by Brendan P. FohtThe CRISPR technique has reignited the decades-old debate over genetic modification. Brendan P. Foht argues that genetic therapy should be used to treat and prevent disease in actual patients, whether those patients are born or unborn, and that schemes for enhancing the human race through genetic modifications — or for protecting it from genetic modifications — should not interfere with our obligations to future generations. READ MORE McGovern Institute for Brain Research at M.I.T. |
We asked three scientists to discuss some of the latest research and scholarship regarding the place of life, including human life, in the universe:
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![]() Miss Marple and the Problem ofModern Identityby Alan JacobsAgatha Christie’s famous amateur sleuth uses her knowledge of human nature to discern if people really are who they say they are — one of the central problems of modernity. Alan Jacobs reflects on the differences between being known by one's neighbors and being known by the state. READ MORE Shutterstock |
![]() Love Conquers Allby Jenna Silber Storey and Benjamin StoreyA number of idealistic communities popped up in nineteenth-century America, each dedicated to its own vision of freeing human beings from society’s constraints. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s months spent at one of these communities became the basis of The Blithedale Romance, his novel about how ill-conceived schemes of liberation can do more to suppress the human soul than to free it. Jenna Silber Storey and Benjamin Storey revisit Hawthorne’s tale of dashed dreams. READ MORE Elliott Banfield |
Is There an ‘Unmet Need’ for Family Planning?
by Rebecca Oas
Increasing access to contraception is a major development goal for many foundations, NGOs, and international agencies. But as Rebecca Oas explains, the claim that the world’s poorest need more contraception is based on a deeply flawed concept.
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Scientist, Scholar, Soul
by Marc D. Guerra
Marc D. Guerra on what Margaret Edson’s play Wit can teach the overeducated about death, redemption, and life’s meaning.
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Science isn’t self-correcting, it’s self-destructing. To save the enterprise, argues Daniel Sarewitz, scientists must come out of the lab and into the real world.
MORE ON THE INTEGRITY OF SCIENCE:
- Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus praise the growing scrutiny of scientific publications
- Barbara A. Spellman on the role of technological and demographic changes
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Missing the Night Sky
by Jacob Hoerger
Light pollution confuses animals and makes astronomy harder — but those are small sacrifices for all the safety and productivity that electric lighting permits. Yet, argues Jacob Hoerger, we also lose something less measurable when we lose sight of the twinkling stars in the black: a sense of our own finitude.
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Biomedicine and Its Cultural Authority
by Joseph E. Davis
Critics sometimes accuse modern medicine of focusing too narrowly on the causes of specific maladies instead of holistically maintaining health and wellness. But, as Joseph E. Davis explains, the reductionist style of medicine and the lifestyle that goes with it are deeply connected to our cultural priorities and how we think of ourselves as autonomous individuals.
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European and American Views on Genetically Modified Foods
by Orsolya Ujj
Why are genetically modified foods ubiquitous in America but rare in Europe? The answer, as Orsolya Ujj explains, is deeply rooted in cultural and philosophical differences between the two continents.
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Getting Over ‘Apolloism’
Rand Simberg explains why the 1960s missions to the Moon are a bad template for today’s space program.

Colonizing Mars
Robert Zubrin offers a friendly critique of Elon Musk’s plans for SpaceX to settle the Red Planet.
Fiction in the Age of Screens
by Erik P. Hoel
As television and video games have increasingly encroached into literary terrain, what is to become of books? Erik P. Hoel examines the “HBO anxiety” of today’s writers — and explains why the novel is here to stay.
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Hard to Believe
by Robert Herritt
We are deluged with facts and expert opinions. How can the responsible citizen judge between them when they clash? Robert Herritt on how we know what we know, and what to do when experts disagree.
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