...about the abolition of the Bioethics Council. He acknowledges it was pretty Socratic (and Obama’s won’t be), but he thought that Kass’s influence made it too anti-science. Larry says, understandably but wrongly, that I was appointed because I generally agree with Kass. I came to Leon’s attention by giving a lecture in which I was very critical about his Brave New World paranoia. Larry also expresses reservations about Diana Schaub’s appointment. But the truth is she’s very devoted to modern science or the Enlightenment as described by Montesquieu and Jefferson in that "light of science" quote. Her criticisms of today’s policies and trends are always expressed in a scientific defense of natural rights. Her view that Darwin can’t account for the whole truth about the free individual is very modern. And, in general, Diana seems to be much more modern than Leon. Larry has never come to terms with the fact that his whole-hog embrace of Darwin necessarily involved a theoretical rejection of our mostly Lockean Declaration.