Brian Gallagher
The “Emodiversity” of Star Wars
What the hyper-rational Vulcan Spock represents, psychologist Igor Grossman said, is “uniform emotional down-regulation,” whereas the hallmark of Yoda’s judgment style is his ability to “recognize and balance a wide range of emotions”—a key aspect of wisdom.Star Wars / YouTube Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . This past “Star […]
A Precursor Piece to DNA Was Found in Star Material
April—National Poetry Month—prompted me to reread some of the work of English-American poet W.H. Auden. In “Funeral Blues,” famously recited in Four Weddings and a Funeral, Auden pairs musings on the cosmos with those on the human condition. The last four lines of “Funeral Blues” evoke grief over the loss of a loved friend: Nautilus […]
When the Link Between Space and Time Will Be Intuitive
The celebrated English writer Ian McEwan has, in his stories and essays, shown a fondness for science. For two years he shadowed a neurosurgeon to write his 2005 novel Saturday, and his 2010 novel Solar focused on a Nobel Prize-winning physicist’s solar-energy solution to climate change. His forthcoming novel, Machines Like Me, delves into artificial […]
Fear Is Good for the Forest
In 2011, the renowned evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson paid a visit to Gorongosa National Park, in Mozambique. It is one of the few places in the world where you can get a feel for the Great African Rift Valley, humanity’s evolutionary home. After a couple hundred thousand years, the area is largely as it was—mostly […]
Wikipedia and the Wisdom of Polarized Crowds
A lesson in how to break out of filter bubbles.
The Well-Meaning Bad Ideas Spoiling a Generation
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt on politics, morality, and the coddling of the American mind.
The Case for Professors of Stupidity
The greatest problem facing the world today is a rule system.
When People Are as Predictable as Water
Can we apply a physics-like reductionism to people? That’s a question we asked Simon DeDeo, a professor of social and decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, who also heads the Laboratory for Social Minds at the Santa Fe Institute. DeDeo was well suited to the question. With a background in astrophysics, studying galaxy formation, he’s […]
How Einstein Reconciled Religion to Science
He believed the lawful harmony of the universe suggested the existence of Spinoza‘s God.
The Woman Who Reinvented the Moon
A MacArthur “genius grant” winner writes a new lunar origin story.