Ideas | Psychology
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ebook editions
Chapter one
Frankenstein
Ideas | Philosophy
The Philosopher Who Says We Should Play God
Why ethical objections to interfering with nature are too late.
Culture | Neuroscience
The Mystery of Human Uniqueness
What, exactly, makes our biology special?
Chapter two
Creatures
Biology | Neuroscience
Are Animal Experiments Justified?
A neuroscientist confronts his anguish over experimenting on animals.
Biology | Animals
Tantalizing Creatures with Male and Female Genes
Gyandromorphs overturn traditional theories of sexual development.
Biology | Animals
Only Street Dogs Are Real Dogs
Purebreds don’t satisfy the biological definition of a species.
Chapter three
Agency
Ideas | Philosophy
Yes, Determinists, There Is Free Will
You make choices even if your atoms don’t.
Numbers | Math
The Deepest Uncertainty
When a hypothesis is neither true nor false.
Biology | Evolution
Evolution Is Really Not That Into Sex
Plants and animals have reproduced without sex for eons. So why did nature bother?
Chapter four
Transformation
Culture | Technology
Can We Revive Empathy in Our Selfish World?
An experiment shows how to rebuild human compassion.
Ideas | Psychology
He Gave Away $30 Million Because It Felt Good
James Doty just may embody the altruism he studies.
Biology | Neuroscience
Dude, Where’s My Frontal Cortex?
There’s a method to the madness of the teenage brain.
Chapter five
Home
Ideas | Anthropology
The Worth of an Angry God
How supernatural beliefs allowed societies to bond and spread.
Biology | Genetics
The Thrill of Defeat
What Francis Crick and Sydney Brenner taught me about being scooped.
Culture | Anthropology
The Ancient Rites That Gave Birth to Religion
Sacred beliefs likely arose out of prehistoric bonding and rituals.
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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Culture
Why Working-Class New Yorkers Drop Their “Rs”
In George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion, professor Henry Higgins says: “You can spot an Irishman or a Yorkshireman by his brogue. I can place any man within six miles. I can place him…
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Biology
Game of Thrones and the Evolutionary Significance of Storytelling
I told myself it was absurd to be discontented with the way Game of Thrones ended. Why should I feel anything for the fate of a fictional world? Even so, I watched with interest, on YouTube,…
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Biology
This Famous Aging Researcher Doesn’t Want Us to Live Forever
In the Netflix anime series Knights of Sidonia, humankind is marooned in a spaceship 500,000-strong, refugees constantly on the run from shapeshifting aliens who destroyed Earth over 1,000…
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Biology
What an Extinct Bird Re-Evolving Says About “Species”
You may have heard the news of what sounds like a resurrection story on the small island of Aldabra, off the coast of Madagascar. Around 136,000 years ago, the island was submerged in water…
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