Science and Discovery

Today professional athletes are almost always evaluated by “scientific,” i.e. statistical, measurements of success and value, but the old-fashioned “eye test” is sometimes still invoked. The eye test refers to one’s impression from actually watching an athlete or team compete,…

 
Stem Cells in General
Much of the confusion over stem cell research involves misunderstanding of terms, so let’s begin with some definitions.
Stem cells are immature cells that are undifferentiated (i.e., they have not yet “decided” what kind of…

As the world of medicine changes in the United States, its founding principles become more daily compromised and challenged. Medical ethics have become defined by limiting, human institutes such as the Code of Medical Ethics by the American Medical Association,…

Total brain death–the complete and irreversible cessation of functioning of all parts of the brain–has been widely accepted in ethics and law as a valid criterion for pronouncing the death of a human being. But in the last fifteen years,…

Is the Big Bang Church Teaching?

by Michael Baruzzini May 6, 2013

The universe is about 13.82 billion years old. Although it is well within the error range of earlier estimates, this new number means that the universe is slightly older than cosmologists previously thought. The new age comes as a result…

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Latex Lies: Why HIV Won’t Go Away

by Obianuju Ekeocha March 20, 2013

A few months ago I had a series of email correspondences with a South African man over the reality and trajectory of humanitarian aid and interventions in Africa. And one of his emails to me was about the tragic failure…

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How Science Is Finding Faith

by Stephen Beale February 19, 2013

Sometimes, we run so far away from something that we are eventually forced to confront it face to face.
Such might be the story of modern science and God. Ever since the Enlightenment, science has sought naturalistic explanations as alternatives…

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Let’s Clone a Neanderthal, Shall We?

by Michael Cook January 29, 2013

It was the headline which flew ’round the world: Harvard prof seeks mom for cloned Neanderthal. An irresistible story, perhaps, but the Harvard prof, George Church, has repudiated it, blaming the media buzz on poor translation skills.
What’s the truth?…

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The Ethics of Care in the Neolithic Age

by Michael Cook December 28, 2012

End-of-life care is a phrase associated with gurgling tubes, beeping monitors and flashing lights. But a fledging subspecialty of archaeology is examining how early humans cared for the disabled in their communities.
An article in the New York Times this…

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I’m not the Nazi; You’re the Nazi

by Michael Cook October 16, 2012

Julian Savulescu, the utilitarian bioethicist at Oxford University, has the perfect riposte when his opponents tell him that his proposals for genetic selection remind them of Nazi eugenics.
The real Nazis, he contends, are people who want to restrict the…

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