Do you have to be religious to see a face in burnt toast? Probably not, but believers are more likely to attribute such a face to Jesus (1). Believer in […]
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President Salih met with Stephen Kappes, a CIA official, yesterday in Ta’izz. Following the meeting, Salih gave a speech suggesting that the supporters of secession had a virus like swine […]
Have you noticed just how ubiquitous the phrase “mad as hell” has become in news coverage and commentary? The catchphrase has been used to support a narrative that anger is […]
A peculiar reversal of cartography's 'original sin'
Psi is psychology’s equivalent of the perpetual motion machine in physics. Claims in favor of telepathy, clairvoyance, premonitions or other extra-sensory perceptions were always considered the realm of looney-tunes who […]
[cross-posted at the TechLearning blog] n Many of you know that I occasionally try to wrap my head around various aspects of the education blogosphere. In the past I’ve written […]
Today’s New York Times reported on the phenomenon of declining picture book sales—for children. Pictures, apparently, are not advanced enough for our little ones, even when they are still in […]
Scrolling through the 2010 Power 100 of Art Review, I almost immediately had two reactions. First, I’m not on it! (Bloggers get little to no respect.) Second, so many of […]
I, for all intensive purposes, am a Libertarian. The Libertarian Party is running Bob Barr as a candidate for President. Living in California, I also happen to believe that my […]
The modern view of the American soldier at war is invariably shaped by television. Beginning with the Vietnam War, the first war brought literally into the living rooms of private […]
I’m back in the office after a great event last night at the American Museum of Natural History. Close to 100 attendees came out to the magnificent venue for a […]
Big Think today features a new set of interviews with NIH director Francis Collins, perhaps best known as the former director of the Human Genome Project and for his books […]
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.
Everyone in jail claims to be innocent, but attorney and law professor Barry Scheck has proven that many of these convicted criminals may actually be telling the truth. Scheck is […]
A news release on a new survey from the Woodrow Wilson Center’s project on nanotechnology: Washington, DC — A groundbreaking poll finds that almost half of U.S. adults have heard […]
Self serving, egotistical and narcissistic. These epithets accurately describe the personality and motivations of former UK Business Secretary, former Northern Ireland Secretary and former Industry Secretary, Lord Peter Mandelson. Which […]
When it comes to marriage, most economists would expect that in societies with high income inequality, polygyny (one man with multiple wives) should exist. But while prosperous nations often have high income inequality, they rarely allow polygyny.
It’s going to be a busy 24 hours. On Wednesday evening I will be at the Center for Inquiry-NYC for the latest in our Speaking Science 2.0 tour. Then I […]
This month the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment published a special open access issue focused on science communication in environmental controversies. The issue features 6 review articles that […]
Why are countries clashing over the relative values of their currencies? Peter Dizikes at the MIT News Office examines the ideas behind a competitive money market.
I’m obviously a bit late in commenting on the scientist-journalist debate that went on through last week, so I’m not going to weigh in at this point. (Round up of […]
George Packer’s review of Peter Beinart’s book, The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris, is itself an elegant analysis of American history. Packer highlights some of choices our leaders […]
If you think that a thumbs up in ancient Rome meant that the beaten gladiator would live and that a thumbs down meant death, you can thank Jean-Léon Gérôme’s 1872 […]
If the principle of frontage would be universally applied, so could the U.S., Nigeria, Bangladesh - and even Greenland
As ballot papers for Labour’s leadership land on doorsteps this week, those charged with electing the next Leader of the Opposition, namely party members, MPs and affiliated trades unionists have […]
How do you activate an otherwise disinterested Republican base on the issue of global warming? As we argued in our Policy Forum article at Science, two possible frames are to […]
Despite our puritanical roots, Americans are just as sexually liberated as Europeans, if not more so, according to recent studies. Americans tend to lose their virginity at the same age […]
From restarting the economy to dealing with climate change, society’s biggest questions turn on how they are defined by advocates and the news media and acted upon by the public […]
When, after thirty years of authoritarian rule, a young dissident and perennial thorn in the side of the Establishment, Mohammed Nasheed won the first free and fair election in the Maldives in […]
All the volcano eruptions, news, gossips, controversies of 2009 ... it was quite a year for the study of volcanoes!