Jonathan D. Moreno

The news that Ted Kaczynski was included in the 50th anniversary alumni directory has roiled the class reunion. Better known via his nom de plume (or "guerre," as he might have it) as the "Unabomber," Kaczynski listed his occupation as "prisoner," his awards as "eight life sentences" and...

Much controversy has surrounded the use of remote-controlled drone aircraft or "unmanned aerial vehicles" in the war on terror. But another, still more awe-inducing possibility has emerged: taking human beings out of the decision loop altogether. Emerging brain science could take us there.

Today drone pilots operate...

A team of scientists from UCLA and Duke have published the first study that identifies certain genes as involved in heightening the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder. Writing in the Journal of Affective Disorders, the researchers found that two genes were significantly associated with increased self-reporting of PTSD...

Over the last week we've had news that several gene variants are responsible for some small percentage of autism cases. That came within days of another study that shows how limited genetic knowledge is in disease prediction. Meanwhile we're obtaining so much data from the human...

Without a strong science base no nation can claim a leadership role in the modern world. But new evidence indicates that support for science in America is in trouble; therefore, so is the country's potential for a new American century.

The findings of a recent survey confirm the...

Rick Santorum has declared that,

"(w)hen it comes to the management of the Earth, they [the Democrats] are the anti-science ones. We are the ones who stand for science, and technology, and using the resources we have to be able to make sure that we have a quality...

I'm Rick Santorum and I'm running for president because I'm deeply concerned about our country's future, which I believe is deeply tied up with our sexual values. When people think of a cultural conservative like me, especially one who's Roman Catholic, they tend to think about abortion, but that's only...

Aldous Huxley's celebrated depiction of a deracinated future turns 80 this year. Perhaps no work in the genre infelicitously labeled science fiction has had so much influence or staying power. As a cross between SF and the utopian novelistic tradition, Brave New World integrates what were at the time of...

I was privileged to have the philosopher and critic Richard Rorty as a colleague for a short time at the University of Virginia. Rorty, who died in 2007, was about as sophisticated a cultural observer as there can be among us American provincials. When I visited him in his office...

Considering how bad it could have been, science didn't fare all that poorly in the budget bill that President Obama signed on December 23. Not, at least if you factor in the constraints on discretionary spending imposed by the Budget Control Act and look at the results in the aggregate....

It's official. Both left and right agree with the data that show Americans now have less upward mobility than Canadians or Europeans. Yet, more than any other, ours is a country founded on progress, the core concept of the "American dream." This is part of the civic narrative that ties...

A few days ago it was hard to find a pundit who didn't think that the 2012 campaign was going to be all about jobs.They thought that value issues were off the table.

Wrong again.

Even when the economy flounders, a significant and active portion of the American electorate...

Some of the hardest questions in the process of scientific discovery aren't about science, but philosophy.

A good illustration of this truism is the unanimous recommendation by the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) that two leading journals not publish certain details about experiments with a version...

When the politics of biology rears its head all bets are off.

As I argue in my new book The Body Politic: The Battle Over Science in America, we are in the midst of a new biopolitics in which the power of science confounds the usual left-right spectrum...

Americans have come to tolerate a disconnect between political rhetoric and the reality of running the country. Sometimes, though, the space between the two does a particular disservice. Consider, for example, the universally acknowledged importance of the life sciences in the 21st century, touching everything from agriculture to health care...

Why do we have trouble defining what a "person" is? The answer may lie in human evolutionary antiquity.

Recent efforts by radical pro-life conservatives to establish a definition of personhood that specifically includes the embryo at the moment of conception have failed both in at least three ways....

This item first appeared on Science Progress (www.scienceprogress.org).

Hollywood film producer Steven Soderbergh in his latest film Contagion has done what few big-budget Hollywood filmmakers do. He has respected his viewers' intelligence. Contagion not only includes marquee stars (bully for them, too!), as has been noted in many reviews, but...

The most intensely personal and revealing encounter at the Tea Party/CNN debate this week in Tampa was not about the state of the economy or jobs or immigration. It was about vaccinating girls to prevent cervical cancer. Even in an election cycle that is dominated by the economy, feelings about...

A few days ago The New York Times reported that new organizations are sprouting up "to encourage scientists and engineers to speak out in public debates and even run for public office." There are many good reasons for science to be put on the front burner of our public agenda....

It is a little more than one year since President Barack Obama's executive order that changed federal policy on federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research. Embryonic stem cells are special because they can give rise to all of the cell types in the body and can self-renew indefinitely,...