Critics of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to ban the sale of soft drinks over 16 ounces in convenience stores, movie theaters and street carts are having a […]
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Philosopher David Edmonds lists the five books of philosophy that have figured most in his development as a moral thinker. Along the way, he explains when it may be OK to end a life.
So says an outstanding young conservative public intellectual—Helen Rittelmeyer. It’s true enough that conservatives still do accuse the Democrats—or, more precisely, the liberals—of being moral relativists. Rittelmeyer quotes Paul Ryan […]
What is the Big Idea? Belachew Girma was once a school teacher, store owner and hotel owner. It seemed like he had it all. But after a series of bad […]
By the time he put the finishing touches on the Rite of Spring in November of 1912 in the Châtelard Hotel in Clarens, Switzerland, Stravinsky had spent three years studying Russian pagan […]
The questions in this quiz are adaptations of items from research studies from the 1960s to the 1980s, initiated by Daniel Kahneman and his late research partner, Amos Tversky.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who ought to know, says that the future won’t be anything like The Terminator. “I live in the real world, and in the real world that’s simply […]
A little science-fiction philosophy to provoke you to remember on Memorial Day, courtesy of Oxford philosopher Derek Parfit: Suppose you were given the chance to teleport yourself, Star Trek style, […]
With Stephen Colbert on vacation this week, Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona seems to have jumped into the role of the laughable conservative who makes ridiculous arguments with a straight face — or, in this case, who tries to make worthwhile political science research sound ridiculous.
Sex symbol. Lethal weapon. Superstar. Chuck Norris dominator. Whatever epic descriptions we use to remember Bruce Lee, it’s hard to imagine this legendary martial artist once struggled in his career. […]
“Danger: Art Inside,” read the labels on the crated sculptures as I toured last month the almost-ready-for-public-viewing, but now restored, reinstalled, and reinterpreted Rodin Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The signs […]
President Obama apparently thinks the safer way to justify higher taxes on the super rich is to pitch the proposal based on its deficit-reduction potential. But if he wants to get the ball rolling for meaningful tax reform, Obama will summon his rhetorical powers to explain how the Buffett Rule could help reduce the nation's massive and destructive wealth inequality.
Big Think’s own founder and president Peter Hopkins gave Rahim Kanani at Forbes some face time in preparation for the 2012 Social Innovation Summit taking place next week at the United Nations Headquarters in […]
We want to ascribe intentionality and blame for success and failure, then study them for blueprints. But Gladwell says he’s always found it more productive to follow his own curiosity without worrying too much about whether or not the world will reward him for it.
On a late winter day in 1922, the sound of a gun shot resounded with a loud boom in the hills surrounding the house of three-year-old Edgar Curtis. The sound itself wasn't out of the ordinary, since the Curtises lived near a firing range. What was extraordinary was the question the boy turned to ask his mother: "What is that big, black noise?"
What’s the Big Idea? In a blog post from December 2010, Dr. Michio Kaku discussed the perils of our public school system and called into question the schools’ curiosity-crippling methods, which he […]
The self is a disruptive, false, and, as such, unnecessary metaphor for the process of awareness and knowing: when we awaken to knowing, we realize that all that goes on in us is a flow of “thoughts without a thinker.”
Given the fact that Mormons were a key group that helped Mitt Romney win important victories in states such as Nevada and Arizona, it may seem counterintuitive that many Mormons are uncomfortable with a Romney candidacy.
I suggested, although not as insistently as I should have, that February would be the month of Santorum. Well, it was. Santorum was so impressive that he was the non-Romney who came closest to winning.
Here’s what we can expect for Super Tuesday. Mitt Romney will win his home state of Massachusetts, the neighboring state of Vermont, and Virginia, where Ron Paul is the only […]
'Tis the season to be savvy. Here's a round-up of Big Thinkers' favorite tech ideas for simplifying - and beautifying - your holiday.
Entrepreneurship is booming: we can see it in all the startup accelerators, incubators, and hackathons filling up and expanding around the world. But for every success story there are hundreds […]
Respected Republican leaders—such as Tom Coburn and Eric Cantor—are rallying around Romney now. They don’t see a viable alternative, and they see that prolonging “the process” isn’t going to benefit […]
What’s the Big Idea? Philosopher Slavoj Žižek is fundamentally anti-capitalist, and yet, the man who describes himself as a “complicated Marxist” also expresses palpable irritation at the idea that capitalists are […]
You know you’ve made the big time when you rate a Google Doodle, as Gustav Klimt did this past weekend in recognition of the 150th anniversary of his birth. Anyone […]
What’s the Big Idea? Before neuroscience and quantum physics, there was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. The 19th century German idealist revolutionized Western thought, and every great thinker since has been working […]
Today we’re pleased to announce our second Big Think Book of the Month, the dazzlingly ambitious Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism, out May 22, 2012 from […]
Jad Abumrad loves collecting sounds and playing with high-tech gadgetry, but he deploys his geekery in service of a higher calling – creating in Radiolab a hybrid medium that is a natural evolution of the ancient art of storytelling.
Last month the Boston Red Sox dropped out of playoff contention, losing their wild-card berth to the Tampa Bay Rays after leading them by nine games three and a half […]
Just as Francis Fukuyama once predicted the End of History, are we now facing a sort of technological end of history? Has truly radical innovation been forever replaced by incremental […]