Science

Sings at a prolife march

We should follow the science on abortion.

By Justin Katz | July 3, 2021 |

Among the most fascinating (if disturbing) aspects of the abortion is that the position typically taken by the materialists implicitly rely on a mystical distinction. Most don’t want to acknowledge that their view is that it is permissible to kill some innocent human beings.  Humanity has long known that the individual human life begins at…

A black bear

Speaking of the danger of doom and gloom and issue-based propaganda…

By Justin Katz | June 16, 2021 |

Assuming the Associated Press’s science writer, Seth Borenstein, is accurately conveying the methodology of a study proclaiming that 37% of “heat deaths” around the planet were “caused by higher temperatures from human-caused warming,” the project seems problematic on its face: Scientists used decades of mortality data in the 732 cities to plot curves detailing how…

Liquid pouring into an invisible glass

Here are some climate-change facts you may not know.

By Justin Katz | June 9, 2021 |

It’s interesting to see information like this, in the New York Post, coming from Steven Koonin, who was undersecretary for science in the Obama administration’s Department of Energy: … both research literature and government reports state clearly that heat waves in the US are now no more common than they were in 1900, and that the…

A lighted brain sculpture

Maybe there are non-medical ways to address mental deterioration.

By Justin Katz | June 8, 2021 |

In the midst of a public health debates that seem to have become stuck in the ruts of political battles, it’s nice to be reminded of the advances that are being made.  Glenn Reynolds highlights one example from the City University of New York (CUNY) Advanced Science Research Center: Recent studies suggest that new brain…

Infectious bronchitis virus

The coronavirus vaccine may have us on the path to a cure for the common cold.

By Justin Katz | May 24, 2021 |

HealthDay reporter Dennis Thompson writes about a trend (via Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit) that is certainly worth keeping an eye on: An experimental COVID-19 vaccine could potentially provide universal protection against future COVID-19 variants as well as other coronaviruses — maybe even the ones responsible for the common cold. And it’s dirt cheap — less…

Bostom name-calling tweet

More information has come to light about COVID-related pediatric deaths in Rhode Island.

By Justin Katz | May 19, 2021 |

The bad news (other than the fact that children have died, of course) is that it’s difficult to come to decisive answers about such deaths, in part because the way the government has been counting COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths has so muddied the water over the past year.  However, the number that has come…

Mother touching baby's hand

If your life can be upended for saying “men cannot get pregnant,” they can enforce any religious dogma at all.

By Justin Katz | May 18, 2021 |

We’ve been seeing more and more stories like this, which Matt Margolis posted on PJ Media: Francisco José Contreras, a politician in Spain, was temporarily suspended from Twitter last week after declaring that “a man cannot get pregnant” because he has “no uterus or eggs,” in response to an article he shared about a transgender “male”…

Painting of a forest monster.

Humanity’s brakes really are starting to fail.

By Justin Katz | April 20, 2021 |

The year 2020 became a cultural cliché, given the sense that reality’s wheels were coming off, but it might be more accurate to say that people (particularly elites) are refusing to accept traditional safeguards that were simply passed down culturally and accepted intrinsically.  (Think media objectivity, colorblindness, the existence of truth, and so on.) Leslie…

The Great Thinning?

By Carroll Andrew Morse | January 9, 2013 |

Anyone want to attempt some big-picture speculation about what the numbers presented by Jeff Wise in Slate Magazine imply for a society that has baked the assumption of a growing population into its institutions and basic perceptions of the future…Instead of skyrocketing toward uncountable Malthusian multitudes, researchers at Austria’s International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis…

Portsmouth Institute, Day 3: Rev. Nicanor Austriaco, “What Can Genomic Science Tell Us About Adam & Eve?”

By Justin Katz | July 11, 2012 |

The Portsmouth Institute conference on “Modern Science, Ancient Faith” closed in spectacular fashion with Rev. Nicanor Austriaco, who teaches both biology and theology at Providence College. With the ease and humor of somebody used to speaking before college students, Austriaco explained what genomic science tells us about our ancestors and speculated about the timing and…