Physics for Future Presidents: The Science behind the Headlines

ased on his popular course at the University of California at Berkeley where he is a professor of physics, Richard Muller has prepared a primer on the major scientific aspects of four major issues that future presidents will have to face. Each section is followed by a two or three page summary in the tradition of issue briefs prepared by political staffers. Muller carefully avoids mathematics and complex jargon unless he defines his terms so that the book is accessible to a reader who is not a physicist. At the same time, he is careful to present multiple facets of the complex issues he writes about. While he avoids math, he does not duck complexity.

See also >> | Richard A. Muller

Labels: physics, Science

- posted by DD @ 10:35 AM

 
On the Origin of Stories

"volution may help explain copulation and even cooperation, but can it account for the creative side of human life? Can it explain art?” This is the main issue concerning Brian Boyd’s mammoth book On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition and Fiction (2009). For those of us concerned with art and the creative process we have, as well, struggled with this issue. Undoubtedly, we have challenged our students and colleagues with circuitous discussions over the “what” of art. Boyd’s work, however, throws us a lifeline pulling us from the mire of unsolvable debate and repetitious frustration by shifting the essential question from “what” to “why”. This simple cognitive maneuver is, in my opinion, as significant to art theory and criticism as the first spark that brought fire to human kind.

On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction





Read more >> | The Arbuturian

Labels: Boyd, Evolution, Theory

- posted by DD @ 3:13 PM