The future of humanity depends on it. “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach […]
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A spellbinding case of justified paranoia is documented this week in the New Yorker. Researcher Tyrone Hayes upset the manufacturer of the second most popular herbicide in the US (since […]
Not many art stories make the cover of both TIME and Newsweek in the same week, but the revelation of Andrew Wyeth’s infamous “Helga Paintings” in 1986 caused a news […]
Critics contend that multiple-choice tests only encourage two things: rote memorization and hand-eye coordination.
Michael Sandel: I think the reason we have such an impoverished public debate is that we are too reluctant to take on hard controversial, but important moral questions that really go to the heart of the question of what kind of society do we want to live in.
“If all you do is mock the people who disagree with you, you miss your chance to honestly engage with them, learn about where they come from, and — just maybe — teach them a little piece of something that they might not have known before.”
It’s one of the most bragged-about vehicle specs of any racing enthusiast. But what, exactly, does it mean? “Understeer is when you hit the wall with the front of the car.Oversteer […]
Ethan Nadelmann describes the War on Drugs as a prime example of the risk perception gap becoming a risk in and of itself.
Gurbaksh Chahal: At 16, the first person I hired was my older brother. I knew I could trust him implicitly and he’d already been my confidante and helper.
We cannot and we must not become Chinese, and at heart we don’t want to either. We must not seek ideal or higher meaning of life in China or in […]
The International Criminal Court might indict a sitting president in Africa, but what is the likelihood that it will indict Putin?
It makes sense for us to be taught how to learn before we are taught any specific subject matter. But rarely, if ever, does that happen.
How the second most common element in the Universe is being lost from Earth, most of it for good. “I have this one little saying, when things get too heavy just […]
No snark, no sarcasm, no judgement, just the genuine, honest answers to 22 creationist messages. “In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; […]
We’re letting unnatural laws unduly influence us. A fuss about “simple economics” can remind us that markets aren’t like gravity, and their so-called laws are neither laws of nature nor […]
Miya Tokumitsu writes with incisive elegance about our altogether elitist and self-indulgent view that our experts have these days about the relationship between love and work. That view, of course, […]
The next generation will have plenty of gadgets when it grows up, but will it be happier? We need to measure that more carefully.
“The most important things to do in the world are to get something to eat, something to drink and somebody to love you.” – Brendan Behan (born on this date in 1923)
“Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.”- James Dean
Plus a bonus: perhaps the single most important achievement to all of humanity. “What was most significant about the lunar voyage was not that men set foot on the Moon, […]
“An absolutely new idea is one of the rarest things known to man.”- Sir Thomas More (born on this date in 1478)
“Accursed be he that first invented war.” – Christopher Marlowe (born on this date in 1564)
“I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance.”- Adlai Stevenson (born on this date in 1900)
“This is the character of the Chinese people […] unconstrained morality, in practice and theory, Heart, inward Religion, Science and Art properly so-called – is alien to it. […] The […]
“How do you do that?” young Charlie Parker would ask older musicians. “Would you please do that again?” Those who know jazz, or who only know of jazz greats such […]
Manipulation is a vicious yet not uncommon human trait. Our ability to alter our surroundings in order to take advantage of a situation was recently on display in The Wolf […]
The pleasure center, increasingly hard to satisfy, is screaming “More!” But primitive centers that control breathing and heart rate are not building up tolerance at the same pace and are whispering “Enough.”
The Bill Nye-Ken Ham/ Science Versus Creationism debate scheduled for tonight has caught fire on social media. Here are some of our favorite Tweets in anticipation of the debate.
The greatest enemy we face – one that is indeed greater than any external threat – is the uncontrolled mind.