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As I was listening to Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers last night while surfing the web, I discovered that Gil Scott Heron had died. Heron has always been an […]

Sam Tanenhaus interviewed Harold Bloom for The New York Times; the video is here. It’s a very cool, very short, interview. It will be historic, too—not only for capturing Bloom […]

I have to admit I’ve been warming up a bit to the out-there techno-optimism of Ray Kurzweil displayed so prominently on BIG THINK.  He (like lots of people) has been […]

Is studying the brain a good way to understand the mind? V.S. Ramachandran, director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego, thinks the answer is definitely yes.

With typically Hibernian hyperbole, James Joyce once claimed that “if [Dublin] suddenly disappeared from the earth, it could be reconstructed from my book.” That book would of course be Ulysses […]

Don’t pick on the sprouts, and don’t even pick on Organic. The danger here is the way you and I perceive and respond to risk, a subconscious decision-making process that often works well, but which sometimes can create risks all by itself.

That’s what this study shows.  Actually, the study is pretty modest–not to mention Finnish.  But the expert doesn’t hesitate to draw global implications from it. One conclusion:  The Left is more […]

So here’s a ferocious attack on new atheist Sam Harris from the Nation, our country’s leading leftist publication.  The conclusion: Harris is oblivious to this moral crisis [of selfish individualism]. His self-confidence […]

Colleagues Tony Leiserowitz and Ed Maibach have released their latest survey report in the Global Warming Six Americas series. Below is the email summary from Tony describing the results from […]

Two New York City police officers have been acquitted of raping a woman in her apartment while they were on duty in 2008. In the words of New York lawyer […]

1.  According to our really cool BIG THINK physicist, Michio Kaku, evolution has stopped for our species. 2. But that doesn’t mean we can’t change ourselves. 3. So, in the […]

Looking to past elections to predict the outcome of one soon to come doesn’t usually work that well.  Back in October 2008, I looked to eight past elections to try […]

I’ve been asked whether I should reconsider my recent praise of AMERICAN IDOL as an admirably and characteristically American mixture of wisdom and consent.  Although I can’t really speak as […]

I don’t know if this is such an appropriate post for Sunday morning. A study from Northwestern shows that people who regularly attend religious services are 50% more likely to become […]

In recent years, scientists have begun to outline the surprising benefits of not paying attention. Sometimes, too much focus can backfire; all that caffeine gets in the way.

“Resist what resists in you,” the god Krishna tells heroic Arjuna in Peter Brook’s epic theatrical version of The Mahabharata. “Become yourself!” This is, as the experimental philosopher Joshua Knobe […]

These days, some of the most important and significant innovation is taking place within the context of building a more eco-friendly, eco-conscious world. In fact, I’ve added a brand new […]

Gabrielle Giffords reminds me of Phineas Gage, a nineteenth century railroad worker who survived being pierced cleanly through the brain by a thirteen pound iron bar. In both cases,  the victim’s core brain functions remained relatively unscathed.

A conscious business is not just about maximizing profits and shareholder value. It’s becoming aware of the deeper purpose that a business has.

I blogged before about my regular column on technology and higher education for Technology & Learning magazine. My latest article is now available: The importance of being ‘clickable’ Here’s an […]

The mainstream is beginning to accept the “post-rational view of the mind, but what next? How do we rethink our societal assumptions and institutions? Join the conversation here with the After Thought Project.

A week and a half ago, I found myself at Camp Nelson, which trained the third largest contingent of African American soldiers during the Civil War, the sole African American […]

The cognitive revolution of the past 30 years provides a different perspective on our lives, one that emphasizes the relative importance of emotion over pure reason.

It’s not easy to imagine today in our world of high-speed photography and camera phones what it was like to have your photograph taken in the 19th century. The still […]

Many of us don’t think much about the back of our business cards. I think they’re an opportunity. Here’s what it says on the back of my card: … and […]

When GE first announced its Ecomagination marketing campaign to promote all the ways that the company is leveraging innovation throughout each of its core businesses, it looked like a slam […]

Some on the right are challenging congressional Republicans to increase federal investment in science and technology.

So here’s a rare treat: The leading historian of our Founding (Gordon Wood) receives a thoughtful and sympathetic–but indirectly somewhat critical–review by our leading political scientific student of our Founding (James […]

Nature is smart, efficient and innovative. That’s why scientists and engineers all over the world try to copy it in their labs. The field concerned with imitating nature is called biomimetics.

So I know you’ve missed me:  Well, I’ve been busy hearing about various scientific accounts of virtue at the meeting of the recipients of the University of Chicago Science of […]