Doubting Darwin

Discussing a trove of fossils unearthed several decades ago in Southern China, paleontologist J. Y. Chen was quite frank about its evidentiary incompatibility with “orthodox” Darwinian theory. “In China, we can criticize Darwin, but not the government,” he observed. “In America, you can criticize the government, but not Darwin.” That was a political eon ago,

Scientific Moonshine

In 1854, Frederick Douglass addressed the Philozetian Society of Western Reserve College, Ohio on the then-contentious question of whether “negroes” are human beings. As those denying the “claims of the negro” readily admitted, humanity is accompanied by certain inalienable rights and liberties, the denial of which constitutes “the greatest wrong and robbery” on the part

Science and Spirituality

Thou hast made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee. St. Augustine, Confessions It’s amazing what social science can do, when not driven by ideological opposition to the objective order of things. Looking back over the turmoil and triumph of his life, the Bishop of Hippo realized

Smothering the Science

Though the (inflated) fatality rate of the virus in whose name liberty has been abolished clocks in at around 0.2 percent, the horrific manner in which that fraction of a percent have died plays an outsized role in maintaining the present climate of compliance with “public health” protocols. It goes without saying that reasonable steps

Why Study the Science of Servitude?

When a man “is a participator in the government of affairs”—on a daily, and therefore (for most of us) on a local basis—“he will let the heart be torn out of his body sooner than his power be wrested from him by a Caesar or a Bonaparte.” So spoke Jefferson. Tocqueville heartily agreed. As Socrates