So the bishops want the positive review of The Golden Compass taken off their website . Look, here’s the thing. The movie may be harmless in itself. Frankly, it could be Mary Poppins on ice. But I wouldn’t pay one red cent to see it or take any child I know to see it. What matters here . . . . Continue Reading »
Each year the Center for Bioethics and Culture asks me to predict what will happen in the next 12 months regarding the major bioethical and biotechnological controversies of the day. So, I put on my Carnac the Magnificent hat and predicted away. It is worth noting that my expectations were affected . . . . Continue Reading »
Robert Miller rightly points out that science is consequential. It matters whether or not my doctor understands the nature of sickness and has at his disposal some strategies for cure. But Pascal’s Rule does not say that science is inconsequential. His Rule only points out that questions that . . . . Continue Reading »
When I was in Toronto recently at the international anti-euthanasia conference, I focused my speech on the looming threat of Futile Care Theory as the next big bioethical controversy. And already, I am proved prescient. A Canadian hospital is trying to force an elderly man off of a respirator and . . . . Continue Reading »
After further discussion with readers, including the original one to whom I responded, I would like to clarify my earlier remarks about The Golden Compass . Books of substance have an “atmosphere,” as C.S. Lewis put it, along which the text runs, an atmosphere that permeates the text . . . . Continue Reading »
For some time now many scientists, even and perhaps especially those connected to the climate alarmism movement, have worried about the exaggerations and downright apocalyptic scenarios which have come out of the writings of some of their scientific colleagues like James Hansen or James Lovelock, . . . . Continue Reading »
I don’t know, Rusty. Physics may not give us words of comfort for a friend dying of cancer, but molecular biology may teach us how to cure him. . . . . Continue Reading »
Maggie Gallagher has been making eloquent, sophisticated arguments proving simple (some would say self-evident) truths for years now: Marriage is good for spouses, children, and society at large; or, in her words, married people are happier, healthier, and better off financially. To Maggie’s . . . . Continue Reading »
Back in the December 2005 issue , we published a poem from the science-fiction writer Kevin Andrew Murphy. As I wrote at the time, the difference between good and bad may be larger in the sestina than in nearly any other form of structured verse: When sestinas are good, they are very, very good; . . . . Continue Reading »
Pascal once wrote, in so many words, that the certainty of our knowledge is inversely proportional to its significance. The truths of physics give us no words to say to a friend dying of cancer. Evolutionary biology cannot console us at the graveside. . . . . Continue Reading »
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