Speaker Biographies

Larry Arnhart is a professor of political science at Northern Illinois University. His teaching and research range broadly over the history of political philosophy and biopolitical theory as well as the philosophy of science and the ethics of biotechnology. He is the author of four books: Aristotle on Political Reasoning: A Commentary on Aristotle’s "Rhetoric" (1981), Political Questions: Political Philosophy from Plato to Rawls (3rd ed., 2003), Darwinian Natural Right: The Biological Ethics of Human Nature (1998), and Darwinian Conservatism (2005).

John Derbyshire is a full-time writer and the author of three books. His 2003 nonfiction book Prime Obsession won the Mathematical Association of America’s Euler Prize for popular exposition of a mathematical topic. His most recent book is Unknown Quantity (2006), a history of algebra. Other than books, Derbyshire’s writing mainly consists of commentary on culture, literature, and politics. He is a contributing editor at National Review, where he also has a monthly column, "The Straggler." He has written essays, criticisms, and reviews for numerous other periodicals, including The New Criterion, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Sun, the Washington Times, Claremont Review of Books, New Atlantis, and Washington Quarterly. He has also taken to Internet journalism with enthusiasm, contributing regularly to National Review Online, New English Review, and other Web magazines.

George Gilder, editor in chief of Gilder Technology Report, is chairman of Gilder Publishing, LLC. He is also a senior fellow at Discovery Institute, where he chairs Discovery’s program on technology and democracy. Mr. Gilder began his career as a speechwriter for several prominent officials and candidates, including Nelson Rockefeller, George Romney, and Richard Nixon. In the 1970s, as an independent researcher and writer, Mr. Gilder began researching the causes of poverty, which resulted in his books Men and Marriage (1972), Visible Man (1978), and the bestselling Wealth and Poverty (1981). He also authored The Party That Lost Its Head (1966), The Spirit of Enterprise (1986), Microcosm (1989), Life after Television(1994), Telecosm (2000), and The Silicon Eye (2005). Mr. Gilder is a contributing editor of Forbes magazine and a frequent writer for the Economist, the American Spectator, the Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, and other publications.

Steven F. Hayward is the F. K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow in Environmental Studies at AEI and a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute. He is also an adjunct fellow at the John Ashbrook Center and a former Bradley Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a Weaver Fellow of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, an Earhart Fellow, and the Olive Garvey Fellow of the Mont Pelerin Society. Mr. Hayward studies the environment, law, political economy, and the presidency. He is the author of the annual Index of Leading Environmental Indicators, published jointly by the AEI Press and the Pacific Research Institute, and a number of other books, including The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, 1964–1980 and Churchill on Leadership: Executive Success in the Face of Adversity and Greatness. Hayward writes AEI’s Environmental Policy Outlook and has had articles published in National Review, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Reason, The Weekly Standard, Policy Review, and the Chicago Tribune.

John West is a senior fellow at Discovery Institute, where he is associate director of the Center for Science and Culture. His current research examines the impact of Darwinian science on public policy and culture. His books include Darwin’s Conservatives: The Misguided Quest (2006), The Politics of Revelation and Reason (1996), The C. S. Lewis Readers’ Encyclopedia (1998), and The Encyclopedia of Religion in American Politics (1998). In the fall of 2007, ISI Books will publish his next work, Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science. West is the past chair of the Department of Political Science and Geography at Seattle Pacific University, and has taught courses at California State University, San Bernardino, and Azusa Pacific University. He has appeared on Fox News, CNN, and C-SPAN, and has been interviewed by Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and many other publications. West has received several academic fellowships and awards for his work.

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