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You searched for: Will Wilkinson
Can we create an empathic alternative to the capitalist system?
Is capitalism naturally unempathetic?
Stonehenge: a giant cosmic calendar built with the help of ancient Egyptians?
Researchers speculate the famous monument was one of the world’s first solar calendars, possibly inspired by trade with ancient Egyptians.
The 10 best science and technology books of 2020
Perspective twisting books on biology, social science, medical science, cosmology, and tech.
Should you pull the plug on a suffering newborn? A new approach to a difficult question
What do we do when we know an infant will not have a life worth living? Philosophy is here to help.
Too far right and left? DC think tank releases manifesto for radical centrism
Americans must choose the middle path, away from the fundamentalist positions on both the right and the left, argues a Washington think tank.
Ask Ethan: Was The Critical Evidence For The Big Bang Discovered By Accident?
A visual history of the expanding Universe includes the hot, dense state known as the Big Bang and the growth and formation of structure subsequently. The full suite of data, […]
This Is How Your Old Television Set Can Prove The Big Bang
This old-style television set, complete with antennae to pick up broadcast signals, is considered tremendously archaic by modern standards. Yet these antennae are, in some sense, a very specific type […]
4 Arguments That Stop Older Women Getting IVF – And Why They Are Deeply Flawed
Many women are unable to have children due to age restrictions on IVF. Dr. Dominic Wilkinson, Director of Medical Ethics at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, challenges the 4 most flawed arguments.
Why income inequality is not the injustice we perceive it to be
"The starting point for understanding inequality in the context of human progress is to recognize that income inequality is not a fundamental component of well-being."
LHC Researchers Discover an Extraordinarily Heavy Trio of Quarks
LHC researchers discover a double-heavy set of quarks that may reveal new insights into the strong force.
A papyrus reveals how the Great Pyramid was built
A newly discovered papyrus contains an eye-witness account of the gathering of materials for the Great Pyramid.
Ask Ethan: What Were The Greatest Nobel Prize Snubs In Science History?
Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite and holder of 355 patents, established in his 1895 will his wishes to develop the Nobel Prize foundation and the rules under which it […]
Five Discoveries In Fundamental Physics That Came As Total Surprises
The Hubble eXtreme Deep Field, our deepest view of the Universe to date, which reveals galaxies from when the Universe was only 3–4% its current age. The fact that so […]
How does the CMB tell us what’s in the Universe?
The fluctuations in the CMB give rise to the Universe’s structure as it exists today. (Image credit: NASA / WMAP Science Team) The Big Bang’s leftover glow tells us a lot […]
Why Fearing Your Own Death May Make Little Sense
The death of any given person is just a lack of connectedness to future experiences.
CMB Part 1: The “Smoking Gun” of the Big Bang
How the Cosmic Microwave Background — the Big Bang’s leftover radiation glow — continues to shed light on the birth of our Universe. Image credit: ESA and the Planck Collaboration. The announcement of the […]
Five Reasons We Think Dark Matter Exists
No other idea explains even two of these. Image credit: NASA / CXC / ESO WFI / Magellan composite. Any recent article about the remaining mysteries of the Universe will […]
Trick Your Body into Going Faster
There is a reserve of extra performance that the body can be tricked into accessing in competition.
The Man Who Read Justice Roberts’ Mind
Who could have predicted that Chief Justice John Roberts would break with the conservative block on the Supreme Court and write the majority opinion upholding the individual mandate, one of […]
How the GOP Plans to Take the White House in 2016
Enjoy the inauguration of Barack Obama, Democrats: it may be the last opportunity to cheer a president from your party for quite a while.
A Year of Praxis: What Philosophy Teaches Us About Politics, Rationality and the Pursuit of Happiness
“The owl of Minerva,” Hegel wrote, “takes its flight only when the shades of night are gathering.” A year ago I launched Praxis as a forum for thinking reflectively about […]
Rawls, Radicalism and Occupy Wall Street: a Response to Wilkinson
Last Friday, I posted a piece in The Stone at The New York Times suggesting the work of philosopher John Rawls as an intellectual touchstone for the Occupy Wall Street […]
Vaginas Invade Tampa
Following on the heels of the Pussy Riot verdicts in Moscow, about a dozen women from the feminist group Code Pink dressed up in vagina costumes outside the Republican National […]
Chief Justice Roberts’ Civics Lesson
In the avalanche of analysis and speculation about Chief Justice Roberts’ stunning decision to side with the Supreme Court’s liberal wing to uphold Obama’s healthcare law, one strain paints Roberts […]
Can Fiction Improve Us? Yes, That’s What It’s For
In the midst of an intense meditation on Walt Whitman in his Studies in Classic American Literature, D. H. Lawrence suddenly proclaims: The essential function of art is moral. Not […]
The Buffett Rule, Rebuffed: What Now?
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.
Memorial Day, Every Day
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, […]
States, Markets, and Basic Liberties
Ned Resnikoff picks up on my old post, via a terrific recent one by Daniel Little, on the radicalism of John Rawls’ position on economic liberty: If we’ve to fairly […]
Want to Be Happy? Don’t Pursue Happiness
Happiness is not an unalloyed good, Kant says. Without the correct character and orientation, without a sense of duty, happiness is just an animalistic state of mind.