MachineMachine /stream

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Having once made the statement above, I have declined all opportunities to enlarge upon it or defend it. That seemed to be a fool's errand, especially given the volume of…

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We have confidence in our science-based civilization and think it has tenure. In so doing, I think we fail to distinguish between the life-span of civilizations and that of our…

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In 1972 NASA sent into deep space an interstellar probe called Pioneer 10. It bore a golden plaque. The art historian Ernst Gombrich offers an insightful commentary on this: The…

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ow does the character of the scientist differ from that of the humanist? The past century has seen an acceleration in the “scientization” of the humanities. The roots of this…

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The new species of hominid, the evolutionary branch of primates that includes humans, is to be revealed when the two-million-year-old skeleton of a child is unveiled this week. Scientists believe…

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The recent fatal attack of a SeaWorld trainer by the orca Tilikum has led to renewed questions about how humans should deal with potentially intelligent animals. Was Tilikum’s action premeditated,…

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When the scientists tested the mind’s eye of MX, though, the difference was stark. The researchers gave all their subjects a standardized test called the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire.…

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People talk about science fiction as the literature of humanism. But actually, science fiction's explorations put it into conflict with humanism's tenets. The best science fiction questions the nature of…

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WHEREVER their investigations lead, all analysts of religion begin somewhere. And in the final lines of his densely but skilfully packed account of faith from the viewpoint of evolutionary biology,…

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As with any other species, human populations are shaped by the usual forces of natural selection, like famine, disease or climate. A new force is now coming into focus. It…

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If Neanderthals ever walk the earth again, the primordial ooze from which they will rise is an emulsion of oil, water, and DNA capture beads engineered in the laboratory of…

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In the wake of the controversy that greeted his paper, Everett encouraged scholars to come to the Amazon and observe the Pirahã for themselves. The first person to take him…

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by Manuel DeLanda The plan of the essay is as follows. I will begin with a few definitions of technical terms ("source code", "compiler", "operating system") which are necessary to…

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Disturbing experiences that feel both familiar and strange are instances of the “uncanny,” an intuitive concept, yet one that has defied simple explanation for more than a century. Interest in…

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Let’s say a new drug appears to be effective in combating a condition like chronic anxiety and is the subject of popular news stories. When the drug enters clinical trials,…

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It is possible that we have a kind of built-in moral resistance to the runaway pathologies now visible in the arts. Where did that resistance come from? Judging from his…

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By now the arguments are familiar: Facebook is ruining our social relationships; Google is making us dumber; texting is destroying the English language as we know it. We're facing a…

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If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively. That is the conclusion of a mathematical exercise carried…

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Star Trek has long been described as a cult phenomenon…but is it an actual cult? Some anthropologists think so. Following the example of anthropologist Margaret Mead, they lived among the…