1–9 of 9
At the time when the lines begin, in the mid-18th century, life expectancy in Europe and the Americas was around 35, where it had been parked for the 225 previous years for which we have data.3 Life expectancy for the world as a whole was 29. These numbers are in the range of expected life spans for most of human…
What madness may have to do with creativity and genius has continued to intrigue down to this day, with scholars arguing for and against the association, its benefits and its deficits. In 1995, in a large scale and statistically convincing study of 1,004 eminent individuals of the 20th century, psychiatrist Arnold…
Look at what intellect would be without writing or the printing press—these primitive technologies already make such a difference. Just think of what the latest computer technology will be able to do to further augment the intellect! But this is a non-sequitur: what makes writing and paper powerful is technology to…
By the early 19th century, just three—French, English, and German—accounted for the bulk of scientists’ communication and published research; by the second half of the 20th century, only English remained dominant as the U.S. strengthened its place in the world, and its influence in the global scientific community has…
It is one thing if a child’s IQ is elevated over time because she is drilled daily on vocabulary and basic number facts (two of the subtests of major IQ batteries). But Flynn and others have shown that these are not the areas where IQ has risen much. It is in what Flynn refers to as “on-the-spot reasoning” about…
Only in the 18th century Enlightenment did the concept of progress become widespread. Earlier, most people thought of history in terms of a fall from a past Golden Age, or perhaps repeating cycles. (If they thought of such things at all. Mostly they just worried about their next meals.) With the Industrial Revolution…
The in-group-vs.-out-group double standard, which had and has such catastrophic consequences, could in theory be eliminated if everyone alive were considered to be in everyone else’s in-group. This utopian prospect is remote, but an expansion of the conceptual in-group would expand the range of friendly, supportive…
Perhaps the best way to describe the flawed vision of fin de siecle futurists is to say that, with few exceptions, they expected the coming of an ''immaculate'' economy -- one in which people would be largely emancipated from any grubby involvement with the physical world. The future, everyone insisted, would bring an…
...the relative demand for skilled labor is closely correlated with advances in technology, particularly digital technologies. Hence, the moniker “skill-biased technical change,” or SBTC. There are two distinct components to recent SBTC. Technologies like robotics, numerically controlled machines, computerized…