Guest Thinkers — November 28, 2009

Post-Thanksgiving Post

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Ebay has mapped out its Black Friday transactions. It’s was a real east-of-the-Mississipi kind of day.

Let’s all give thanks for a robust 2^nd Amendment.

Animal rights activists react to Obama pardoning two turkeys. They were saved from a “terrible and delicious fate”, the president said.

William Burroughs’ Thanksgiving Prayer.

Amen.

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Grayscale image showing a flying object captured on radar screen with various data markings.

13.8

New UFO hearings continue an “endless loop” of sensation

Astronomer Adam Frank asks: With so many extraordinary claims, why can’t anybody produce the proof?

A gloved hand grips a vaccine-loaded syringe, framed by a red-tinted portrait of a historical figure in the center and a grainy black-and-white landscape on the right.

Thinking

Everyday Philosophy: When should you try to change your friend’s beliefs?

“I have a friend who thinks vaccines cause autism,” writes Nina. “What can I do?”

Medical professionals, with an unwavering focus on patient care, don blue surgical masks and caps in a hospital setting, ensuring their work remains free from bias and dedicated to the well-being of each individual.

Business

How “Taleb’s Surgeon” redefines what expertise look like

The truly talented are those who got to where they are despite preconceived expectations.

A man with short, grayish hair, wearing a dark blazer and black shirt, stares directly at the camera against a black background.

Sam Harris: Your mind is all you have. Is yours working?

“I think we need a truly open-ended conversation with 8 billion strangers, and what makes that hard to do increasingly is a level of political fragmentation and extremism and partisanship born of our engagement with these new technologies.”

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10 min

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with

Sam Harris

Starts With A Bang

Ask Ethan: How do scientists color the Universe?

When we see pictures from Hubble or JWST, they show the Universe in a series of brilliant colors. But what do those colors really tell us?

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