Science

The Return of Storytelling in a Digital Age

Podcast stories, like reading, have the advantage of engaging the audience’s imagination. And lest the technophobes among us decry the dominance of gadgets, rather than the gadgetry taking us into a brave new world, the technology is actually allowing us to participate in a much older form of literature:...

Of Men, Monkeys, and Jared Diamond

For the twenty-first-century disciple of Darwin, man—though he possesses no essential, intrinsic worth that separates him from his chimpanzee cousins—has proven himself a most effective destroyer of that very mother nature who evolved him into his present form... The Third Chimpanzee, by Jared Diamond (432...

Science, Faith, and English Professors

While science and religion have differences that need reconciliation, you can regard the so-called ‘war’ between them as ‘fake.’ The history of science is entwined with our human search to discern a deeper understanding of our purpose within the universe....

Finding Refreshment in a World of Endless Work

It only took a moment. The smartphone was somewhere in the grass, forgotten. Our hands and jeans were covered in smears of purple and green sidewalk chalk. My two-year-old daughter and I were busy drawing roads and buildings...

Aliens, Elephants, and Angels

Some time ago while wasting time I came across a seemingly profound, but ultimately silly discussion which is prevalent within popular culture. It’s called the Fermi Paradox, and it goes like this: “There are billions of stars out there like the sun. Therefore, statistically there must be billions of planets like earth where...

A Death in New Mexico: The Old Healer

When I moved to Santa Fe, the City Different was a small, sleepy Western town with real stores around the Plaza, not upscale tourist traps that appeared after marketers invented the Santa Fe style. One day, I wandered...

Nature, Science, and Civilization

At its finest, the new conception of nature enabled people to appreciate, and wish to safeguard, the natural environment on which life depends. At its worst, this reverence for the natural world gave rise to a mindless sentimentality that regarded all human activity as harmful and exploitive...

Messages From Outer Space: Man, Contemplation, & Technology

All the minds of all the brilliant thinkers that the world has ever known will still come up pathetically short when compared with the grandeur of the universe. Technology, if it is to soberly measure its own capabilities and power, must approach the questions of the universe...

Apocalyptic Visions: Faith, Reason, & Science Fiction

The apocalyptic vision in science fiction is akin to the memento mori in mediaeval art. It reminds us of the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. And these last things remind us of the first things—most importantly the primary reality that we are made in...

In the Beginning Was the… Music?

Michio Kaku has made a name for himself as a world-leading theoretical physicist unafraid to speak his mind. Dr. Kaku, the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York, has published more than...

Is the Human Brain Just Like a Computer?

Some dream of a time when we will achieve immortality by downloading the contents of the brain into a computer. But is this truly possible?... I have just read a fascinating and, to my mind, cheerful article, by the...

How Friedrich Nietzsche Changed Philosophy Forever

Friedrich Nietzsche sought to change the world, and there is significant evidence that the existentialist philosopher succeeded. Many of the contemporary world’s assumptions regarding the primacy of individualism and the disavowal of universals were exposited by Nietzsche. Yet,...

Can Technology Improve How We Read Books?

Robin Sloan attempts to show the ways in which technology can improve upon our old and outdated modes of reading. But his novel, Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore, demonstrates that though Mr. Sloan knows technology, he misunderstands books and bookstores… Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour...

CGI Apocalypse: The Veiling of Nature

The world may ultimately be broken down, not into atoms or elements or quanta of energy, but into something like “pixels” or units of information. These build up into the impressions of things that are the objects of our consciousness, constituting the other half of reality...