2013 was a great year for MercatorNet, with lots of great content and sparkling writing. Share this selection of the best and most popular articles with your friends. Reread your old favourites. Leave some comments.
January
The genius of Chesterton
A comprehensive new biography of the brilliant controversialist will delight fans and instruct the sceptical.
By Zac Alstin
Harvard Munch: when liberty becomes bondage
One hundred and fifty years after J S Mill’s famous book on Utilitarianism, the heirs of his philosophy are embracing nihilism.
By Michael Cook
Exposing scientism
C.S. Lewis foresaw that science would be manipulated at the expense of humanity, says the editor of a new collection of essays about him.
By John G. West
Safety in social media comes down to lifestyles
The quality of family relationships is a key to safety on social networking sites, according to new research from Europe.
By Reynaldo Rivera
February
“Wadjda” – a breakthrough for Saudi women
The first feature movie made in Saudi Arabia breaks new ground in other ways also.
By Mary O’Neill Le Rumeur
The guilty silence that killed Reeva Steenkamp
Why does no one mention the most obvious thing that put Oscar Pistorius’ girlfriend in harm’s way?
By Carolyn Moynihan
How my mother died
A mentally-ill Belgian woman sought euthanasia to escape her problems. The doctors told her, sure, why not?
By Tom Mortier
Working abroad, supporting the family at home
Emigrants’ remittances are at the core of poverty alleviation in many developing countries.
By Vincenzina Santoro
Shape or be shaped: Christians in an era of marriage decline
The religious lives of young people are being damaged by family breakdown, a new report shows. How will churches respond?
By Carolyn Moynihan
March
What would the Greeks have thought of gay marriage?
The great classical philosophers would have regarded it as an absurdity, despite their partial tolerance of homosexual love.
By Robert R. Reilly
2 doctors, 103 women, sterilisation quota achieved
India’s target-driven quotas for female sterilisation are producing horrific scenes, all with the aid of Western money.
By Carolyn Moynihan
Yes, I think we are crazy
… if marriage is only a lifestyle choice. But for us it’s much more.
By Tristan McLindon
The internet is a paradise for cheaters
Universities have to work hard to discourage students from cheating.
By Karl D. Stephan
April
How to cope with cyber-bullying
Parents who would never allow their children to drive without lessons give them mobile phones and hope for the best. Good luck to them!
by Izzy Kalman
Is the one-child policy spoiling China’s children?
Research confirms all the cliches about “little emperors”, the children of parents who were forced to stop at one.
by Michael Cook
A divine foot in the door
Atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel explains why the materialist Neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false.
by David Gallagher
If two lesbians, why not two sisters?
If marriage is all about love, commitment and stability, why can’t I marry my sister?
by Carolyn Moynihan
May
Understanding Keynes
Were the theories of the 20th Century’s most famous economist blemished by the fact that he was a homosexual? An expert on Keynes says No.
by Ricardo Crespo
There’s always another choice
A Texas mother remembers how doctors struggled to save her premature twin daughters.
by Anne Ponton
Revisiting the “after-birth abortion” controversy
An expert on Jewish medical ethics says that the slippery slope is very real, no matter what some bioethicists may say.
by Shimon Glick
How legal euthanasia changed Belgium for ever
The ideology of absolute self-determination has become sacred and unquestionable.
by Tom Mortier and Steven Bieseman
The Boy Scouts cave in
Under enormous pressure, they have voted to welcome openly gay scouts. What message does the change in policy send young people?
by Robert R. Reilly
June
Not so fast!
A one-page report on the success of same-sex parenting was reported around the world this week. How reliable is it?
by Walter R. Schumm
Networks of responsibility: the Philadelphia building collapse
Who should ultimately take the blame in a tragedy of careless demolition which caused six deaths?
by Karl D. Stephan
Recycling Mozart
Music is transforming children’s lives in an impoverished corner of Latin America.
by Pedro Dutour
The slow death of a pseudo-discipline
Enthusiasm for neuro-everything seems to be waning in the light of evidence that brain scans don’t tell us very much.
by Denyse O’Leary
“Inferno”
The appropriate tagline for the literary style of Dan Brown’s latest blockbuster is not “the sparkle of champagne” but “peanut butter and jelly for the mind”.
by Michael Cook
July
The painful pursuit of high-tech babies
Many women are deferring childbearing until they have the perfect partner and an established career. It’s a big mistake.
by Miriam Zoll
In the birthplace of revolution, a French Spring
The establishment has been rattled by the vigour and intelligence of opposition to the new law on same-sex marriage.
by Robert Hutchinson
No country for old homophobes
Ender’s Game has nothing to do with same-sex marriage. But the film’s author-producer is still being lynched for his views.
by Zac Alstin
Monday, 4.24pm, 8lb 6oz, a Royal boy
The Royal baby symbolizes the great, civilized, traditions of Christian marriage.
by Joanna Bogle
Should children be lobbyists?
It is shameful to use children as front-line troops in political campaigns.
by David Zaruk
August
Scientism: legitimate label or boo-word?
A liberal education would enable scientists – among others ‑ to know when they were overreaching their competence.
by Marie I. George
Seriously, is this mommy business really worth it?
A Harvard Law School graduate turned homemaker puts the case for bambinos in the burbs.
by Lea Singh
Will polyamory follow same-sex marriage?
The reasoning is the same; the rewards are the same. Why not?
by Michael Cook
My tutor, The Bard
Teaching your children Shakespeare could be the most rewarding educational experience of their lives.
by Francis Phillips
September
In praise of honest work
If we believed in the honour of work, employment would take care of itself.
by Karl D. Stephan
Should schools teach about religions?
It’s an idea that looks good on paper but can in fact lead to dangerous madness.
by Kevin Ryan
Does conscience have a role in executions?
Is “unregulated conscientious objection” a sword wielded by the pious against the vulnerable?
by Sean Murphy
The UN’s climate change chief puts politics first
Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is a non-stop train wreck.
by Donna Laframboise
The gates open to a Nobel Prize
The Gates Foundation has been awarded one of the world’s most prestigious awards for public health. Does it deserve it?
by Matthew Hanley
October
Let the people decide on gay “marriage”
All Australians deserve a vote on whether children should have both a mother and a father.
by David van Gend
Sweetening the pill
A young woman dissolves the sugar coating on the contraceptive pill and exposes its harmful, anti-woman core.
by Carolyn Moynihan
Safe in the right hands
A retired military and foreign affairs expert makes the case for allowing Americans to have and carry guns.
by William Stearman
In Bosnia, the ghosts still have no resting place
Twenty years after fighting ceased, many people are still caught up in a culture of denial.
by Mishka Gora
November
Safe in our cyber silos
Social media were supposed to open us to a larger world, but are they closing our minds?
by David Zaruk
An end to the madness?
The fifth edition of the DSM psychiatric manual may be the last.
by Denyse O’Leary
For academics, religion is a conflict of interests
A campaign against a bioethics professor turns very nasty.
by Margaret Somerville
Reason should be open to God
Benedict XVI had provocative ideas about the true nature of education.
by Leonard Franchi
December
Lessons from Sandy Hook
A government report on a school shooting in which six adults and 20 children died fails to establish a motive.
by Rick Fitzgibbons
Lasting impressions of Nelson Mandela, 1918 – 2013
May he rest in peace, and his ideals not be forgotten.
by Carolyn Moynihan
Are two out of three people really secret torturers?
The famous “obedience” experiments by Stanley Milgram: what did they really show?
by Denyse O’Leary
Don’t read over his shoulder. It’s basic cell phone etiquette
The boundary between public and private is getting fuzzy
by Karl D. Stephan
