Discovery Institute

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Conference on Engineering in Living Systems

CELS brings together leading engineers and biologists in order to: (1) apply engineering principles to better understand biological systems, (2) craft a design-based theoretical framework that explains and predicts the behaviors of living systems, and (3) develop research programs that demonstrate the engineering principles at work in living systems. Read More ›
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The Ray Bradbury Collection

I’ll focus this month on books by and about four God-haunted genius writers: Ray Bradbury, Bob Dylan, John Donne, and Samuel Adams. The Library of America brought out last year The Ray Bradbury Collection, a two-volume assortment of stories and novellas by the science fiction and fantasy writer who died in 2012 at age 91. Captain Hart, the protagonist of Read More ›

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On Rediscovering Humility

This newsletter usually emphasizes secular books, but ‘tis the season to recommend books with Christian themes. I’ll start with Christopher Hutchinson’s excellent Recovering Humility (New Growth Press, 2018), which notes that “the surest way to a greater humility is to gaze upon Christ hanging on the cross.” True, and it all starts with a baby in a manger. Hutchinson wisely Read More ›

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On Hitler’s First Hundred

Peter Fritzche’s Hitler’s First Hundred (Basic, 2020) begins with a brilliant scene. At 11:15 a.m. on Jan. 30, 1933, conservative aristocrat Franz von Papen meets with Adolf Hitler, who wants to be chancellor of Germany — the CEO. Another key person in the meeting, nationalist media magnate Alfred Hugenberg, is wary of Hitler. The three are late for their meeting with 84-year-old Read More ›

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What is Human Nature?

The Center for Science & Culture is pleased to announce that Senior Fellow David Berlinski will be interviewed by Socrates in the City host Eric Metaxas on Berlinski’s latest book Human Nature, published by Discovery Institute Press. We invite you to register for this interview with one of the greatest intellectuals of our time.  The issues involved in the evolution debate — Read More ›

John G. West to Speak on C.S. Lewis, Scientocracy, and the Role of Faith in Politics

Discovery Institute Vice President John West will be speaking on C.S. Lewis, the threat of “scientocracy,” and the relationship between Christianity and politics at three sessions of the Slaying Leviathan Conference on Oct. 28-29 in Tacoma, WA. On Friday night, Dr. West will talk about C.S. Lewis’s views on science and scientism for the Theology Pugcast podcast taped during the Read More ›

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On Thomas Kidd’s Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Kidd’s excellent and tightly-written Thomas Jefferson (Yale University Press, 2022) notes that our third president “touted frugality” in government, but his personal life was different. (As John Adams put it, “Jefferson has a habit as well as a disposition to expensive Living…. He could not Subdue his Pride and Vanity.”) This becomes poignant in relation to the slaves Jefferson owned. Kidd notes that Read More ›