What on earth has happened to Ben Stein? He and I go back a long way. No, I've never met the guy. Back in the 1970s, though, when American Spectator was in its broadsheet format, I would always turn first to Ben Stein's diary, which appeared in every issue. He was funny and clever and... Read More

Several readers have asked me to take up cudgels against Bill Buckley's piece on NRO last Friday, in which WFB spoke up for the Intelligent Design people and their arguments. I am not exactly going to do that: not because I think the writer's age and accomplishments place him above cudgeling — I don't think... Read More

I seem to have got myself elected to the post of NR's designated point man against Creationists.* Indignant anti-Creationist readers have urged me to make a response to George Gilder's long essay "Evolution and Me" in the current (7/17/06)National Review. Well, I'll give it a shot. I had better say up front that I am... Read More

This year contains two notable scientific anniversaries. The one most widely mentioned is the centenary of Albert Einstein's three trailblazing papers in the German scientific journal Annalen der Physik on the nature of matter, energy, and motion. Those papers opened up broad new territories for exploration by physicists. The discoveries that followed, and the technology... Read More

The British poet Philip Larkin, asked why he voted Conservative, replied that he believed the Left to stand for "dishonesty, idleness, and treason." It seems to me that Larkin omitted one key component of the lefty mind-set: snobbery. The essence of the modern Left, from Lenin to the Clintons, is a contempt for ordinary people... Read More