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Daniel Dennett’s 4 rules for a good debate

https://bigthink.com/mini-philosophy/daniel-dennetts-4-rules-for-a-good-debate/

Published: May 23, 2025 15:08

A straw man is when you simplify or exaggerate somebody’s argument to make it easier to target, an opponent you can blow down with adversarial flair. For example, if an atheist says that Christianity is just worshipping “some bearded man in the sky,” well,…

Move your body, grow your brain: the science of hippocampal neurogenesis

https://bigthink.com/series/full-interview/wendy-suzuki/

Published: May 23, 2025 13:00

After years of studying the hippocampus, the brain’s memory center, neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki made a surprising discovery: Regular physical movement dramatically improved her memory, focus, and overall cognitive performance. Even 10 minutes of walking…

Ask Ethan: Was the Universe “timeless” before the Big Bang?

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/universe-timeless-before-big-bang/

Published: May 23, 2025 06:00

As far back as we can observe in our Universe, time always behaved in exactly the same fashion we’re familiar with: ticking away, relentlessly, at the same rate for all observers. Bring your clock to the surface of the Earth? The bottom of the ocean? Into…

From Messiaen to Radiohead: How great music uses prime numbers

https://bigthink.com/mini-philosophy/from-messiaen-to-radiohead-how-great-music-uses-prime-numbers/

Published: May 22, 2025 15:25

I fell in love with Messiaen’s music in my late teenage years, after my youth orchestra spent a weekend playing through his explosive Turangalîla-Symphony. I think that weekend was the peak of my trumpet playing. It had to be. The trumpet part was crazily…

From Gnosticism to Gospel Manga: 6 books to help you unpack the Bible and its history

https://bigthink.com/big-think-books/6-books-on-bible-history/

Published: May 22, 2025 14:30

More than 2 billion people identify as Christians today, making it the world’s largest religion. For many of these believers, the Bible serves as a foundational part of their faith, falling somewhere between the literal word of God to divinely inspired…

Brian Cox: Why Earth’s orbit is the new Wild West and what that means for us all

https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-think-interview/brian-cox-space-colonization/

Published: May 22, 2025 13:00

What if humanity isn’t just a flicker in the universe—but a force that could one day shape the cosmos itself? Physicist Brian Cox explores the possibility that were standing at the edge of a new era: The dawn of a spacefaring civilization. From reusable…

A deep dive into Amazon robotics and AI

https://bigthink.com/business/a-deep-dive-into-amazon-robotics-and-ai/

Published: May 22, 2025 13:00

A few months ago, I ordered a bottle of vitamins on Amazon. Nothing special. But about two hours later, the package was already on my doorstep. That moment triggered a bigger question for me: What invisible machinery springs into motion every time we hit…

A quantum miracle enabled the formation of neutral atoms

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/quantum-reason-neutral-atoms/

Published: May 22, 2025 06:00

In order for you to exist, a lot of things had to happen beforehand. Planet Earth needed to come into existence, complete with the organic ingredients from which life could arise. In order to have those ingredients, we need for many previous generations of…

How to find success with the 4 conditions of “intelligent failure”

https://bigthink.com/the-learning-curve/ntelligent-failure/

Published: May 21, 2025 17:00

A child’s bedroom is a shrine to failure. There’s the guitar gathering dust in the corner, the unfinished books forever shelved, the two-sizes-too-small karate gi hanging in the closet, and the magic set where half the contents disappeared (never to…

Fringe or frontier: Is our current scientific paradigm still the best fit?

https://bigthink.com/mini-philosophy/fringe-or-frontier-is-our-current-scientific-paradigm-still-the-best-fit/

Published: May 21, 2025 16:38

“I think we’ve got much too narrow a picture of reality,” Rupert Sheldrake tells me in this week’s Mini Philosophy interview. “What we need is a larger, more inclusive model of reality, which includes all these anomalies in the Universe, and the biggest…

Why Substack will be the intellectual engine of the 21st century

https://bigthink.com/the-future/why-substack-will-be-the-intellectual-engine-of-the-21st-century/

Published: May 21, 2025 14:30

The last time humans created a new civilization was during The Enlightenment, the period of time from about 1680 to 1800 that gave birth to many of the core technologies, economic systems, and government institutions that led to the modern world. My last…

JWST breaks its own record with new most distant galaxy MoM-z14

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/jwst-breaks-record-most-distant-galaxy-mom-z14/

Published: May 21, 2025 06:00

No matter how well we think we understand the Universe, there’s always something new out there to discover. After all, astronomy is the study of the Universe as we observe it to be, and as we build superior instruments and telescopes, we’re bound to notice…

The rise of the lanager: Why leadership and management can’t be split

https://bigthink.com/plus/the-rise-of-the-lanager-why-leadership-and-management-cant-be-split/

Published: May 20, 2025 16:55

What kind of manager are you? Do you see it as your job to find a vision, to refine the bigger picture, and to consider the grand scheme? You don’t stop at simply defining what your company is doing now—you redefine it and glow it up for the future. You…

The strange history of de-extinction began long before the science

https://bigthink.com/the-past/the-strange-history-of-de-extinction-began-long-before-the-science/

Published: May 20, 2025 15:51

On April 7, Colossal Bioscience — a company valued at $10 billion, boasting backers ranging from Chris Hemsworth to the CIA — announced the “world’s first de-extincted animal.” Using cloning, gene-editing, and anciently preserved DNA, they claimed they had…

Ask your boss: Can we have a “daydreaming workstation”?

https://bigthink.com/business/ask-your-boss-can-we-have-a-daydreaming-workstation/

Published: May 20, 2025 13:00

Today, approximately 347.3 billion emails are sent daily worldwide. This translates to about 240 million emails per minute. The pace of work is intense. And, that’s on top of our adoption of new technology generally. As technology starts to close in on us,…

Claims that “the Universe will end sooner than expected” are false

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/universe-end-sooner-expected-false/

Published: May 20, 2025 06:00

Here in our Universe, a common refrain is that, “this, too, shall pass.” Our night sky is alight with a vast array of planets, stars, and galaxies: indicative of the complex structures that have formed through the relentless effects of gravitation over the…

“Mystery humbles you”: Scott Derrickson on why skepticism and faith aren’t enemies

https://bigthink.com/13-8/scott-derrickson-on-filmmaking-and-the-faith-vs-skepticism-debate/

Published: May 19, 2025 17:23

More than a decade ago, the director Scott Derrickson invited me to serve as the science consultant on the 2016 film Doctor Strange. It was a high point of my professional life, and it also sparked a dialogue between the two of us, one made rich by the…

The David Aaker interview: “Trust is vital and fragile”

https://bigthink.com/business/the-david-aaker-interview/

Published: May 19, 2025 13:00

Widely considered the “father of modern branding” — which in itself is a triumph of personal branding — David Aaker has written 18 books on the theory and practice of marketing, and has been inducted into the American Marketing Association Hall of Fame,…

10 space pictures whose appearances will deceive you

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/10-space-pictures-appearance-deceive/

Published: May 19, 2025 06:00

Amazing sights abound all across the Universe. This densely populated region of space is focused on galaxy cluster SDSS J1004+4112, and showcases several objects that appear multiply imaged owing to gravitational lensing. Once called a “five star” lens,…

Saṃvega: The urgent realization that you need a more meaningful life

https://bigthink.com/mini-philosophy/samvega-philosophy/

Published: May 17, 2025 12:25

Carlos comes back from work and it’s late — so late that as he pulls his car into the drive he sees every room in the house is dark. His job is working him to the bone. He feels like he never sees his family anymore. Carlos bought his daughter a toy from…

Brian Cox: The quantum roots of reality

https://bigthink.com/series/full-interview/brian-cox-full-interview/

Published: May 16, 2025 13:00

What do snowflakes, glowing street lamps, and Einstein’s “crazy” idea have in common? Physicist Brian Cox unwinds the surprising origins of quantum mechanics—the theory that shattered classical physics and redefined our understanding of reality. From…

Stephen King’s most misused piece of writing advice

https://bigthink.com/the-learning-curve/how-to-use-a-thesaurus-to-actually-improve-your-writing/

Published: May 15, 2025 14:45

If you’ve spent any time learning the craft of writing, you’ve undoubtedly heard your share of myths, opinions, and prejudices gussied up as hard-and-fast rules. Things like: You should write every day. Only write what you know. Bad grammar is a sign of an…

Curiosity as a survival skill to navigate change

https://bigthink.com/business/curiosity-as-a-survival-skill-to-navigate-change/

Published: May 15, 2025 13:00

One of my favorite childhood movies was Encino Man (1992), where a frozen Neanderthal — played by Brendan Fraser — is thawed out in a suburban L.A. garage. Absurd, yes (and hilarious!) — but sometimes I wonder if we’re the ones being thawed out now, waking…

Most people freeze in a crisis. Here’s why — and how to stop it

https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-think-interview/amanda-ripley-crisis/

Published: May 15, 2025 13:00

What really happens to your mind in a crisis? We all think we know how we’d react in an emergency—but according to journalist and author Amanda Ripley, we’re usually wrong. Drawing from interviews with real people in disasters—from plane crashes to…