Science Journals

JAMA Pediatrics has published a depressing study that shows that girls ages 10–14 have caught up with boys of that age when it comes to suicide rates: In 2017, the suicide rate of 10-to-14-year-old boys was twice that of girls (male-female ratio=1.98). By 2024, however, the suicide rate among boys was only 4% higher than that among girls in this age group (ratio=1.04). Gender disparities in suicide trends since 2018 appear to be responsible for the narrowing gap, as the suicide rate for boys decreased by 35% from 2018 to 2024 while the suicide rate for girls increased 13%. From 2007 to 2024, the suicide rate for 10-to 14-year-old girls [per 100,000] more than quadrupled (from 0.51 to 2.28) while the suicide rate Read More ›

Wesley J. Smith spoke with Todd Wilkens on the Issues, Etc. radio program on September 8, 2026, to discuss the latest proposal in Nature to require scientists to register with the government. Smith spoke about the danger this poses to free inquiry and the scientific method. “But what you see instead now too often in science is a suppression of different opinions because many in science have confused scientific policy and ideology with the scientific method,” Smith explained. “So some in science have moved from science to scientism where it becomes a form of belief as opposed to a method.” Smith and Wilkens also discuss recent developments in assisted suicide, including the money being made from it and the way Read More ›

The Jason Arday scandal was a tragedy because it resulted in the death, probably by suicide, of a disturbed man who lied and plagiarized his way to the highest levels of academic celebrity at Cambridge University. Everyone should mourn that outcome.

But too many among the liberal intelligentsia seem intent on conjuring the wrong causes for the mess their own attitudes created. Rather than recognizing the potentially dire individual, institutional, and societal consequences that can result from elevating people beyond their actual capabilities, the editors of Nature instead castigate Cambridge for turning on Arday when his fabulism and egregious academic wrongdoing became undeniable:

Arday’s fate is distressing, and especially so for Black scholars and those from other communities that are under-represented in academic research, many members of which report feeling vulnerable and unsupported at this time. There is systemic racism in academia. It is an unwelcoming place for many who enter it through hardship and struggle, as Arday’s story illustrates. It is not acceptable that these barriers persist. On top of this, scholars from Black and other under-represented communities fear that the intensity of attention Arday faced could one day be focused on them. The question many are asking is: ‘Could I be next?’

Nature — the most prestigious science journal in the world — has editorialized in favor of requiring scientists to register with governments as a condition of participation in the sector. Here’s the context. South Africa has legislation pending that would require scientists to register with a government body or face significant legal consequences. Nature applauds the authoritarian idea. From the editorial (my emphasis): What do engineers, environmental-health officers and health-care workers have in common? These occupations can, in some instances, be practised only by people who have registered with a relevant professional body. This typically requires candidates to pass qualifying exams and adhere to a code of practice that includes sanctions for violations. The process is intended to create the highest standards of quality, Read More ›

Wesley J. Smith appeared on the Vicki Mckenna Show on August 28, 2026, to discuss the debates occurring in bioethics and medical journals to make previously unthinkable things acceptable and regularly practiced. For instance, they discuss how treating gender dysphoria in young children with puberty blockers was once unthinkable, but after being debated in the professional journals, it has been widely accepted. Now, bioethicists are proposing that the “dead donor rule” should be done away with in order to harvest organs. Read “‘Death by Organ Donation’ Pushed in Prestigious Medical Journals”

The late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus famously wrote that bioethicists “professionally guide the unthinkable on its passage through the debatable on its way to becoming the justifiable until it is finally established as the unexceptional.”

He was right. Radical bioethical policies don’t just appear like magic out of the ether. Controversial—even pernicious—ideas are often debated in bioethics and medical journals where few among the public ever see them. Then, if a general consensus is reached within the field, policies once considered “unthinkable” are “suddenly” elevated into the justifiable and become unexceptional public policy.

Here are just two examples. Legalizing assisted suicide was once way beyond the pale. Then, bioethicists began arguing in favor of such laws, after which hastened death became debatable, then justifiable, and now, in many jurisdictions, so unremarkable that many thousands of people have died by that method.

The New England Journal of Medicine still publishes objective scientific articles. But in the last decade-plus, it is just as notable for its hard left political opinion pieces about issues ranging from climate change, to race relations, to promoting “equity” (as distinguished from equality), to gun control, to supporting transitioning gender-dysphoric minors, and more.

Debra Malina, Ph.D., the first and so far, only “Perspectives” editor — an opinion section where most of the woke political screeds published by the NEJM are placed — is retiring. She has written a swan song piece taking credit for bringing blatant politics to the pages of the NEJM.

Malina writes that when she took the job, she had been hoping to obtain a tenured university position in English literature. Well, that explains a lot, doesn’t it? Then, she brags about politicizing the Perspectives section:

A pro-illegal immigrant advocacy article in the New England Journal of Medicine urges doctors to protect undocumented patients by impeding law enforcement in the context of the physician/patient relationship.

First, the authors complain that enforcing immigration law has engendered an environment of fear:

The current climate echoes that surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic, when fears of surveillance, deportation, and the effects of new public-charge policies drove immigrant communities to avoid necessary care, which led to increased morbidity and mortality. As erosion of trust in institutions again drives patients away from clinics, confronting their needless suffering also exacts a toll on physicians, who may experience moral distress, feeling complicit in a system that’s failing marginalized groups. [Citations omitted.]

The legalization of assisted suicide/euthanasia corrupts medical ethics and not just because killing patients or assisting their suicides is a direct violation of the Hippocratic oath. No: Transforming sick and disabled people into a killable caste also objectifies them as potential natural resources to be mined or harvested.

Hastened death and organ-harvesting have already been conjoined in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium. (In the latter two countries, some cases have involved mentally ill patients.) The practice has been supported in prominent medical journals. It is not alarmism to note that the idea is gaining ever wider acceptance among the medical and bioethics intelligentsia.

But killing and then harvesting doesn’t go far enough for some mainstream bioethicists. Where euthanasia is legal, they don’t see why organ procurement can’t also be the means of death for patients who want to donate. In other words, don’t just kill and then harvest; harvest to kill.

One would have thought that bioethicists and technocrats would learn from the COVID debacle that coerced public health policies can easily become exploding cigars when misapplied, and indeed, ultimately harm the very community cohesion these autocrats claim to champion. But no. A new article in the prestigious Journal of Medical Ethics urges that we prepare now for more mandates to prevent epidemics due to AMRs (for antimicrobial resistance, such as bacteria evolving, rendering antibiotics less effective) and to fight climate change.

The authors identify various means of persuading the public to comply with favored public health policies. The first is simple suasion, or “normative compliance.”

From “Making the Public Protect Public Health: The Ethics of Promoting Collective Action in Emergencies” (citations omitted):

Normative compliance and moral involvement/commitment: This strategy is to convince people of the importance of assuming responsibility and acting accordingly. When congruent, the commitment of lower-level actors to comply is high. Participants with moral involvement/commitment are loyal to the aims and internalise the goals of the governing authority.