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If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time you’ll probably be familiar with the name Sokal from the Sokal affair, the scandal in 1996 in which physicist […]

Time magazine covers seem custom-designed to annoy me. The latest example is their “The Childfree Life” cover. Stories of the childfree lifestyle are always illustrated this way. They feature a […]

An algorithm that distills articles into poetry has several purposes, including acknowledging National Poetry Month and giving readers one more way to experience the Old Gray Lady’s content.

If you actually look at Facebook’s effect on our brains, it’s like taking a drug. The problem, according to Jonathan Harris, is that with software that makes you come back over and over again, you become the product.

In the 43 years since Earth Day was first observed, the number of Americans who view conscious environmentalism as “very important” has dropped by almost a quarter, according to a new poll.

Here is a statement that shouldn’t result in anyone being called racist: I think religion is a particularly harmful way of viewing the world, because it encourages irrational thought, groupthink, […]

There’s a popular myth in the American yoga community that Indian vegetarianism began as a spiritual response to humanity’s place in the cosmos. The concept of ahimsa, or non-violence, is […]

Last week, Harry Beck finally got his blue plaque. The house where the designer of the iconic London Tube map spent his first years is now marked by a memorial […]

If there’s one thing that unites the good guys in movies and TV shows, it’s a hatred of “procedure”—those legal niceties that get the bad guys out of jail and […]

Isogloss maps are irresistible, even if they are about cucumbers

A few weeks ago, when I published an article on vegetarianism as a political tool, I received emails and comments from people in India contesting the opening graphs, which were […]

Twitter is often asked to give up user information to government agencies and Twitter often complies. Not this time.

Citing that it causes confusion, the Mid-Devon local government will discuss proposals to remove the punctuation mark from street signs altogether. Unsurprisingly, language and grammar purists are outraged.

One thing that distinguishes us conservatives from libertarians is that we’re actually worried about growing inequality in America. We’re not that obsessed by the bare fact of economic inequality, but […]

The argument over guns is a complex topic, but we ought not to dismiss arguments because they do not square with our gut feelings – regardless of whether we want more or less guns, more or less laws. 

Krishnamurti was faced with an unsolvable dilemma not unfamiliar to spiritual teachers. He often implored his audience to not take anything he says as truth, but to find it for […]

In the middle of writing and reading about gun policy and morality, I was horrified to see responses to writer Sam Harris’ essay on gun control. For example, this one […]

America’s nuclear waste is all dressed up in dry cask storage, with nowhere to go. In 1987, the Yucca Mountain, Nevada, was designated as a “deep geologic dispersal” site for […]

Before the end of the Second World War, officials from the Allied nations met up at a resort town in New Hampshire to create a new economic order for the […]

So the University of Colorado has hired my friend Steve Hayward to be a visiting professor in conservative thought and policy.  Some alum’ funded the position because he believed that students […]

Swamped this week. Here’s a post originally published on my personal blog to fill the void.  Like many features of the human condition, the first psychological account of disgust comes […]

The facts aren’t in, but here’s what we know: The internationally renowned athlete, Oscar Pistorius, was part of a violent shooting at his home, resulting in the death of his […]

A centerpiece of Mastermind is that the brain operates using two contrasting systems, which Konnikova terms System Holmes and System Watson.

If you live in an American city, chances are this past summer and fall you have experienced the health effects of climate change.  As Richard Harris reported at NPR News in September, […]

Nutritionists say kale—a vegetable in the Brassica family along with broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage—is full of vitamins and antioxidants that help to prevent cancer. 

We have reached a moral, legal and demographic tipping point in the controversy. Many signs point to an imminent marriage revolution: gay and lesbian Americans across the country will enjoy a right to marry — maybe before the end of the year. 

Poetry critic and Harvard professor Helen Vendler has published a refreshing article in Harvard magazine, in which she encourages the school to welcome mediocre students who also happen to be great writers. […]

Henry Molaison, known for most of his life as H.M., was a medical oddity. Surgery to cure severe epilepsy in the 1950s led to the removal of his hippocampus, which […]

To answer my own headline, not likely. The National Rifle Association seems to lead an “Even I Can’t Kill Me” charmed existence as the most powerful lobby in DC, and […]

Thanks to the hilarious and provocative Rob Reiner film,When Harry Met Sally, there is one debate that still gets even the most reticent people taking a stand.  And, that, of […]