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Symposium

Every issue has one section dedicated to a particular question. Collecting responses from a range of perspectives, these symposia prompt us to think about the values and ideas that shape our most urgent cultural and personal decisions.

8

Summer 2014

 

What Is Science for?

“What is science for, if it does not equip us to face and absorb the shocks of the future?”

 

Popular Science

Gladwell’s book succeeded because it eradicated the barriers between disciplines; Pennebaker’s succeeded because it presented one very powerful idea that tied together disparate worlds. But…

 

The Soviet Science System

The Soviet Science System presented one enormously influential solution to the perpetual problem of expertise—and then it vanished. Mostly.

 

In Praise of Things

To think, with panicked humanists past and present, that science fixes the world in place and deadens the imagination is to come to a rash…

 

Wonder and the Ends of Inquiry

Wonder is not only a peculiarly human passion; it is also one that, at least on this account, underscores the limits of human knowledge. The…