Public Discourse

It remains unclear whether sexual orientation is genetically determined. Even if it is, that doesn’t justify advocacy for same-sex marriage.

The invention of Rex, a bionic man with artificially created organs, helps us see why it is impossible for any machine to be a human being.

With money as the biggest incentive for sperm donation, donors are set up to be absent fathers. Politicians, charitable organizations, academics, and donors themselves should counter the ills of sperm donation through law, journalism, and funding for anti-sperm donation advocacy. The second of a two-part series.

Commercialized sperm “donation” degrades and objectifies men, promotes a culture of irresponsible parenting, and hurts children conceived through donation. The first of a two-part series.

Religion isn’t outdated simply because some people claim that we can only know what the natural sciences tell us. Philosophy and theology are the next steps in our search for truth about nature, human nature, and God.

Young adult men’s support for redefining marriage may not be entirely the product of ideals about expansive freedoms, rights, liberties, and fairness. It may be, in part, a byproduct of regular exposure to diverse and graphic sex acts.

Science can and should help determine sound public policy on matters that involve basic human rights.

A physician-philosopher argues that modern medicine is oriented toward the dead body because it is no longer informed by an ultimate purpose for human existence.

Mark Regnerus’s response to his critics shows more clearly that instability is characteristic of same-sex relationships and that stable same-sex parented households are virtually non-existent. Second of a two-part series.

Attacks on sociologist Mark Regnerus after he challenged the “no differences” thesis haven’t obscured the high quality of the New Family Structures Study or its troubling findings. The first of a two-part series.

Richard Mourdock’s comment didn’t imply that God wills rape; instead, it reminds us that God wills a great good in the coming-to-be of any human life, regardless of the evil circumstances surrounding its conception.

Distinguished philosopher Thomas Nagel rejects both evolutionary materialism and theism as adequate accounts of the origin and nature of human life, proposing instead a naturalistic “nonpurposive teleology.” But naturalistic teleology, just like existence itself, calls for a cause that transcends the created order.

A report from The Witherspoon Council, a newly-formed bioethics body, argues that even the noblest aspirations of the scientific enterprise must be guided by ethics and governed under political authority.

Two new peer-reviewed studies show that family structure matters and children do best when reared by their married biological mother and father.

Nature exhibits finality and purpose in its various activities, and chance is not, indeed cannot be, an explanation for this activity.

The fertility industry is booming because we desire genetic and memetic immortality—the preservation and reproduction of our bodies and ways of life.

Think overpopulation, poverty, climate change, and abortion can all be solved by more birth control? Think again.

Modern science does not require us to abandon notions of nature and human nature upon which so much of traditional ethics depends.

In a new bestseller, David Brooks contends that the “new sciences” point to the incredible reality and importance of old-fashioned things like education, character formation, and virtue.

Pure scientism is insufficient as a basis for criminal justice.

Judging from the media’s response to Rick Perry’s Galileo reference in the Reagan debate, our discourse is still governed by the modern view that science and religion can only clash.

The problem with reductionist accounts of life.

Women are hard-wired for relationships—and a woman’s relationship to her baby is one of the most powerful of all, whether she realizes it or not. The hard-wiring of the brain may explain many women’s disturbing post-abortion feelings.

Scientists have begun to doubt whether there was a “Big Bang.” But in claiming that this disproves the existence of a Creator, they confuse temporal beginnings with origins.

Biological reductionism doesn’t disprove the notion of free will.

Seeing that scientism is unsustainable, we must embrace a return to philosophy. The second article in a two-part series.

The problem with scientism is that it is either self-defeating or trivially true. F.A. Hayek helps us to see why. The first article in a two-part series.

As we celebrate the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of the Species, it is time to realize that the best way to honor his legacy is to fight its over-extension and misapplication into the realm of politics. The second in a two-part series.

In the wake of the "Climate-gate" controversy, a scientist at Princeton University argues for a sensible view on climate change and CO2.