"[5] Writing in National Review, the journal's editor Adam Keiper described The New Atlantis as being written from a "particularly American and conservative way of thinking about both the blessings and the burdens of modern science and technology".

[independent source needed] For example, the journal has generally advocated nuclear energy;[11] space exploration and development through public–private partnerships,[12] including crewed missions to Mars;[13] biofuels;[14] and genetically modified foods.

Examples include articles that have defended the existence of free will in light of developments in neuroscience,[36] questioned the wisdom of using brain scans in courtrooms,[37] and described how growing knowledge of epigenetics has undermined common claims about genetic determinism.

[51] A 2006 article by Matthew B. Crawford, who advocated the intellectual and economic virtues of the manual trades,[52] was noted as a best-of-the-year essay by The New York Times columnist David Brooks,[53] and was subsequently expanded into the bestselling book Shop Class as Soulcraft.

"[70] National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg described The New Atlantis as "a new and interesting magazine" that "seems to be trying to carve out the space for the government to stop the more offensive aspects of biotechnology.

"[9] Bioethicist Ruth Macklin criticized The New Atlantis as representative of a conservative movement in bioethics that is "mean-spirited, mystical, and emotional" and that "claims insight into ultimate truth yet disavows reason".

The artist and designer Natasha Vita-More, wife of British transhumanist philosopher, cryonicist, and author Max More, has described it as a "journal known as a ring of bioconservatives bent on opposing the cyberculture".