Feeding Mind, Pursuing Truth
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- Blog 3 Columns
Neuroscientist: Some Vegetative Patients Can Communicate0
- Education
- October 13, 2016
John Smith, a 34-year-old father of two, was driving his car to bowling when he was involved in an accident. His skull sustained a severe trauma and he was admitted to the intensive care unit. John was in a coma, at serious risk of death. Luckily, critical-care nurses and physicians managed to save his life.
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How to Fix U.S. Elections0
- Education
- October 13, 2016
Experts rate the performance of recent American elections as the worst among two dozen Western democracies. Why? Some longstanding practices are to blame. Partisan gerrymandering insulates incumbents. Infotainment-dominated commercial news reduce campaigns to spectator sport. Social media amplifies angry trolls. Ballot access laws restrict third-party challengers. Women and minority candidates have to fight a hostile
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Distinguished Prof: The ‘Whiteness of Pumpkins’ Has Become ‘Perilous’1
- October 13, 2016
Lisa Powell, a postdoctoral fellow in British Columbia, and Elizabeth Engelhardt, Distinguished Professor of Southern Studies at the University of North Carolina, have just released an essay in a peer-reviewed journal that offers an analysis of race relations in America today. The title of their paper? “The Perilous Whiteness of Pumpkins.” Seriously. Listen, the jumping
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Did Alexander Hamilton Have a Love Affair With John Laurens?2
- Culture
- October 13, 2016
In April 1779, as the American Colonies struggled to gain their independence from England, a 24-year-old Alexander Hamilton sent this letter to John Laurens, a 23-year-old South Carolinian: Cold in my professions, warm in my friendships, I wish, my Dear Laurens, it might be in my power, by action rather than words, to convince you that I love
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Blind Astrophysicist Discovers Way to Listen to Stars0
- Science
- October 13, 2016
As a person who regularly gazes up into the darkness of night, musing over the millions of tiny, bright stars that flicker in the sky, losing my eyesight would easily be one of the most tragic things to happen to me. A Puerto Rican astrophysicist named Wanda Diaz Merced grew up dreaming about traveling to
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Why There Are No Kids’ Menus in Italy0
- Culture
- October 12, 2016
We’ve all been there at some point in time. The family goes out to enjoy a nice dinner at a restaurant. The menus come, the waitress takes orders… and your youngest child orders a grilled cheese sandwich. Off the kids’ menu. At a ridiculously high price considering it’s just bread, cheese, and a few pickles.
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Why Fairy Tales Are So Dangerous1
- Literature
- October 12, 2016
Dear Mr. Dawkins, You’ve said lately that fairy tales are quite harmful. Your reason for thinking this is simple, and true: you told attendees at the Cheltenham Science Festival, “I think it’s rather pernicious to inculcate into a child a view of the world which includes supernaturalism … Even fairy tales, the ones we all
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The Genius of Byzantium: Reflections on a Forgotten Empire1
- History
- October 12, 2016
“Le grand absent—c’est l’Empire” C. Dufour, Constantinople Imaginaire Everywhere Western man longs for Constantinople and nowhere has he any idea how to find her. To do so is to reclaim, at last, the meaning of an empire that once defined a hierarchy of imagination long ago abandoned by our civilization; of an eleven-century political, religious and
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Princeton Prof: Why it’s Dangerous to Overlook the Past1
- History
- October 12, 2016
Not long ago, my colleague Daniel Lattier suggested that a new logical fallacy has been lurking around town. This fallacy, he wrote, could be labeled “ad nostalgiam.” A person commits this fallacy when she reflexively accuses someone of nostalgia for pointing out some particular thing was once better or superior. Revered Princeton professor, theologian, and
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