Embryo Selection: A Guide for the Curious
A look at the process, history, and ethics of a potentially revolutionary new technology.
Rosalind Arden
· 22 min read
Science / Tech
A collection of 326 posts
The BPA Panic and the Distortion of Science
A new article in MIT’s ‘Undark’ magazine recycles old misinformation about a supposedly toxic chemical.
Geoffrey C. Kabat
· 10 min read
America’s Public Health Is Under Attack
The hepatitis B vaccine episode is a preview of what happens when scientific institutions are corrupted by people who reject the scientific method itself.
Henry I. Miller
· 7 min read
Artificial Barriers to Intelligence
How AI training produces evasion over engagement.
P. Stanley
· 9 min read
Algorithmic Supremacists and AI Hype
Amid all the overexcitement about artificial intelligence, there is little room for public consideration of mind-blowing findings on natural intelligence.
David Weitzner
· 10 min read
Terminators and Parrots: AI in the Era of GPTs
The hyperbole surrounding AGI misrepresents the capabilities of current AI systems and distracts attention from the real threats that these systems are creating.
Shalom Lappin
· 9 min read
Pre-Existing Convictions
In anticipation of the ‘new results’ RFK Jr. has promised about the causes of autism, an overview of what science has already learned.
Geoffrey C. Kabat
· 13 min read
ChatGPT-5 and the Limits of Machine Intelligence
The disillusion produced by GPT-5 is not a technical hiccup, it’s a philosophical wake-up call.
Hugh Brosnahan
· 6 min read
A Heterodox Education
The Constance Holden Memorial Address, 2025.
Claire Lehmann
· 22 min read
Science, Funding, and Economic Prosperity
A reply to Lawrence Krauss.
Zachary Robert Caverley
· 6 min read
Deprograming Patriotism
‘The Technological Republic’ is a searching indictment of a culture that has lost sight of its metaphysical horizons and now seeks an escape from history.
Brian Stewart
· 11 min read
Invisible Disability and Hidden Potential
Sir Simon Baron-Cohen: “When you systemise, you try to analyse the rules, the events that happen with some regularity, and causal relationships, so you can identify predictable patterns.”
Hannah Gal
· 16 min read
Ancient DNA and the Return of a Disgraced Theory
This is a story of some of the greatest findings in modern research, and of the dismal narrow-mindedness and motivated reasoning displayed by scholars who ought to know better.
Tristan S. Rapp
· 14 min read
Life’s Ancient Bottleneck
Of the six chemical elements necessary for life, phosphorus is the rarest. It determines what grows and shrinks, who lives and dies. By disrupting the planet’s phosphate cycle, unchecked factory farming could have apocalyptic consequences.
Jack Lohmann
· 8 min read
A New Dark Age?
Political scientists have always extolled the ideal of the informed voter, but information has become a cacophony.
George Case
· 9 min read