In August of 2001, President Bush announced his decision to limit federal funding of stem cell research to already established lines of embryonic stem cells, while forbidding funding for any research that required the destruction of additional human embryos. But his decision ended neither stem cell research nor the debate over the ethics of such research. How do we weigh the medical benefits of this research against the destruction of embryos? Where do we draw the line on research using human embryos and are we on a slippery slope toward even more controversial research?

Be careful when one uses the superlative case—best, most, -est, etc.—or evokes end-of-the-world imagery...

During the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush said, "Prosperity will mean little if we leave future generations a world of polluted air, toxic lakes and rivers and vanished forests." So after two years in office, how has President Bush done as the chief steward of our nation's air, water, and land? Is the Bush environmental record the disaster that critics contend? Or has the administration just done a poor job of articulating its vision for new ways of caring for the environment?

Explaining why he is moving his influential investment firm from the Silicon Valley, entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel says it’s one thing for a culture to be “quite liberal” and another for it to be “totalitarian.”

Peter Berkowitz on Human Cloning and Human Dignity: An Ethical Inquiry by the President’s Council on Bioethics

The News article by Catherine Shaffer in the December issue1 entitled “FDA recruits prominent critics” contends that the “the general response” to the appointment of anti-industry zealot Peter Lurie of Public Citizen “is positive, even among those who don't necessarily agree with Lurie's positions.”. . .

Steven Hayward scores the environmental records and policies of Bush and Obama...

Actually I have no deep thoughts on the subject, since the argument that it is entirely human-induced doesn’t seem proven...

The new Stanford initiative Cardinal Conversations examined the intersections of politics and technology with entrepreneurs and Stanford alumni Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel. Historian Niall Ferguson of the Hoover Institution moderated a discussion that included questions from the largely student audience.