August 28, 2008
The Theory That Ate the World
This is your universe on acid: 10 dimensions of space, seven of which we cannot see, filled almost entirely with dark matter and dark energy — invisible thought stuff that serves to make the cosmologists’ equations come out right.
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August 28, 2008
Maybe Google Isn't Making Us Stupid
"I share [Nicholas] Carr’s concerns about the slapdash urgency of 'bit-rate' language and some of what it might be doing to us. I tend, though, to be irked by slippery-slope, end-times arguments of all-kinds, including this one."
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August 28, 2008
Reinventing Knowledge
How do we know what we know? A new book takes a long view of knowledge, from ancient oral traditions to the rise of universities and the Internet.
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August 27, 2008
RIP: The religion beat?
Is religion news coverage dead?
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August 26, 2008
Behavioral Economics: Is it such a big deal?
Behavioural economics is becoming increasingly fashionable. Does it represent a revolution in economic thinking? Or does it merely provide a few handy insights into the more irrational behaviours of individuals.
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August 26, 2008
Flesh Made Soul
Can a new theory in neuroscience explain spiritual experience to a non-believer?
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August 26, 2008
If Everyone's Talking, Who Will Listen?
In our information overloaded society, how do we know what's worth listening to?
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August 25, 2008
Free Will vs. the Programmed Brain
A new study suggests that people behave less morally as they become more skeptical of free will.
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August 25, 2008
How to Teach Science to the Pope
The Vatican keeps close tabs on the latest science—and integrates new research into its modern theology.
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August 25, 2008
Teacher on the Frontlines
The debate over the teaching of evolution continues.
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August 22, 2008
Sport Can Lift Us Higher
Faster, higher, stronger: the motto of the modern Olympics gives us noble aspirations to live by.
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August 22, 2008
In Praise of Melancholy
American culture's overemphasis on happiness misses an essential part of a full life.
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August 22, 2008
Culture Making as a Creative Call for Christians
"Following Jesus is all about creating alternative, life-giving expressions of culture."
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August 21, 2008
Atheist Baby-Naming Ceremony
Margaret Downey (Secular Officiant and President of the Atheist Alliance International) explains: "Our ceremonies are based on real things such as love and honesty and commitment and the beauty of nature."
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August 21, 2008
The Know-Nothing Party
Has Millenials' facility with technology really made them more informed and civic-minded than previous generations?
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August 21, 2008
A Conversation with Žižek
The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory sits down with Slavoj Žižek.
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August 20, 2008
Do animals understand death?
Do humans?
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August 20, 2008
Looking Squarely at Death, and Finding Clarity
We all expect to go, but few people are certain about their fate.
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August 20, 2008
Torch Bearers
Eric Dunning argues that sport "has taken on the characteristics of a modern, secular religion."
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August 19, 2008
Science v. Religion? Intelligent Design and the Problem of Evolution
Review of Steve Fuller's tome in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.
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August 19, 2008
Galileo, Reconsidered
The first biography of Galileo Galilei resurfaces and offers a new theory as to why the astronomer was put on trial.
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August 19, 2008
The Hoax of Postmodernism
"There are times when we have to do better than 'whatever' and 'anything goes'."
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August 15, 2008
Reforming Ecclesiology
"My argument in this essay has not been that the credal “marks” of the church are wrong, but only that they are not exhaustive."
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August 15, 2008
Happiness, Virtue and Tyranny
How do we mediate between philosophical and psychological concepts of happiness?
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August 15, 2008
Are you losing your memory thanks to the Internet?
The ability to continually look up information is changing how and what we remember. But maybe that's not a bad thing.
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August 14, 2008
Slavoj Zizek Speaks to The Guardian
Parents strongly cautioned.
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August 14, 2008
Human Rights and Ecology
Both Judaism and ecology show us that our humanity is rooted in the earth.
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August 14, 2008
The Roots of European Identity
The founding fathers wanted a union at the service of man and his transcendent being. But is this still the case?
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August 13, 2008
Uncommon Knowledge
Surprising insights from the social sciences.
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August 13, 2008
High-Aptitude Minds
Researchers are finding clues to the basis of brilliance in the brain.
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August 13, 2008
Bohm's Bummed
Wave theory needs 10,000x light speed to work
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August 12, 2008
The Quietest Square Inch in the Country
One man fights to preserve the quiet in a Washington state park because "listening is worship."
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August 12, 2008
Is Science Going to End?
Yes, and the quest will stop well short of solving the greatest mysteries of life and the universe.
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August 12, 2008
Harmony and the Dream
"The rise of China isn’t only an economic event. It’s a cultural one. The ideal of a harmonious collective may turn out to be as attractive as the ideal of the American Dream."
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August 11, 2008
A New State of Mind
New research is linking dopamine to complex social phenomena and changing neuroscience in the process.
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August 11, 2008
Giordano Bruno
The life of a little-known philosopher with some very big ideas.
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August 11, 2008
The Disadvantages of an Elite Education
Our best universities have forgotten that the reason they exist is to make minds, not careers.
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August 08, 2008
Why Environmentalism Needs Theology
"The impending environmental crisis is, like all important realities, a theological problem."
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August 08, 2008
All the Privileged Must Have Prizes
At Harvard "the sedulous banality of the rich degrades teaching into a service-class preoccupation whose chief duty is preparing clients for monied careers."
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August 08, 2008
Lord of the Memes
David Brooks reminds readers that "cultural epochs come and go, but intellectual one-upsmanship is forever."
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August 07, 2008
Speaking to a secular age
Battles in the public square are won with words -- but which ones?
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August 07, 2008
Struck By Lightning
It’s random and electric, and we are forever drawn to its deadly charms.
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August 07, 2008
Is it kosher?
Not unless the producer answers to a Higher Authority.
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August 06, 2008
America's Ten Most Enlightened Cities
Utne magazine ranks U.S. cities based on how rich they are in what Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam calls 'social capital'.
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August 06, 2008
Meet Fethullah Gülen, the World’s Top Public Intellectual
Prospect magazine readers overwhelmingly selected Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen as the world's top public intellectual. Here Gülen speaks in a rare interview.
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August 06, 2008
Europeans Not Like US
Advice for the next American administration in how it should handle its allies across the Atlantic.
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August 01, 2008
Rethinking Philosophy Today
Philosophers from around the world are gathering in Seoul. But you don't have to be a professional to ask the big questions.
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August 01, 2008
The Re-Envisionaries
Five young thinkers who aren't just crossing disciplinary boundaries; they're shattering them.
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August 01, 2008
Abstract Expressionism’s Dueling Duo
What is art criticism today if not a muddied profession?
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July 31, 2008
Sacred Science
Can emergence break the spell of reductionism and put spirituality back into nature?
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July 31, 2008
Thinking About Morality
When we are in a pinch, surprising factors can affect our moral judgments.
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July 31, 2008
Computing in 100 B.C.
After a closer examination of a surviving marvel of ancient Greek technology known as the Antikythera Mechanism, scientists have found that the device not only predicted solar eclipses but also organized the calendar in the four-year cycles of the Olympiad, forerunner of the modern Olympic Games.
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