Hebrew University recently completed a study on the genetic basis for “ruthlessness,” and it’s getting some media coverage.Nature included it on their news page, with the flattering headline, “Ruthlessness gene discovered.”The story even made it to the Drudge Report for a day or two, assuring
An article in the latest edition of the Undercurrent analyzes the moral arguments underlying insider trading laws. In this post, we recount a specific insider trading case from the early 1980s that revealed that it is indeed the profit motive that insider trading laws exist
If you are sick, there is no better place and time to live than America in the 21st century. The past 50 years have witnessed an explosion of medical innovation in the West. Drugs have been developed to lower cholesterol, fight AIDS, and altogether eradicate
A scientist working for a pharmaceutical company learns that after decades of research and development, she has succeeded in creating a drug that fights cancer. She wants to buy as much stock in her company as she can afford, knowing that her efforts will cause
In a recent political move, Republican Presidential candidate John McCain voiced his opposition to embryonic stem cell research (ESC). Yet, even as the controversy rages on, the real reasons for opposition to embryonic stem cell research are increasingly obscured. Stem cells are, in simplest terms, the
Every few days we hear that another leading financial institution has written down billions more on subprime investments gone bad. Nearly every major financial institution, it turns out, had a hand in loans to low-credit borrowers—borrowers whose ability to pay often hinged on endlessly low
Opponents of embryonic stem cell research often highlight the similarities between babies, fetuses, and embryos, and dismiss the obvious difference between them. Their arguments almost invariably rely on the difficulty of marking precise dividing lines between them, and offer this difficulty as a reason to
Two articles published in the last two days, in major university papers, discuss Ayn Rand's ideas. The first, printed in the Columbia Spectator, is written by a student who read Atlas Shrugged this past summer and found it "the most arduous, yet rewarding" experience of his
Rule of Reason links to a new video in which Wafa Sultan debates Egyptian Islamist Tal’at Rmeih on an Al-Jazeera TV show. The Muslim speaker and the host claim that whenever America is threatened with force, it backs down. On the face of it, they seem
Scrabulous, a virtual knockoff of the board game Scrabble, has become one of the most popular Facebook games. According to the New York Times, the makers of Scrabble have denounced Scrabulous as piracy and are threatening legal action against its creators. Scrabulous fans are crying