Search Results

What is the strongest motivation for space exploration today? According to astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, it’s the promise of economic return.   

Mitt Romney addresses the nation at the Republican National Convention on Thursday night. How well have his warm-up acts set the stage for his big speech? I’ll assess the four […]

What is the Big Idea? A new study released on Tuesday shows that immigrants play a leading role in innovation and economic growth in the United States. “Patent Pending: How Immigrants […]

An Internet connection has only now materialized in my new Houston pad, so perhaps you’ll forgive me if I kvetch about last week’s David Brooks column. In the wake of the […]

So the final issue in my class in PUBLIC POLICY this semester is HIGHER EDUCATION.  Here are some controversial propositions generated from papers I’ve just read from the class.  I’m […]

Believe it or not, this post continues with my theme of Cartesian America. As I explained, the Cartesian/Lockean American understands science basically to be technology.  Its point is to make […]

Jad Abumrad loves collecting sounds and playing with high-tech gadgetry, but he deploys his geekery in service of a higher calling – creating in Radiolab a hybrid medium that is a natural evolution of the ancient art of storytelling.

What is the Big Idea? Step into a classroom in North Korea and you will find very little that differs from a classroom in New York City – chalkboard, rows […]

It’s difficult to categorize Siri Hustvedt. She is, first and foremost, a writer and a thinker. Her well-known novels include What I Loved and The Sorrows Of An American. They […]

We expect works of art to enlighten us, and we expect science to enlighten us — yet the two fields are frequently regarded as separate, distinct entities which we respond to using different areas of the brain. Are those distinctions are arbitrary?

Happy International Day of You, women of the world. Unfortunately it remains internationally respectable to argue that science has shown that men are inherently better at math and scientific pursuits […]

Albert Einstein, the most famous scientist of all time, was born on this day in 1879 in the village of Ulm, located in the southwestern corner of the German Empire.  Einstein […]

Surely the greatest scientific discoveries are the product of imaginative energy and curiosity no less intense or pure than that which animates Hamlet or King Lear. Still, the petty squabble between Reason and Imagination that began in the 17th century persists . . .

With bookstores vanishing, the Pulitzer committee skimping on Pulitzers, and the Amazon dragon twining its bright yellow coils around every publisher on Earth, the book industry finds itself in dire peril. But lo! What […]

Anne-Marie Slaughter’s new piece in The Atlantic about how women cannot “have it all” has provoked a wave of commentary, but none that I have seen has mentioned the article’s […]

Students at a small, liberal-arts college complained to Mitt Romney about borrowing money to pursue a college major that doesn’t lead to a job.  He replied, sensibly, that some majors have […]

What’s the Big Idea? Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson believes in the power of science — so much so that he gets hate mail for it. From children. As director of […]

The same unerring perversities of good old fashioned arithmetic that plagued the 2008 Democratic presidential primary have now afflicted the 2012 Republican presidential primary race. Mitt Romney was actually able […]

The dust has cleared from Super Tuesday, and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has a 243 delegate lead over Rick Santorum, who has the next highest delegate total. At this […]

What is the Big Idea? World Health Day is on April 7 and the theme this year is Aging and Health. The World Health Organization provided some key facts about […]

Diane Ravitch tells Big Think what really matters when it comes to learning, inside schools and out. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it’s not K-12 teachers who are most responsible.

By Peadar Coyle It is said that education is something people have strong opinions about. A growing literature has emerged around randomized evaluations of interventions, most notably Esther Duflo’s work on […]

Sigmund Freud postulated that dreaming is a reflection of the unleashed id; it represents one’s deep sexual fantasies and frustrations implanted during childhood. But what happens when we fall asleep […]

Noah Millman intervenes sensibly in the great Douthat–Sanchez debate about morality and religion: Okay, so humanists don’t have strong reasons for their faith in human rights. Do Christians have strong […]

If you took the three-question quiz I posted last week, chances are you answered some items incorrectly. Like some of my smart, accomplished friends and family members who took the […]

Dr, Michio Kaku: Sadly, the US government will no longer boldly go into space. Its up to private enterprise to now pick up the slack and it appears that is exactly what its doing.

New research published in a scientific journal which measures the psychological and behavioral effects of social media suggests that Facebook makes us happier and more creative individuals.

Online dating is a billion dollar industry with some 1,500 dating sites in the United States alone. The industry has successfully marketed itself into the hearts of just about every segment […]

Complex math skills have been discovered in non-primates. 

Rick Santorum had a great day on Tuesday, winning the Republican primaries in both Alabama and Mississippi—a state in which no poll had shown Santorum in the lead. Newt Gingrich, […]