Human Exceptionalism

There’s a great old Twilight Zone episode (“Elegy”) in which future astronauts crash land on an asteroid that seems very much like earth. They look for help in a town—only to find all the people frozen in different tableaus: an unattractive woman winning a beauty contest, a man celebrating his election as mayor, etc. They soon find out that the Read More ›

In December 2013, 13-year-old Jahi McMath entered Children’s Hospital in Oakland, California, for serious throat surgery to relieve her sleep apnea. She survived the surgery without incident, even enjoying a Popsicle after awakening from anesthesia. Then came a terrible complication: Jahi began bleeding profusely and suffered a cardiac arrest. It took many minutes to restore her heartbeat. Too late: Jahi Read More ›

The environmental movement has long indulged a tinge of misanthropy at the fringes. For example, advocates for a “deep ecology” argue that each facet of the natural world (including humans) are equal, and must be given “equal consideration” when reaping the bounty of the land. Deep ecologists adamantly oppose our materially prospering from the exploitation of natural resources. Indeed, they Read More ›

Self-starvation has become the latest craze among the “death with dignity” crowd. This has been coming on for some time. Removing feeding tubes from cognitively disabled people who can’t swallow has been allowed for decades, under the right to refuse unwanted “medical treatment.” But what about people who can eat and drink by mouth? Assisted suicide advocates argue that it isn’t fair that they can’t die too.

In November 2012, my wife and I visited Hagia Sophia, the great former Eastern Orthodox basilica. For me, it was an emotional pilgrimage. I converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in 2007, and Hagia Sophia is to us what St. Peter’s is to Roman Catholics, and to a far lesser degree I suppose, what Mecca is to Muslims. But Hagia Sophia, completed in 537 Read More ›

Human cloning is here. After years of effort, scientists manufactured human life using the same process that created Dolly the sheep. There is no way around it: The age of human cloning is here—unless we act now to prevent it. Why outlaw human cloning? As the United Nations General Assembly decided in a nearly 3-1 vote in 2005, each country in the Read More ›

In 2008, bioethicist Yuval Levin in his book Imagining the Future: Science and American Democracy identified a subtle but momentous shift in the philosophical driver of the West:  The worldview of modern science . . . sees health not only as a foundation but also a principal goal, not only as a beginning but also an end. Relief and preservation—from disease and Read More ›

One spring, a few years before I converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, my wife and I vacationed in Greece. On the plane we became friendly with a happy elderly Greek-American gentleman who told us excitedly that he was on a pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain (the monastic polity of Mount Athos) for Pascha. “Pascha?” I asked. “What’s Pascha?” The man chuckled Read More ›