On Optimism and ‘Human Nature’

In the last few days, I came across a couple of unrelated quotations on human nature and our internal tug-of-war between cooperation and conflict. … A 20 year-old Charles Darwin in an 1830 letter to his cousin, W.D. Fox: It is quite curious, when thrown into contact with any set of men, how much they [...]

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Choice, Obesity & the Irrational Ape (Homo insensatus)

“What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility.” ……………………………………………………………………………………. – Albert Einstein … Jonah Lehrer has written another great piece about our irrationality in decision making, and our emotional responses to avoiding loss. He writes: [...]

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JFK on Nature and Nurture

My university, UMass Boston,  sits on a beautiful spot.  Fortunately for us, we get to share a peninsula in Dorchester with the Massachusetts Archives and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. Taking advantage of our school’s location, I’ve made a few trips over to the JFK Library, a very attractive building designed by I.M. Pei. [...]

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The Sin of Certainty

Lane Wallace wrote a recent article in The Atlantic about bias in journalism, and how it influences the questions that one asks. As journalists are human beings, I think we can reasonably assume that they, like everyone else, have biases. What resonated with me was Wallace’s use of the phrase ‘the sin of certainty,’ coined [...]

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