Cancer Cures, Manatees, and Enology

“We are Letting Schools Poison our Children.” Hadley Freeman has some harsh (but accurate) critiques of ed tech: “You don’t need to be Mr Gradgrind to be repulsed by this gamification of learning, which accelerated during Covid and has never stopped. Giving children cheap dopamine hits from emojis and cheering AI characters is like pumping junk food straight into their brains at their most formative point.”

“Con Academy.” My review of Sal Kahn’s Brave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Education (and Why That’s a Good Thing) is now out from behind the paywall: “Kahn confidently positions AI as the next step in an ongoing computer revolution that has improved educational access. While it is true that computers may make information accessible to more people, we have clear evidence that Internet-connected devices have thus far not improved educational outcomes, despite the massive amounts of time and money that institutions have poured into them.”

“You Are Not an Ape-Brained Meat Sack.” Spencer A. Klavan draws on quantum physics to question the popular (mis)conception of the world as mere matter in motion: “Certainly it means the end of the mechanical picture of the world, in which the universe goes clanking along without human involvement. But that was only ever a convenient image, anyway — a useful picture, not the whole truth. The quantum revolution has raised the possibility that reality is brought into focus, is resolved into the world that mathematics can describe, by us. If this seems like a threat to the world of physics, perhaps that’s because the conviction that humanity is an afterthought to it was needless. Chemical scum on a moderate-size planet? Ape-brained meat sacks? Maybe we are not so expendable after all.”

“How an American Businessman Lost his Job and Found Himself in an Old French Vineyard.” Genevieve Fox describes how Peter Hahn left his high-pressure job in finance and took up a different sort of work: “He realised that above all he loved being on the land, feeling the earth and the soil, tending the vines. And so, over two years, he went back to college part-time to study viticulture and enology (growing grapes and making wine). Here he met two younger organic farmers, Damian and Vincent, who taught him about the physiology of vines. Thanks to their mentoring and friendship, he decided to look for a smallholding to farm organically. The time had finally come for a new way of living.” (Recommended by Rob Grano.)

“California Son.” Paul Kingsnorth praises an American ascetic, Seraphim Rose: “Today, with the Orthodox Church in the U.S. growing faster than it ever has, and with young people flooding many of its parishes, interest in his life and work has reached new heights. Sales of his books continue to grow, his grave has become a place of pilgrimage, and there are more and more persistent calls for him to be recognized as a saint of the Church. Slowly and quietly, he may be helping to remake America.”

“AI Executives Promise Cancer Cures. Here’s the Reality.” Matteo Wong looks at what role AI tools might actually play in scientific work: “There’s certainly a lot of hyperbole coming from the AI companies: Even if, tomorrow, an OpenAI or Google model proposed a drug that appeared credibly able to cure a single type of cancer, the medicine would require years of laboratory and human trials to prove its safety and efficacy in a real-world environment, which AI programs are nowhere near able to simulate. . . . Generative AI, I’ve learned, has much to contribute to science, but its applications are unlikely to be as wide-ranging as its creators like to suggest—more akin to a faster engine than a self-driving car.”

“What Harvard Didn’t Say.” Edward Frame draws on the example of St. John’s College to point out that universities need to do a much better job of articulating the public goods they serve: “for all its courage, Harvard’s response stopped short of making the argument that would best protect the values for which it was fighting. It defended the university’s independence without explaining why that independence deserves protection. It invoked values like ‘pluralism’ and ‘inquiry,’ but it did not fully explain why those values are essential to a liberal democratic society. The letter therefore missed an opportunity to articulate what a university is for — not just to students or donors, but to the country. And this matters, because Trump’s attack against this and other universities is not only about the balance of power between universities and the government. It is, at bottom, about the legitimacy of higher education as a public good.”

“Creation Care in an Age of Despair.” Rinah Fiol recommends awe as an antidote to despair: “Caring for the earth involves (among other actions) caring for our health, our children’s health, and the health of our neighbors both down the street and halfway across the globe. This is part of why the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement has gained traction among conservatives in a way that surprises observers like The New York Times. There’s a growing sense that destroying and misusing God’s creation isn’t only bad for the planet but also deadly for people—an affront to the dignity of beings who bear God’s image. Creation care is a clear way we steward our God-given bodies and love our neighbors as ourselves.”

“A Vision for a Healthier America.” I talked with Marlo Slayback and Tom Sarrouf about how Wendell Berry tilled the soil for MAHA.

“Who Will Help a Stranded Manatee?” Boze Herrington commends poet A. M. Juster’s new children’s book Girlatee: “When we care for other creatures, we extend compassion beyond its human limits and participate in divine love. By encouraging a love of creatures in children, Juster has done just that.”

Marce Catlett: The Force of a Story. Wendell Berry has a new novel coming out this fall: “In the newest novel in the Port William series, Wendell Berry’s beloved protagonist Andy Catlett tells the inspiring story of his grandfather, Marce Catlett, to his own children and grandchildren, and gives them a key to their place on the settled land they all love”