No. 53 - Summer/Fall 2017 - The New Atlantis

No. 46Summer 2015

No. 46

Summer 2015

Special Report

The Threat of Human Cloning

Ethics, Recent Developments, and the Case for Action

A Witherspoon Council Report

Executive Summary

Members of the Witherspoon Council

Preface: Cloning Then and Now

Part One: Scientific and Historical Background

Part Two: The Case Against Cloning-to-Produce-Children

Part Three: The Case Against Cloning-for-Biomedical-Research

Part Four: Cloning Policy in the United States

Part Five: Recommendations

Appendix: State Laws on Human Cloning

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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

Symposium: Pope Francis on the Environment

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

Special Section: Human Uniqueness in the Cosmos

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

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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

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No. 49Spring/Summer 2016

No. 49

Spring/Summer 2016

Special Section: The Integrity of Science

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

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No. 50Fall 2016

No. 50

Fall 2016

Special Report

Sexuality and Gender

Findings from the Biological, Psychological, and Social Sciences

Preface

Executive Summary

Introduction

Part One: Sexual Orientation

Part Two: Sexuality, Mental Health Outcomes, and Social Stress

Part Three: Gender Identity

Conclusion

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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

The Decent of Man

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 Bicentennial of Frankenstein

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

Stories of Faith & Science

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

The Space Renaissance

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 Ruin of the Digital Town Square

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