[ad_1] It may feel like the world is slowly devolving into one big dumpster fire. But that’s hardly the case. “For all the problems we have today, the problems of yesterday usually were worse,” said Steven Pinker, the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology. “Things really have gotten better [and] not by themselves; it’s taken human […]
Are optimists the realists? Read More »
[ad_1] Gabby Anderson’s dorm room desk does double duty: homework central for microeconomics and statistics during the week, art studio on the weekends. Her principal medium? The same sneaker models she wears playing guard on the women’s basketball team — along with those she custom designs for clients, including some high-profile professional athletes. On a recent
A three-way player: Offense, defense, and design Read More »
[ad_1] The title character of “Funes the Memorious,” a short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, suffers a head injury that renders him incapable of forgetting even the smallest detail. Forced to perceive everything at every moment in sharp relief, Funes grieves the ability to experience the world, as others do, in abstractions. This
The problem with knowing everything Read More »
[ad_1] Every four years, major news organizations spend millions to create a dazzling spectacle out of what broadcast news pioneer Reuven Frank once called “a TV show about adding.” At the center of election night coverage is the race to be first to correctly call who will be the next president. This year, in particular,
Lesson about election night for media? Winner should be American democracy. Read More »
[ad_1] It’s one thing to be immersed in a language. It’s another to speak it. And Ava Silva, who grew up in the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe’s, wasn’t fluent in Alabama. “My áapo’s first language is Alabama,” said Silva, using the Alabama word for grandmother. “I could never fully understand it, but … I loved sitting beside
WOLF lab is working to document, preserve Native languages Read More »
[ad_1] Scholars at Harvard in and out of the classroom tell their stories in the Experience series. Robert Putnam is that rarest of academics: a crossover star. Putnam, the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy, Emeritus, grew up in postwar Port Clinton, Ohio, a working-class town on Lake Erie. The kids played Little
‘I wanted to make a difference in America’ Read More »
[ad_1] Election night 2000 represents a difficult chapter in the history of broadcast news. Exit polls showed a tight presidential election between Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush. Just before 8 p.m., NBC News projected a Gore victory in the pivotal state of Florida, with all the other major television networks
Why it’s become harder to project presidential winner on election night Read More »
[ad_1] With another presidential election at America’s doorstep, Lawrence D. Bobo, the dean of Social Science, last week gathered four of his division’s faculty members — Mina Cikara, Jill Lepore, Eric Nelson, and Theda Skocpol — to discuss the state of the U.S. political system. “We don’t have enough occasions in the social sciences to share
‘A sense of illumination, if not calm, about the fate of American democracy’ Read More »
[ad_1] This summer, cultural critic and author Laura Kipnis wrote about her experience being hired by an AI app to record 12 hours of commentary on “Romeo and Juliet” to train a chatbot to impersonate her. For a fee, the app lets users read a classic book in the public domain while chatting with an AI “guide,”
Bot’s literary analysis wasn’t ‘brilliantly original’ — is that beside the point? Read More »
[ad_1] Inspectors general are placed in most federal agencies to promote efficiency and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse, and the U.S. Supreme Court would benefit from having one, said former inspector general of the Department of Justice Glenn Fine. There are 74 offices of inspectors general across the federal government, but the federal judiciary, which
IGs oversee most federal agencies. Why not the Supreme Court? Read More »
