Category: ideas

“Why, given the potential for humiliation, do plagiarists run the risk? Are people doing it more, now? Or is it, rather, now just a matter of more people getting caught?” Anyway, there’s new help on the way – a journal devoted to the study of plagiarism.

“First there was the controversy provoked by Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ in 2004, and now there is this censorious dismissal of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Both are testaments to a potent mood of intolerance towards expressions of religious faith in popular culture today. The artistic representation of religious conviction is frequently stigmatised with terms such as ‘fundamentalist’, ‘intolerant’, ‘dogmatic’, ‘exclusive’, ‘irrational’ or ‘right-wing’. As a secular humanist who is instinctively uncomfortable with zealot-like moralism, I am suspicious of the motives behind these doctrinaire denunciations of films with a religious message.”

“In the traditional view, the brain becomes frozen with the onset of adulthood, after which few new connections form. In the past 20 years, though, scientists have discovered that intensive training can make a difference. For instance, the portion of the brain that corresponds to a string musician’s fingering hand grows larger than the part that governs the bow hand – even in musicians who start playing as adults.”

“There are about 12 million people in employment with literacy skills and 16 million with numeracy skills at level 1 or below – equivalent to the the levels of 11-year olds and younger, the committee found. The number of people underskilled in both aspects is unknown. The workforce comprises 30 million people, working full-time and part-time.”

“The site, which has more daily visitors than The New York Times and USA Today sites combined, is as much an encyclopedia as a social outlet. Wikipedia has many rules, but they’re all highly breakable. (One essay states: ‘Ignore all rules.’) This philosophy, which some describe as the site’s “essence,” doesn’t always inspire goodwill.”

“The telecommunications companies’ proposals have the potential, within just a few years, to alter the flow of commerce and information — and your personal experience — on the Internet. For the first time, the companies that own the equipment that delivers the Internet to your office, cubicle, den and dorm room could, for a price, give one company priority on their networks over another.”

Is it all-brains-all-the-time that separates achievers from the pack? Or is something else at work? The difference likely is something Angela Lee Duckworth calls “grit,” which she defines as “tenaciously pursuing something over the long term.” That “something” can’t be something easy. To pass the grit test, the thing being chased must be “the highest challenge.” It’s all about passion.

A study shows that only “3% of the students in America’s top colleges come from families in the lowest income quartile and only 10% from the bottom half. Most students are relatively well-off, and their numbers include plenty of racial minorities who receive preferential status independent of their economic circumstances.” The City University of New York is trying something new. “For all its imperfections, CUNY’s model of low tuition fees and high standards offers a different approach. And its recent history may help to dispel the myth that high academic standards deter students and donors. “Elitism”, Mr Goldstein contends, “is not a dirty word.”

Recently, several scientific papers have been exposed for fraud. “In the wake of these and other science scandals in the past several years-ranging from fabricated findings to misleadingly incomplete data-some editors of science publications are rethinking their roles and asking themselves whether they should act more like muckraking investigators than purveyors of scientific discovery…”

A Japanese scientist suspects that laughter may affect the health of genes. “If we prove people can switch genes on and off by an emotion like laughter, it may be the finding of the century which should be worth the Nobel Prize or even go beyond that.”