Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism, and consults for the Patients Rights Council.

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Penn and Teller Take Down PETA

From First Thoughts

I would normally post a video as effective as this one is at deconstructing PETA directly from YouTube onto Secondhand Smoke. But the title contains an epithet, and I couldn’t sanitize it here on the site no matter how hard I tried. Penn also has several foul mouthed moments, of which I . . . . Continue Reading »

Adult Stem Cells May Treat Back Pain

From First Thoughts

And those advances keep coming in from all directions: The BBC is reporting that within three years or so, a patient’s own adult stem cells may be able to relieve back pain caused by damage to intervertebral discs (IVDs, a common cause of debilitating low back pain. Bone marrow, don’t . . . . Continue Reading »

Transhumanists and "Human Dignity"

From First Thoughts

Oxford professor Nick Bostrom, one of the leading lights of the transhumanist movement, has a new paper out (“In Defense of Post Human Dignity”) in which he argues that there is no need to fear the post human future if we all agree that all forms of post humanity have equal dignity. Here . . . . Continue Reading »

A "Genetic Bill of Rights"

From First Thoughts

A Genetic Bill of Rights—From Lori Andrews, a professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law, who chaired the federal ethics advisory committee to the Human Genome Project. * You should have the right to refuse genetic testing and not to disclose genetic information, except in criminal cases in . . . . Continue Reading »