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There is nothing really the matter with the concept of g; it is just that we have misused it by making it the omnipresent concept in our study of cognitive abilities. Intelligence is important on three levels, namely, brain physiology, individual differences, and social trends (collectively, BIDS). The core of a BIDS…
But why should comets become more likely to hit us every million years? Here we launch ourselves into deep speculation. It has been suggested that the sun has a sister star, and the two orbit each other with a periodicity of about 26 million years. This hypothetical binary partner, which has never been seen but which…
Sometimes the term "steel man" is used to refer to a position's or argument's improved form. A straw man is a misrepresentation of someone's position or argument that is easy to defeat: a "steel man" is an improvement of someone's position or argument that is harder to defeat than their originally stated position or…
It appeared that sixty-five percent of people would torture someone to death, if pressured to do so. The results made their way into both psychology and cocktail party conversation. But were they correct? At least one woman doesn't think so. Gina Perry, for her book, Behind the Shock Machine, traced as many…
evolution doesn't always proceed steadily
Science is simply the classification of the common knowledge of the common people. It is bringing together the things we all know and putting them together so we can use them. This is creation and finds its analogy in Nature, where the elements are combined in certain ways to give us fruits or flowers or grain.
In the short run, knowing the gravitational constant to one more decimal digit of precision or placing even tighter limits on any deviation from Einstein's gravitational theory may seem like painfully nitpicking detail. Yet one must not lose sight of the "big picture." When researchers were measuring the properties of…
We cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individual. Toward this end, each of us must work for his own highest development, accepting at the same time his share of responsibility in the general life of humanity—our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.
Within 100 years the profession of teaching has grown from about one-twentieth to one-fourth of the [college] graduates… Since 1880 the line for teaching has crossed that of the ministry, and since 1890 that of law. Thus at the close of the century it is the dominant profession.
During my eighty-seven years I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think.
Even worse, Maurice continually frustrated Francis by never seeming enthusiastic enough about DNA. He appeared to enjoy slowly understating important arguments. It was not a question of intelligence or common sense Maurice clearly had both; witness his seizing DNA before almost everyone else. It was that Francis felt…
In the tween movie Twilight, heroine Bella discovers that her boyfriend Edward is a vampire by consulting a website with a convenient link to supernatural occurrences in her very own tiny town. The Internet is here collectively written, but perfectly tailored to exactly her individual needs. It is not the wizened…