Leaving aside a few notable exceptions, the reactions to the latest UN Conference on Sustainable Development—Rio+20, as it’s widely known—read like a collective obituary for global governance. Mark McDonald catalogued […]
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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.
The “slippery slope” is a popular argument in the same-sex marriage debate. Where do you draw the line, opponents argue? If you start allowing marriage between people of the same […]
In Acts of God and Man: Ruminations on Risk and Insurance,Michael Powers examines how risk impacts our lives, health, and possessions and how we can go about analyzing the uncertainty. In […]
What’s the Big Idea? If the scientific consensus had been right, Sue Barry would still be seeing in 2-D. Barry was born with strabismus, a condition which prevented her eyes from gazing in […]
A few years ago I gave a sermon at my (very liberal) church asking the question: “What determines the limit to our tolerance?” After the service, one member of the […]
Here at Mind Matters, we aren’t big fans of militant atheism, or any other doctrine that prefers to explain away other views, rather than engaging them. I’m convinced that rhetorical […]
If there’s a villain in Rosalind E. Krauss’ newest book, Under Blue Cup, it’s Marcel Duchamp. Art fell in the toilet with the dawn of Duchamp’s Fountain.
Big Think hit the streets (the intersection of Wall & Broad, NYC) during the AM rush hour this Friday, May 18th with a guerilla theater piece for Facebook IPO day. […]
Imagine if Rip Van Winkle fell asleep in 1992 and woke up yesterday. He would probably be amazed at the extent to which our national conversation on reproductive health has […]
I’ve been grazing online, looking for a place to host my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary. When I talk to event organizers at venues, you can hear them stop short, and […]
By Aaron Smith Since the beginning of the digital age, pundits have hailed virtual currencies as the future of our civilization’s money. While it may be difficult to imagine a […]
You should treat your life as if it were a start-up business.
With SETI’s search for extraterrestrial life running on all cylinders again, two questions must be raised: How do we make contact? And how do we make meaningful contact? Big Think asked Bill Nye, aka, ‘The Science Guy,’ who heads The Planetary Society.
What is the Big Idea? Zambia-born Kunj Desai is a doctor in Newark, NJ where his salary is nearly ten times that of what he gets paid back home. He […]
The Being Human Conference, which took place at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts this weekend, was designed to explore the science of human experience. The speakers ranged from neuroscientists, […]
We need to double down on collective leadership in both the public and private sectors. It’s the only way to make things work in what many would call our broken society – a society in which people (whether they’re employees or voters) desperately yearn for competence at the top.
The Etch-a-Sketch to which Mitt Romney has been disparagingly likened is a wonderful toy. The Ohio Art Company invented it in 1960, and it was one of the original inductees […]
I’d like to tell you why Rick Santorum’s extreme religious views should be blamed for hampering his campaign’s performance on Super Tuesday, but I don’t believe that to be true. […]
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 […]
The Economist hosted its “Ideas Economy” event this week at the Berkeley Haas School of Business to talk about disruptive technologies, entrepreneurship, and economic growth. The focus of the event […]
Western organizations have big, big plans for the penises of millions of African men. They are to be clipped, and in short order. In Tanzania alone there is a plan […]
“We are stardust. We are golden. We are billion year old carbon. And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden,” sang Joni Mitchell in her song “Woodstock.” Every […]
Neither, says Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary and president of Harvard. In these tight times, health, education and social protection are the industries most in need of reinvention.
Practically every progressive Democrat in the country knows what ALEC stands for—American Legislative Exchange Council—and the true purpose behind it. Rich conservatives basically took the model that has been used […]
As was so aptly said just a few days ago: It is hard to make an argument that there are many desirable post-secondary educational or career scenarios for current high […]
When asked by CNN’s John King what he thinks about the Pentagon’s recent decision to allow female troops to serve nearer the front lines of battle, Rick Santorum replied that […]
One of the biggest problems with lists is that with lists come labels. A list of African-American artists or women artists already sets them up as different (and perhaps less, […]
Over the weekend, I looked back at this blog’s most popular posts from 2011. I like to believe they were popular because readers found them interested and recommended them to […]
What’s the Big Idea? If seeing is believing, then how do we come to know? One common misperception holds that vision springs directly from the eyes. True, the eyes, ears, and […]