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‘Normality’ or ‘normalcy’, as a concept, is long due for the crematorium of bad ideas, alongside racism and homophobia. Indeed, it is precisely these kinds of ideas the defence of normalcy encourages and gave birth to: it is both kingmaker and mother.  

In his blog post yesterday, Big Think’s own Adam Lee called into question the editorial standard that would have us introduce evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa as our newest blogger. Kanazawa […]

The modern man supposedly sympathetic to feminist goals in the Nice Guy, who defines himself according to his liberal values. But it’s just more patriarchy in disguise, says Eva Wiseman. 

Most Americans not only misperceive currently levels of income inequality, says Joseph Stiglitz, they underestimate the tectonic changes that have occurred in the last ten years.   

In our current “War on Terror,” it’s sometimes hard to imagine or appreciate the terrors of times gone by. For Americans of the 19th century, stories of shipwrecks struck deep […]

In this third video from our interview with Slavoj Žižek, the philosopher and author of Big Think’s most recent Book of the Month answers the question, “Which summer film are you anticipating most?” Watch […]

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.

“How do Americans spend their leisure time?” That question was posed by Yale psychologist Paul Bloom in his 2010 book How Pleasure Works. The answer, Bloom says, is “participating in […]

As the world’s largest particle collider reaches higher energy levels, scientists can better understand how the Universe’s constituent particles formed just after the big bang. 

Author and Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown died yesterday at the lovely age of 90, after having been declared a “living landmark” in New York. In her honor I dusted […]

Something unusually delightful greeted students on the morning of June 19 as they lined up to enter Public School 10 in Brooklyn. The event had nothing to do with standardized […]

Strictly speaking, a “psychopundit” is William Saletan’s term for a scholar who uses psychology to explain what’s wrong with people who don’t vote for Democrats or recycle or otherwise agree […]

Mea culpa if, out of irritation, I joined Troll-land, the last place on earth I want to be, when I wrote on Samantha Brick’s now-infamous “don’t hate be because I’m […]

Craig Taylor describes how he went about writing Londoners, a collection of incredibly diverse perspectives that collectively express the soul of this modern city.

Craig Taylor’s Londoners is a humbling reminder that, for all the restless energy we put into categorizing, labeling, and compartmentalizing the world, the only way to understand people and places as they really are is to shut up and listen.   

I’m trying to understand this. Someone called Kristen Stewart, who is a Hollywood actress, issued an apology for having a (brief?) affair: “I’m deeply sorry for the hurt and embarrassment […]

The Daily Mail published an article this week by Samantha Brick, called, “There are Downsides to Looking This Pretty: Why Women Hate Me for Being Beautiful.” Problem is, according to […]

A few weeks ago, I posted a video of “Satellite,” the first single from Anna Dagmar‘s newest album of the same title. I first saw her play at a concert […]

For a long time people thought that the self was unified and eternal. It’s easy to see why. 

A new medical device developed by engineers at MIT can inject drugs into the body without using a needle. Benefits include improving patient compliance rates and preventing accidental pricks. 

When painter Andrew Wyeth passed away in 2009, the reclusive painter took many of the secrets behind his art to the grave. When I heard that the Brandywine River Museum […]

It’s a big challenge being a spiritual teacher in a secular culture. What could be more disconcerting than being a religious authority in a world where there is no consensus […]

Charging a $100,000 membership fee for an online dating site could be a great way to profit off men who want to signal their wealth to potential mates. But the […]

[Author’s Note: I’m reposting some old favorites while I’m away on vacation this week. This post was originally from April 2011.] I’m an atheist, in part, because I’m a moral […]

*spoilers obviously* Films, books, comics and so on are important topics to look at critically. You use the evidence presented in the medium to see whether the action depicted stands […]

Take some standard tools for graphing data. Add the power of three-dimensional printing. Result: Data rendered not as a graph or chart, but as an object. A new frontier in […]

When does an artist become a phenomenon? It’s a rare moment on the scale of seeing a new star emerge in the night sky. Already a rising art world star, […]

I am trying to sell my house at the moment in a particularly hot local housing market. The market isn’t the only thing that is hot. So is my agent. […]

Momentary enthusiasm, a few nice words at the inauguration, then gridlock: it’s the ebb and flow of electoral politics in America, and it’s lead liberal and conservative insiders alike to argue that representatives ought to capitulate every now and then, if only for the sake of negotiation.  

Without feeling like the victim of my own lust, I experienced freedom for the first time in my life.