In 50 BC, the great Roman statesman Cicero expressed a thought that has been echoed by thinkers down the generations: “The celestial order and beauty of the universe compel me to admit that there is some excellent and eternal Being who deserves the respect and homage of men.” But in our own day, the evolutionary biologist and atheism proselytizer Richard Dawkins has claimed, “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.” Dawkins believes that complex life and the cosmos arose through gradual, evolutionary mechanisms, not through any influence of a creator or purposeful creation. But which worldview does the scientific evidence …
The United States is in a cultural crisis. Our young are experiencing unprecedented levels of mental illness. Family structures are crumbling with out-of-wedlock births increasing while, at the same time, the number of children being born is decreasing. Some worry about masculinity under attack while others believe that “toxic masculinity” is the cause of most problems. Many are even worried that democracy itself is in real and present danger. It’s all a big mess. How do we restore societal equilibrium? In a new compendium of his many columns on cultural issues, What Really Matters, Timothy S. Goeglein offers readers what he calls a “blueprint” to encourage us “to reevaluate the road we currently travel” and get back to the basics of …
In our badly fractured society, can public servants and politicians act with decency and argue about policy with restraint and dignity? We believe the answer is yes, and so Wesley invited a man on the show who epitomizes such virtues to talk about his varied career and the importance of the nation’s founding principles. Dr. Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., MD, was born in Detroit to a single mother with a third-grade education, who raised her son to love reading and learning. He graduated from Yale University and earned his M.D. from the University of Michigan Medical School. For nearly 30 years, Dr. Carson served as Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, a position he assumed when he was just 33 years old, becoming the youngest major …
In one of the great atrocities in human history, Chinese political prisoners are tissue-typed and later murdered and harvested to supply the country’s thriving organ transplant black market. How long have regime enemies been so targeted and how does the system work? For years, that has been difficult to discern fully. China is one of the world’s most secretive societies and unequivocal answers have proved elusive. Until now. Wesley’s guest Jan Jekielek has written a crucial book — Killed to Order: China’s Organ Harvesting Industry and the True Nature of America’s Biggest Adversary — in which he explains in detail how the organ harvesting system operates, who benefits, why the government permits such cruelty, and what can be done about it. Jekielek …
Turnabout is fair play, they say. So on this episode of Humanize, Wesley is the guest, interviewed by the “Bioethics Babe,” the podcast of Center on Human Exceptionalism Fellow Arina Grossu Agnew. Arina and Wesley discuss the nature of transhumanism, its philosophical, moral, and political implications, its role as a substitute for religion, its threat to human equality, and whether we are quietly waging a war on human equality in the name of progress. Is transhumanism the next frontier of progress or a revival of eugenics in a biotech age? In this episode of Bioethics Babe, I sit down with attorney, award-winning author, and Humanize podcast host Wesley J. Smith to unpack the growing transhumanist movement, the push to engineer a “post-human” future …
