In the 25 years since the first Earth Day in 1970, the environmental movement has spawned a new generation of scientists asking vital questions about the true state and fate of the planet. But, surprisingly, some of their answers -- and even the questions themselves -- contradict the movement's deepest beliefs. Why are reserves of oil, precious metals, and other natural resources more plentiful than ever before? Why has the population growth of the twentieth century brought rising standards of living for nearly all? In The True State of the Planet ten premier scholars shatter...

Science, Virtue, and the Future of Humanity addresses each of the key public policy issues of our techno-future from the perspective of deeply informed and philosophically inclined public intellectuals. Among the issues addressed are the detachment of our idea of justice from any credible foundation; Tocqueville's prescience on how a "cognitive elite" might be the aristocracy to be most feared in our time; robotization and the possibility of being ruled by morally challenged robots; organ markets; the degradation of liberal education by obsessive techno-enthusiasm; biotechnology and...

Science, Virtue, and the Future of Humanity addresses each of the key public policy issues of our techno-future from the perspective of deeply informed and philosophically inclined public intellectuals. Among the issues addressed are the detachment of our idea of justice from any credible foundation; Tocqueville s prescience on how a cognitive elite might be the aristocracy to be most feared in our time; robotization and the possibility of being ruled by morally challenged robots; organ markets; the degradation of liberal education by obsessive techno-enthusiasm; biotechnology and biological...