While the desire to tax churches is not new, it seems as far from reality as possible at this moment. As has been commented, no atheist could possibly hope to […]
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Michael J. Sandel is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he has taught political philosophy since 1980. His recent book, Justice: What’s […]
New York City recently became radicalized out of necessity in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Simply put, when systems broke down, New Yorkers improvised, and took matters into their own hands.
With the presidential election less than a month away, it’s hard to go to a museum or gallery in the United States right now and not see art that either […]
Down in the dumps? You’d better watch your wallet, among other things.
Smug confidence in human reason, and the belief that once fully educated and informed people will then make the objectively ‘right’ decision about risk, only widens the gap and increases the danger.
A decade ago, Chris Hedges titled his analysis of the addictive power of war War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. If war truly is a force that gives […]
Effectively engaging the American public on climate change—including its causes, impacts, and solutions—remains both a major research question and a communication challenge. Effective public engagement requires understanding the cognitive, affective, […]
According to The Independent, a recent Yale-Moscow State University study has found “a modest but statistically significant familiality and heritability element to creative writing.” The conclusion was based on an evaluation […]
On the basis of having for a time shared a house with a John Roberts clerk who conveyed to me no useful information about the Chief Justice’s cast of mind, […]
The first time I listened to Pinkerton, Weezer’s second studio album, I hated it. And so did almost everyone else. Rolling Stone readers ranked it as the third worst album […]
From Fortune 500 companies to Presidential campaigns, it seems everyone has bought into the power of memes to move a message. And nobody bought in earlier than Ben Lashes, the […]
To celebrate her Jubilee year, the Queen had a large chunk of Antarctica named after her; possibly upsetting the Argentinians and Chileans.
For the third year running, here’s a very personal, very subjective, “I can’t read everything, so I probably left out something, so mention it in the comments, OK?” list of […]
Michael Sandel, the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard,writes: As naming rights and municipal marketing appropriate the common world, they diminish its public character. Beyond […]
Modern campaigns have rarely focused on the issues, but in the 2012 election the level of moral outrage and anger is unprecedented. Even before the campaign, America was divided, but […]
I’m not sure any of the reader suggestions to replace the deeply unpopular term “redistribution” will quite cut it as bumper sticker slogans for the fall election. But leaving aside proposals from […]
Today’s breaking news was, of course, that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as “Obamacare”. In what will doubtless go down in American history […]
What’s the Big Idea? Perhaps the better question is, do humans speak dog? Either way, the debate over whether language is unique to humans, or a faculty also possessed by […]
Ironically, America as a nation seems to have forgotten exactly what Memorial Day is about. Barbeques, all-day sales, the “official” start of summer—all of these threaten to crowd out the […]
The following is an upcoming post for CreativityPost.com. It riffs on themes I discussed in my previous post on humor. If you have not already, check out CreativityPost.com. There’s great […]
What’s the Big Idea? Until the 1980s, the scientific consensus was that the nervous system was fixed and incapable of regeneration. Growth of neurons was considered most active during prenatal […]
Note: Before you comment to say “This is not going to change the mind of someone who would issue a death threat”, please don’t. That’s not my point. Ask yourself […]
Every May brings with it a new crop of college graduation speeches. This spring, few (maybe none) were as though-provoking as multimedia artist Laurie Anderson’s at the School of Visual […]
I’m the only one who can get you out of the situation that you’re in.
It’s France, 1785. An Englishman offers a surgeon money to perform a pretty standard operation: leg amputation. However, for the surgeon, there is no good medical reason to do so, […]
Just when you think you’ve gotten away from the so-called “grandmother cell,” it comes around again. It’s the proverbial Whack-A-Mole in the neuroscience world. No matter how many times the […]
Maybe it’s because I’m a product of post-sixties America, born into an anti-authoritarian culture of individual liberty and self-expression. Maybe it’s because I’m the rebellious son of a tough, Italian-American mother. But I’ve always had issues with discipline . . .
With Stephen Colbert on vacation this week, Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona seems to have jumped into the role of the laughable conservative who makes ridiculous arguments with a straight face — or, in this case, who tries to make worthwhile political science research sound ridiculous.
A Q&A With Dr. John L. Casti, author, X-Events: The Collapse of Everything Dr. John L. Casti is a complexity scientist. This is one of those job descriptions I would […]