Humans of all to be much more physically active than our ape ancestors. Typical chimpanzee walks maybe two to three kilometers a day, and they take maybe what, three, 4,000 steps a day. A typical hunter-gatherer takes about 15 to 20,000 steps a day. Per kilo hunter-gatherers spend about twice as much energy per kilo…
But what if higher education is really just the final stage of a competitive tournament? From grades and test results through the U.S. News & World Report rankings of the colleges themselves, higher education sorts us all into a hierarchy. Kids at the top enjoy prestige because they’ve defeated everybody else in a…
Mayor-Elect Walsh, and distinguished and honored guests of all backgrounds and beliefs: it is my great honor, on behalf of the Humanist, secular, and nontheistic community, to share this poem, “To Be of Use,” by contemporary Massachusetts poet Marge Piercy, in honor of the important work you and all of us will soon be…
I've been an academic and I've been a policy maker. And as a policy maker, I've had a lot of trouble from academics. Especially from the Ivy League, and I'm going to say one thing about academic politics to which Mr. Schramm referred. I formulated the rule that the intensity of academic politics and the bitterness of…
A grove of giant redwoods or sequoias should be kept just as we keep a great or beautiful cathedral. The extermination of the passenger pigeon meant that mankind was just so much poorer; exactly as in the case of the destruction of the cathedral at Rheims. And to lose the chance to see frigate-birds soaring in circles…