Think Tank Launches Technology and Politics Magazine

Posted on May 30, 2003

The Ethics and Public Policy Center, a leading think tank in Washington, DC, is launching a new magazine on technology, ethics, and American politics. Called The New Atlantis, the premier issue is available in print or online at 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. "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. Cohen said they 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."

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.

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 and Scott Gottlieb on the future of medical technology.

Eric Cohen is editor and founder of The New Atlantis and director of the Project on Biotechnology and American Democracy at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. His essays and articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, The Weekly Standard, The Public Interest, First Things, Commentary, and elsewhere, and he is the co-editor (with William Kristol) of The Future is Now: America Confronts the New Genetics.

Adam Keiper is managing editor of The New Atlantis. He is founder and president of the Center for the Study of Technology and Society, a think tank concerned with the social, moral, and political implications of science and technology.

Yuval Levin is a senior editor of The New Atlantis. He is the author of Tyranny of Reason: The Origins and Consequences of the Social Scientific Outlook. His articles and essays have appeared in The Public Interest, the Wall Street Journal, the Jerusalem Post, National Review, and elsewhere. He also serves as a senior research analyst at the President�s Council on Bioethics.