Stuck in the middle with whom?

To make sense of the climate change debate today, you have to understand Manichean paranoia.
 
What is Manichean paranoia? “[A] politics defined by the belief that the debate is really a battle of absolute good against absolute evil over the future of the world.”
 
Writing in The New Atlantis, Roger Pielke, Jr. has had enough of this Doom vs. Denial posturing. Reality, he argues, is a lot more complex.
 
So you might expect him to give a favorable review of Steven Koonin’s recent bestseller Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters.
 
But his review is, well, more complex.
 
What you might find particularly interesting is Pielke’s critique of how “science” is used today . . .
 
. . . and why matters of policy can’t be resolved simply through “settled,” politicized science.
 
If you’re sick of being stuck between climate doom and climate denial, read Piekle’s perceptive analysis right here.

The West at the crossroads

Modern science has placed humanity “at the crossroads of an awesome moral divide.” That’s Roger Kimball’s argument in The New Criterion. And ever since Oedipus met old King Laius at the fork in the road from Delphi to Thebes, “at the crossroads” has been a profoundly dicey place to be.
 
You might not be clear on the choice before you . . . nor the consequences of that choice.
 
Kimball traces a series of moral and political crossroads at which the West finds itself today . . .
 
Above all, the fearsome “crisis is values that modern science has helped precipitate.”
 
Do you agree with Kimball that it’s “impossible . . . for any rational person to say ‘No’ to science and technology”?
 
Do you share his forebodings concerning what these crossroads might bring?

Gala for Western Civilization 

October 13 will be a night to remember.

At ISI’s sixteenth annual Gala for Western Civilization in Washington, D.C., you and hundreds of other ISI friends and supporters will partake in an evening that will be unforgettable.

This year ISI will be showcasing top academic talent across three disciplines: political theory, economics, and history. We want to provide our alumni and supporters with an opportunity to experience some of the greatest conservative minds of our generation. The evening’s speakers include:

• Chair of the Department of History at the University of Dallas, Susan Hanssen, who will give the keynote address
• The William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Government, Harvey C. Mansfield, who will receive ISI’s Charles H. Hoeflich Lifetime Achievement Award
• Merton P. Stoltz Professor of Economics at Brown University, Glenn Loury, who will receive ISI’s Faculty Award

It should be a wonderful evening full of great conversation.

The root of our 20th-century nightmares

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