Science And Industrialization

Rise & Fall [Episode 2]: Nature’s Deadliest Killer

“. . . it’s true that malaria, for example, has killed probably, by some estimates, half of all humans that have ever lived . . .” (Amesh Adalja, M.D.) The recent outbreak of Zika (a mosquito-borne virus) in the United States brings mankind’s battle against mosquitoes and the diseases they carry to the forefront. We have many tools we can use to fight mosquitoes, like DDT and GMOs (genetically modified organisms), so why aren’t we using them?
ARI News

Top 5 Blog Posts of 2016

Voices for Reason is a blog that covers a wide range of topics, including philosophy and its application to current events, programs of the Ayn Rand Institute and the ideas of Objectivism. Looking back on the year, here are 2016’s most-read blog posts (along with edited versions of the introductions that accompanied them at time of publication).
Science And Industrialization

Read Now: The Gene Revolution by Amanda Maxham

Amanda Maxham, research associate at the Ayn Rand Institute, was recently interviewed on Power Hour, a podcast hosted by Alex Epstein, the president and founder of the Center for Industrial Progress. In the interview Epstein and Dr. Maxham discuss the technology of genetic engineering, technophobia and what it means (or doesn’t mean) for a food to be “natural.” Dr. Maxham highlights the promise and possibilities of genetic engineering and offers a taste of what’s covered in her newly published report, The Gene Revolution.
Science And Industrialization

Policy Digest: Environmental issues

Climate protestors are busy preparing signs, floats and a “papier-mâché tree embedded with axes” for the People’s Climate March in New York City this Sunday. Thousands are expected to gather and march through the streets of Manhattan with the goal of convincing U.N. members to band together and drastically cut the use of fossil fuels across the globe. Marchers may believe they are taking to the streets in an effort to make lives better, but Alex Epstein, president and founder of the Center for Industrial Progress, writes in a recent Forbes.com article, that “[i]n fact they’re supporting policies that would cut billions of lives short. Literally.”

Further Reading

Ayn Rand | 1957
For the New Intellectual

The Moral Meaning of Capitalism

An industrialist who works for nothing but his own profit guiltlessly proclaims his refusal to be sacrificed for the “public good.”
View Article
Ayn Rand | 1961
The Virtue of Selfishness

The Objectivist Ethics

What is morality? Why does man need it? — and how the answers to these questions give rise to an ethics of rational self-interest.
View Article