bears in the Villa
John Last on whether Italians are ready for the return of wilderness
What Is Space For?
William Boyce on why we gaze and why we should go
We Used to Build Things
Tech Strikes Back
Nadia Asparouhova on why “accelerationism” is an overdue corrective to years of doom and gloom in Silicon Valley
Accelerating to Where?
Robert Bellafiore on the anti-politics of the new jet pack lament
Things Used to Work in This Country
Clare Coffey on how your kitchen radio became a bureaucracy
Essays
Surveilling Alone
Christine Rosen on home security cameras in an era of rising crime and declining trust
A President’s Council on Artificial Intelligence
M. Anthony Mills on why the White House’s bland solution doesn’t match the problem
Barbie vs. Botox
Rachel Altman: transhumanism is so over, wrinkles are so back
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No. 76Spring 2024
No. 76
Spring 2024
Feature
If You Build It, Will They Come?
Joseph Lawler on Austin’s interstate expansion as a test case for “induced demand” and the culture war over faster traffic vs. denser cities
IVF and the Alabama Ruling
Embryos as Schrödinger’s Persons
Leah Libresco Sargeant on peculiar entities that are neither people nor property until we need them to be
Laboring in the Dark
Charlotte Collingwood on how IVF might sound like an act of taking control, but felt like an act of surrender
Golden Eggs
Abigail Anthony on shopping for good stock at the Ivy Leagues
Taming IVF’s Wild West
Emma Waters on why consumer protection is not enough
Essays
AI Is a Hall of Mirrors
Meghan Houser on how LLMs are giving us a billion ripoffs of what we already are at a moment when we yearn for something new
Narcissistic Depressive Technoscience
Thomas Fuchs on why modern man longs to be replaced, fantasizes about being the one to do it, and how we can stay human instead
Reviews & Reconsiderations
Turn on, Tune in, Write Code
Geoff Shullenberger on how psychedelics went from counterculture to grind culture
There Is a Planet B
Rand Simberg on how to live on Mars
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No. 77Summer 2024
No. 77
Summer 2024
Feature
Why We Need Amistics for AI
Brian J. A. Boyd on why today’s tech ethics isn’t up to the task of deciding what world we want to build with the breakthrough technology
Essays
The Era of Predictive AI Is Almost Over
Dean W. Ball on the new paradigm that’s proving “it’s just autocomplete” critics wrong
Who Wants to Believe in UFOs?
Clare Coffey on strange things in the skies of a clockwork universe
The Refs Are Working Us
M. Anthony Mills on what went wrong with fact-checking
Open Wallets, Empty Hearts
Ari Schulman on how effective altruism preached selflessness but offered self-help
Cities and Cars
Downtowns Don’t Matter Anymore
Joel Kotkin on why exurbanism is the new urbanism
Keep Austin Houston?
A Q&A with Joseph Lawler about “induced demand” and the future of the Texas capital city
Reviews & Reconsiderations
How Sad Do You Feel Right Now?
Leah Libresco Sargeant on how the boom in amateur therapists is hurting our children
Virtual Reality Reboots History
Charles T. Rubin on taking the idea of the “American dream” and really going for it
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No. 78Fall 2024
No. 78
Fall 2024
The Builder Issue
The Editors
Mass. Exodus
Will Anyone Vote for Abundance?
Thomas Hochman on why liberals and conservatives each want only half of the “time to build” agenda
If We Can Do It In Baltimore…
We Don’t Need This Much Permitting
Michael Catanzaro on why the permitting process must be rebuilt from scratch
What Permitting Reform Can’t Fix
For Whom Shall We Build?
Dinner with Dinosaurs
Lauren Spohn on why the right’s new love of technological progress is a bad answer to the left’s progressive ideology
Ethics Won’t Save Us From AI
Why the Progress Debate Goes Nowhere
Giant nets to clean garbage from the ocean
Santi Ruiz
A landscape we have to navigate together
Nuclear reactors that won’t melt down
A whole-of-patient approach to medicine
Schools for building portfolios, not credentials
A tech stack for “deep work”
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