In a recent piece in Crisis I argued that secular and rationalizing ways of thought applied to the social environment soon bring us to inclusiveness. Giving people what they want equally, which is the goal of a liberal technocratic society, includes giving them equal social positions. Inclusiveness is thus part of the modern effort to … Read more
Every few years a Christian preacher predicts imminent Armageddon, gains some followers and is thrust into the national headlines. Most recently, Harold Camping, the iterant Oakland preacher, announced the world would end on May 22, 2011. Camping prophesized this will be accompanied by massive earthquakes, chaos, death and destruction, just as described in the Book … Read more
The Monty Python film, Life of Brian, has a scene in it where Reg, the leader of a group of Jewish rebels, asks what the Romans have ever done for the Jewish people. The assembled group chip in with ideas one-by-one, undermining the implication that the Romans have brought nothing by hardship to Israel. Reg … Read more
According to Aristotle, the nature of investigation and the proofs we assert depend upon the object. That is, we do not look for mathematical demonstration when the object of our study is not a mathematical object. It is even a reduction to dissolve a simple inanimate thing, like a quartz crystal, into a mathematical model, … Read more
This article originally appeared in the March 1996 edition of Crisis Magazine. Science is mankind’s great success story since the Renaissance. Only the most obdurate Luddite can regret the computer chip, the Hubble telescope, and the heart bypass. But these material triumphs have come at a philosophical cost. The scientific method has been so successful … Read more
Remember the slogan “ethics is playing catch-up with science”? It was one of the trusty clichés of science journalists in the heated debates five or six years ago over embryo research, “therapeutic cloning” and embryonic stem cells. From a layman’s point of view, the nub of the issue was this: adult stem cells were ethically … Read more
Four centuries ago Galileo was condemned by the Papacy for promoting the theory of a heliocentric universe, because the science was in conflict with Biblical beliefs. Recently, Australian prelate Cardinal George Pell rang the changes on the belief versus science theme in a lecture delivered at the 2011 Global Warming Policy Annual Forum, Westminster Cathedral … Read more
Karl Marx said religion in general — and Christianity in particular — is nothing more than an opiate for the masses. How do we know Marx is not right? The mere fact that people around the world worship a divine being doesn’t establish the existence or non-existence of any such thing — nor does it … Read more
The Daily Telegraph reports that prominent English cosmologist Stephen Hawking has suggested that “heaven is a fairy story for people who are afraid of the dark.” As I am both a lover of fairy tales and a believer in heaven, I am not sure whether this is an insult or a compliment. Although I … Read more
Many years ago I was attending my first faculty reception at my first formal faculty appointment, at Stanford, and was met at the receiving line by the sponsoring dean with a warm handshake and the baffling words, “I want to tell you that I have the greatest admiration for your Church.” The two of us … Read more
Professional historians have long known that the “Dark Ages” — roughly, the period between 500 to 1000 — was not a time of ignorance or superstition, but involved a range of scientific, economic, and cultural advances. For that reason, it’s always nice to see a work of popular history set the record straight, as Nancy … Read more
I’m a Ricky Gervais fan… a big Ricky Gervais fan. The original BBC version of The Office was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, and there were moments in his follow up series, Extras, that were equally hilarious. I’ve also enjoyed his stand-up comedy — rare for me — as well as his frenetic and … Read more
Scientists have studied the movement on five pairs of twins in utero and determined that by the 14th week of gestation, the fetuses aim movements at each other. Science magazine reports on the research: By the 14 th week of gestation, the fetuses began reaching toward their partners, and just 4 weeks later, they spent … Read more
How did I miss this? Jay Kennedy, an historian and philosopher of science at the University of Manchester, claims to have made an unusual discovery in the works of Plato. In short, he argues that the philosopher was a closet Pythagorean, and that he left numerous textual clues to that effect. [Kennedy] used a computer … Read more
I’ve always been a sucker for those online IQ tests that ask you a bunch of fun, mostly visual/spacial questions, and then proclaim you a genius. (I’ve never enjoyed real IQ tests, though; they’re much more grudging in their endorsements.) This “Face Memory Test” from the “Science and Nature” portion of the BBC’s website has … Read more
There’s been a lot of talk in the last week about Elena Kagan’s role in influencing partial-birth abortion legislation during the Clinton administration by rewriting a crucial passage of a statement by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) on the necessity of such a procedure. (Shannen Coffin has an excellent summary of the … Read more
Science reports that a new study on mice shows that acupuncture activates pain-suppressing receptors. This is no surprise to the millions of people around the world who use acupuncture, but it’s always interesting when science discovers how things actually work. Researchers have developed two hypotheses for how acupuncture relieves pain. One holds that the needle … Read more
One of the great black boxes in medicine is the placebo effect — we know that it works, but we don’t know why. The fact is, if you give a large enough set of people a phony medical treatment for some disease they share, a percentage will experience some degree of genuine recovery. And that … Read more
On Good Friday, I received this e-mail from a reader in France: Your article about the shroud of Turin makes me almost hysteric, I was almost dying of laughter. Thank you for this high piece of burlesque. Nowadays, everyone and his dog knows that the shroud was created in 1347, simply in applying the shroud … Read more
Science is mankind’s great success story since the Renaissance. Only the most obdurate Luddite can regret the computer chip, the Hubble telescope, and the heart bypass. But these material triumphs have come at a philosophical cost. The scientific method has been so successful in its own sphere that many intelligent people think it the only … Read more