Social epidemiology never generates straightforward policy prescriptions. Even if we know something makes us live longer, we still have to ask if it is right to promote it. It might be that many features of more traditional societies, including religiosity and tight social relations, are good for health. But it does not follow that we can or should try to turn back the clock. That is a philosophical and political question, not one for epidemiology.
Read
“Julian Baggini has written a masterpiece, and what a timely masterpiece it is. The toxic gloating of ‘gut feelings’, hateful[…]
ReadSome people just find the whole idea too fanciful to even think about. But many other find it terrifying, exciting or both. Why would such an apparently outlandish idea have this effect?
ReadThere is nothing new in “playing God”, it’s just that we’re getting better at it.
ReadThis book really walks the literary high wire, and Roberts not only keeps his balance, he makes the spectacle compelling. I can’t think of another such ostentatiously clever novel that is so dramatically successful, as rigorous psychologically as it is logically. Like Kant’s thing in itself, Roberts’s eponymous novel does not fit into any standard categories.
Read