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 »
A reader of my review of The Golden Compass found it “baffling.” I had written that “neither the film nor the book is likely to make any converts to atheism. Just as most children walked away from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe with religious convictions unchanged, so will . . . . Continue Reading »
From C.S. Lewis, My Godfather , by Laurence Harwood, out soon from IVP: (1) Turn off the Radio. (2) Read all the good books you can, and avoid nearly all magazines.* (3) Always write (and read) with the ear, not the eye. You shd. hear every sentence you write as if it was being read aloud or . . . . Continue Reading »
A column in the KC Star grouses that the state is funding life sciences research into animal and plant experiments, but not human studies. From the column by Jason Gertzen:The Missouri General Assembly created the trust fund and the grant program a few years ago. It was one of the ways state leaders . . . . Continue Reading »
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