Wesley J. Smith

A report out of the UK envisions robots someday having rights. From the Financial Times: “‘If we make conscious robots they would want to have rights and they probably should,’ said Henrik Christensen, director of the Centre of Robotics and Intelligent Machines at the Georgia . . . . Continue Reading »

Now that Amendment 2 has passed—which did not include public funding because that would have made it harder to win—we now get to the whipsawing. Business leaders are urging Missouri lawmakers to get with it and improve the atmosphere for Big Biotech. If MO doesn’t, they warn, why . . . . Continue Reading »

The bias in the reportage about human cloning and stem cells has been complained about so frequently to KC Star reporters and editors that there is no question they know precisely what they are doing when they publish scientifically inaccurate reports such as the this one, byline Kit Wager. The . . . . Continue Reading »

One of my pet peeves about Oregon is that it rations health care to the poor in its Medicaid program. I believe that rationing is merely a polite term for discriminating against the people who need health care the most. Be that as it may, the way the program works is that a list of more than 700 . . . . Continue Reading »

Maureen Condic is a sterling scientist at the University of Utah, who advocates on behalf of ethical approaches to biotechnology. She bases her points in evidence and science, and in this piece in the current First Things, demolishes most of the perceived wisdom about the benefits of ESCR. It is a . . . . Continue Reading »

Former KKK leader David Duke published a cover story in Sunday’s NYT Magazine, in which he suggested that the hyper rich have a moral duty to alleviate the worst poverty in the world by giving away up to one-third of their fortunes. Despite Duke’s motive of seeking to alleviate poverty, . . . . Continue Reading »

This isn’t good: Irina Bogomolova, the head investigator seeking to track down whether newborn infants were really killed and harvested for their stem cells and organs, was removed from the case after demanding that the investigation be expanded. The Telegraph reported her as saying: “A . . . . Continue Reading »

Slavery is evil because it treats human beings as if they were mere objects to be used for work, sex, or other purposes of the slave “holder.” In doing so, the slave holder shatters the intrinsic human worth of both the slave and the “master,” since treating humans this way . . . . Continue Reading »

Take the stem cell quiz. Impress your friends! Embarrass those who think they are smarter than you! Readers of Secondhand Smoke will pass with flying colors. Readers of the MSM will have to go to stem cell remedial education classes. (One caveat: The test blurs the distinction between ESCR and SCNT . . . . Continue Reading »

As readers of Secondhand Smoke know, I disagree with the mainstream bioethics movement, animal liberationists, the philosophical beliefs of Darwinist materialism, transhumanists, and deep ecologists, and disagree with them profoundly. But there is one thing that I think it is fair to say that we do . . . . Continue Reading »