Rational Ignorance

Of course, it is a cliché of our times that we suffer from information overload because of the ubiquity of electronic media. And for fifty years, cognitive scientists have been harping on the limitations of the brain in processing information. Some have argued that Grice’s cooperative maxims are a way to manage the flow of information in a conversation, maximizing the rate of transmission of usable knowledge. But the ultimate reason our speech is so indirect may lie in a different danger of ...

 If You Really Want to Know, You Go to Science

[I]magine you want to know the sex of your unborn child. There are several approaches. You could, for example, do what the late film star ... Cary Grant did before he was an actor: In a carnival or fair or consulting room, you suspend a watch or a plumb bob above the abdomen of the expectant mother; if it swings left-right it's a boy, and if it swings forward-back it's a girl. The method works one time in two. Of course he was out of there before the baby was born, so he never heard from cust...

 Science is a Profound Source of Spirituality

In its encounter with Nature, science invariably elicits a sense of reverence and awe. The very act of understanding is a celebration of joining, merging, even if on a very modest scale, with the magnificence of the Cosmos. And the cumulative worldwide build-up of knowledge over time converts science into something only a littles short of a trans-national, trans-generational meta-mind. [...] Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we r...

 Women Doctors in Egypt

Medicine was an established profession in Egypt prior to 3000 BC and educated women worked as doctors and surgeons. The medical schools at Sais and Heliopolis attracted women students and teachers from throughout the ancient world. At the Temple of Sais north of Memphis an inscription reads: 'I have come from the school of medicine at Heliopolis, and have studied at the woman's school at Sais where the divine mothers have taught me how to cure disease.'' Moses and his wife Zipporah probably s...