It’s not appealing to authority that’s the problem; it’s the false authorities and what comes next if you accept their nonsense. “When a scientist says something, his colleagues must ask […]
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Might Armageddon come not from an asteroid or a comet, but by something completely unseen altogether? “Honestly, if you’re given the choice between Armageddon or tea, you don’t say ‘what […]
In Munich last week, physicists and philosophers debate what makes for a scientific theory. Surprisingly, no one agrees. This piece was written by Sabine Hossenfelder. Sabine is a theoretical physicist specialized […]
The nature of our Universe defies our intuition. That just might be the greatest thing of all. “I asked the Zebra,are you black with white stripes?Or white with black stripes?And […]
Facebook recently announced that it will display warnings beside satirical content. In this post we look at the flaws and implications of recent research on the spread of false information on Facebook.
If there was an award for the single greatest hub of pseudoscience on the internet, the website Natural News would well and truly take the crown tin foil hat. Expect […]
Keep politics out of science? Of course. But think what we could achieve with more science in our politics. “One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree […]
Too much of the wrong type can be deadly, but not all mercuric compounds are created equal. Today, we have a guest post courtesy of Adrianne Stone. Adrianne is a graduate […]
If you had never heard of global warming before, how would you figure out whether it’s happening? “There is no question that climate change is happening; the only arguable point […]
By the time you finish reading this short article, I hope you agree with me so much that you'll join me on my mission against "dieting" -- at least the way the multi-billion dollar weight loss industry has been pushing it on everyone for years.
Every decision we make depends for its success on our ability to weigh the evidence and choose the wisest course, given our objectives. In session 5 of her Big Think Mentorworkshop on The Seven Essential Life Skills, Ellen Galinsky reviews the research and offers tips for building critical thinking skills in adults and children.
Last weekend I published a post titled, “The World is Getting Worse (And Other Lies)” in which I shared some inspiring data and anecdotes that have helped me to embrace […]
An article published in The Telegraph over a month ago remains on The Telegraph website with a headline that is so spectacularly incorrect that the BBC has reported that the article […]
If you think of all of the greatest viral campaigns in the world, you’d struggle to think of many from Asia. But that doesn’t mean people aren’t trying, and you […]
[Note: Please welcome Hemley Gonzalez to Daylight Atheism. Hemley is the founder of Responsible Charity, a secular non-profit organization serving the poor of Calcutta, which was a past beneficiary of […]
From stock trading to lawmaking to data-driven school reform, we are becoming increasingly dependent on mathematical models to explain the slippery complexity of human nature.
Capitalist societies believe in the possibility of endless growth. But Plato and other classical philosophers would have begged to differ.
My latest roundup of links and tools… America is not competitive A majority of Fortune 1000 executives surveyed give the American pre-college system a failing grade. As Andrew Trotter reports […]
One of the many advantages of You Tube and the social networking sites, is that it is possible to get a real measure of the de-regulated, ‘opinion led’ television the […]
As America becomes increasingly diverse, many school districts are experiencing changes in their traditional student populations. When districts have significant increases in the number of students of color and/or students […]
It’s plain to see that I’m an optimist, sometimes more than is socially comfortable. The ease with which I dismiss the disastrous economic decline above serves as one example of that. I wrote that the recession will benefit our political system, and, before I cut this line, as having “rewarded our company for methodical execution and ruthless efficiency by removing competitors from the landscape.” I make no mention of the disastrous effects on millions of people, and the great uncertainty that grips any well-briefed mind, because it truly doesn’t stand in the foreground of my mind (despite suffering personal loss of wealth).
Our species is running towards a precipice with looming dangers like economic decline, political unrest, climate crisis, and more threatening to grip us as we jump off the edge, but my optimism is stronger now than ever before. On the other side of that looming gap are extraordinary breakthroughs in healthcare, communications technology, access to space, human productivity, artistic creation and literally hundreds of fields. With the right execution and a little bit of luck we’ll all live to see these breakthroughs — and members of my generation will live to see dramatically lengthened life-spans, exploration and colonization of space, and more opportunity than ever to work for passion instead of simply working for pay.
Instead of taking this space to regale you with the many personal and focused changes I intend to make in 2009, let me rather encourage you to spend time this year thinking, as I’m going to, more about what we can do in 2009 to positively affect the future our culture will face in 2020, 2050, 3000 and beyond.
There is a very real danger that some analysts, diplomats, commentators and politicians are taking all that is revealed by Wikileaks at face value, without questioning the veracity of some […]
nn So, there has been a lot of talk about “volcano monitoring” over the last 24 hours, now hasn’t there? nn Now, I’m not going to revisit this discussion, but […]
Two tidbits from New Zealand: nn nn – A recent survey of volcanoes in the Kermadec Arc north of New Zealand suggest that there is abundant – and recent – […]
Held in over 30 countries, the World Wide Views on Global Warming initiative represents the state-of-the-art in new approaches to public engagement, the subject of several recent reports and meetings. […]
What do God, Dr. Frankenstein, and Lady Gaga have in common? They are all names that geneticist-cum-media-sensation Craig Venter has been called since announcing in May that he had created […]
This semester in the sophomore-level course I teach on “Communication and Society,” we spent several weeks examining the many ways that Americans are using the Internet to alter the nature […]