Science

Tomorrow has never looked better. Breakthroughs in fields like genetic engineering and nanotechnology promise to give us unprecedented power to redesign our bodies and our world. Futurists and activists tell us that we are drawing ever closer to a day when we will be as smart as computers, will be able to link our minds telepathically, and will live for centuries—or maybe forever. The perfection of a “posthuman” future awaits us.

Or so the story goes. In reality, the rush toward a posthuman destiny amounts to an ideology of human extinction, an ideology that sees little of value in humanity except the raw material for producing whatever might come next.

In Eclipse of Man, Charles T. Rubin traces the intellectual origins of the movement to perfect and replace the human race. He shows how today’s advocates of radical enhancement are—like their forebears—deeply dissatisfied with given human nature and fixated on grand visions of a future shaped by technological progress.

Moreover, Rubin argues that this myopic vision of the future is not confined to charlatans and cheerleaders promoting this or that technology: it also runs through much of modern science and contemporary progressivism. By exploring and criticizing the dreams of post humanity, Rubin defends a more modest vision of the future, one that takes seriously both the limitations and the inherent dignity of our given nature.

The current frenzy over global warming has galvanized the public and cost taxpayers billons of dollars in federal expenditures for climate research. It has spawned Hollywood blockbusters and inspired major political movements. It has given a higher calling to celebrities and built a lucrative industry for scores of eager scientists. In short, ending climate change has become a national crusade. And yet, despite this dominant and sprawling campaign, the facts behind global warming remain as confounding as ever. In Climate Confusion, distinguished climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer observes that our obsession with global warming has only clouded the issue. Forsaking blindingly technical statistics and doomsday scenarios, Dr. Spencer explains in simple terms how the climate system really works, why man's role in global warming is more myth than science, and how the global warming hype has corrupted Washington and the scientific community. The reasons, Spencer explains, are numerous: biases in governmental funding of scientific research, our misconceptions about science and basic economics, even our religious beliefs and worldviews. From Al Gore to Leonardo DiCaprio, the climate change industry has given a platform to leading figures from all walks of life, as pandering politicians, demagogues and biased scientists forge a self-interested movement whose proposed policy initiatives could ultimately devastate the economies of those developing countries they purport to aid. Climate Confusion is a much needed wake up call for all of us on planet earth. Dr. Spencer's clear-eyed approach, combined with his sharp wit and intellect, brings transparency and levity to the issue of global warming as he takes on wrong-headed attitudes and misguided beliefs that have led to our state of panic. Climate Confusion lifts the shroud of mystery that has hovered here for far too long and offers an end to this frenzy of misinformation in our lives. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From stem cell research to global warming, human cloning, evolution, and beyond, political debates about science have raged in recent years - and, to the chagrin of most observers, have increasingly fallen into the familiar categories of America's culture wars. In Imagining the Future: Science and American Democracy, Yuval Levin explores the complicated meanings of science and technology in American politics and finds that the science debates have a lot to teach us about our political life. These debates, Levin argues, reveal some serious challenges to American self-government, and put on stark display the deepest strengths and greatest weaknesses of both the left and the right. "American life has been profoundly shaped by science and technology, and will be all the more so in the coming decades, making it crucial that we understand how to think and speak about science in politics. Yuval Levin's smart and eminently well-reasoned book makes the important point that the purpose of science is a moral one -- to improve human life -- and that judging what that involves is sometimes a job for more than science alone in a democratic society. Levin's insights speak directly to today's political debates and make his book a must-read for policymakers and all those who care about science and society." --Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House "Imagining the Future goes far beyond the contemporary polarized debates over science to unpack the moral premises of the modern scientific project and its consequences for American democracy. In the process, Yuval Levin provides us with a deep understanding of policy issues from genetic engineering to global warming." --Francis Fukuyama, Johns Hopkins University "This book is important to the thinking of both progressives and conservatives. Clearly and incisively, it shows how science and technology are shaping humanity's future and world views. Levin alerts democratic societies that human dignity and equality are imperiled unless we provide political and moral guidance to prevent the submergence of humanity in its own ingenuity." --Edmund Pellegrino, Chairman, President's Council on Bioethics

The current frenzy over global warming has galvanized the public and cost taxpayers billons of dollars in federal expenditures for climate research. It has spawned Hollywood blockbusters and inspired major political movements. It has given a higher calling to celebrities and built a lucrative industry for scores of eager scientists. In short, ending climate change has become a national crusade.

And yet, despite this dominant and sprawling campaign, the facts behind global warming remain as confounding as ever.

In Climate Confusion, distinguished climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer observes that our obsession with global warming has only clouded the issue. Forsaking blindingly technical statistics and doomsday scenarios, Dr. Spencer explains in simple terms how the climate system really works, why man’s role in global warming is more myth than science, and how the global warming hype has corrupted Washington and the scientific community.

The reasons, Spencer explains, are numerous: biases in governmental funding of scientific research, our misconceptions about science and basic economics, even our religious beliefs and worldviews. From Al Gore to Leonardo DiCaprio, the climate change industry has given a platform to leading figures from all walks of life, as pandering politicians, demagogues and biased scientists forge a self-interested movement whose proposed policy initiatives could ultimately devastate the economies of those developing countries they purport to aid.

Climate Confusion is a much needed wake up call for all of us on planet earth. Dr. Spencer’s clear-eyed approach, combined with his sharp wit and intellect, brings transparency and levity to the issue of global warming, as he takes on wrong-headed attitudes and misguided beliefs that have led to our state of panic. Climate Confusion lifts the shroud of mystery that has hovered here for far too long and offers an end to this frenzy of misinformation in our lives.

To scientists, the tsunami of relativism, scepticism, and postmodernism that washed through the humanities in the twentieth century was all water off a duck’s back. Science remained committed to objectivity and continued to deliver remarkable discoveries and improvements in technology.

In What Science Knows, the Australian philosopher and mathematician James Franklin explains in captivating and straightforward prose how science works its magic. He begins with an account of the nature of evidence, where science imitates but extends commonsense and legal reasoning in basing conclusions solidly on inductive reasoning from facts.

After a brief survey of the furniture of the world as science sees it—including causes, laws, dispositions and force fields as well as material things—Franklin describes colorful examples of discoveries in the natural, mathematical, and social sciences and the reasons for believing them. He examines the limits of science, giving special attention both to mysteries that may be solved by science, such as the origin of life, and those that may in principle be beyond the reach of science, such as the meaning of ethics.

What Science Knows will appeal to anyone who wants a sound, readable, and well-paced introduction to the intellectual edifice that is science. On the other hand it will not please the enemies of science, whose willful misunderstandings of scientific method and the relation of evidence to conclusions Franklin mercilessly exposes.

We live in an age of unprecedented human mastery -- over birth and death, body and mind, nature and human nature. In every realm of life, science and technology have brought remarkable advances and improvements: we are healthier, wealthier, and more comfortable than ever before. But our gratitude for the benefits of progress increasingly mixes with concern about the meaning and consequences of our newfound powers. If we can dream about a new age of genetic medicine, we can also shudder at a new age of weapons of mass destruction. As we welcome longer lives, we wonder if we will still value human life as we should. In the Shadow of Progress: Being Human in the Age of Technology is a deep and lively reflection on the moral challenges of the technological age. Eric Cohen, a leading voice in America's bioethics debates, offers a tour of the complex dilemmas at the intersection of science and morality, moving seamlessly from contemporary subjects like stem cells and evolution to classic texts like the Hebrew Bible and Francis Bacon's "New Atlantis." Why are the wealthiest people in human history the least likely to want children? What kind of civilization will we become if we seek cures for the sick by destroying human embryos? What is lost when we relieve human sadness by altering the chemical balance of the brain, or enhance human performance by altering the biological workings of the body? In this age of scientific wonders, have we forgotten what sets human beings apart from everything else in the natural world? Can the fruits of modern science ever satisfy our deepest longings -- for love, for virtue, and for transcendence? In the end, Cohen argues, there are no easy answers. Our challenge is to live simultaneously with gratitude and fear, pride and shame, sobriety and hope, in this new age of technology.

The political environmentalism of the past 35 years was born of necessity: business as usual was not protecting the air, water and land. Brent Haglund and Thomas Still believe that the regulatory actions of the 1960s and 1970s were essential medicine for a careless society. But over time, the cure became something of a disease itself, a command-and-control system that widened the gulf between people and the natural world they live in. Writing for those who want to move past the environmental nanny state and reach the next level of stewardship, Haglund and Still describe a "civic environmentalism" based on local control, personal responsibility, government accountability and economic opportunity. They offer success stories demonstrating that civic environmentalism works. In Louisiana, private landowners formed the Black Bear Conservation Committee to restore the black bear from near extinction while avoiding an endangered species designation that would have constricted property rights. In Arizona, the White Mountain Apache tribe uses income from hunting licenses to fund an innovative wildlife management program that fosters economic development. In Wisconsin, the last dam was removed from the Baraboo River after the River Alliance brought landowners and governmental agencies together to promote change without polarizing lawsuits. HANDS-ON ENVIRONMENTALISM shows how to find voluntary, enduring solutions to environmental problems apart from heavy-handed governmental intervention.

Michael Fumento discusses the miracle drugs and treatment in the pipeline--innovations that will change medicine over the next decades, eliminating diseases such as diabetes.

Cloning researchers claim to have created an embryo that is mostly human, but also part animal. Biotech companies brag about manufacturing human embryos as “products” for use in medical treatments. Echoing long discredited master-race thinking, James Watson, who won a Nobel Prize for codiscovering the DNA double helix, claims that genetically enhanced people will someday “dominate the world.” Events are moving so fast—and biotechnology seems so complicated—that many of us worry we can’t have an informed opinion about these issues that are remaking the human future before our very eyes. Now Wesley J. Smith provides us with a guide to the brave new world that is no longer a figment of our imagination, but right around the corner of our lives.

Smith starts with the basic questions. What are stem cells? What is the difference between embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells, and which are most promising for medical therapy? What does embryonic stem cell research involve and why is it so controversial? What is its relationship to human cloning? In addition to explaining the science of stem cells, this highly readable and carefully researched book reports on the gargantuan “Big Biotech” industry and its supporters in the universities and in the science and bioethics establishments. Smith reveals how this lobby works and how the ideology of “scientism,” mixed with the lure of riches, threatens to impose on society a “new eugenics” that would dismantle ethical norms and compromise the uniqueness and importance of all human life.

Consumer’s Guide to a Brave New World presents a clear-eyed vision of two potential futures. In one, biotechnology will be a powerful tool to treat disease and improve the quality of our lives. But in another, darker scenario, we will be steered onto the antihuman path that Aldous Huxley and other prophetic writers first warned against fifty years ago, before science fiction became science fact.