Author: Jonathan Dodson

Today, thirty-four years after Roe v. Wade, we can see into the womb with detail that was unimaginable in 1973. Now, 3-D and 4-D scans—scans that literally piece together images to show a baby in motion in the womb—have brought the miracle of life into new focus. In the Womb author, Peter Tallack, calls this new technology the medical equivalent of the Hubble Space Telescope. And the images it zooms in on during the odyssey of pregnancy may change the minds of women contemplating abortion and ordinary men and women who have not reflected deeply on abortion’s horrors.

Statistics tell us that 88 percent of clinical abortions happen before the twelfth week of pregnancy. In the Womb shows us a heart cell jolting to life on day twenty-two, arm buds developing in week four, glassy eyes forming in week six, taste buds, purposeful movement, and separate digits on hands and feet by week eight.

As Tallack writes, “The next four weeks [weeks nine through twelve] will see her kick, turn her feet, and curl her toes. She will bend her arms at the wrist and elbow, form partial fists with her tiny hands, and reach up to cover her face with her hands. Her face, with its sealed-shut eyes, will squint, frown, purse its lips, and open its mouth. She will respond to touch.” (Taken from A Visual Apologetic for Life.)

When is the last time you saw Sean Connery as a antagonist in a red diaper?

Popular culture has, on average, grown more complex and intellectually challenging over the past thirty years. Where most commentators assume a race to the bottom and a dumbing down–“an increasingly infantilzed society,” in George Will’s words–I see a progressive story: mass culture growing more sophisticated, demanding more cognitive engagement with each passing year. Think of it as a kind of positive brainwashing: the popular media steadily, but almost imperceptibly, making our minds sharper…

~ Steven Johnson, Everything Bad Is Good For You

What’s your take on Pop Culture? Is it making us smarter by demanding more cognitive engagement with each passing year or reducing intellectual engagment through its instantly gratifying media?