Anne and Paul Ehrlich’s prediction in the late 1960s of the global overpopulation bomb has certainly fizzled out like a lot of doomsday predictions of the last few decades. Yet, human reproductive technology continues to make advancements. With those advancements … Continue reading
In June 2022, Google suspended engineer Blake Lemoine from his work in artificial intelligence. Having previously assisted with a program called the Language Models for Dialog Applications (LaMDA), Lemoine was placed on leave after publishing confidential information about the project. … Continue reading
You may remember the big news back in November 2018 about the birth of two Chinese baby girls who were born with the gene-edited trait for Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) resistance. The husband, the girls’ father, was HIV positive before … Continue reading
We live in an age where science has provided a lot of benefits for humanity. When we think about it, few of us would rather live in a 15th century royal court than our modern world of health, nutrition, and … Continue reading
Over the course of 2020, the previously minor social media application Parler rose to national prominence. The site served as a smaller, right-leaning mirror to Twitter, attracting an audience that included (among others) both U.S. senators and QAnon conspiracy theorists. … Continue reading
In the late 1980s, as a pre-med major at the University of Pittsburgh, I pulled many all-nighters at Scaife Hall at Pitt’s School of Medicine. My friend Dirk and I knew the only way we would ever make breakfast at … Continue reading
It is quite often the case that the simplest explanation is the correct explanation. The namesake for this principle comes from the English philosopher and theologian, Franciscan friar William of Ockham. It is called Occam’s razor. From various sources, Occam’s … Continue reading
NOTE: In the first article on this topic, I noted that while the COVID-19 vaccines were developed quickly, they weren’t unduly rushed. This article digs deeper into another common concern. Here’s a thought experiment. What if our experience with COVID-19 … Continue reading
In the first month or two of 2020, we had the first hint of a new, strange disease that originated in Wuhan, China. By March, we were locked down in our homes and have lived unprecedented disruptions of normal life … Continue reading
The “hook” of the story intrigued me: “This hasn’t happened in all of modern history…” An email from “The Crux” last month blared, “Global population growth to virtually stop by 2100.” According to a Pew Research Center analysis, “the world’s … Continue reading
Tony Wang, the general manager of Twitter, declared in 2012 that the company was “neutral as to the content” of speech, noting “[we] like to say that we are the free speech wing of the free speech party.” The same … Continue reading
If you want to land on another world, map it first. Since the two Viking missions in the 1970s, we have extensively charted the surface of Mars and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft—equipped with the HiRISE Camera—is now resolving objects … Continue reading
Editor’s note: This article first appeared at American Greatness. The University of Alabama on May 29 announced its plans to return a $26.5 million donation from the largest donor in the university’s history. The announcement came only hours after the … Continue reading
For years China has been criticized by various human rights groups for its traffic in human organs for transplants. Reports indicate that organ availability for transplant far exceeds the number of Chinese volunteer organ donors, a number far less than … Continue reading
We are in a blessed time now that the medical profession is more likely to heal us than to kill us by its ministrations. In the ancient world, to go to a physician was a gamble, often subjecting patients to … Continue reading
On Christmas Eve, 1968, three humans in the cramped Apollo 8 command module slingshot around the moon. They were the first human beings ever to be in the gravitational sphere of influence of another celestial body. While in lunar orbit, … Continue reading
Editor’s Note: The “V&V Q&A” is an e-publication from The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. This latest edition of “V&V Q&A” is an interesting discussion with author Dr. Mark Hendrickson about his new e-book: “The Big … Continue reading
The man for whom I was named has died. John Glenn, the last of the Mercury astronauts, died on December 9 at age 95. Five decades ago he was launched atop a refurbished Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile that had originally … Continue reading
Editor’s note: Both promising and ethically challenging, a new type of human genome project by the Center of Excellence for Engineering Biology recently made big news in the journal Science and the Washington Post. The Center for Vision & Values spoke with Grove City College biology professor Dr. … Continue reading
In 1989, America’s Voyager 2 spacecraft performed a reconnaissance flyby of Neptune, the distant ice giant planet that orbits about three billion miles from the sun. I was in graduate school then, and I stayed up all night watching PBS’s … Continue reading
