Owls: We Have a Common Culture
by John Mark ReynoldsWhen stuck for content for a slow blogging week, cultural conservatives are apt to bemoan the loss of common culture. While it wasn’t much, there did seem to be something comforting about all of America huddled about a bleary black-and-white looking at I Love Lucy. Lucy stuffing chocolate in . . . . Continue Reading »
Leon Kass to Receive Paul Ramsey Award
by Sarah J. FlashingThe Center for Bioethics and Culture Network has announced that Dr. Leon R. Kass has been selected to receive the 2010 Paul Ramsey Award, given to those who have demonstrated exemplary achievement in the field of bioethics. Kass, the Addie Clark Harding Professor in the Committee on Social Thought . . . . Continue Reading »
iPhones Have Consequences
by Sally ThomasIn a Doonesbury cartoon of recent vintage, Zipper, nephew to the 1960s slacker Zonker Harris, sits in a college class, his laptop open before him, giving every impression of industrious note-taking: Tap tap tappity tap tap. “Dude,” a classmate instant-messages him. “The professor’s calling . . . . Continue Reading »
Ethics & Life’s Ending
by Gilbert Meilaender and Robert D. OrrRobert D. Orr: Feeding tubes make the news periodically, and controversies over their use or non-use seem unusually contentious. But feeding tubes are not high technology treatment; they are simple, small-bore catheters made of soft synthetic material. Nor are they new technology; feeding . . . . Continue Reading »
Technicians of Learning
by Edward TingleyModern institutions talk about themselves. When a corporation refashions itself—undergoes a complete makeover not merely to look different, but to play an entirely different role—this revolution is fundamentally a matter of talk. Such a transformation took place in the . . . . Continue Reading »
Man and Machine
by VariousMan and Machine William A. Dembski’s “Are We Spiritual Machines?” (October 1999) challenges the spiritualistic materialism of strong Artificial Intelligence enthusiasts such as Marvin Minsky with arguments that are among the best I have ever seen. There are no doubt other Christians with Mr. . . . . Continue Reading »
The Archetypes in the Machine
by John J. ReillyTechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information by erik davis. harmony. 368 pp. $25.Early on in this fascinating survey of the spiritual dimension of cyberculture, Erik Davis observes that “the spiritual imagination seizes information technology for its own purposes.” The . . . . Continue Reading »
Godly Cooking? Theological Ethics and Technological Society
by Max L. StackhouseEvery civilization has had its own ways of getting materials out of the bio-physical environment in order to feed, clothe, and house people, and to move people and things from where they are to where we want them to go. People with technical abilities know how to do things, how to make instruments . . . . Continue Reading »
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