27Jul 2020 by Post

A College Student Gets Educated on Darwinian “Morality”

Atheism, BBC News, Charles Darwin, chimpanzees, college students, conscience, Culture & Ethics, curriculum, ethics, Evolution, evolutionary ethics, Frans de Waal, God: The Failed Hypothesis, God’s Not Dead, indoctrination, materialism, Michael Egnor, moral relativism, morality, murder, Nicholas Wade, primates, situational ethics, The Descent of Man, Timothy Madigan, Victor Stenger
The student, who attends a public university, is worried about how this kind of indoctrination bodes for the future. I am too. Source
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18Apr 2020 by Post

We Need to Worry About Suicide Contagion, Too

contagion, crisis, Culture, Culture & Ethics, economic hardship, economy, ethics, Medicine, National Center for Health Statistics, population, report, suicide, suicide rate
The National Center for Health Statistics has published an alarming report about the increasing suicide rate — which has been increasing at 2 percent per year since 2006. From the report (my emphasis): This report highlights trends in suicide rates from 1999 through 2018. During this period, the age-adjusted suicide rate increased 35%, from 10.5 per 100,000 U.S. standard population in 1999 to 14.2 in 2018. The average annual percentage increase in the national suicide rate increased from approximately 1% per year from 1999 to 2006 to 2% per year from 2006 through 2018. Our ongoing suicide crisis is a reminder. Economic hardship breeds suicide, which as I have argued in the past, can also be a contagion. Photo credit: Road Trip with Raj via Unsplash. Cross-posted at The Corner. The post We…
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07Apr 2020 by Post

Balancing Lives, Economics, and Public Policy in This Plague

borders, calculus, Congress, constitutional rights, coronavirus, COVID-19, Culture & Ethics, Economics, elderly, epidemiology, ethics, euthanasia, experts, governors, health, incubation period, Medicine, neurosurgeon, polis, Politics, President, Principle of Double Effect, probabilities, psychology, public policy, scientists, Senate, social distancing, sociology, Thomas Aquinas, triage, ventilators
I am a physician, and while I don’t treat coronavirus patients personally (I’m a neurosurgeon), I work in a regional coronavirus center and have first-hand knowledge of the medical impact of this pandemic. The danger the virus poses to life is substantial — in vulnerable people, it causes severe pulmonary compromise, often requiring the patient to be placed on a ventilator, and a substantial portion of these ventilated patients will die. The virus is highly contagious, and has a rather long incubation period, which helps it spread — people who have it continue to walk around and spread it for quite a while before they become sick and realize that they are contagious.  A Framework for the Wisest Decisions For a variety of reasons, the coronavirus plague is devastating to…
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28Mar 2020 by Post

Wesley J. Smith on the March for Science and Rights Gone Wild

animal rights, Culture & Ethics, Discovery Institute, ethics, Heritage Foundation, ID The Future, March for Science, plant rights, scientism, United States, Wesley J. Smith
On a classic episode of ID the Future, hear Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith’s talk at an event hosted by Discovery and the Heritage Foundation: “March for Science or March for Scientism? Understanding the Real Threats to Science in America.” Listen in as he discusses how science has been conflated with ethics, and talks about animal and plant rights. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Photo: Wesley Smith speaking at the “March for Science or March for Scientism? Understanding the Real Threats to Science in America” event (screenshot).  The post Wesley J. Smith on the March for Science and Rights Gone Wild appeared first on Evolution News.
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16Feb 2020 by Post

Michael Aeschliman in National Review — Berlinski Detonates “Fatuous, Flattering” Optimism

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Ben Shapiro, biology, climate change, coronavirus, Culture & Ethics, ethics, First World War, future, Herbert Butterfield, Homo Deus, Human Nature (book), Incarnation, intellectuals, Ivy League, Jonathan Swift, Law of the Jungle, linguistics, Malcolm Muggeridge, Martin Luther King, mathematics, Michael Aeschliman, Middle East, National Review, philosophy, Reinhold Niebuhr, Steven Pinker, Sunday Special, T.S. Eliot, The Better Angels of Our Nature
From climate change to the coronavirus, one tendency among writers and commentators is to an urgent, insatiable, almost sexual desire to cast unwarranted terror over other people. This tendency is matched by an equal appetite, among a large part of the public, for being terrified. The market is well matched with its suppliers. But this dynamic is mirrored by its opposite: a wish, proceeding from different personal imperatives but no less urgent, to assure us that the future looks better and better, all progress with little pain. There’s a market for this, too, and the relationship with the suppliers is just as tight. It’s to this second pairing that David Berlinski turns his attention in his recent essay collection, Human Nature. Two Celebrity Intellectuals Dr. Berlinski gets a fabulous review…
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25Jan 2020 by Post

Pressuring a Hospice to Kill

and organ-transplant centers, Angeline Ireland, assisted suicide, Big Government, British Columbia, Canada, caring, conscientious objection, Delta Hospice Society, dementia, doctors, ethics, euthanasia, freedom of conscience, hospice, hospice palliative care, killing, MAiD, medical assistance in dying, Medicine, memory-support facilities, minister of health, nursing homes, organ harvesting, patients, pediatric euthanasia, pediatric hospitals, podiatry, psychiatric institutions, Quebec, religious beliefs, socialism, socialized medicine, United States
Should hospice professionals be forced to assist the suicides of their patients who want to die? Not too long ago, the answer to that question would have been an emphatic “Of course not!” Hospice is not about making people dead. Rather, it seeks to help terminally ill patients live well through intensive medical, spiritual, psychological, and social treatments to alleviate the pain and emotional suffering that dying people and their families may experience. Don’t tell that to the provincial government of British Columbia. After the Supreme Court of Canada conjured a right for anyone diagnosed with a serious medical condition that causes “irremediable suffering” to receive lethal-injection euthanasia, British Columbia passed a law requiring all medical facilities that receive at least 50 percent of their funding from the government to…
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21Jan 2020 by Post

Science as a Jealous God — Free Weekend Conference in Seattle for College Students

Artificial Intelligence, Baylor University, Brian Miller, C.S. Lewis, Center for Science & Culture, Charles Darwin, coercion, colleges, conference, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Culture & Ethics, Darwinism, Discovery Institute, earth, ethics, Evolution, humankind, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, intimidation, jealous god, John West, National Review, natural world, science, scientism, Seattle, seminar, society, students, travel stipend, universities, values, Walter Bradley Center, Wesley J. Smith
Science, rather than opening minds and setting us free from drudgery, is increasingly a tool of coercion and intimidation. If you’re a college student, consider joining us at Discovery Institute on March 6-7 for a free weekend seminar, “Science, Scientism, and Society.” Scientism is a word that designates the impulse to turn science into a jealous god — not a method for exploring the natural world and responsibly harnessing its resources, but the exclusive source of knowledge about all things, including values and ethics.  More information and a simple online application are here. January 30 is the deadline to apply for this important, enlightening, and fun event, organized by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) and held in Discovery Institute’s offices in Seattle. ISI will provide a travel stipend for students…
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