Wesley J. Smith

As a committed defender of human exceptionalism, I am often asked what that term means. Primarily, our moral value is intrinsic as a matter of objective worth. It need not be earned by possessing talents, traits, or characteristics. We are all equal. Human exceptionalism also appeals to our unique capacity for moral agency: Only humans have duties — to treat each other respectfully and protect the vulnerable, to husband animals humanely, and to make responsible use of the environment. In other words, humans understand right from wrong and have a duty to act accordingly. Four books helped me develop this understanding. Peril of Denying Our Humanity I enjoy science fiction, for both entertainment and the prophetic possibilities of the genre. No Read More ›

Our betters among the elites are increasingly embracing nature rights and its derivatives. Latest example: An editorial published by the World Economic Forum pushes “forest rights.” The Earth is burning and the fault is — ta-da! — capitalism! From, “Reimagining Capitalism — Giving Forests Legal Rights”: Capitalism, of course has, in many aspects, brought about incredible progress. Industrialization and globalization have propelled advances in life expectancy, education, and social welfare. But does this narrative still hold true? For the first time, GDP diverges from well-being indices in many nations. This exposes a system that not only engineers its own demise, but threatens humanity and the natural environment. Has this unnamed editorialist ever been to China? That anti-capitalist utopia has air Read More ›

Sometimes the most intelligent people are the least smart. That sure seems true of the editors of Nature, once the universally respected British science journal. As I have noted before, Nature is becoming almost as ideological as it is scientific. It endorsed Kamala Harris for president and then, just before the election, doubled down on excoriating Donald Trump for somehow being anti-science — when most of the issues discussed in the article were blatantly political. Now that Trump is president-elect after an overwhelming electoral victory — and an apparent popular-vote victory — one would think that Nature’s editors would have the common sense to cease from excoriating him. But no. It just published another anti-Trump screed declaring that the world’s scientists are aghast that he won the election. Read More ›

The great anti-euthanasia warrior, Rita Marker, has died at 83 after a long illness. Rita was in Europe in the mid 1980s and, out of curiosity, attended an international right-to-die convention. She was so alarmed by what she heard, she and her late husband and soulmate Mike Marker, formed the nonprofit International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force (later renamed the Patients Rights Council). Along with a loyal staff, Rita began decades of work pushing against that dark agenda. Not every great public-policy activist becomes a household name. Rita wasn’t interested in notoriety or fame. Effectiveness was her lodestar, that and personal sacrifice. For as long as she was physically able, she gave all she had to the cause. Rita had stage fright, Read More ›

Environmentalism is growing increasingly irrational. Advocates are now pushing to give rights to a continent. From the Inside Climate News story: Antarctic Rights’ proposal is part of the growing rights of nature movement, which has cemented various rights of ecosystems and individual species, like sea turtles, into legislation and court rulings in more than a dozen countries. The worsening climate and biodiversity crises have helped the movement gain momentum. In Ecuador, frogs have taken mining companies to court and won. In Colombia, courts have appointed human-guardians to oversee the rights of the Atrato River. There’s even precedent for giving nature a seat in the boardrooms of companies. But never has an idea been set forth to put a natural entity Read More ›

Cratering birth rates are threatening a “demographic winter,” according to a recent Wall Street Journal story, causing government leaders to believe that increasing the number of babies born has become “a matter of national urgency.” But the ever woke New England Journal of Medicine is having none of it. Instead, it published a bitter piece castigating “pro-natalism” that even deploys the ridiculous The Handmaid’s Tale cliché to make its points. From “Blessed be the Fruit” (citations omitted): “Pronatalism” is an attitude or policy approach that encourages childbearing and elevates the role of parenthood, specifically for women, as a necessary and positive societal contribution, often deliberately at the expense of women’s opportunities in education, governance, and the workforce. . . . Regardless of the stated motivations, such Read More ›

Bioethics is a utilitarianish social-political movement whose primary advocates are usually philosophers, lawyers, and/or doctors. Mainstream bioethicists (unless they have a modifier in front of the identifier, such as “Catholic”) generally push against human exceptionalism — a concept many view as “speciesism” — and promote Tower of Babel–like experiments that push us toward an almost-anything-goes research ethic. Bioethical issues are generally debated beyond the public’s perception, in professional journals, before they are introduced in public policy. The Journal of Medical Ethics, published out of Oxford, is one of the movement’s most influential publications. A major new article therein discusses the ethical implications of scientists’ implanting human-brain “organoids” — functional brain tissue created with stem cells — into animals, which could enhance Read More ›