Human Exceptionalism | Page 5 | Discovery Institute

Rear view of sad and depressed female patient sitting on wheelchair with saline bottle in hospital room looking towards curtains on window

^{Wesley J. Smith
June 6, 2024
Human Exceptionalism}

Euthanize Me, or I’ll Starve Myself to Death

_{Wesley J. Smith
June 6, 2024
Human Exceptionalism}

In Canada, an autistic 27-year-old suicidal woman known as M.V. — whose judicially approved euthanasia was delayed until at least October by her father's claim that she does not qualify — is now starving herself to emotionally blackmail the court into allowing her to be killed expeditiously. Read More ›

^{Wesley J. Smith
June 3, 2024
Human Exceptionalism}

‘Tobacco-Free Generation’ Establishes Age-Based Ban on Sale of Tobacco — to Adults

_{Wesley J. Smith
June 3, 2024
Human Exceptionalism}

I don't smoke, but I am wary of efforts to prevent other people from so doing. Now, blue cities — and soon states, most likely — have hit upon a way to ban smoking known as "Tobacco Free Generation" (TFG). Read More ›

^{Wesley J. Smith
May 24, 2024
Human Exceptionalism}

Too Many Climate Scientists Confuse ‘Science’ with Activism

_{Wesley J. Smith
May 24, 2024
Human Exceptionalism}

Remember when a scientist admitted to removing nuance from a climate-change study because he believed that Nature would not publish it if he did not strictly follow the favored narrative of human-caused climate catastrophe? And now — perhaps in a reaction to that piece — Nature has published a cogent warning that too many scientists in the climate-change sector conflate "climate science" with "climate activism." Read More ›

Surgery, medical and a team of doctors in an operating room at the hospital for a medical procedure from patient pov. Face, mask and teamwork with a group of medicine professionals in an operation.

^{Wesley J. Smith
May 15, 2024
Human Exceptionalism}

No, Doctors Shouldn’t Make Treatment Decisions for Incompetent Patients

_{Wesley J. Smith
May 15, 2024
Human Exceptionalism}

Cardiologist and New York Times columnist Sandeep Jauhar has published a piece advocating that doctors and bioethicists be empowered to force treatment on some patients. He writes in the context of wanting to compel hospitalization on a schizophrenic patient with serious heart problems. From "Doctors Need a Better Way to Treat Patients Without Their Consent:" Read More ›

^{Wesley J. Smith
May 13, 2024
Human Exceptionalism}

Colorado Town Learns the Harm Caused by Granting Rights to Nature

_{Wesley J. Smith
May 13, 2024
Human Exceptionalism}

The nature-rights movement isn't about conservation or responsible husbanding of the natural world. Rather, it seeks to handcuff human thriving by preventing most uses of our natural resources. But it sounds soooo nice, doesn't it? Well, the Colorado town of Nederland has learned the hard way that granting "rights" to waterways impedes all kinds of beneficial projects. Read More ›

Close-up of a petri dish in a lab setting containing a developing piece of lab-grown meat with a microscope in the background highlighting the cellular structure and the process of culturing meat

^{Wesley J. Smith
May 10, 2024
Human Exceptionalism}

DeSantis Wrong to Criminalize Lab-Grown Meat

_{Wesley J. Smith
May 10, 2024
Human Exceptionalism}

Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill that makes the manufacture and sale of lab-grown meat (made from meat cells) in Florida a misdemeanor. I agree with DeSantis that our would-be woke overlords want to destroy animal agriculture internationally. But freedom is the solution to those threats, not neo-Luddism. Read More ›

^{Wesley J. Smith
May 6, 2024
Human Exceptionalism}

Again with the ‘Plants Are Intelligent’ Nonsense

_{Wesley J. Smith
May 6, 2024
Human Exceptionalism}

Periodically, the mainstream media focus on advocacy for the idea that plants are intelligent and/or moral beings. For example, the New York Times ran a column some years back asserting that peas are persons. Why? Pea plants release chemicals in the soil that alert other pea plants of drought conditions. Read More ›

Medical Science Laboratory with Team of Microbiology Scientists Have Meeting

^{Wesley J. Smith
April 29, 2024
Human Exceptionalism}

Bioethicists Want to Rule the World!

_{Wesley J. Smith
April 29, 2024
Human Exceptionalism}

Bioethics has always been about granting "experts" in the field tremendous influence over public policy. And now, one of the most prominent practitioners in the field — the president and CEO of the Hastings Center Report, a prestigious bioethics journal — has urged that bioethicists expand their "expert" advocacy to issues of "global" importance. Read More ›

^{Wesley J. Smith
April 25, 2024
Human Exceptionalism}

The Biden Department of Education Seems to Hate Women and Girls

_{Wesley J. Smith
April 25, 2024
Human Exceptionalism}

In a slap to the face to all American women and girls in schools and universities, the Department of Education dismantled many existing federal protections against actual sex discrimination promulgated under a civil rights law known as Title IX — which protects females against discrimination at public schools, colleges, and universities receiving federal funding — by unilaterally rewriting the law to apply to “gender,” which isn’t the same thing at all. Read More ›

^{Wesley J. Smith
April 15, 2024
Human Exceptionalism}

Belgian Health-Fund President: Euthanize Old People to Save Money

_{Wesley J. Smith
April 15, 2024
Human Exceptionalism}

Earlier this month, I noted that a U.K. columnist was pushing euthanasia for the elderly as a way of saving national resources. That call has now been echoed by a Belgian health-insurance official for one of the five mutual-fund companies that provide the country’s mandatory health- and disability-insurance policies. Read More ›