While we know superstitious laws are silly, we may be better off obeying them. Doing so will save us the guilt of having gone against conventional wisdom if misfortune should come our way.
Search Results
You searched for: D A
We’re getting older. Not just as individuals, and not just as a country, but as a world. A census report projects that between 2010 and 2050, the US will face a rapid […]
Once limited to making one-off prototypes, 3D printers are advancing rapidly. Already they are used to make durable airplane parts and may be used to revolutionize architecture.
Not fearing this age’s breakneck technological change, two of the nation’s most prestigious universities are set to offer their classes to anyone in the world with an Internet connection.
What is the Big Idea? Samir N. Kapadia’s career in Washington D. C. seemed routine in comparison to the exciting jobs his friends had in India, a surging nation in […]
If you ever find yourself in a bar that takes art history trivia bets, here’s a sure winner: Who is the only artist to be named by TIME Magazine as […]
I’ve spent the last two weeks getting licensed to work in a new field. Mitt Romney has spent the last two weeks since Rick Santorum dropped out of the race […]
When you’re hiring someone new, the biggest concerns are typically how the person will fit into the organization, and whether his or her experience directly matches the position. The same […]
As I’ve written before, I’m a skeptical of claims, like Jonathan Gottschall’s, about the power of stories to make us better people. Adam Gopnik of The New Yorkeris skeptical too. […]
The questions in this quiz are adaptations of items from research studies from the 1960s to the 1980s, initiated by Daniel Kahneman and his late research partner, Amos Tversky.
What’s the Big Idea? Peggielene Bartels was an administrative assistant in Washington D.C. when she got a phone call informing her she’d been elected King of Otuam, the Ghanian fishing […]
When I heard the news of Jonah Lehrer’s fabrications on Monday — indiscretions that led to an apology and his resignation from the New Yorker on Tuesday — my jaw fell. Like […]
As you may be aware, Leah Libresco at Unequally Yoked had a startling announcement yesterday: she’s converting to Catholicism. I have to admit, though others will no doubt chastise me […]
During my last trip to San Francisco, I reported on my discovery of a woman who receives messages from God in his actual handwriting. I’m amused to report that I’ve […]
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. […]
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.
A Berkeley physics discussion group asked “the late night big questions of quantum theory” which served to refocus the field of quantum physics.
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 […]
An angelic lady from the pre-raphaelite school of femmes fatales is stretched across a map of Europe. Her raised hands clutch a sketch of the late-19th-century European rail network at two of […]
I’ve been contemplating the notion of a graduated return to normalcy for about a year. A few days from election, with Obama’s chances having dimmed considerably, would seem to be […]
With respect to the cosmos, mankind has just been born. Hypothetically, if our 14 billion-year-old universe were scaled down to just 10 years (for the sake of comparison), dinosaurs would […]
The idea of artists running museums sounds to many like allowing the inmates to run the asylum. A profile in the current issue of The New Yorker of Tate Gallery […]
Christian Lorentzen makes an excellent point excellently: Tougher for the novelist are the tasks of rendering convincing characters across the class spectrum and capturing economic intricacies in a way that’s […]
This article was originally published on AlterNet. What kind of world would we have if a majority of the human race was atheist? To hear religious apologists tell it, the […]
“[T]he Author of Nature has determin’d us to receive… a Moral Sense, todirect our Actions, and to give us still nobler Pleasures.” That appeal was made in 1725 by Scottish philosopher […]
[Author’s Note: In keeping with the tradition that whenever you have a blog post whose title is a question, the answer is always “no”…] Of all the essays I’ve written, […]
The Matrix is real… and everyone here at NASA for the GSP has taken the red pill. If you recall in the movie, Neo is startled, puzzled, and quite frankly […]
Reductionists believe that memories, emotions, and feelings can be broken down to nothing more than interactions between brain cells and their associated molecules. In other words, “you” are your brain.
My brother Erik Nisbet, a professor of communication at The Ohio State University, will be giving a free webinar today on climate change communication, sponsored by the Changing Climate project […]
What’s the Big Idea? There are not only wrong answers — there are also wrong questions, says Slavoj Žižek, philosopher and author of Big Think’s most recent Book of the Month. And sometimes […]