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Chapter one
Other People


Defy the Stars
What’s the real difference between man and machine?

The Multiverse As Muse
The uncertainty of quantum mechanics provided a perfect literary model for Modernist ideas.

Can You Ever Really Know an Extraterrestrial?
Knowledge about aliens might be as dangerous as the aliens themselves.

Does Dark Matter Harbor Life?
An invisible civilization could be living right under your nose.
Chapter two
Taxonomies

The Hidden Sexism of How We Think About Risk
If men take more risks than women, it’s not because of biology.

If ET Calls, Think Twice About Answering
Why some say searching for ET is best done quietly.

A Complicated Question
A child asks, and war answers.

The Physicist Who Denies Dark Matter
Maybe Newtonian physics doesn’t need dark matter to work.
Chapter three
Conflicts

A Linguist Responds to Cormac McCarthy
If language began as a virus, here’s how it spread.

The Oldest Problem in American Prisons
U.S. prisons aren’t prepared for an inmate population that is getting older and sicker.

Shakespeare’s Genius Is Nonsense
What the Bard can teach science about language and the limits of the human mind.

Are You a Self-Interrupter?
Distraction in the technology age.
Chapter four
Reordering

The Inflated Debate Over Cosmic Inflation
Why the majority of physicists are on one side of a recent exchange of letters.

What Both the Left and Right Get Wrong About Race
Setting the scientific record straight on race, IQ, and success.

Nature, the IT Wizard
Nature manages information, the currency of life, with exquisite efficiency.

The Case for Less Solidarity
The surprising effects of reducing empathy for your own ingroup.

Ingenious: Dalton Conley
The Princeton sociologist explains why race is not a scientific category.
Related Facts So Romantic
“Reality provides us with facts so romantic that imagination itself could add nothing to them.” —Jules Verne
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