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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