We are drawn to places by our dreams, the dreams of our ancestors, and the collective dreaming of people through the centuries. These places are made special for us by what happened there, whether in our personal history or the larger history of the world.
Despite resounding blows against the Cartesian system from giants such as Charles Darwin and B. F. Skinner, countless researchers have continued to march, zombie-like, in Descartes's footsteps, insisting that animals lack conscious minds and cannot think, feel, or reason.
Descartes, father of modern philosophy, pointed to both the distinguishing characteristic of human beings and to the biggest curse of human beings when he made his famous statement, "I think. Therefore, I am."
Leave it to the venerable Economist to continue to scoop the Internet through sheer ingenuity. Who but The Economist would run a cover story entitled "A Rough Guide to Hell," in its year-end double issue?
The traditional portrait of William Harvey is, I argue, an icon of an objective, quasi-mystical form of empirical science that Harvey himself never practiced or believed in, but which continues to find adherents today.
In Jim Holt's lively, bestselling book, Why Does The World Exist?, the author informs us the very phrase, Big Bang, was coined by a cosmologist, Sir Fred Hoyle, who disagreed with the conception of a universe-creating explosion.
"Rene won't say anything until he can prove it, meaning that he'll pretty much always miss the news cycle. Let me tell you, if I had waited until I had facts to support everything I've said I'd never be where I am today."