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