Culture & Religion

Philosopher Alva Noë explains why neuroscientists assume the answer to an old philosophical question that really can’t be resolved.

Sotheby’s will auction off 380 pieces from Bowie’s collection later this year. The collection is “eclectic, unscripted, [and] understated,” according to Sotheby’s European chairman Oliver Barker.

Are robots and AI really ready for us to begin depending on them?

Wilt Chamberlain dominated basketball. Yet given the chance to improve one critical element of his game, he let popular opinion override physics.

Healthcare, education, food production, and resource management will all have to change if we are to survive and thrive.   

Languages the world over have words for love we all seem to understand.

Businesses looking to get people in the door may want to check out Pokémon Go. Seriously.

Physicist Lawrence Krauss explains why understanding new theories in physics is so hard, and why it’s so much fun.

How many kinds of stories are there? From Harry Potter, to Oedipus and Romeo and Juliet, scientists at University of Vermont use data modeling to figure it out. 

Nintendo has recently-released the Pokémon Go smartphone game has taken the U.S. by storm, ushering in a new age in gaming and augmented reality.

Some within the autism community take issue with seeing autistic people as having a disorder, decrying the “cure culture”.

It seems very odd now, but one of the greatest thinkers ever, believed that we could rely on the love of math and its beauty to make us better people. Here’s why Plato thought so…

When the news media don’t do their job, comedians step in to ask the tough questions.

The conflict between faiths is one good reason to doubt God’s existence.

Most amusement parks like Disney and Six Flags pride themselves on being family friendly attractions. These parks do not.

An expansive new study makes clear the extent of the problem and the importance of parents in avoiding teen drug use.

In Queer Virtue, gay Episcopal priest Elizabeth M. Edman argues for a new take on this old religion.

Demagoguery, colonizing Mars, and the perpetual pendulum of party politics. Princeton Historian Sean Wilentz on the Think Again podcast

Big Think teams up with Hyper, a new premium video app that curates 10 videos each day, with no buffering or data depletion.

Henry Rollins talks about how fear of winding up starting in The America drove his to his remarkable career.

Plato wasn’t worried that democracy tended to lead to Donald Trump-style tyranny (despite what Andrew Sullivan claims). Here’s what he was really concerned about.   

The faithless and feminine have taken control over the battle of the Seven Kingdoms. 

A new study highlights the new ethical dilemmas caused by the rise of robotic and autonomous technology, like self-driving cars.

One writer’s journey through a video game that can only be completed by writing.

Ricky Gervais explains how he stopped believing in God and how to be Christian without God or religion.

Intuition is not a mystical realm of psychology, but rather unconscious pattern recognition. 

As the ‘Leave’ vote became clear around 6 a.m. this morning, confirming the surprise exit of Britain from the European Union, British citizens apparently took to the Google to find exactly what they had done. 

The Grammy-nominated comedian on mean jokes, bigotry, courage, and bringing light vs. darkness into the world. 

Bill Nye explains the ways in which creationism hurts kids by making scientific inquiry impossible.

Psychedelics came en vogue in the 1960s and since then have been maligned as inducing psychosis. Today, some evidence suggests that tiny doses of these drugs may be useful for curing psychological disorders such as depression, PTSD, and social anxiety, among others. But more research is needed and there are hurdles to overcome.