May 20, 2003
The Ethics and Public Policy Center is launching today a major new magazine on technology, ethics, and American politics.
Called The New Atlantis, the premier issue is available in print or online at www.TheNewAtlantis.com.
“Stem cells, fuel cells, bio-weapons — these are the issues that will define American life and American politics in the years ahead,” said New Atlantis editor Eric Cohen, a leading voice in the national bioethics debate. “And we’ve got a big problem: policymakers know too little about science, and scientists think too little about the ethical and social consequences of their research. Our goal is to change this.”
The magazine will take a special interest in biotechnology and medicine — from embryo research to human cloning to genetic enhancement — where big questions about human nature clash with high-stakes politics.
“We want to stir things up in the bioethics debate, and change the way the country thinks about modern science and technology — from medicine to education to warfare,” Cohen said.
The first issue includes new articles and essays by some of the leading experts in the country — including an important new piece by Leon Kass, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and President Bush’s top bioethics advisor.
“As nearly everyone appreciates, we live near the beginning of the golden age of biotechnology,” Kass writes in The New Atlantis. In his article, called “Ageless Bodies, Happy Souls,” Kass explains how new genetic and pharmacological technologies will transform the American pursuit of happiness.
William Kristol, editor of the neo-conservative flagship publication The Weekly Standard, praised the new venture. “If you want to understand technology, politics, and the American future — read this magazine,” Kristol said. “The New Atlantis is genuinely thoughtful and extremely lively — a rare combination on a crucially important set of issues.”
National Review has already called it a “very hot journal.”
In addition to Kass, the first issue includes articles by leading military historian Victor Davis Hanson on military technology and American culture, Christine Rosen on DNA databases and the erosion of privacy, Scott Gottlieb on the future of medical technology — and much more.
Hillel Fradkin, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, said “the new magazine continues and extends the mission of the center — to think about the moral implication of public policy. No issue will be more central to American democracy in the years ahead than the role of technology.”
