Creation Careless

by John Murdock

When will we have a chance to piece back together a conservatism and a Christian worldview with something edifying to say about all of creation? Continue Reading »

10 Mar 2017 0

The Pontifical Academies’ Mess of Pottage

by Michael Pakaluk

The Pontifical Academies inviting abortion-promoting overpopulation alarmist Paul Erhlich amounts to formal cooperation in serious evil. And the scandal is not only moral, but scientific. Erhlich is a laughably bad scientist. Continue Reading »

24 Feb 2017 0

We See Through a Sonogram, Darkly

by Leah Libresco Sargeant

If we feel stymied by the imprecision of sonograms and other tools for looking inside the bodies of others, we should feel at least as frightened by the fallibility of our own wills, and the unreliable view they give us of the souls of others. Continue Reading »

25 Jan 2017 0

You Are Not an Ape

by Wesley J. Smith

Pedro Pozas, a Spanish animal-rights activist, made international headlines in 2006 when he declared, “I am an ape.” Pozas was speaking as an advocate for the Great Ape Project (GAP), the brainchild of Princeton utilitarian bioethicist Peter Singer and Italian animal-rights philosopher Paola . . . . Continue Reading »

13 Nov 2015 0

Scientists Explain the Origins of Religion

by Russell E. Saltzman

I’d say, after reading this essay, we can just sleep in next Sunday. We now have a scientific excuse to stay home and pull the covers up: the origins of religion. It opens by asking what role religion still “plays in today’s American society.” Wait, you may ask. What does religion . . . . Continue Reading »

8 Oct 2015 0

The Return of Catholic Anti-Modernism

by R. R. Reno

Commentators are sure to make the false claim that Pope Francis has aligned the Church with modern science. They’ll say this because he endorses climate change. But that’s a superficial reading of Laudato Si. In this encyclical, Francis expresses strikingly anti-scientific, anti-technological, . . . . Continue Reading »

18 Jun 2015 0

Exploded into Being by Divine Love

by George Weigel

I’ve long been fascinated by cosmology, although my deficiencies as a mathematician preclude my really following the arguments of astrophysicists, high-energy particle physicists, and others exploring the origins of the universe. Yet the fascination remains and it was kindled anew by a May 12 article in the Boston Globe Magazine about Alan Guth, a key figure in current explorations of what happened in the Big Bang, the orthodox explanation for How Things Started. Continue Reading »

5 Nov 2014 0

Modern Cosmology and Creation

by William E. Carroll

Does cosmology provide insights as to whether or not the universe is created? In a recent interview with Gary Gutting for the New York Times, Tim Maudlin, professor of philosophy at NYU, rejects arguments based on cosmology that seek to show that human beings have any special place: “No one looking at the vast extent of the universe and the completely random location of homo sapiens within it (in both space and time) could seriously maintain that the whole thing was intentionally created for us. This realization began with Galileo, and has only intensified ever since.” Continue Reading »

23 Jun 2014 0

Editing Each Other

by Matthew Hennessey

I am an editor. My job is to improve manuscripts submitted by authors and prepare them for publication. I approach every new piece sceptically. I probe. I attack. I play devil’s advocate. I search for error and dispose of it. Often I rely on instinct. Even when I can’t initially diagnose a problem within a text, I can sense when something’s wrong. In such cases I have to work backward to find the answer. This process can be tricky. Writers have egos. Everyone has preferences. There is no right or perfect way to compose a sentence or structure an argument. Continue Reading »

28 Apr 2014 0

Intelligent Design Might Be Wrong, But Not the Way You Think

by Stephen H. Webb

Stephen Meredith’s “Looking for God in All the Wrong Places” in the February 2014 issue of First Things accuses Intelligent Design theory (ID) of being a variant of occasionalism, which he defines as the denial “that efficient causality occurs outside God.” . . . . Continue Reading »

20 Feb 2014 0