In this episode of Humanize, Wesley focuses on AI — artificial intelligence. Are we on the verge of an era if incalculable human progress because of the power of AI? Or are we threatened with being made obsolete and perhaps extinguished in an age of intelligent machines? Or, perhaps, a combination of both? The program features two experts who have different perspectives on these issues. Dr. Robert J Marks II is an AI enthusiast. An electrical engineer, Marks is the Distinguished Professor of Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor University. His research supporters include NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the National Institutes of Health, the Army Research Lab, and the Office of Naval Research. He has consulted for Microsoft, and …
Most people support responsible environmental policies but may be unaware of how radical the leading edge of the movement has become as an increasing number of activists support granting personhood rights to nature. Is nature rights a subversive threat to human exceptionalism and our thriving or is it the next necessary step in society’s moral growth and key to preventing a catastrophic environmental collapse as its adherents claim? Let’s find out. Wesley’s guest is one of the primary founders of the nature rights approach. Thomas Alan Linzey, serves as Senior Legal Counsel for the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights, an organization committed to globally advancing the legal rights of nature and environmental rights. He is the co-founder of the Community …
We live in a time in which eliminating suffering is considered by many to be society’s ultimate purpose. Too often, this leads to policies that eliminate suffering by eliminating the sufferer. Still, for those not experiencing intense pain or anguish, arguing for improved care instead of increased access to assisted suicide or euthanasia can seem like a blithe platitude. “If you were really suffering,” I have heard repeatedly in my more than thirty years involved with these issues, “you would sing a different tune.” Perhaps. But many people who suffer intensely sing from the same songbook. One, is my good friend and guest for this episode of Humanize, Mark Pickup. Pickup has experienced the intense terror and anguish caused by disabling and progressive multiple sclerosis …
To say the least, bioethics is controversial. Many in the mainstream movement reject the sanctity and equal dignity of human life around issues such as abortion, assisted suicide, and biotechnology. But there is a robust pushback against such approaches—a human dignity bioethics, if you will—that promotes medical ethics and public health policies that align with the “do no harm” ethic of the Hippocratic Oath. The differences in these approaches impact our very understanding about the meaning and importance of human life. How do these distinctions play are among the most important and contentious controversies of the day. To get a handle on the current bioethics landscape, Wesley interviewed one of the most impressive and energetic defenders of human exceptionalism in …
It is no secret that most of society’s critical institutions are suffering from a crisis of trust. One of these is science, which heretofore enjoyed the confidence of the vast majority of the American people. To learn, what happened, whether the loss of confidence is deserved, and what can be done about it, Wesley asked the Director of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture to engage the crisis. This is Meyer’s second appearance on Humanize. Dr. Stephen C. Meyer received his Ph.D. in the philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge and is a former geophysicist and college professor. He authored Signature in the Cell, which was named a Book of the Year for 2009 by the Times of London, the New York Times best seller, Darwin’s Doubt, and most …
