Flow
17 articles-
The Problem with the Way Scientists Study Reason
Psychologists studying reasoning extensively rely on logic and philosophy, and neglect psychology’s more natural ally: biology. Portrait of Luca Pacioli (1445–1517) with a student (Guidobaldo da Montefeltro?) / Attributed to Jacopo de’ Barbari / Wikicommons In March, I was in Paris for the International Convention of Psychological Science, one of the most prestigious gatherings in […]
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Nurture Alone Can’t Explain Male Aggression
A young bank teller is shot dead during a robbery. The robber flees in a stolen van and is chased down the motorway by a convoy of police cars. Careening through traffic, the robber runs several cars off the road and clips several more. Eventually, the robber pulls off the motorway and attempts to escape […]
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Why the Flow of Time Is an Illusion
Getting human feeling to match the math is an ultimate goal in physics.
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Most Tech Today Would be Frivolous to Ancient Scientists
The tech that most people depend on must appeal to our fears and vanities and must require continuous and rapid overturn. If it were truly necessary, the market would demand durability.Wikicommons Surrounded by advanced achievements in medicine, space exploration, and robotics, people can be forgiven for thinking our time boasts the best technology. So I […]
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When Beauty Gets in the Way of Science
Insisting that new ideas must be beautiful blocks progress in particle physics.
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Viruses Have a Secret, Altruistic Social Life
Reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine’s Abstractions blog.Social organisms come in all shapes and sizes, from the obviously gregarious ones like mammals and birds down to the more cryptic socializers like bacteria. Evolutionary biologists often puzzle over altruistic behaviors among them, because self-sacrificing individuals would at first seem to be at a severe disadvantage under […]
