Marcelo Gleiser: “We don’t have to look for the mind of God in Nature and try to express it through our equations. Imperfect Nature has plenty to offer, if we are willing to embrace its message. The search for an all-embracing theory of Nature inspired by beauty and perfection is misguided, rooted in the monotheistic culture that has for so long dominated Western thought.”
Category: ideas
What Cognitive Scientists Are Learning About How We Study
“In recent years, cognitive scientists have shown that a few simple techniques can reliably improve what matters most: how much a student learns from studying. … But they directly contradict much of the common wisdom about good study habits, and they have not caught on.”
Are Our Cities Losing Their Social Porousness?
“In the twenty-first century–the first in which the majority of people will live in cities–this unique link between urbanism and upward mobility is under threat. Urban boosters still maintain that big cities remain unique centers for social uplift, but evidence suggests this is increasingly no longer the case.”
The Shrinking City Problem
“Cities don’t always grow. Sometimes they shrink, and sometimes they shrink drastically. Over the last 50 years, the city of Detroit has lost more than half its population. So has Cleveland. They’re not alone: Eight of the 10 largest cities in the United States in 1950, including Boston, have since lost at least 20 percent of their population.”
How The Brain Interprets Images (It Needs Help)
The precise neural mechanism that provokes the brain to switch its view of a scene is unknown, but it is thought to play a major role in perception by acting as a sort of reality check. “We need a trigger to prompt possible different interpretations so that we don’t get stuck with a potentially incorrect interpretation of the world.”
The Holy Grail of State Fair Food: Deep-Fried Beer!
“Fried Beer is a beer-filled pretzel-like dough pocket that’s shaped like ravioli. Take a bite and the beer pours out. … Simply use the dough to soak up the rest of the brewski. ‘Why drink your beer when you can eat it?’ creator Mark Zable said.”
Never Forget: Processed Food Is a Good Thing
“For our ancestors, natural was something quite nasty. Natural often tasted bad. Fresh meat was rank and tough, fresh fruits inedibly sour, fresh vegetables bitter. Natural was unreliable. … Eating fresh, natural food was regarded with suspicion verging on horror; only the uncivilized, the poor, and the starving resorted to it.”
Brain Exercises Help (And Yet, There’s A Brutal Downside)
“Exercising your brain can keep you sharp longer into old age, confirmed a new study. But here’s the twist: When symptoms of dementia finally settle in, the decline happens faster in those whose brains have been busiest.”
Why Do Online Disagreements Get So Nasty? (It’s Modern History’s Fault)
“[We now] live in a society with a hypertrophied sense of justice and an atrophied sense of humility and charity, to put the matter in terms of the classic virtues. Late modernity’s sense of itself is built upon achievements in justice.”
From RuPaul to Lady Gaga: Why (Some) Women Are Dressing Up Like Drag Queens
“They get something from drag that they don’t get from a normal makeover – it lets them perform womanliness, to try it on like a new outfit, but with the label still attached. … A meek woman is allowed to taste strength by turning her femaleness into theater. Drag is not about sex, in other words: It’s about power.”