News

Stefano Zamagni, Pierpaolo Donati and Ana Marta González - all STI experts - sign an open letter from PASS, as president, academician and council member, and academician, respectively. The statement, also signed by the Pontifical Academy for the Sciences (PAS) urges strengthened communication and research, and global cooperation and solidarity to protect the most vulnerable.

STI extended an invitation/request to experts from various fields to offer a thought on what this global health crisis means or might mean in the future in the context of their field, and/or to society as a whole. Professors and practitioners of sociology, international relations, law, history, philosophy, media, and bioethics offered the impressions, reflections, and predictions collected below (in alphabetical order). Food for thought… 

Not only will the COVID-19 pandemic not result in the birth of ‘coronababies’ conceived in confinement, explains demographic researcher Lyman Stone, it is almost certain to produce the opposite effect. He shared his findings with housebound viewers around the globe in an April 3 Webinar titled “Will Coronavirus Boost Fertility.”

Philosopher of technology Mark Coeckelbergh talked to STI about a letter he signed to the Spanish government supporting the appropriate use of expanded access to personal data during the country’s official state of alarm.

There's a new message from the president, updated stats, a new design with candid photos, new texts about our activities and outputs and a selection of the year's highlights.

Oxford nanophysicist Andrew Briggs joins his Oxford colleague, physicist Andrew Steane, and Princeton philosopher Hans Halvorson in a scholarly, yet also personal reflection on how scientific inquiry into the natural world is compatible with transcendence, meaning and purpose.

Anxiety in teens is on the rise and constitutes the leading mental health issue among American youth. Frequently-cited surveys show that the number of adolescents diagnosed with an anxiety disorder is growing, more and more high school seniors are reporting feeling overwhelmed, and the past-month prevalence of college students feeling “overwhelming anxiety” surpasses 40 percent.

A public intellectual with an uncommon breadth of influence, the late Sir Roger Scruton’s absence will surely be widely felt. This great friend to the Social Trends Institute died January 12 at the age of 75, just six months after having been diagnosed with cancer.

Andrew Cherlin weighs in on the chicken and egg question as applied to the question of economic and familial stability in the following excerpt from his essay, “How Inequality Drives Family Formation: The Prima Facie Case.”

Culture and business have become increasingly intertwined, and cultural institutions need to be aware of their place in the market. Karin M. Ekström, editor of the just released volume Museum Marketization – Cultural Institutions in the Neoliberal Era, summarizes the work for STI.

Professor Shelley Wilcox, in her chapter ”Who Pays for Gender De-institutionalization?” within the edited volume Gender Identities in a Globalized World, points out how some women step out of traditional gender roles and expectations precisely by  locking less fortunate women into them. 

Effective family-oriented policies and programs are critical for poverty reduction, the promotion of gender equality, the advancement of work-family balance and the prevention of family homelessness, states a UN report.