We live in a time of information abundance, which far too many of us see as information overload. With the sum total of human knowledge, past and present, at our fingertips, we’re faced with a crisis of attention: which ideas should we engage with, and why? Big Think is an evolving roadmap to the best thinking on the planet — the ideas that can help you think flexibly and act decisively in a multivariate world.
A word about Big Ideas and Themes — The architecture of Big Think
Big ideas are lenses for envisioning the future. Every article and video on bigthink.com and on our learning platforms is based on an emerging “big idea” that is significant, widely relevant, and actionable. We’re sifting the noise for the questions and insights that have the power to change all of our lives, for decades to come. For example, reverse-engineering is a big idea in that the concept is increasingly useful across multiple disciplines, from education to nanotechnology.
Themes are the seven broad umbrellas under which we organize the hundreds of big ideas that populate Big Think. They include New World Order, Earth and Beyond, 21st Century Living, Going Mental, Extreme Biology, Power and Influence, and Inventing the Future.
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How in the name of God can the Roman Catholic Church put the wave upon wave of pedophilia scandals behind it? The Washington Post’s E.J Dionne Jr. investigates. He says: “The church's problem is, above all, theological and religious. Its core difficulty is that rather than drawing on its Christian ...
“As Pakistani ministers and the country's army chiefs lobbied the Obama administration in Washington this week for increased military funding for the fight against Al Qa'ida militants, the top man on the US, UN and EU most wanted list in Pakistan moved freely in the streets of Lahore. In his first ...
The Case for a Creator, Chapter 9 How likely is the spontaneous origin of life? In chapter 9, Stephen Meyer likens it to one of those tornado-in-a-junkyard scenarios that creationists love so much: "Imagine trying to generate even a simple book by throwing Scrabble letters onto the floor ...
With tablet notebooks and Kindles changing the way we read books, new technology is threatening the way we respond to the text by using “eye tracking” to keep our interest. “What if those written words were watching you reading them and making adjustments accordingly? Eye-tracking technology and ...
“Gordon Edelstein, whose past productions at New Haven's Long Wharf Theatre include the best ‘Uncle Vanya’ I've ever seen, has brought his version of Tennessee Williams's masterpiece ‘The Glass Menagerie’ from Connecticut to the Laura Pels Theatre, the Roundabout Theatre Company's Off-Broadway house ...
Determined bloggers and Google’s experts have the means to defeat China’s Internet censors, and the government can’t do anything to stop it, writes The Guardian’s Xia Qiang. He uses the example of Han Han, a 28-year-old bestselling author and blogger who is “a star of Chinese cyberspace”. Qiang ...
What’s the problem with iTunes, iPods, and other convenient listening devices, asks The Los Angeles Times’ Steve Almond? Nothing, except for the devaluation of the music experience. He writes: “When I first encountered iTunes, the wildly popular music app that allows fans to compile their own ...
All-knowing, user-generated, online encyclopedia Wikipedia is due for a massive makeover. So fear not, fact-finders, but get ready for a new look, new layout and new features. But the news comes less that 24 hours after Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation websites went down for hours on in a ...
Why does the Web version of a newspaper look so different from the print version? It may sound like a simple-minded question, but the answer cuts to the heart of the difference between the print and the online experience. According to Khoi Vinh, design director of NYTimes.com, many people still ...
Alan Boyle, Science Editor for MSNBC.com, was kind enough to answer questions about science in the mainstream media after the fallout of the coverage of the Chilean earthquake. Alan Boyle, science editor for MSNBC.com Alan has been with MSNBC.com since 1996, covering science and technology ...
There is no easy answer as to why we keep sales humming for books many would profess are not worth their time. “Betrayal” Lit, as so-called by The Daily Beast's Lloyd Grove, is an inexorable "channel" in our culture of celebrity. Yet, before there were celebrities, there was still betrayal, and ...
Korea as a tiger: what a beautiful map. The peninsula’s shape is rendered in the image of the local big cat , also known as the Siberian, Manchurian or Altaic tiger (Panthera tigris altaica). This is done in a manner reminiscent of the Leo belgicus (see #425). One obvious difference: tigers ...
As he entered the Capitol building to vote on the health care bill, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) was spit on. Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), a prominent civil rights leader, was called a "nigger." Rep. Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX) was called a "wetback." And Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) was called a "faggot." Someone ...
A select group of thought leaders from around the world will come together tomorrow, Friday March 26th, for a live-streamed discussion surrounding "Our Energy Future," at 1:30 PM EST. You can tune in to watch the exclusive conversation on Bigthink.com. The roundtable, entitled “Post-COP15: The ...
Skeptic and magician James Randi has pulled off yet another daring escape. The famous debunker of scam psychics has emerged from the closet at the age of 81. Randi made the big announcement on his blog last Sunday. After all these years, Sean Penn's biopic Milk inspired him to finally go public ...