Michael Shermer reviews Prof. Alan Lightman’s new book on science and spirituality, “Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine,” for The New York Times. Shermer calls the book an “elegant and moving paean to our spiritual quest for meaning in an age of science,” adding that it, “reminds us of the centrality of subjectivity in all human endeavors.”
BBC reporter Dave Edmonds speaks to Prof. Esther Duflo, co-founder of J-PAL, about her use of field studies and randomized control trials to test the effectiveness of programs in developing countries. Duflo explains that by examining data from randomized control trials, “out of the noise emerges some kind of melody of the logic of behavior.”
In an article for Bloomberg News, Prof. Daron Acemoglu writes about how countries that democratize tend to see faster rates of economic growth. Acemoglu notes that what tends to spur economic growth is how, “democracies increase taxes and spend more on education and health, preparing the economy to achieve greater productivity in the decades to come.”
In an article for Inside Higher Ed, Colleen Flaherty highlights a study co-authored by Prof. Kathleen Thelen, which examines the gender gap in publication rates for political science journals. “Beyond a general gender gap, Teele and Thelen also found that women remain underrepresented in terms of co-authorship,” writes Flaherty.
In an article for The New York Times, Prof. Vipin Narang writes that President Donald Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong-un of North Korea legitimized North Korea’s status as one of the world’s nuclear powers. “North Korea’s nuclear power is politically complete, thanks to the legitimacy that comes from a handshake with an American president,” argues Narang.
In an article published by Salon, Prof. Heather Paxson examines the American artisanal cheese industry. Paxson writes that, “food-making traditions in the United States are often animated by personal narratives of innovation rather than, as in Europe, adherence to customary tradition.”
In this PBS NewsHour segment, Prof. Alan Lightman discusses his views on science and spirituality. “I’m still a scientist. I still believe that the world is made of atoms and molecules and nothing more. But I also believe in the power and validity of the spiritual experience.”
Research led by Prof. Shigeru Miyagawa finds that cave art may be symbolic of early human languages. “The cognitive functions needed to transfer acoustic sounds to pictures are the same cognitive functions needed in language,” senior researcher Cora Lesure tells Sarah Gibbens of National Geographic.
According to a new paper from Prof. Shigeru Miyagawa, “cave drawings may show evidence of the development of spoken human language,” writes Laney Ruckstuhl for The Boston Globe. “There’s this idea that language doesn’t fossilize,” Miyagawa said. “And it’s true, but maybe in these artifacts [cave drawings], we can see some of the beginnings of homo sapiens as symbolic beings.”
Prof. Martin Marks hosted a conversation with Audra McDonald, the 2018 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT recipient, where she spoke about her personal experience as a Tony Award-winning actress and shared advice with the gathered students, writes Sophie Cannon for The Boston Globe. “Realize you have value and you have worth and what you maybe don’t have is experience but that is what you are here to get,” McDonald said.
Prof. Martin Marks hosted a conversation with Audra McDonald, the 2018 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT recipient, where she spoke about her personal experience as a Tony Award-winning actress and shared advice with the gathered students, writes Sophie Cannon for The Boston Globe. “Realize you have value and you have worth and what you maybe don’t have is experience but that is what you are here to get,” McDonald said.
TechCrunch’s “Technotopia” podcast, hosted by John Biggs, features Prof. Nick Montfort, who has authored a new book, “The Future”. Montfort’s book identifies those whose work impacts the future of culture and technology.
Using recent analyses by Prof. Frank Levy, Eduardo Porter of The New York Times explores the notion that AI will eliminate jobs and negatively impact American politics. Prof. Daron Acemoglu suggests that with more employment options in large cities, the backlash “will be more muted than it was when trade took out the jobs of single-industry company towns.”
Graduate student Joy Buolamwini is featured on NPR’s TED Radio Hour explaining the racial bias of facial recognition software and how these problems can be rectified. “The minimum thing we can do is actually check for the performance of these systems across groups that we already know have historically been disenfranchised,” says Buolanwini.
Political science graduate student, Michael Freedman writes in The Washington Post about the increased influence of Israel’s religious political parties. Freedman argues that this change is due to the death of powerful moderate political leaders, and warns that it will become “difficult to build a stable coalition that relies on cooperation between secular and religious parties.”