Astronomy
Voyager and SETI: Looking for Universal Messages
The SETI Institute’s task is the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. The search is focused in a narrow spectrum which we assume intelligent beings would use. […]
Professor Steven Gimbel
Astronomy
Looking for Faraway Exoplanets
Detecting exoplanets cannot be done directly, so scientists look for gravitational wobbles and planetary transit clues to find them. […]
History of Science
Aliens in Fiction: Literary and Movie Representations
The portrayals of alien life in fiction – both novels and film – tend to come in four varieties: aggressive, exploratory, cooperative, and transcendental. […]
History of Science
‘Homo Economicus’: Are We Rational Self-interested Beings?
The notion of ‘homo economicus’ was an idealization. Modern psychology has shown that often we make decisions based on completely non-rational bases. […]
History of Science
The Business Cycle: Challenging Classical Economic Equilibrium
British economist John Maynard Keynes argued that there are multiple possible equilibrium points and it’s possible for the economy to become stuck around one of these undesirable points. […]
History of Science
Finding Equilibrium: The Physics of Classical Economics
In classical economics, the idea was that we ought to be able to model the flow of money in the marketplace on our vision of energy flowing in a physical system. […]
Sociology
A Dialectic View of Social Development: Hegel and Marx
Karl Marx believed that capitalism was important for social development. The capitalists not only eliminated scarcity in the society, but also created the possibility of a workers’ revolution. […]
Sociology
Complex Social Structures: Bureaucracy and Other Systems
The social structures are helping the human society to flourish. These structures like bureaucracy and legal systems are becoming better at solving the problems that plague us. […]
Sociology
Is the Collapse of Civilization Inevitable?
Joseph Tainter, an American anthropologist, has explained why major civilizations have collapsed. He argues that the overly complex nature of these societies doomed them. […]
Sociology
The Differences Between Races and Intelligence
At the turn of the 20th century, there was an effort by craniologists and phrenologists to determine intelligence by the size and characteristic bumps on the skull. […]