The Mexican Connection
Back in 1956, when I spent a summer there as a high school student, Mexico really was “the land of eternal spring,” beautiful, though poor, and full of hope. The population, then at 34 million, was already growing fast and shifting from the countryside to the cities. Mexico City held 4.5 million. Today, the population of Mexico is nearing an Read More ›
Conflating Matter and Mind
I’ve been asked to respond to criticisms of my paper “Converting Matter into Mind” (PSCS, Dec 90). My reaction to these criticisms is this: “Yes, I could have been more careful in some details and choice of terminology, but the substance of my position is unaffected.” The critics were guilty of two faults. First was a failure to read my Read More ›
Darwinism and the Argument to Design
The controversy between Christianity and Darwinism involves a number of complex issues. One of these is a conflict over design. According to the received view, the root of the conflict is that Darwinism undermines the argument that God’s existence can be proved from design in living things. It seems to me that there is a basic conflict between Christianity and Read More ›
The new binational regionalism
Everybody knows these days that one of Seattle’s advantages in the recession is the relative health of the Northwest economy as a whole. Boeing and Microsoft pull in dollars from both coasts and from overseas, but it is also nice to have a regional market that is still strong enough to want our products close to home. But what “everybody Read More ›
Converting Matter into Mind
Introduction In the Foundations of Cognitive Science Herbert Simon and Craig Kaplan offer the following definition: Cognitive science is the study of intelligence and intelligent systems, with particular reference to intelligent behavior as computation. Since this definition hinges on the dual notions of intelligence and computation, it remains scientifically unobjectionable so long as one declines to prejudge the relation between Read More ›
Careful trade contacts will encourage Chinese freedom forces
Bush, Mulroney Should Embrace Thatcher
Just six months ago on the eve of her 10th anniversary in office British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher seemed invincible. Today she looks politically vulnerable and there is something that Mr. Bush and Mr. Mulroney of Canada could — and should — do to help. Mrs. Thatcher’s political isolation has come about in part because of her dispute with European Read More ›
Teaching the Controversy
Owen Gingerich
Fully Formed
The right-to-life movement has mastered a powerful new tool of persuasion: medical technology. A recently developed science called fetology has greatly enhanced knowledge of the human unborn, and harbors an implied challenge to the legal practice of abortion. “Now for the first time, we have the technology to see the abortion from the victim’s vantage point,” says Dr. Bernard Nathanson, Read More ›
Christianity Challenges the University
Few religious conferences ever rate coverage from media like Time, National Review, and local television. But then most religious conferences rarely invite prominent atheistic critics of Christianity. But a recent gathering in Dallas did precisely that. “Christianity Challenges the University: An International Conference of Theists and Atheists,” sponsored by Dallas Baptist University (DBU), brought some 40 of the world’s finest Read More ›