8 Posts found for source_year: 2015

Why do we get allergies? No one has a firm answer, but what is arguably the leading theory suggests that allergies are a misfiring of a defence against parasitic worms. In the industrialised world, where such infections are rare, this system reacts in an exaggerated fashion to harmless targets, making us miserable in the process.

[Ruslan] Medzhitov thinks that’s wrong. Allergies are not simply a biological … [ Read more ]

Author: Carl Zimmer | Source: Mosaic (April 6, 2015) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Health & Medicine

One might … say that moving minds — our own as well as those of others — is among the most effortful labor there is.

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“When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true, and admit that truth to him, but reveal to … [ Read more ]

Authors: Blaise Pascal, Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) (May 20, 2015) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Communication, Excerpts

To live with sincerity in our culture of cynicism is a difficult dance — one that comes easily only to the very young and the very old. The rest of us are left to tussle with two polarizing forces ripping the psyche asunder by beckoning to it from opposite directions — critical thinking and hope. Critical thinking without hope is cynicism. Hope without critical thinking … [ Read more ]

Author: Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) (February 9, 2015) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

What follows is the text of a “sermon” that given as a “congregational reflection” to an all White audience at the Bethel Congregational United Church of Christ.

Author: John Metta | Source: Huffington Post (July 10, 2015) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior, Race Relations, Thought Starters

All human activity is prompted by desire. There is a wholly fallacious theory advanced by some earnest moralists to the effect that it is possible to resist desire in the interests of duty and moral principle. I say this is fallacious, not because no man ever acts from a sense of duty, but because duty has no hold on him unless he desires to be

… [ Read more ]

Authors: Bertrand Russell, Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) (September 21, 2015) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Psychology | Behavior

“Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you?” This is among life’s most abiding questions and the history of human creativity — our art and our poetry and most empathically all of our philosophy — is the history of attempts to answer it.

There is no drearier, sorrier creature in nature than the man who has evaded his own

… [ Read more ]

Authors: Friedrich Nietzsche, Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) (September 30, 2015) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Philosophy

Gilbert has inspired a whole niche of faux travel writing by women. […] In this genre, the focus of attention is the self, and the beautiful locale becomes the backdrop of the real action, which is interior psychodrama.

These writers position themselves against the iconic travel writer who is, of course, male. From Sir Richard Francis Burton to Bruce Chatwin to Paul Theroux, the traveler is … [ Read more ]

Author: Jessa Crispin | Source: Boston Review (July 20, 2015) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Travel

Why is it easy for some people to learn to read, and difficult for others? It’s a tough question with a long history.

Author: Maria Konnikova | Source: The New Yorker (February 11, 2015) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Education | Scholarship, Excerpts