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Tag Archives: progress
“Robo sapiens”
O brave new world! In the science section of The New York Times this week is a report on Atlas, a recently designed robot built for use by the Pentagon: “People love the wizards in Harry Potter or ‘Lord of the Rings,’ but … Continue reading
Sunita Williams’s Guided Tour of the International Space Station
This is life in space with departing International Space Station Commander, Sunita Williams. A few hours after making this video, she returned to Earth, landing in Kazakhstan with two of her colleagues, one from Russia and one from Japan. __________ If … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged astronauts, NASA, progress, science, space, space station, the Enlightenment
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Gray on Pink(er): Because of Our Evolution, the Irrational We’ll Always Have With Us
John Gray thinks Steven Pinker’s thesis in his new book—in which Pinker argues that the world is progressing toward an ever less violent future—is deluded. In the Jacob-wrestle between Enlightenment rationality and our evolution-formed imperatives, Gray is betting that our … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged critical thinking, evolution, John Gray, optimism, pessimism, progress, reason, steven pinker, the Enlightenment
5 Comments
The Truth of Progress: Steven Pinker Interviewed by Reason Magazine
Steven Pinker’s new book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, on the decline of violence through history, is great—maybe his best book ever. Well, on second thought, let’s say it ties his The Blank Slate. That’s saying a lot. Here’s Pinker talking about The … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged nonviolence, peace, progress, psychology, reason, science, steven pinker, the Enlightenment, violence
3 Comments
Think big thoughts: two images from the 1909 Paris Air Show held at the Grand Palais
Maybe your life’s vision is set too low. Take the Paris Air Show of 1909 for inspiration, and think of how far people with vision, intelligence, ambition, and imagination managed to reach in just the past one hundred years. Can you imagine … Continue reading
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Tagged exhibition, flight, life, Motivation, Paris, planes, progress, reason, science, space, technology, vision
2 Comments
A delicious deconstruction of John Gray by A.C. Grayling
Of John Gray’s Black Mass, A.C. Grayling writes that the book: tells us that the world is in a bad way and that there is nothing we can do about it. Perhaps we can infer from this that his aim … Continue reading
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Tagged a.c. grayling, atheism, Christianity, Hitler, John Gray, progress, reason, science, secular humanism, stalin, the myth of progress
6 Comments
Evolutionary Progress: From Darwin to Hitler?
Richard Weikart is Professor of Modern European History at California State University, Stanislaus. He has a new book that has just come out. It is titled Hitler’s Ethic: The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress (Palgrave Macmillan 2009). I got the book … Continue reading
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Tagged agnostic, agnosticism, atheism, atheist, biology, eugenics, evolution, history, progress, Richard Weikart, science
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40 Years Ago, on July 20, 1969, Human Beings Stepped onto the Moon
And here’s what the front page of the New York Times looked like on July 21, 1969: I can’t help but hear, in the headline, an echo of the ancient Roman Imperium: We came, we saw, we conquered. And here’s … Continue reading
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Tagged anniversary, history, life, lunar, lunar surface, moon, moonwalk, NASA, neil armstrong, progress, science, space
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