The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology. E. O. Wilson
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The Energy of Unresolved Difference
We Must Be Mistaken
It starts with the X
When I was a classroom teacher, I had a box of red pens. Marking a paper or a test, I might make an encouraging comment or point out something well written, but mostly I marked wrong answers. Mistakes. So why did I call attention to the wrong answers? With...Near Enemies
Emotions in disguise
You may have had the pleasure of reading the novels of Louise Penny. Her mysteries provide great opportunities to be entranced, not only by the solving of a convoluted murder but by powerful insights into what makes us tick, some of us more exotically than others.
She has a repertory...
Conversations over Computations
I recently had the pleasure of finishing Robert Harris’s Pompeii, a terrific novel set in 79 AD. The plot covers engineering, physics, politics, corruption, love and redemption. In the final pages, Pliny ―an historical figure and famous observer of natural history―is engulfed by the pyrostatic surge from Vesuvius. A rigorously logical scientist, he’s perplexed...