Wesley J. Smith

Much is being made of the report that a 7-year-old chimp beat college students in quick memory tests of number patterns. This doesn’t affect human exceptionalism, in my view. What makes us special goes far deeper than memory capacities.But it also may be less than meets the eye. As we know . . . . Continue Reading »

The New York Times Magazine article about assisted suicide, byline Daniel Bergner, continues to amaze because his analysis actually looks behind the curtain of gooey euphemisms and blithe paeans to “choice.” The article, which I first referenced this weekend, is about former Governor . . . . Continue Reading »

With a government like this, terminally ill people don’t need enemies. Back in the late 1990s, federal bureaucrats began an assault on hospice known ridiculously as “Operation Restore Trust.” The idea was this: If a hospice patient on Medicare didn’t die within 6 months, the . . . . Continue Reading »

This column in today’s San Francisco Chronicle is a bit of a change of pace for me. I urge that marijuana be removed from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act—meaning no legitimate use—and changed to Schedule II or III—which would permit doctors to prescribe it. (I . . . . Continue Reading »

Booth Gardner, former governor of Washington and a very rich man, intends to buy a law for Washington legalizing assisted suicide. His opening salvo comes in an extended piece in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. The piece is actually suprisingly fair, so fair in fact, that Gardner may . . . . Continue Reading »

More trouble in Proposition 71-Land: The California State Controller—in what I must say is a gutsy move given the politics of the matter—has ordered an audit of the CIRM citing charges of conflict of interest. From the story:California’s top financial officer Tuesday ordered a . . . . Continue Reading »

“The scientists” have spent hundreds of millions and years trying to obtain tailor made, patient specific, pluripotent stem cells. Well, Shinya Yamanaka did it. From the story:Skin cells from the face of 36 year old woman have been converted into her own embryonic like cells directly, in . . . . Continue Reading »

Great news! The great stem cell breakthrough is already being improved upon. As a consequence, the half-hearted defense of human cloning by “the scientists,” in which they point out remaining problems with induced pluripotent stem Cells, seems to already be losing water. (The future . . . . Continue Reading »

At what age should children be allowed to make their own medical decisions? It seems to me, that just as children can’t sign contracts or vote, they shouldn’t have the final say in whether they receive medical care? But in Washington, a court permitted a 14-year-old to refuse a blood . . . . Continue Reading »

Charles Krauthammer, the Washington Post columnist who favored ESCR funding but also saw that the scientists would never be satisfied with being limited to leftover embryos, has a column on the great iPSC breakthrough. He writes (prematurely in my view) that “the great stem cell debate is . . . . Continue Reading »