Ideas | Artificial Intelligence
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Chapter one
Myth
Culture | Philosophy
The Big Bang Is Hard Science. It Is Also a Creation Story.
Even with its explanatory power, Big Bang theory takes its place in a long line of myths.
Ideas | Neuroscience
Our Brains Tell Stories So We Can Live
Without inner narratives we would be lost in a chaotic world.
Chapter two
Fable
Ideas | Fiction
The Great Silence
A parrot has a question for humans.
Culture | Physics
A Novelist Teaches Herself Physics
To explore loss and mystery, Nell Freudenberger journeyed into the atomic world.
Ideas | Climate
To Fix the Climate, Tell Better Stories
The missing climate change narrative.
Chapter three
Biography
Biology | Sociology
Humans Are Wired for Goodness
We’re not as bad as the headlines make us out to be.
Biology | Evolution
Survival of the Friendliest
It’s time to give the violent metaphors of evolution a break.
Culture | Sociology
Is Tribalism a Natural Malfunction?
What computers teach us about getting along.
Chapter four
Legend
Biology | Animals
The Tricky Problem with Other Minds
How our mental states overlap with and diverge from those of other species.
Biology | Neuroscience
Human Emotions Are Personal Narratives
Neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux on what makes our brains unique.
Numbers | Sociology
Homo Narrativus and the Trouble with Fame
We think that fame is deserved. We are wrong.
Chapter five
Imagine
Ideas | History
How American Tycoons Created the Dinosaur
The story of dinosaurs is also the story of capitalism.
Matter | Physics
A Hologram Shows How Space Could Pop Into Existence
The holographic principle—with a real hologram.
Biology | Neuroscience
Metaphors Are Us
War, murder, music, art. We would have none without metaphor.
Ideas | Cognitive Science
Why Monster Stories Captivate Us
Our brains are compelled by category violations.
Related Facts So Romantic
“Reality provides us with facts so romantic that imagination itself could add nothing to them.” —Jules Verne
See All Blog Posts-
Culture
Most of the Mind Can’t Tell Fact from Fiction
Stories, fiction included, act as a kind of surrogate life. You can learn from them so seamlessly that you might believe you knew something—about ancient Greece, say—before having gleaned…
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Biology
Can New Species Evolve From Cancers? Maybe.
Reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine’s Abstractions blog.Aggressive cancers can spread so fiercely that they seem less like tissues gone wrong and more like invasive parasites…
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Biology
What Color Really Evolved For
What color were the dinosaurs? If you have a picture in your head, fresh studies suggest you may need to revise it. New fossil research also suggests that pigment-producing structures go…
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Ideas
Butterfly Wonk Robert Pyle Pens His First Novel 44 Years in the Making
Last year marked a first for 71-year old Robert Michael Pyle, the acclaimed author, naturalist, and ecologist: the publication of his long-awaited first novel, Magdalena Mountain, nearly…
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