The Temptations of Evolutionary EthicsPaul Lawrence FarberBerkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994, 210 pp. The Secret Chain: Evolution and EthicsMichael BradieNew York, NY: State University of New York Press, 1994, 198 pp. The ethical implications of evolution are receiving a remarkable amount of attention today, despite the death sentence that was pronounced on it by “nurture” enthusiasts in the Read More ›
T.H. Huxley’s Ambivalence Sherrie L. Lyons, “Thomas Huxley: Fossils, Persistence, and the Argument from Design,” Journal of the History of Biology 26 (1993): pp. 545-569. Sherrie L. Lyons, “The Origins of T.H. Huxley’s Saltationism: History in Darwin’s Shadow,” Journal of the History of Biology 28 (1995): pp. 463-494. Since completing her doctorate on T.H. Huxley with historian Robert Richards at Read More ›
Just when you thought you had seen it all, so to speak, there is Seattle public access star Troy J. Williamson engaged in what appears to be an oral sex act on TV. Suddenly, the screen goes fuzzy as the police raid the program and cart him off. An historic day for common sense in public access TV, some would Read More ›
How are we going to pay for it all? Isn’t there any way to lower the costs? These are the plaintive cries of taxpayers around the country as their local and state elected officials try to cajole them into supporting a growing list of infrastructure projects. But even as the list grows, taxpayer tolerance for big ticket public works is Read More ›
It was way back in the fall of 1961, in Sever Hall, Harvard Yard, and I was taking notes in a class on urban politics taught by Professor Edward Banfield. Tall, distinguished looking, yet approachable, he resembled an academic Gregory Peck. Earlier, at the University of Chicago, the good professor had been an intimate observer of the first Mayor Richard Read More ›
In ancient China the mandarin class ruled the country in such a complicated way that ordinary people could not begin to figure things out. Eventually the rules of the imperial court grew so tangled that the mandarins themselves couldn’t figure out what was going on. It apparently had something to do with calligraphy. What mattered was how you wrote, not Read More ›
Those economic quakes across the Pacific have had the perverse result of educating Americans to South East Asia’s significance as the most dynamic region of the developing world. According to the US-ASEAN Business Council, American exports to ASEAN could surpass trade with Japan in the next 20 years. Already ASEAN’s 450 million people constitute the world’s fourth largest trading market Read More ›
Former Democratic Gov. Richard Lamm of Colorado, who wants to be the presidential nominee of the Reform Party, has found out from Ross Perot that just because someone advocates fair campaign competition in theory doesn’t mean that he supports it in practice. In the hands of Perot, as in many others’ these days, the slogan of “reform” is nothing other Read More ›
More than half the population of the United States will be in synagogue or church this week, the holy season of Passover and Easter. Surveys report that over 100 million Americans find God in daily prayer. His healing hand is experienced in hospitals, His hope in hospices. Victims and heroes who have brushed death in accidents and war passionately praise Read More ›
The prevailing mood of the Republican presidential nominating process is still one of irritated reluctance, like that of singers being awakened to go on stage at 5 a.m.–and an audience being forced to attend the performance. This show started too early. We also are witnessing the infamous law of unintended consequences as it snaps back in the faces of the Read More ›