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