Rumsfeld-Style Military Reform
Are We Spiritual Machines?
In the closing session of the 1998 Telecosm conference, hosted annually by Gilder Publishing and Forbes at Lake Tahoe, inventor and author Ray Kurzweil engaged a number of critics. He advocated “Strong Artificial Intelligence” (AI), the claim that a computational process sufficiently capable of altering or organizing itself can produce “consciousness.” The session had an unexpectedly profound impact, not least Read More ›
The Ethics of Organ Donation
Support for organ donation in this country is, as the clich has it, a mile wide and an inch deep. This is understandable. Most people favor the concept of giving “the gift of life” in the abstract. But when it comes to permitting their own loved ones’ body parts to be “harvested” for transplantation — a decision families must make Read More ›
The Enemy of Abortion
Looking back, it’s clear that abortion and adoption are issues that cannot be separated. But the link wasn’t necessarily evident when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled abortion legal in 1973. It took three decades for bipartisan consensus to emerge that abortion was unlikely to be declared illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court and that efforts to promote adoption were the Read More ›
Government Prestige Masks Scientific Incompetence
If “to err is human,” is being a member of the Institute of Medicine’s, “Committee on the Quality of Health Care,” really divine? We don’t think so! Historian Daniel Boorstin once wrote of the “self-deceiving magic of prestige,” of using aura to cover inadequacy and other sins. The prestigious Institute of Medicine, part of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, Read More ›
Some Scientists Seek to Unseat Darwin’s Theory
If William Dembski sometimes sounds more like a revolutionary than a mild-mannered mathematician from Baylor University, that’s fine with him. It suits his vision for the future of science. Dembski, a Christian and a leading proponent of intelligent design theory, will tell anyone who’ll listen that Darwinism is finished as science’s unifying framework, that its chief value to many scientists Read More ›
The Meanings of Evolution
“Evolution and the theories of evolution are fundamentally different things,” testified zoologist Maynard M. Metcalf, the first expert witness for the defense in the 1925 Scopes trial. Metcalf’s observation at the “trial of the century” officially marked the beginning of public discussion of the different meanings of evolution for the purposes of science education. “The fact of evolution is a …
Telecom Experts to FCC: Back-Off
Without question, the last two years have been the worst of times for the once promising telecom sector. “Is telecom dead?” John Stanton, CEO of Western Wireless and VoiceStream, asked rhetorically. “The answer is no, but there are symptoms that are not positive.” At a forum Wednesday, “Re-Igniting the Tech Economy: Your Stake in the Next Boom,” Stanton made it Read More ›
Venture Capital Notebook: Some Odds and Ends From the Seasonal File
… Influential author George Gilder, known for his bullish views on optical networking, broadband Internet and telecommunications companies, was in town this week speaking about ways to reignite the tech economy. But the tech guru reserved most of his talk at Benaroya Hall to describe the telecom meltdown, something he characterized as “truly a cataclysm.” A cataclysm indeed. Thirty-five major Read More ›