Category: ideas

Perhaps no quality has been more reviled and scorned but less clearly defined. Fear is often useful, after all, and most writers who approach the subject of cowardice wind up writing about its opposite, courage, instead. Chris Walsh looks at the factor that seems to make the difference.

“Religions with ‘moralizing high gods’ – that is, powerful supernatural beings that oversee human events and take an active interest in how humans are behaving – are more likely to be found in cultures residing in ecologically harsh areas,” a new study has found.

“Alien abduction has been considered a fantasy, a hoax, and even to some, a fact; but it is now clear that it may also represent a recovered memory.” The key: “accidental awareness under general anesthesia” (waking up during surgery).

“The realism canard” is what critic Isaac Butler calls the tendency to find fault with works of fiction, especially films, because events and conditions in them aren’t like real life. (For instance, in outer space, you can’t hear explosions.) Problem is, our brains are fooled by filmed images a lot more than we’d like to think.

Most popular ideas about science and progress – and many scientists – ignore or gloss over the extent to which religious thought was crucial to the founding breakthroughs of modern science.

“There are speech patterns and facial expressions said to be ‘cues,’ but these are often unreliable, and can be overcome, particularly when the liar in question doesn’t care if you believe her or not. (Wanting to be believed stresses us out, which can lead to giveaways like averted eye contact and stammering.)”

“Giving cover to pseudoscience movements violates standards of good scholarship and can damage the institution’s reputation in the eyes of prospective students and faculty. Yet universities are also supposed to be committed to free inquiry.”

“The rise of spoiler-free criticism seems like a move away from criticism as art — and a move toward criticism as an arm of fandom marketing. It’s fine to not want spoilers in your criticism. But there is something distasteful about the assumption that providing spoilers is some sort of lapse in ethics or etiquette.”

“Blissfully zonked out by prolactin, our night brains allow ideas to emerge and intertwine as they might in a dream.”

“Something as small as needing to use the bathroom seems to be enough to remind us how much of our waking hours are devoted to attending to the physical needs of these bone-and-muscle sacks we’re dragging around.”