Does biology determine destiny, or is society the dominant cause of masculine and feminine traits? In this spirited exchange, the psychologist Cordelia Fine and the evolutionary biologist Carole Hooven unpack…
By Carole Hooven | April 8, 2025
”It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female.” “‘Female’ means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive…
By Carole Hooven | February 27, 2025
The leader of the Republican Party and our country’s next president has tapped a pro-choice scion of the country’s most famous Democratic dynasty to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. In keeping…
By M. Anthony Mills | December 2, 2024
As you may have noticed, “sex” is out, and “sex assigned at birth” is in. Instead of asking for a person’s sex, some medical and camp forms these days ask for “sex assigned at…
By Carole Hooven | Alex Byrne | April 4, 2024
For years now, sports experts and culture warriors alike have been fiercely contesting the issue of whether transwomen (males who live and identify as women) should be eligible to compete…
By Carole Hooven | March 22, 2024
Since early December, the end of my 20-year career teaching at Harvard has been the subject of articles, op-eds, tweets from a billionaire, and even a congressional hearing. I have become a poster child…
By Carole Hooven | January 17, 2024
The Covid-19 pandemic was a disaster. Over a million Americans died—many in isolation in hospitals and nursing homes, far from their friends and family—and millions more became seriously sick, lost…
By Brian J. Miller | M. Anthony Mills | November 6, 2023
Dr. Mandy Cohen has been on a national tour. The new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, she aims to rebuild trust in that troubled agency at a moment…
By M. Anthony Mills | October 4, 2023
A Biden administration official whose job is to ensure the “integrity” of government science has an integrity problem of her own. Last month the National Academy of Sciences suspended environmental…
By M. Anthony Mills | Ian R. Banks | September 26, 2022
Will the CHIPS and Science Act be an inflection point for the U.S. scientific enterprise? The often overlooked “science” portion of the new bill is the culmination of one of…
By M. Anthony Mills | Ian R. Banks | August 11, 2022
After two years of controversy and turmoil, President Biden’s federal science agenda finally may be getting back on track. The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation just voted to advance the…
By M. Anthony Mills | Ian R. Banks | July 29, 2022
President Biden promised to reinvigorate American science. After a tumultuous four years in which a populist upsurge, a bombastic president, and the worst public health crisis in a century had pushed…
By M. Anthony Mills | March 2, 2022
The era of constrained federal science budgets is over. With Congress poised to boost public spending on research and development (R&D) by anywhere from tens of billions to hundreds of billions of dollars,…
By M. Anthony Mills | September 27, 2021
In early February 1976, two cases of swine flu were discovered at Fort Dix in New Jersey. The Center for Disease Control identified the virus as Hsw1N1, similar to the one that…
By M. Anthony Mills | August 2, 2021
In both ends of the political spectrum, it seems liberalism has become démodé. From the traditionalist right, R. R. Reno of First Things proclaims, “[w]e’re afflicted by a liberal monoculture” characterized by a “double-pronged…
By M. Anthony Mills | June 21, 2021