Research Defended Quotes

I wanted someone a little more approachable," I explained. "What, like Captain McTropicalShorts back there? Where on earth did you find him anyway?" "Just did an Internet search." Feeling a need to defend my research, I added, "He comes highly recommended." "By who? Long John Silver?

I watched a lot of YouTube videos of cute geeky girls playing '80s cover tunes on ukuleles. Technically, this wasn't part of my research, but I had a serious cute-geeky-girls-playing-ukuleles fetish that I can neither explain nor defend.

I know that readers truly committed to racial equality will join me on this journey of interrogating and shedding our racist ideas. But if there is anything I have learned during my research, it’s that the principal producers and defenders of racist ideas will not join us. And no logic or fact or history book can change them, because logic and facts and scholarship have little to do with why they are expressing racist ideas in the first place.

Weapons weren't in the class description. It's about basic self-defense and hand-to-hand." "Why bother then?" Adrian strolled over to a glass case displaying several types of brass knuckles. "That's the kind of stuff Castile does all day. He could have showed us." "I wanted someone a little more approachable," I explained. "What, like Captain McTropicalShorts back there? Where on earth did you find him anyway?" "Just did an Internet search." Feeling a need to defend my research, I added, "He comes highly recommended." "By who? Long John Silver?

I watched a lot of YouTube videos of cute geeky girls playing ’80s cover tunes on ukuleles. Technically, this wasn’t part of my research, but I had a serious cute-geeky-girls-playing-ukuleles fetish that I can neither explain nor defend.

Technically, this wasn’t part of my research, but I had a serious cute-geeky-girls-playing-ukuleles fetish that I can neither explain nor defend.

if there is anything I have learned during my research, it’s that the principal producers and defenders of racist ideas will not join us. And no logic or fact or history book can change them, because logic and facts and scholarship have little to do with why they are expressing racist ideas in the first place.

I was to blame for not having pressed my point. I had given in to Authority when I believed I was right. That is another example of How Not To Do Research. I note it here as a warning to the young. If you are sure of your facts, you should defend your position.

When you truly believe that the racial groups are equal, then you also believe that racial disparities must be the result of racial discrimination. Committed to this antiracist idea of group equality, I was able to self-critique, discover, and shed the racist ideas I had consumed over my lifetime when I uncovered and exposed the racist ideas that others have produced over the lifetime of America. I know that readers truly committed to racial equality will join me on this journey of interrogating and shedding our racist ideas. But if there is anything I have learned form my research, it's that the principal producers and defenders of racist ideas will not join us. And no logic or fact or history book can change them, because logic and facts and scholarship have little to do with why they are expressing racist ideas in the first place. Stamped from the Beginning is about these close-minded, cunning, captivating producers of racist ideas. But it is not for them. My open mind was liberated in writing this story. I am hoping that other open minds can be liberated in reading this story.

...recent research suggests that presenting people with proof that their beliefs are incorrect doesn't change their minds. Instead, it actually reinforces their erroneous beliefs, as they work hard to defend them against fact and logic.

I’m not sure which is worse—that it took Ramon less than five minutes to expose me as a true-crime novice who neglects basic research, or that he keeps calling Mr. Larkin a void. I want to defend Mr. Larkin, or maybe myself, but Carly speaks up before I can do either.

The witch-hunt narrative is a really popular story that goes like this: Lots of people were falsely convicted of child sexual abuse in the 1980s and early 1990s. And they were all victims of a witch-hunt. It just doesn’t happen to line up with the facts when you actually look at the cases themselves in detail. But it’s a really popular narrative — I think it’s absolutely fair to say that’s the conventional wisdom. It’s what most people now think is the uncontested truth, and those cases had no basis in fact. And what 15 years of painstaking trial court research (says) is that that’s not a very fair description of those cases, and in fact many of those cases had substantial evidence of abuse. The witch-hunt narrative is that these were all gross injustices to the defendant. In fact, what it looks like in retrospect is the injustices were much more often to children.

A statistician for the Prudential Insurance Company predicted the imminent extinction of Black people in his epic book that relied on the 1890 census figures. Unlike the Plessy ruling, Frederick Hoffman’s Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro received plenty of attention in 1896. Packed with statistical tables and published by the American Economic Association, the book was a pioneering work in American medical research, and it catapulted Hoffman into scientific celebrity in the Western world as the heralded father of American public health. At “the time of emancipation,” he wrote, southern Blacks were “healthy in body and cheerful in mind.” “What are the conditions thirty years after?” Well, “in the plain language of the facts,” free Blacks were headed toward “gradual extinction,” pulled down by their natural immoralities, law-breaking, and diseases. Hoffman supplied his employer with an excuse for its discriminatory policies concerning African Americans—that is, for denying them life insurance. White life insurance companies refused to insure a supposedly dying race. Yet another racist idea was produced to defend a racist policy.3

Remember, in Colossians we are told that in him are hidden “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (2:3). And, of course, it’s perfectly logical that the reason all the treasures are hidden in him is because he made everything. So if you’re engaged in research in some field, you should take him in as your partner, because he really does know what makes things work. Regardless of what you’re working on, Jesus has the knowledge required to solve your problems.

The English word Atonement comes from the ancient Hebrew word kaphar, which means to cover. When Adam and Eve partook of the fruit and discovered their nakedness in the Garden of Eden, God sent Jesus to make coats of skins to cover them. Coats of skins don’t grow on trees. They had to be made from an animal, which meant an animal had to be killed. Perhaps that was the very first animal sacrifice. Because of that sacrifice, Adam and Eve were covered physically. In the same way, through Jesus’ sacrifice we are also covered emotionally and spiritually. When Adam and Eve left the garden, the only things they could take to remind them of Eden were the coats of skins. The one physical thing we take with us out of the temple to remind us of that heavenly place is a similar covering. The garment reminds us of our covenants, protects us, and even promotes modesty. However, it is also a powerful and personal symbol of the Atonement—a continuous reminder both night and day that because of Jesus’ sacrifice, we are covered. (I am indebted to Guinevere Woolstenhulme, a religion teacher at BYU, for insights about kaphar.) Jesus covers us (see Alma 7) when we feel worthless and inadequate. Christ referred to himself as “Alpha and Omega” (3 Nephi 9:18). Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. Christ is surely the beginning and the end. Those who study statistics learn that the letter alpha is used to represent the level of significance in a research study. Jesus is also the one who gives value and significance to everything. Robert L. Millet writes, “In a world that offers flimsy and fleeting remedies for mortal despair, Jesus comes to us in our moments of need with a ‘more excellent hope’ (Ether 12:32)” (Grace Works, 62). Jesus covers us when we feel lost and discouraged. Christ referred to Himself as the “light” (3 Nephi 18:16). He doesn’t always clear the path, but He does illuminate it. Along with being the light, He also lightens our loads. “For my yoke is easy,” He said, “and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). He doesn’t always take burdens away from us, but He strengthens us for the task of carrying them and promises they will be for our good. Jesus covers us when we feel abused and hurt. Joseph Smith taught that because Christ met the demands of justice, all injustices will be made right for the faithful in the eternal scheme of things (see Teachings, 296). Marie K. Hafen has said, “The gospel of Jesus Christ was not given us to prevent our pain. The gospel was given us to heal our pain” (“Eve Heard All These Things,” 27). Jesus covers us when we feel defenseless and abandoned. Christ referred to Himself as our “advocate” (D&C 29:5): one who believes in us and stands up to defend us. We read, “The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler” (Psalm 18:2). A buckler is a shield used to divert blows. Jesus doesn’t always protect us from unpleasant consequences of illness or the choices of others, since they are all part of what we are here on earth to experience. However, He does shield us from fear in those dark times and delivers us from having to face those difficulties alone. … We’ve already learned that the Hebrew word that is translated into English as Atonement means “to cover.” In Arabic or Aramaic, the verb meaning to atone is kafat, which means “to embrace.” Not only can we be covered, helped, and comforted by the Savior, but we can be “encircled about eternally in the arms of his love” (2 Nephi 1:15). We can be “clasped in the arms of Jesus” (Mormon 5:11). In our day the Savior has said, “Be faithful and diligent in keeping the commandments of God, and I will encircle thee in the arms of my love” (D&C 6:20). (Brad Wilcox, The Continuous Atonement, pp. 47-49, 60).

One cannot understand an economy without researching the activities of all its participants, and the process through which they are born, taught, and defended by their families. To try to do so is, quite simply, stupid. That Nobel laureates and entire economic departments pretend to, and that policies in great countries is sometimes made on such pretenses makes it no less stupid. Once that reality is faced, the choice is simple. One may do stupid work on men and individuals only, or do the job right and study women, households, and classes too.

Recent research cited by Cass Sunstein, for example, has shown that people with a particular political orientation who join a like-minded group emerge from that group with stronger political leanings than they started with. “In almost every group,” Sunstein writes, “people ended up with more extreme positions …. The result is group polarization, which occurs when like-minded people interact and end up in a more extreme position in line with their original inclinations.” And with the Internet added to the fundamentalist equation, it is now easier than ever for extremists of all types to find their ideological soul mates and reinforce their radical thinking.

Hackers could even install brain spyware into the apps and devices you are using. A research team led by UC Berkeley computer science professor Dawn Song tried this on gamers who were using neural interface to control a video game. As they played, the researchers inserted subliminal images into the game and probed the players’ unconscious brains for reaction to stimuli—like postal addresses, bank details, or human faces. Unbeknownst to the gamers, the researchers were able to steal information from their brains by measuring their unconscious brain responses that signaled recognition to stimuli, including a PIN code for one gamer’s credit card and their home address.

I too, weary of pleading an incomprehensible cause, at six and eight the thousand flowers of rhetoric, let myself drop among the contumacious, nice image that, telescoping space, it must be the Pulitzer Prize, they want to bore me to sleep, at long range, for fear I might defend myself, they want to catch me alive, so as to be able to kill me, thus I shall have lived, they think I’m alive, what a business, were there but a cadaver it would smack of body-snatching, not in a womb either, the slut has yet to menstruate capable of whelping me, that should singularly narrow the field of research, a sperm dying, of cold, in the sheets, feebly wagging its little tail, perhaps I’m a drying sperm, in the sheets of an innocent boy, even that takes time, no stone must be left unturned, one mustn’t be afraid of making a howler, how can one know it is one before it’s made, and one it most certainly is, now that it’s irrevocable, for the good reason, here’s another, here comes another, unless it escapes them in time, what a hope, the bright boy is there, for the excellent reason that counts as living too, counts as murder, it’s notorious, ah you can’t deny it, some people are lucky, born of a wet dream and dead before morning, I must say I’m tempted, no, the testis has yet to descend that would want any truck with me, it’s mutual, another gleam down the drain.

Coopersmith’s study with adolescent boys indicates that children develop self-trust, adventuresomeness and the ability to deal with adversity if they are treated with respect and are provided with well-defined standards of values, demands for competence and guidance toward solutions of problems. The development of individual self-reliance is fostered by a well-structured, demanding environment, rather than by largely unlimited permissiveness and freedom to explore in an unfocused way. The research of both Stanley Coopersmith and Morris Rosenberg has led them to believe that pupils with high self-esteem perceive themselves as successful. They are relatively free of anxiety and psychosomatic symptoms, and can realistically assess their abilities. They are confident that their efforts will meet with success, while being fully aware of their limitations. Persons with high self-esteem are outgoing and socially successful and expect to be well received. They accept others and others tend to accept them. On the other hand, according to Coopersmith and Rosenberg, pupils with low self-esteem are easily discouraged and sometimes depressed. They feel isolated, unloved and unlovable. They seem incapable of expressing themselves or defending their inadequacies. They are so preoccupied with their self-consciousness and anxiety that their capacity for self-fulfillment can be easily destroyed.4

At Columbia and far beyond, T.D. was renowned and celebrated. At the weekly research seminars I attended ... every speaker felt compelled to focus on him; as they spoke, their eyes fixated only on him, and he let no statement he did not fully agree with pass hi by. No matter who lectured at the seminar, T.D. concentrated intensely on their argument, and interrupted at the first instant something was not satisfactory. At times he broke in on the initial sentence of the talk, refusing to let a speaker proceed until the point was clarified. Sometimes clarification never came; I once witnessed the humiliation of a visiting postdoc who was forced to defend the first sentence he uttered for the entire hour and a half allowed for his seminar. No one dared restrain T.D.

The people who support and defend those accused of child sexual abuse indiscriminately, those who join organizations dedicated to defending people who are accused of child sexual abuse with no screening whatsoever to keep out those who are guilty as charged are likewise not necessarily people engaged in an objective search for the truth. Some of them can and do use deceit, trickery, misstated research, harassment, intimidation, and charges of laundering federal money to silence their opponents. Those of us who are the recipients of bogus lawsuits and frivolous ethics charges and phony phone calls and pickets outside our offices must know more than the research to survive such tactics. We must know something about endurance and about the importance of refusing to be intimidated. Confessions of a Whistle-Blower: Lessons Learned Author: Anna C. Salter. Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998

Christofilos’s theoretical Astrodome-like shield was the hoped-for result of exploding a large number of nuclear weapons in space as a means of defending against incoming Soviet ICBMs. By Christofilos’s count, this likely meant “thousands per year, in the lower reaches of the atmosphere.” These explosions, he said, would produce “huge quantities of radioactive atoms, and these in turn would emit high-energy electrons (beta particles) and inject them into a region of space where the earth’s magnetic fields would trap and hold on them for a long time.” Christofilos figured that this electromagnetic field could last months, or perhaps longer, and that “the trapped electrons would cause severe radiation—and even heat damage—to anything, man or nuclear weapon, that tried to fly through the region.” In short, the idea was that the arming and firing mechanisms on the incoming Soviet ICBMs would be fried.

According to H.G. Wells, you either adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative. It is not necessary to change, after all survival is not mandatory This generation might seem arrogant to the older generation due to some reasons. The older generation believes an older person or someone of higher authority is always right and being sceptical is an insult, lol Our generation is full of people who are so skeptical, they wanna know why this is this and that is that, they don't just hear and believe, they hear, hear from other sides, look at it critically and express their opinions based on their conviction. This generation is full of people who are somewhat confident cos they study, they observe and due to these, they are equipped with better information and like you know, knowledge is power. You know right from wrong, you know truth from lies. When you are with those in authority and have this knowledge, an ignorant person of higher authority would be scared of you, feel threatened and might resort to maltreating and frustrating you, defaming your character etc The older generation and the younger generation are usually having misunderstanding because the older generation are being deceived by pride, the younger generation due to their advanced education do not wanna give merit to whom it isn't due. While the older generation postulates that respect is not earned but compulsory for them to be accorded, the younger generation believes respect must be earned. lol The older generation rules by fiction but the younger generation lives by facts. The older generation uses age to oppress, the younger generation uses their knowledge to defend. The older generation believes they can never be wrong, the younger generation wants fair hearing, demands for it, if denied, they take it by force due to the confidence they've built around themselves. The older generation is unfair to the younger generation, there was once a time they were listened to without doubts and opposition, this is the time for the younger generation to be listened to due to advancement in education and exposure. The younger generation, due to their quest for higher knowledge through research, etc, they have realized the consequences of being ignorant and with their power of conviction, they are not letting the older generation have their autocratic ways affect them. To the younger generation, one should be able to prove whatever he says, no more latent heresies and this is what the older generation don't wanna hear of. The older generation wants to continue enslaving the younger generation but the younger generation is more equipped than the older generation and as such, not letting that happen. Technology advances every day, the younger generation are ever ready to adapt to the changes but the older generation is not ready for that, they wanna remain stagnant and still have the say of the day. Like George Bernard Shaw once said, the reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man

In musing on all that occurred in the course of the several years of harassment the error I decided I made, and others frequently make, is to assume that we are all academics trying to sort out intellectual issues. The False Memory Syndrome Foundation is a political organization composed primarily of individuals who have been accused of child sexual abuse and those who support and defend them, sometimes for considerable sums. Such people are not going to be swayed by the research. They start with a fixed point of view-the need to deflect threat. That threat comes in the form of public exposure, loss of income, monetary penalties, or even in some cases incarceration. I heard a colleague say recently, in referring to the 30 or so studies that document the existence of recovered memory, “You get to the point where you wonder when is it going to be enough.” It is never going to be enough if the point is not searching for the truth but protecting a particular point of view. Confessions of a Whistle-Blower: Lessons Anna C. Salter. Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998

Knowledge of revelation cannot interfere with ordinary knowledge. Likewise, ordinary knowledge cannot interfere with knowledge of revelation. There is no scientific theory which is more favorable to the truth of revelation than any other theory. It is disastrous for theology if theologians prefer one scientific view to others on theological grounds. And it was humiliating for theology when theologians were afraid of new theories for religious reasons, trying to resist them as long as possible, and finally giving in when resistance had become impossible. This ill-conceived resistance of theologians from the time of Galileo to the time of Darwin was one of the causes of the split between religion and secular culture in the past centuries. The same situation prevails with regard to historical research. Theologians need not be afraid of any historical conjecture, for revealed truth lies in a dimension where it can neither be confirmed nor negated by historiography. Therefore, theologians should not prefer some results of historical research to others on theological grounds, and they should not resist results which finally have to be accepted if scientific honesty is not to be destroyed, even if they seem to undermine the knowledge of revelation. Historical investigations should neither comfort nor worry theologians. Knowledge of revelation, although it is mediated primarily through historical events, does not imply factual assertions, and it is therefore not exposed to critical analysis by historical research. Its truth is to be judged by criteria which lie within the dimension of revelatory knowledge. Psychology, including depth psychology, psychosomatics, and social psychology, is equally unable to interfere with knowledge of revelation. There are many insights into the nature of man in revelation. But all of them refer to the relation of man to what concerns him ultimately, to the ground and meaning of his being. There is no revealed psychology just as there is no revealed historiography or revealed physics. It is not the task of theology to protect the truth of revelation by attacking Freudian doctrines of libido, repression, and sublimation on religious grounds or by defending a Jungian doctrine of man in the name of revelatory knowledge.

Mr. Haverstrom closes the door, leaving Patrick and me alone in the hallway. Pat smiles slickly, leaning in toward me. I step back until I press against the wall. It’s uncomfortable—but not threatening. Mostly because in addition to racquetball I’ve practiced aikido for years. So if Patrick tries anything funny, he’s in for a very painful surprise. “Let’s be honest, Sarah: you know and I know the last thing you want to do is give a presentation in front of hundreds of people—your colleagues.” My heart tries to crawl into my throat. “So, how about this? You do the research portion, slides and such that I don’t really have time for, and I’ll take care of the presentation, giving you half the credit of course.” Of course. I’ve heard this song before—in school “group projects” where I, the quiet girl, did all the work, but the smoothest, loudest talker took all the glory. “I’ll get Haverstrom to agree on Saturday—I’m like a son to him,” Pat explains before leaning close enough that I can smell the garlic on his breath. “Let Big Pat take care of it. What do you say?” I say there’s a special place in hell for people who refer to themselves in the third person. But before I can respond, Willard’s firm, sure voice travels down the hall. “I think you should back off, Nolan. Sarah’s not just ‘up for it,’ she’ll be fantastic at it.” Pat waves his hand. “Quiet, midge—the adults are talking.” And the adrenaline comes rushing back, but this time it’s not anxiety-induced—it’s anger. Indignation. I push off the wall. “Don’t call him that.” “He doesn’t mind.” “I mind.” He stares at me with something akin to surprise. Then scoffs and turns to Willard. “You always let a woman fight your battles?” I take another step forward, forcing him to move back. “You think I can’t fight a battle because I’m a woman?” “No, I think you can’t fight a battle because you’re a woman who can barely string three words together if more than two people are in the room.” I’m not hurt by the observation. For the most part, it’s true. But not this time. I smile slowly, devilishly. Suddenly, I’m Cathy Linton come to life—headstrong and proud. “There are more than two people standing here right now. And I’ve got more than three words for you: fuck off, you arrogant, self-righteous swamp donkey.” His expression is almost funny. Like he can’t decide if he’s more shocked that I know the word fuck or that I said it out loud to him—and not in the good way. Then his face hardens and he points at me. “That’s what I get for trying to help your mute arse? Have fun making a fool of yourself.” I don’t blink until he’s down the stairs and gone. Willard slow-claps as he walks down the hall to me. “Swamp donkey?” I shrug. “It just came to me.” “Impressive.” Then he bows and kisses the back of my hand. “You were magnificent.” “Not half bad, right? It felt good.” “And you didn’t blush once.” I push my dark hair out of my face, laughing self-consciously. “Seems like I forget all about being nervous when I’m defending someone else.” Willard nods. “Good. And though I hate to be the twat who points it out, there’s something else you should probably start thinking about straight away.” “What’s that?” “The presentation in front of hundreds of people.” And just like that, the tight, sickly feeling washes back over me. So this is what doomed feels like. I lean against the wall. “Oh, broccoli balls.

If anyone had ever asked me to defend my work, here’s what I would have said: The more complex a behavior is, the more rigorous and complicated the science behind it. Math, chemistry, that’s the easy stuff—closed models with discrete answers. To understand behavior—human or elephant—the systems are far more complex, which is why the science behind them must be that much more intricate. But no one ever asked. I’m pretty sure my boss, Grant, thought this was a phase I was going through, and that sooner or later, I’d get back to science, instead of elephant cognition. I had seen elephants die before, but this was the first time since I’d changed my research focus. I wanted every last detail to be noted. I wanted to make sure I didn’t overlook anything as too mundane; any action that I might learn later was critical to the way elephants mourn. To that end, I stayed there, sacrificing sleep. I marked down which elephants came to visit, identifying them by their tusks, their tail hair, the marks on their bodies, and sometimes even the veins on their ears, which had patterns as unique as our own thumbprints. I cataloged how much time they spent touching Mmaabo,

An example: A few years ago, the public health authorities in Canada, where it had been estimated that smoking kills forty-five thousand people a year, decided to supplement the warning printed on every pack of cigarettes with a shock-photograph—of cancerous lungs, or a stroke-clotted brain, or a damaged heart, or a bloody mouth in acute periodontal distress. A pack with such a picture accompanying the warning about the deleterious effects of smoking would be sixty times more likely to inspire smokers to quit, a research study had somehow calculated, than a pack with only the verbal warning. Let’s assume this is true. But one might wonder, for how long? Does shock have term limits? Right now the smokers of Canada are recoiling in disgust, if they do look at these pictures. Will those still smoking five years from now still be upset? Shock can become familiar. Shock can wear off. Even if it doesn’t, one can not look. People have means to defend themselves against what is upsetting—in this instance, unpleasant information for those wishing to continue to smoke. This seems normal, that is, adaptive. As one can become habituated to horror in real life, one can become habituated to the horror of certain images.

It’s been said that the personal is political, and there’s no doubt that parenting is intensely personal. To argue against traditional ways of raising children, or to suggest that we can help children stand up for what they think is right, doesn’t introduce politics into parenting. It’s always been there. If we’ve failed to notice the political implications of child rearing, it may be because most advice on the subject has the effect of perpetuating the status quo. Hence the need to keep asking, “Cui bono?” When, for example, a researcher such as Diana Baumrind defends the idea of “moral internalization,” which she defines as “the process by which children come to espouse and conform to society’s rules, even when they are free of external surveillance or the expectation of external inducement,” that’s intensely political.3 The cornerstone of her notion of “authoritative” discipline is the creation of built-in supervisors to ensure conformity. But too many people respond by asking, “What’s the most efficient way to achieve such internalization?” and skirting the question of the value of those rules they’re being asked to internalize. In fact, we should invite our children to join us in asking which rules are worth following, and why.

By exceptionalism I mean the belief that Western sciences alone among all human knowledge systems are capable of grasping reality in its own terms—“cutting nature at its joints,” as philosophers of science typically enjoy referring to the matter. According to this view, only modern Western sciences have demonstrated that they have the resources to escape the universal human tendency to project onto nature cultural assumptions, fears, and desires. Indeed, these research projects alone of all human inquiries into natural and social orders are entitled to be called sciences, according to the defenders of exceptionalism. Critics document just how such exceptionalists conflate Science with science. That is, the exceptionalists conflate the West’s idealized understandings of its own practices with the universal human impulse to understand ourselves and the world around us in ways that permit effective interactions with such worlds. In contrast, the critics argue that “all people operate within the domains of magic, science, and religion” (Malinowski, Magic 196; quoted by Nader, Naked Science 5). Modern Western sciences are just one set of sciences today, albeit powerful ones, among the many others that have existed and do today around the globe. Moreover they are not constituted entirely by Europeans or within European civilizations; in fact they owe great debts, mostly unacknowledged, to the science traditions that preceded them,

The accusation against the Church for being either right or left wing tells you more about the contemporary political assumptions than about the political inclination of Catholicism. The Church will seem both "right wing" (in promoting the traditional family, opposing abortion, euthanasia, embryonic research, etc.) and "left wing" (in advocating the rights of minorities, social justice, active state support for the poorest, etc.), depending on the political bias of the one accusing .The same bias afflicts Catholics. There are pro-life Catholics who think Catholic social teaching is "socialist," and pro-social-justice Catholics who think pro-life causes are right wing. The Church will always be accused of "interfering" or trying to "impose" its view when the critic disagrees with its stance; but the same critic will say nothing when the Church has intervened politically on a matter with which he or she agrees. And if the Church has stayed silent, the critic will accuse it of "failing to speak out." Put another way, people are against the Church "interfering" in what they would much rather have left alone; and in favor of "interfering" in what they believe should be changed. Why and when does the Church speak out on political questions? The answer is rarely and cautiously, and almost always because it is a matter which touches on the Gospel, on core freedoms and rights (such as the right to life, or to religious freedom), or on core principles of Catholic social teaching. In these cases, the Church not only needs to speak out; it has a duty to do so.

CRACKING A WHIP MADE OF SMALL ROBOTS JOINED END TO END into a long, flexible chain was neither an especially bad nor an especially good way of engaging a foe in ambot-based combat. Extensive studies conducted within Blue military research labs had concluded that, on average, it was somewhat less effective than the more obvious procedure of just shooting individual ambots out of katapults. A dissenting opinion held that such studies were flawed because they failed to take into account two factors that were important in actual battle: One, the psychological impact on a defender who knew that the attack might literally whip around and come at him from any direction, including around corners or over barricades. Two, the element of skill, which was difficult to measure scientifically; the test subjects wielding those things in the lab were unlikely to have the same knack for it as Neoanders who had grown up using them and who had access to an ancient body of lore—a martial art, in effect—that they were disinclined to share with anyone else. If the whip was allowed to dissociate in midcrack, then its component ambots would be flung toward the target at supersonic velocity, which was as good as could be achieved by shooting the same objects out of a katapult. If it made contact with the target, direct physical damage would be inflicted and the ambots that had inflicted it could decouple themselves and carry out their usual programs. And if the whipcrack was off target, the chain could be recovered in full with no waste of ammunition. All the ambots came back for another attempt: something that certainly could not be said of ones that had been fired out of kats.

Sociological research has shown that the maximum 'natural' size of a group bonded by gossip is about 150 individuals. Most people can neither intimately know, nor gossip effectively about, more than 150 human beings...How did Homo sapiens manage to cross this critical threshold, eventually founding cities comprising tens of thousands of inhabitants and empires ruling hundreds of millions? The secret was probably the appearance of fiction. Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths. Any large-scale human cooperation – whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city or an archaic tribe – is rooted in common myths that exist only in people’s collective imagination. Churches are rooted in common religious myths. Two Catholics who have never met can nevertheless go together on crusade or pool funds to build a hospital because they both believe that God was incarnated in human flesh and allowed Himself to be crucified to redeem our sins. States are rooted in common national myths. Two Serbs who have never met might risk their lives to save one another because both believe in the existence of the Serbian nation, the Serbian homeland and the Serbian flag. Judicial systems are rooted in common legal myths. Two lawyers who have never met can nevertheless combine efforts to defend a complete stranger because they both believe in the existence of laws, justice, human rights – and the money paid out in fees. Yet none of these things exists outside the stories that people invent and tell one another. There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.

Sociologist Barry Glassner (1999) has documented many of the biases introduced by “If it bleeds, it leads” news reporting, and by the strategic efforts of special interest groups to control the agenda of public fear of crime, disease, and other hazards. Is an increase of approximately 700 incidents in 50 states over 7 years an “epidemic” of road rage? Is it conceivable that there is (or ever was) a crisis in children’s day care stemming from predatory satanic cults? In 1994, a research team funded by the U.S. government spent 4 years and $750,000 to reach the conclusion that the myth of satanic conspiracies in day care centers was totally unfounded; not a single verified instance was found (Goodman, Qin, Bottoms, & Shaver, 1994; Nathan & Snedeker, 1995). Are automatic-weapon-toting high school students really the first priority in youth safety? (In 1999, approximately 2,000 school-aged children were identified as murder victims; only 26 of those died in school settings, 14 of them in one tragic incident at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.) The anthropologist Mary Douglas (Douglas & Wildavsky, 1982) pointed out that every culture has a store of exaggerated horrors, many of them promoted by special interest factions or to defend cultural ideologies. For example, impure water had been a hazard in 14th-century Europe, but only after Jews were accused of poisoning wells did the citizenry become preoccupied with it as a major problem. But the original news reports are not always ill-motivated. We all tend to code and mention characteristics that are unusual (that occur infrequently). [...] The result is that the frequencies of these distinctive characteristics, among the class of people considered, tend to be overestimated.

I’ve worn Niki’s pants for two days now. I thought a third day in the same clothes might be pushing it.” Ian shrugged with indifference. “It might send Derian through the roof, but it doesn’t bother me. Wear what you want to wear.” Eena wrinkled her nose at him. “Do you really feel that way or are you trying to appear more laissez-faire than Derian?” “More laissez-faire?” “Yes. That’s a real word.” “Two words actually,” he grinned. “Laissez faire et laissez passer, le monde va de lui même!" He coated the words with a heavy French accent. Eena gawked at him. “Since when do you speak French?” “I don’t.” Ian chuckled. “But I did do some research in world history the year I followed you around on Earth. Physics was a joke, but history—that I found fascinating.” Slapping a hand against her chest, Eena exclaimed, “I can’t believe it! Unbeknownst to me, Ian actually studied something in high school other than the library’s collection of sci-fi paperbacks!” He grimaced at her exaggerated performance before defending his preferred choice of reading material. “Hey, popular literature is a valuable and enlightening form of world history. You would know that if you read a book or two.” She ignored his reproach and asked with curiosity, “What exactly did you say?” “In French?” “Duh, yes.” “Don’t ‘duh’ me, you could easily have been referring to my remark about enlightening literature. I know the value of a good book is hard for you to comprehend.” He grinned crookedly at her look of offense and then moved into an English translation of his French quote. “Let it do and let it pass, the world goes on by itself.” “Hmm. And where did that saying come from?” Ian delivered his answer with a surprisingly straight face. “That is what the French Monarch said when his queen began dressing casually. The French revolution started one week following that famous declaration, right after the queen was beheaded by the rest of the aristocracy in her favorite pair of scroungy jeans.” “You are such a brazen-tongued liar!

Our failure to keep our children attached to us and to the other adults responsible for them has not only taken away their shields but put a sword in the hands of their peers. When peers replace parents, children lose their vital protection against the thoughtlessness of others. The vulnerability of a child in such circumstances can easily be overwhelmed. The resulting pain is more than many children can bear. Studies have been unequivocal in their findings that the best protection for a child, even through adolescence, is a strong attachment with an adult. The most impressive of these studies involved ninety thousand adolescents from eighty different communities chosen to make the sample as representative of the United States as possible. The primary finding was that teenagers with strong emotional ties to their parents were much less likely to exhibit drug and alcohol problems, attempt suicide, or engage in violent behavior and early sexual activity. Such adolescents, in other words, were at greatly reduced risk for the problems that stem from being defended against vulnerability. Shielding them from stress and protecting their emotional health and functioning were strong attachments with their parents. This was also the conclusion of the noted American psychologist Julius Segal, a brilliant pioneer of research into what makes young people resilient. Summarizing studies from around the world, he concluded that the most important factor keeping children from being overwhelmed by stress was “the presence in their lives of a charismatic adult — a person with whom they identify and from whom they gather strength.” As Dr. Segal has also said, “Nothing will work in the absence of an indestructible link of caring between parent and child.” Peers should never have come to matter that much — certainly not more than parents or teachers or other adult attachment figures. Taunts and rejection by peers sting, of course, but they shouldn't cut to the quick, should not be so devastating. The profound dejection of an excluded child reveals a much more serious attachment problem than it does a peer-rejection problem.

They heard Hugo ask if the plan for the hors d'oeuvres was still in operation, and they heard Colette ask about plucking the feathers off crows, and they heard Kevin complain that he didn't know whether to hold the birdpaper in his right hand or his left hand, and they heard Mr. Lesko insult Mrs. Morrow, and the bearded man sing a song to the woman with the crow-shaped hat, and they heard a man call for Bruce and a woman call for her mother and dozens of people whisper to and shout at, argue with and agree upon, angrily accuse and meekly defend, furiously compliment and kindly insult dozens of other people, both inside and outside the Hotel Denouement, whose names the Baudelaires recognized, forgot, and had never heard before. Each story had its story, and each story's story was unfathomable in the Baudelaire orphans' short journey, and many of the stories' stories are unfathomable to me, even after all these lonely years and all this lonely research. Perhaps some of these stories are clearer to you, because you have spied upon the people involved. Perhaps Mrs. Bass has changed her name and lives near you, or perhaps Mr. Remora's name is the same, and he lives far away. Perhaps Nero now works as a grocery store clerk, or Geraldine Julienne now teaches arts and crafts. Perhaps Charles and Sir are no longer partners, and you have had the occasion to study one of them as he sat across from you on a bus, or perhaps Hugo, Colette, and Kevin are still comrades, and you have followed these unfathomable people after noticing that one of them used both hands equally. Perhaps Mr. Lesko is now your neighbor, or Mrs. Morrow is now your sister, or your mother, or your aunt or wife or even your husband. Perhaps the noise you hear outside your door is a bearded man trying to climb into your window, or perhaps it is a woman in a crow-shaped hat hailing a taxi. Perhaps you have spotted the managers of the Hotel Denouement, or the judges of the High Court, or the waiters of Cafe Salmonella or the Anxious Clown, or perhaps you have met an expert on injustice or become one yourself. Perhaps the people in your unfathomable life, and their unfathomable stories, are clear to you as you make your way in the world, but when the elevator stopped for the last time, and the doors slid open to reveal the tilted roof of the Hotel Denouement, the Baudelaires felt as if they were balancing very delicately on a mysterious and perplexing heap of unfathomable mysteries.

In the wake of the Cognitive Revolution, gossip helped Homo sapiens to form larger and more stable bands. But even gossip has its limits. Sociological research has shown that the maximum ‘natural’ size of a group bonded by gossip is about 150 individuals. Most people can neither intimately know, nor gossip effectively about, more than 150 human beings. Even today, a critical threshold in human organisations falls somewhere around this magic number. Below this threshold, communities, businesses, social networks and military units can maintain themselves based mainly on intimate acquaintance and rumour-mongering. There is no need for formal ranks, titles and law books to keep order. 3A platoon of thirty soldiers or even a company of a hundred soldiers can function well on the basis of intimate relations, with a minimum of formal discipline. A well-respected sergeant can become ‘king of the company’ and exercise authority even over commissioned officers. A small family business can survive and flourish without a board of directors, a CEO or an accounting department. But once the threshold of 150 individuals is crossed, things can no longer work that way. You cannot run a division with thousands of soldiers the same way you run a platoon. Successful family businesses usually face a crisis when they grow larger and hire more personnel. If they cannot reinvent themselves, they go bust. How did Homo sapiens manage to cross this critical threshold, eventually founding cities comprising tens of thousands of inhabitants and empires ruling hundreds of millions? The secret was probably the appearance of fiction. Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths. Any large-scale human cooperation – whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city or an archaic tribe – is rooted in common myths that exist only in people’s collective imagination. Churches are rooted in common religious myths. Two Catholics who have never met can nevertheless go together on crusade or pool funds to build a hospital because they both believe that God was incarnated in human flesh and allowed Himself to be crucified to redeem our sins. States are rooted in common national myths. Two Serbs who have never met might risk their lives to save one another because both believe in the existence of the Serbian nation, the Serbian homeland and the Serbian flag. Judicial systems are rooted in common legal myths. Two lawyers who have never met can nevertheless combine efforts to defend a complete stranger because they both believe in the existence of laws, justice, human rights – and the money paid out in fees.

In 2006, researchers Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler created fake newspaper articles about polarizing political issues. The articles were written in a way that would confirm a widespread misconception about certain ideas in American politics. As soon as a person read a fake article, experimenters then handed over a true article that corrected the first. For instance, one article suggested that the United States had found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The next article corrected the first and said that the United States had never found them, which was the truth. Those opposed to the war or who had strong liberal leanings tended to disagree with the original article and accept the second. Those who supported the war and leaned more toward the conservative camp tended to agree with the first article and strongly disagree with the second. These reactions shouldn’t surprise you. What should give you pause, though, is how conservatives felt about the correction. After reading that there were no WMDs, they reported being even more certain than before that there actually were WMDs and that their original beliefs were correct. The researchers repeated the experiment with other wedge issues, such as stem cell research and tax reform, and once again they found that corrections tended to increase the strength of the participants’ misconceptions if those corrections contradicted their ideologies. People on opposing sides of the political spectrum read the same articles and then the same corrections, and when new evidence was interpreted as threatening to their beliefs, they doubled down. The corrections backfired. Researchers Kelly Garrett and Brian Weeks expanded on this work in 2013. In their study, people already suspicious of electronic health records read factually incorrect articles about such technologies that supported those subjects’ beliefs. In those articles, the scientists had already identified any misinformation and placed it within brackets, highlighted it in red, and italicized the text. After they finished reading the articles, people who said beforehand that they opposed electronic health records reported no change in their opinions and felt even more strongly about the issue than before. The corrections had strengthened their biases instead of weakening them. Once something is added to your collection of beliefs, you protect it from harm. You do this instinctively and unconsciously when confronted with attitude-inconsistent information. Just as confirmation bias shields you when you actively seek information, the backfire effect defends you when the information seeks you, when it blindsides you. Coming or going, you stick to your beliefs instead of questioning them. When someone tries to correct you, tries to dilute your misconceptions, it backfires and strengthens those misconceptions instead. Over time, the backfire effect makes you less skeptical of those things that allow you to continue seeing your beliefs and attitudes as true and proper.

To decide how great the danger was that this oldest civilized continent in the world would be overrun this winter will be left to later historical research. The unfading credit that this danger is over now goes to those soldiers whom we are commemorating today. Only a glance at Bolshevism’s gigantic preparations for the destruction of our world is sufficient to let us realize with horror what might have become of Germany and the rest of the Continent, had not the National Socialist movement taken power in this state ten years ago, and had it not begun the rebuilding of the German Wehrmacht with the determination that is so peculiar to it, following many fruitless efforts for disarmament. After all, the Germany of Weimar with its Centrist-Marxist democratic party politics would have been swept away by this Central Asian invasion as a straw would be by a hurricane. We realize with increasing clarity that the confrontation that has taken place in Europe since the First World War is slowly beginning to look like a struggle which can only be compared with the greatest historic events of the past. Eternal Jewry forced on us a pitiless and merciless war. Should we not be able to stop the elements of destruction at Europe’s borders, then this continent will be transformed into a single field of ruins. The gravest consequences of this war would then be not only the burned cities and destroyed cultural monuments, but also the bestially murdered multitudes, which would become the victim of this Central Asian flood, just as with the invasions by the Huns and Mongols. What the German and allied soldiers today protect in the east is not the stony face of this continent or its social and intellectual character, but its eternal human substance, whence all values originated ages and ages ago and which gave expression to all human civilizations today, not only to those in Europe and America. In addition to this world of barbarity threatening from the east, we are witnessing the satanic destructive frenzy of its ally, the so-called West. We know about our enemies’ war objectives from countless publications, speeches, and open demands. The babble of the Atlantic Charter is worth as much as Wilson’s Fourteen Points in contrast with the implemented actual design of the Diktat of Versailles. Just as in the English parliamentary democracy the warmonger Churchill pointed the way for later developments with his claim in 1936, when he was not yet the responsible leader of Great Britain, that Germany had to be destroyed again, so the elements behind the present demands for peace in the same democracies today are already planning the state to which they seek to reduce Europe after the war. And their objectives totally correspond with the manifestations of their Bolshevik allies, which we have not only known about but also witnessed: the extermination of all continental people proudly conscious of their nationality and, at their head, the extermination of our own German people. It makes no difference whether English or American papers, parliamentarians, stump orators, or men of letters demand the destruction of the Reich, the abduction of the children of our Volk, the sterilization of our male youth, and so on, as the primary war objective, or whether Bolshevism implements the slaughter of whole groups of people, men, women, and children, in practice. After all, the driving force behind this remains the eternal hatred of that cursed race which, as a true scourge of God, chastised the nations for many thousands of years, until they began to defend themselves against their tormentors in times of reflection. Speech in Lichthof of the Zeughaus for the Heroes’ Memorial Day Berlin, March 21, 1943

fact, by any reasonable standard, global religious repression constitutes a human rights catastrophe. As noted earlier, the nonpartisan Pew Research Center concluded in 2009 that 70 percent of the world’s population lives in countries in which restrictions on religion are severe.

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, for example, might be a bit less certain in his gloomy assessment of human nature: “Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.”10 Maybe, but cooperation runs deep in our species too. Recent findings in comparative primate intelligence have led researchers Vanessa Woods and Brian Hare to wonder whether an impulse toward cooperation might actually be the key to our species-defining intelligence. They write, “Instead of getting a jump start with the most intelligent hominids surviving to produce the next generation, as is often suggested, it may have been the more sociable hominids—because they were better at solving problems together—who achieved a higher level of fitness and allowed selection to favor more sophisticated problem-solving over time.”11 Humans got smart, they hypothesize, because our ancestors learned to cooperate. Innately selfish or not, the effects of food provisioning and habitat depletion on both wild chimpanzees and human foragers suggest that Dawkins and others who argue that humans are innately aggressive, selfish beasts should be careful about citing these chimp data in support of their case. Human groups tend to respond to food surplus and storage with behavior like that observed in chimps: heightened hierarchical social organization, intergroup violence, territorial perimeter defense, and Machiavellian alliances. In other words, humans—like chimps—tend to fight when there’s something worth fighting over. But for most of prehistory, there was no food surplus to win or lose and no home base to defend.

the betrayal of disengagement. Of not caring. Of letting the connection go. Of not being willing to devote time and effort to the relationship. The word betrayal evokes experiences of cheating, lying, breaking a confidence, failing to defend us to someone else who’s gossiping about us, and not choosing us over other people. These behaviors are certainly betrayals, but they’re not the only form of betrayal. If I had to choose the form of betrayal that emerged most frequently from my research and that was the most dangerous in terms of corroding the trust connection, I would say disengagement.

The four company presidents—as well as the CEOs of R. J. Reynolds and Brown and Williamson—had agreed to cooperate on a public relations program to defend their product.25 They would work together to convince the public that there was “no sound scientific basis for the charges,” and that the recent reports were simply “sensational accusations” made by publicity-seeking scientists hoping to attract more funds for their research.

The faction opposed to researching lightspeed vessels felt this way for political reasons. They believed that human civilization had suffered many trials before reaching a nearly ideal democratic society, but once humanity headed for space, it would inevitably regress socially. Space was like a distorting mirror that magnified the dark side of humanity to the maximum. A line from one of the Bronze Age defendants, Sebastian Schneider, became their slogan: When humans are lost in space, it takes only five minutes to reach totalitarianism. For a democratic, civilized Earth to scatter innumerable seeds of totalitarianism among the Milky Way was a prospect that these people found intolerable. The

CONCLUSION It is a tragedy that blacks are much more likely to be victims of violent crime. But as police know all too well, they simply can’t be there all the time to save people. Blacks have to defend themselves more often than any other racial group. Since they so frequently act in self-defense, it is no wonder that their homicides are more likely to be judged as “justifiable.” Blacks have the most to gain from Stand Your Ground laws, and there is no evidence that the laws are applied in any way that discriminates against blacks. My research even suggests just the opposite. But this conversation about discrimination should not be blown out of proportion. The most important thing is that Stand Your Ground saves lives.

The latest research by psychologists, economists, and neuroscientists tells us that achievement tests can’t measure important social and emotional skills either, such as Maria’s growing confidence in her intellect, the courage to speak up in class and defend her views, the tenacity to keep rewriting her papers and work on her weaknesses, the social skills to form new relationships and to ask for help, and the resilience to come to school every day even when deportation notices arrive.15

SHE RESEARCHED WHEN everyone slept. In the dead silence, her mind worked with more clarity. No interruptions, no worries. Sometimes she even imagined that her ancestors guided her. That they reached out from the past to share their stories. “Hocus Pocus!” she thought, smiling. Her inside joke was a source of inspiration. But her imagination was not far-fetched. My second cousin, twice removed, is a family historian. She is also a lawyer. And this is why I chose her. I needed her to do me a favor. I chose her, although she is a business lawyer and not a criminal lawyer. That was fine by me. It’s not like my lawyers did a superb job at defending me. I was wrongfully executed.

Sensitive to the fact that numerous factors besides race can influence the decision making of prosecutors, judges, and juries, Baldus and his colleagues subjected the raw data to highly sophisticated statistical analysis to see if nonracial factors might explain the disparities. Yet even after accounting for thirty-five nonracial variables, the researchers found that defendants charged with killing white victims were 4.3 times more likely to receive a death sentence than defendants charged with killing blacks. Black defendants, like McCleskey, who killed white victims had the highest chance of being sentenced to death in Georgia.53

The advocates of censorship vigorously defend these and similar views, perceiving revisionist historians as a threat to public order, whose research and published statements constitute “incitement to hatred.” Rather paradoxically, it would seem that the “Holocaust deniers” have only succeeded in inciting hatred against themselves!

The word betrayal evokes experiences of cheating, lying, breaking a confidence, failing to defend us to someone else who’s gossiping about us, and not choosing us over other people. These behaviors are certainly betrayals, but they’re not the only form of betrayal. If I had to choose the form of betrayal that emerged most frequently from my research and that was the most dangerous in terms of corroding the trust connection, I would say disengagement.

Animals will defend their groups and territories at all times, but only humans can think about how to do it more effectively with guns, or sadistically by torturing those who are either not in the group or who have betrayed it. At least a third of all the world’s research money is spent on weaponry. Rich nations sell poor nations armaments, crippling their economies, maintaining tyrants and causing untold harm, with the profits from the arms sales flowing back to the rich nations. It is, of course, disastrous, but is the consequence of a fantastic ‘new brain/mind’ not being able to sort out the tribal motives of the ‘old brain/mind’ – greed and a belief in the importance of aggressive power. Even religions can feed into this tragedy.

More importantly, he has applied this encyclopedic knowledge to his researches on African history. “While pursuing this research,” he told the First International Congress of Black Writers and Artists in September 1956, “we have come to discover that the ancient Pharaonic Egyptian civilization was undoubtedly a Negro civilization. To defend this thesis, anthropological, ethnological, linguistic, historical, and cultural arguments have been provided. To judge their validity, it suffices to refer to Nations nègres et culture …

But if there is anything I have learned during my research, it’s that the principal producers and defenders of racist ideas will not join us. And no logic or fact or history book can change them, because logic and facts and scholarship have little to do with why they are expressing racist ideas in the first place. Stamped from the Beginning is about these closed-minded, cunning, captivating producers of racist ideas. But it is not for them.

Indeed, recent research suggests that presenting people with proof that their beliefs are incorrect doesn’t change their minds. Instead, it actually reinforces their erroneous beliefs, as they work hard to defend them against fact and logic.

Watching Sadiqa's courage to break down her body to rebuild her body inspired me to accept the source of racist ideas I found while researching their entire history - even though it upended my previous way of thinking. My research kept pointing me to the same answer: The source of racist ideas was not ignorance and hate, but self-interest. The history of racist ideas is the history of powerful policymakers erecting racist policies out of self-interest, then producing racist ideas to defend and rationalize the inequitable effects of their policies, while everyday people consume those racist ideas, which in turn sparks ignorance and hate. Treating ignorance and hate and expecting racism to shrink suddenly seemed like treating a cancer patient's symptoms and expecting the tumors to shrink.

Committed to this antiracist idea of group equality, I was able to self-critique, discover, and shed the racist ideas I had consumed over my lifetime while I uncovered and exposed the racist ideas that others have produced over the lifetime of America. I know that readers truly committed to racial equality will join me on this journey of interrogating and shedding our racist ideas. But if there is anything I have learned during my research, it’s that the principal producers and defenders of racist ideas will not join us. And no logic or fact or history book can change them, because logic and facts and scholarship have little to do with why they are expressing racist ideas in the first place. Stamped from the Beginning is about these closed-minded, cunning, captivating producers of racist ideas. But it is not for them.

But if there is anything I have learned during my research, it’s that the principal producers and defenders of racist ideas will not join us. And no logic or fact or history book can change them, because logic and facts and scholarship have little to do with why they are expressing racist ideas in the first place.

Indeed, research by Congolese physician Denis Mukwege et al. (2010) implies that to divinely sanctify the rape of the invaded country’s females is likely to be very adaptive in terms of group selection. Rape, they argue, is a way of asserting dominance not just over the females, but, by extension, over their fathers, brothers, male cousins and, in many ways, all males on the opposing side. It destroys their morale and undermines their confidence, because the conquerors assert dominance and control over the central resource for future existence, namely the wombs of the women of those whom they are conquering. Based on an analysis of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mukwege et al. (2010) aver that rape can be a quite deliberate war strategy, because it creates deep trauma and insecurity among the victims and their networks, helping to undermine their ability to defend themselves. It may, therefore, be no coincidence that the original meaning of ‘rape’ was to ‘pillage’ or ‘steal.’ Only in the early 15th century did ‘rape’ come to refer to the abduction and sexual violation of a woman.

A great deal of original research, much of it conducted by Western-trained Saudi sociologists, went into finding out who joined al-Qaeda and what motivated them. The results, gathered from scores of interviews, made interesting reading. These Saudi terrorists were, for the most part, urban high-school graduates in their twenties from lower middle-class backgrounds. Most were unmarried and had jobs with steady, but modest, incomes. Most had been to Afghanistan or had relatives who had been on jihad abroad. They were motivated not by oppression at home but largely by events outside of Saudi Arabia, and what the sociologists called “humiliation rage.” Fueled by religious zeal, this boiled down to a three-part agenda: defend foreign Muslims who were being abused by non-Muslims; get the foreigners and their non-Islamic values out of Saudi Arabia; and overthrow the Al Saud, who were clearly aligned with the non-Muslim foreigners.

Without free speech one cannot claim other liberties, or defend them when they are attacked. Without free speech one cannot have a democratic process, which requires the statement and testing of policy proposals and party platforms. Without free speech one cannot have a due process at law, in which one can defend oneself, accuse, collect and examine evidence, make a case or refute one. Without free speech there cannot be genuine education and research, enquiry, debate, exchange of information, challenges to falsehood, questioning of governments, proposal and examination of opinion. Without free speech there cannot be a free press, which...is necessary...as one of the two essential estates of a free society (the other being an independent judiciary).

If the pursuit of learning is not defended by the educated citizen, it will not be defended at all. For there will always be those who scoff at intellectuals, who cry out against research, who seek to limit our educational system. Modern cynics and skeptics see no more reason for landing a man on the moon, which we shall do, than the cynics and skeptics of half a millennium ago saw for the discovery of this country. They see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing. But the educated citizen knows how much more there is to know. He knows that "knowledge is power," more so today than ever before. He knows that only an educated and informed people will be a free people, that the ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all, and that if we can, as Jefferson put it, "enlighten the people generally ... tyranny and the oppressions of mind and body will vanish, like evil spirits at the dawn of day." And, therefore, the educated citizen has a special obligation to encourage the pursuit of learning, to promote exploration of the unknown, to preserve the freedom of inquiry, to support the advancement of research, and to assist at every level of government the improvement of education for all Americans, from grade school to graduate school. Secondly, the educated citizen has an obligation to serve the public. He may be a precinct worker or President. He may give his talents at the courthouse, the State house, the White House. He may be a civil servant or a Senator, a candidate or a campaign worker, a winner or a loser. But he must be a participant and not a spectator.

For the study of Middle Eastern history, and at the present time one might even add of world history, some knowledge of Islam’s origins and of its scriptures is necessary. Already in my student years I was reading the Koran, the biography of the Prophet, and the extensive literature concerned with them. But at no time did I specialize in these topics. I am not an expert in theology or scripture, and I looked at these, if at all, only with a historian’s eye. I am, by vocation and profession, a historian, principally interested in the history of civilization. Looking back, I see that by this choice I saved myself a lot of trouble. This was not my purpose at the time but I have become well aware of my narrow and fortunate escape from one of the most difficult and dangerous topics of our profession. Even for Muslims, and far more so for non-Muslims, the study of the sacred biography and the sacred text has become highly sensitive, not so much a field of research as a minefield. This has not prevented my critics from attacking me for my treatment of Muslim scripture and sacred biography. In this as in other matters, the attacks came from both sides. On the one side I am accused of traducing Islam and its sanctities, on the other of defending and even concealing its flaws. As long as the attacks continue to come from both sides, I shall remain confident of my scholarly objectivity. Once,

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the same researchers turned to a database of death penalty cases tried in Philadelphia between 1979 and 1999. In a provocative paper titled “Looking Deathworthy,” they showed that when the victim was white, black men who looked stereotypically black were dramatically more likely to receive a death sentence than were black men who looked less stereotypically black. Whereas stereotypically black men tended to receive a death sentence in 58 percent of all cases, black men who did not look stereotypically black received a death sentence in only 24 percent of all cases. These results held even when the researchers carefully removed the effects of other variables that may have inflated the difference, like the defendants’ and victims’ socioeconomic status.

Obviously the students preferred to assign themselves to the appealing task and their partners to the unappealing task, but they also recognized that it would be fairer to toss a coin to decide who would undertake each task. The laws of probability state that if the students were using the coins fairly, roughly half of them should have been assigned to the positive task, and the other half should have been assigned to the negative task. Though all of the students tossed the coin, the researchers found that 85 percent of the students assigned themselves to the positive task, suggesting that the coin was merely a prop that allowed them to defend the fairness of the desired outcome. Since they weren’t supervised, you can imagine how the students interpreted a negative outcome: if they lost the first toss, perhaps they decided that the outcome should rest on a best-of-three scenario. The researchers tried the task again, this time placing the students in front of a large mirror. Forced to stare at their reflections as they tossed the coin, the students were perfectly fair, assigning their phantom partner to the positive task exactly 50 percent of the time. Incredibly, the students claimed they reached their decision fairly in both situations, but only the students who sat in front of a mirror actually obeyed the outcome of the coin toss.

Many of the atrocities that have taken place over the last few thousand years have been the result of ‘new brain/mind’ competencies linking up with ‘old brain/mind’ motives and defences. We can even use our ‘new brain/mind’ competencies to justify our actions and give us very sophisticated ways of acting them out. Animals will defend their groups and territories at all times, but only humans can think about how to do it more effectively with guns, or sadistically by torturing those who are either not in the group or who have betrayed it. At least a third of all the world’s research money is spent on weaponry. Rich nations sell poor nations armaments, crippling their economies, maintaining tyrants and causing untold harm, with the profits from the arms sales flowing back to the rich nations. It is, of course, disastrous, but is the consequence of a fantastic ‘new brain/mind’ not being able to sort out the tribal motives of the ‘old brain/mind’ – greed and a belief in the importance of aggressive power. Even religions can feed into this tragedy.

But what dawned on me, when I read the research showing that conservative white men tended to justify a system that had served them well, was that “the economy” being defended was not the textbook definition I’d learned: the sum total of our population’s consumption, goods, and services. That definition of the economy is one that could go on quite well and even flourish without white men being such lopsided beneficiaries. “The economy” that they were referring to was their economy, the economic condition of people like them, seen through the lens of a zero-sum system of hierarchy that taught them to fear any hint of redistribution. Value-neutral admonitions about protecting “the economy” allowed them to protect their own status while resting easy knowing that they were not at all racist, because it wasn’t about race—it was about, well, “the economy.

Research teaches a man to admit he is wrong and to be proud of the fact that he does so, rather than try with all his energy to defend an unsound plan because he is afraid that admission of error is a confession of weakness when rather it is a sign of strength

Western universities have displayed extraordinary naivety in their dealings with Chinese companies and universities, and are often unwilling to admit the risks even when confronted with the evidence. Funding bodies like the US National Science Foundation and the Australian Research Council have no due diligence procedures, and rely on universities to vet researchers and companies.118 The universities often have a strong financial incentive to keep themselves in the dark while defending the traditional scientific culture of openness and transparency, even though this is being systematically exploited by Beijing.

If someone is attacking you, regardless of what technique they are attacking with, the highest probability of winning that encounter is to immediately attack that person with everything you’ve got. Kicks, knees, elbow strikes, open palm strikes, chops, punches, etc., thrown rapidly and with as much power you can generate. The key to this kind of defensive theory is that once you initiate your counter-attack, you don’t stop throwing techniques until your opponent is incapacitated. Some schools call this a “blitz” type of attack, which is borrowed from American football, but regardless of the name, it is a solid, proven method of counter-attacking. Finding yourself in the position of “getting jumped” by one or more thugs, for instance, would be a perfect example of utilizing this kind of counter-attack. Remember the action verses reaction gap we covered earlier? I suggest you should take some time and do a little research on what is known about this interaction. Action is always faster than reaction. That just makes common sense, doesn’t it? So, if you are waiting on your opponent to make the first move out of some archaic martial arts dogma about not striking first, then you are already behind before the fight starts. To win, you must cause your opponent to react rather that act. They must be the one that is a millisecond behind, always attempting to catch up to what is going on. You must become the initiator, but only after you have determined the level of force needed to control the situation. Once you have determined that, and it is very helpful to rehearse various scenarios prior to actually being involved in them, then it is a matter of always causing your opponent to react during that situation. This concept has been pressure tested numerous times, it works and works very effectively.

SEALING THE QI “The imperatives of war demand deadly, effective, pre-emptive action.” Peter Consterdine We have established that the Fire meridians, which include the Heart, Small Intestine, Pericardium, and Triple Warmer meridians are the most vulnerable to martial attack. The information and research that has been presented should validate the Fire meridians as the Primary Energetic Targets of the body from a combative viewpoint. There are numerous other tidbits of martial science that can be derived from the information. The knowledge of understanding which of the elemental energies are deficient or excessive during a combative situation allows the martial artist to tailor their self-defense techniques to gain the best response. If you have been applying Traditional Chinese Medicine to your individual style, then you have already been doing this procedure. Examination of the various techniques of your style, through that Eastern perspective, has opened the proverbial door to an increase in the overall effectiveness of your techniques. Knowing that initial strikes to the arms, while an opponent is punching for instance, will “activate” the Gall Bladder meridian for follow-up attacks. This example follows the Cycle of Control by first attacking the Fire and Metal meridians of the arms and then attacking the Wood meridians for a quick follow-up strike. By disrupting the energy flow of three elements, the Fire, Metal, and Wood energies in this example, of the Cycle of Control you are able to drop most opponents fairly easily.

According to the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Ethical Education, research shows that kids play sports for the following reasons: • To have fun (always #1) • To do something I am good at • To improve my skills • To get exercise and stay in shape • To be part of a team • The excitement of competition They do not play to win. They like to win, they enjoy competing, but they do not play to win. They play to have fun, to be with their friends, to feel good about themselves, and because it is exciting. Yet how often do we pick and choose our kids’ sports team because it is the winning team, the winning coach, the defending champion, and assume that because of all the wins everything else just happens? We look at wins and losses and fail to search for happy faces and proper developmental environments.

Defense mechanisms are everywhere and with every organisms to protect themselves from predators and other environmental or ecological stimulus, even music is a defense mechanism, even coding is defense mechanism, AI/ML is to understand defense mechanisms,/ But for me when i figure out Biological/ environmental/ecological stimuli responsible for specific reactions i e physiological dynamics, i observe, study, research and finally defend on thesis presentation or viva voce or laude ., Aspiring Biologist / Env/ecologist

The physicist can investigate the nature of the atom, at least in the modern age, without having to meet the opposition of anyone who is interested in perpetuating certain strongly held ideas about its structure. The research worker in medicine and the psychologist can investigate the operation of the human body and mind without having to be concerned about the prejudices of the rest of the community. There is no pressure in these sciences to make the results conform to someone else's prejudices and preconceptions. But the economist is not so fortunate. His investigations touch the pocketbook, always a sensitive spot. Consequently, he is exposed to all kinds of pressures: the pressure of those who want him to prove the free trade is the only way to prosperity, and of those who want him to show that without protective tariffs, the American worker will be deprived of his job. To satisfy one vocal group he must prove that high wages are the cause of unemployment; to satisfy another, he must show that unemployment is bound to grow unless wages are raised. He must prove that the gold standard should be maintained; likewise he must show that it ought to be abolished. The difficulties of being objective in such an atmosphere are, of course, enormous. The economist must seek truth, when from all sides he is under pressure to defend causes.

In 2004, the atheist world was shocked when famed British atheist Antony Flew announced that he believed in the existence of God. For decades he had heralded the cause of atheism. It was the incredible complexity of DNA that opened his eyes: In a recent interview, Flew stated, “It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design.” Flew also renounced naturalistic theories of evolution: “It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism.

At its core, defensiveness is a way to protect our ego and a fragile self-esteem. Our research team member Ellen Alley explains that our self-esteem is considered fragile when our failures, mistakes, and imperfections decrease our self-worth. In our work, the opposite of a fragile self-esteem is grounded confidence. With grounded confidence, we accept our imperfections and they don’t diminish our self-worth. It makes sense that defensiveness occurs in areas of our lives where we have fragile self-esteem, or across several areas of our lives if the fragility is more general. Any perceived call-out of our weakness is experienced as an attack on our worth, so we fight hard to defend ourselves against it.

But we all know that the DSM is at its best a clumsy and imperfect field guide to our foibles and at its worst a compendium of expert opinions masquerading as scientific truths, a book whose credibility surpasses its integrity, whose usefulness is primarily commercial, and whose most ardent defenders are reduced to arguing that it should be taken less seriously even as all of us - clinicians, researchers, and copyright holders alike - cash in on the fact that it is not.

Dr. Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, had been meditating for more than forty years when he redirected his research to the effects of meditation on the brain. This shift in his work occurred at a meeting with the Dalai Lama, who wondered at the focus of his research: “You’ve been using the tools of modern neuroscience to study depression, and anxiety, and fear. Why can’t you use these same tools to study kindness and compassion?”11 This question would lead him on a journey to find out just how much we can learn from EEG.

Research on workplace engagement funded by the Bavarian State Ministry for Education and Culture found that with EEG, it is now possible to classify the type of activity an individual is engaged in—central tasks (e.g., programming, database, web development), peripheral tasks (e.g., setting up a development environment, writing documentation), and meta tasks (e.g., social media browsing, reading news sites).47 As pattern classification of brain wave data becomes ever more sophisticated, employers will be able to tell not just whether you are alert or your mind is wandering but also whether you are surfing social media or developing code.

When researchers asked students about their attitudes toward skipping class, they reported strongly negative attitudes toward doing so, but then skipped class more frequently in the weeks following.95 When study participants were asked how often they would go out drinking or watch television instead of studying, they also did so more frequently in the week following.96 But when framed negatively—telling participants that drinking and wasting time watching television are vices to be avoided—the vice behavior remained the same.97 How an influencer frames a question can liberate us to sin or increase our ability to avoid doing so.

These experiences, called “psychic” or psi, suggest the presence of deep, invisible interconnections among people, and between objects and people. The most curious aspect of psi experiences is that they seem to transcend the usual boundaries of time and space. For over a century, these very same experiences have been systematically dismissed as impossible, or ridiculed as delusionary, by a small group of influential academics and journalists who have assumed that existing scientific theories are inviolate and complete. This has created a paradox. Many people believe in psi because of their experiences, and yet the defenders of the status quo have insisted that this belief is unjustified. Paradoxes are extremely important because they point out logical contradictions in assumptions. The first cousins of paradoxes are anomalies, those unexplained oddities that crop up now and again in science. Like paradoxes, anomalies are useful for revealing possible gaps in prevailing theories. Sometimes the gaps and contradictions are resolved peacefully and the old theories are shown to accommodate the oddities after all. But that is not always the case, so paradoxes and anomalies are not much liked by scientists who have built their careers on conventional theories. Anomalies present annoying challenges to established ways of thinking, and because theories tend to take on a life of their own, no theory is going to lie down and die without putting up a strenuous fight. Though anomalies may be seen as nuisances, the history of science shows that each anomaly carries a seed of potential revolution. If the seed can withstand the herbicides of repeated scrutiny, skepticism, and prejudice, it may germinate. It may then provoke a major breakthrough that reshapes the scientific landscape, allowing new technological and sociological concepts to bloom into a fresh vision of “common sense.” A long-held, commonsense assumption is that the worlds of the subjective and the objective are distinct, with absolutely no overlap. Subjective is “here, in the head,” and objective is “there, out in the world.” Psi phenomena suggest that the strict subjective-objective dichotomy may instead be part of a continuous spectrum, and that the usual assumptions about space and time are probably too restrictive. The anomalies fall into three general categories: ESP (extrasensory perception), PK (psychokinesis, or mind-matter interaction), and phenomena suggestive of survival after bodily death, including near-death experiences, apparitions, and reincarnation (see the following definitions and figure 1.1). Most scientists who study psi today expect that further research will eventually explain these anomalies in scientific terms. It isn’t clear, though, whether they can be fully understood without significant, possibly revolutionary, expansions of the current state of scientific knowledge.

Marriage researchers have labeled this next dance Demand-Withdraw or Criticize-Defend. I call it the Protest Polka because I see it as a reaction to or, more accurately, a protest against the loss of the sense of secure attachment that we all need in a relationship

We need to accept imperfection. Good may be the enemy of the great but perfect is the enemy of getting stuff done. There is a vulnerability in many environments if you are to share things that are not quite perfect or perfectly thought through. The idea of presenting a new product without showing reams of research to show that it definitely will work is contrary to how most people think. The idea of not having an answer to every question that could be asked is scary, as is dreaming a little bigger or differently to others. Most companies feel like they need people who are professionals who can defend everything, who have thought through every single scenario. We need people to embrace messiness, to accept that real progress comes from things that are never done perfectly the first time. Young companies talk about the idea of a minimal viable product (MVP) which are ideas developed enough to see if there is something worth exploring further. Today we have processes like rapid prototyping or design sprints, or other ways to conceive, develop and test proposals far, far faster than a culture of perfection would ever allow. Arguably, the innovation process in China is by nature faster and bolder thanks to its spirit of chabuduo which means ‘it’ll do’ and meibanfa, aka ‘can’t be helped’. On the one hand it means things are never done perfectly, but on the other it allows rapid progress. Unlike in the West, people don’t freak out if something doesn’t work perfectly. China has a higher acceptance of imperfection, and that’s reassuring if you are trying things that may totally mess up!

Another piece of research found that when women were reported to the police for abuse, which men often to as a form of attack, they (women) were arrested to a disproportionate degree given the fewer incidents where they were perpetrators. The study found that men were arrested for one in every ten incidents, whilst women were arrested for one in every three incidents.

When I talk about sex differences and reporting or domestic and sexual violence, people often suggest that the differences are exaggerated because it's such a taboo for men to report. Not only does this fail to recognise that reporting abuse is also a taboo for many women, but research has found the opposite to be true: that men overestimate their victimisation and underestimate their own violence, whereas women are more likely to overestimate their own use of violence but underestimate their victimisation. Women normalise, discount, minimise, excuse their partner's domestic and sexual violence against them, and they're more likely to find ways to make it their fault.

The position I am defending (in this course) and which you can qualify as intuitionist, does not belong to any of these fields [Platonist and formalist]. It postulates that the cognitive foundations of mathematics must be sought in a series of fundamental intuitions of space, time, and number shared by many species of animals and which originate in a distant past where these intuitions played an essential role to survive. Mathematics is built on the formalisation and creation of a conscious relationship among these different intuitions. This position is close, but not identical, to the mathematical intuitionism of Brouwer and Poincaré. The difficulty lies in precisely defining what is meant by intuition. It is not certain, in fact, that the variety of properties that are attributed to it arise from a single cognitive process. Nevertheless, in the domain of elementary numerical cognition, recent research have defined very precisely a body of knowledge that can be qualified as ‘numerical intuition’ or ‘number sense’.

judged it the least compact in the nation.8 The report assessing congressional districts for the 1990s prepared by the Congressional Research Service applied the convex hull to the population and not to area. The least compact district as calculated using convex hull for the population was Colorado-4. Neither this district nor the next five in terms of low population scores had to defend its plan in court. Only three districts with low scores on the population compactness measure drew a legal challenge. Of these three, Florida-23 escaped unscathed when the judge dismissed the suit. On

the nickname for the project was Continental Shotgun. Bury a lot of very powerful nuclear munitions and use their energy when they explode to pump a huge field of single-use particle beam tubes. The research project aimed to turn a section of a planet about a hundred kilometers square into a one-time-only dense field of particle beams that could annihilate an invasion fleet when it passed above that region of the planet.” Jamenson gasped a deep breath before she could continue speaking. “But it was abandoned because the weapon effectively destroyed the planet it was supposed to defend. The seismic impact of that many explosions that massive, the amount of material hurled into the atmosphere, the huge amount of nuclear contamination, it all combined to inflict massive damage and render a planet almost uninhabitable. That, and the target had to pass over the weapon, which was hard to guarantee.

I get to attend a lot of meetings, dinners, and working groups in which people are trying to bridge the divide between Washington and Silicon Valley, the defense and technology worlds, and I have come to believe that we are radically overthinking this problem. Much of the answer hinges on basic supply and demand. Again, it is a question of incentives. On any given day, billions of dollars of private capital sit on the sidelines in America, looking for promising new ventures that could yield big returns. More of that money does not flow into the defense sector because most venture capitalists have come to believe that defense is a lousy investment, and plenty of empirical evidence supports that assumption. For decades, too many defense technologies have failed to transition from promising research and development efforts to successful military programs fielded at scale. Too many small companies doing defense work have become casualties in the “valley of death” rather than billion-dollar “unicorns.” The reason there are not more success stories is not a mystery: the US government did not create the necessary incentives. It did not buy what worked best in large quantities.

Arrhythmias are additional common causes of problems and death, and the heart can also be damaged by infections, birth defects, drugs, and faulty wiring. But atherosclerosis is by far the leading culprit, and chronically high blood pressure, hypertension, is a close second. Hypertension is a silent condition that relentlessly strains the heart, arteries, and various organs. At least 100,000 times a day, the heart forces about five liters of blood through thousands of miles of arteries that resist each squeeze, generating pressure. When we exercise, blood pressure rises temporarily, causing the heart’s muscular chambers to adapt, mostly by becoming stronger, larger, and more elastic so it can pump more blood with each stroke.30 Just as important, arteries also adapt to exercise to keep blood pressure low, primarily by expanding, multiplying, and staying elastic.31 However, when blood pressure is chronically high, the heart defends itself by developing thicker muscular walls. These thicker walls stiffen and fill with scar tissue, and eventually the heart weakens. A vicious cycle then ensues. As the heart’s ability to pump blood declines, it becomes harder to exercise and thus control high blood pressure. Blood pressure may rise as the heart progressively weakens until the failing heart cannot support or sustain a normal blood pressure. Death usually ensues. Coronary artery disease is ancient and has even been diagnosed in mummies.32 But research on nonindustrial populations provides powerful evidence that coronary artery disease and hypertension are largely evolutionary mismatches. Although many medical textbooks teach doctors that it’s normal for blood pressure to rise with age, we have known since the 1970s this is not true among hunter-gatherer populations like the San and the Hadza.33 The average blood pressure in a seventy-year-old San hunter-gatherer is 120/67, no different from a twenty-year-old. Lifelong low blood pressure also characterizes many subsistence farming populations. My colleagues Rob Shave and Aaron Baggish and I measured more than a hundred Tarahumara farmers of every age and found no difference in blood pressure between teenagers and octogenarians.34 By the same token, blood pressure can also stay normal into old age among industrialized people who eat sensibly and stay active.35

The magic word is "because." According to research studies, simply including the word "because" in a request completely defuses a lot of defensiveness and reluctance on the part of the person being requested to do something.

I also quickly came to appreciate the importance of watching what’s said around clients. When clients make unexpected requests for legal advice – as they often do – I learned that it was better to tell them I’d get back to them with an answer, and go away, research the question, and consult with a supervising attorney, rather than firing back an answer off-the-cuff. A friend of mine at another firm told me a story that illustrates the risks of saying too much. It seems an insurance company had engaged my friend’s California-based firm to help in defending against an environmental claim. This claim entailed reviewing huge volumes of documents in Arizona. So my friend’s firm sent teams of associates to Arizona, all expenses paid, on a weekly basis. Because the insurance company also sent its own lawyers and paralegals, as did other insurance companies who were also defendants in the lawsuit, the document review facility was often staffed with numerous attorneys and paralegals from different firms. Associates were instructed not to discuss the case with anyone unless they knew with whom they were speaking. After several months of document review, one associate from my friend’s firm abandoned his professionalism and discretion when he began describing to a young woman who had recently arrived at the facility what boondoggles the weekly trips were. He talked at length about the free airfare, expensive meals, the easy work, and the evening partying the trips involved. As fate would have it, the young woman was a paralegal working for the insurance company – the client who was paying for all of his “perks” – and she promptly informed her superiors about his comments. Not surprisingly, the associate was fired before the end of the month. My life as an associate would have been a lot easier if I had delegated work more freely. I’ve mentioned the stress associated with delegating work, but the flip side of that was appreciating the importance of asking others for help rather than doing everything myself. I found that by delegating to paralegals and other staff members some of my more tedious assignments, I was free to do more interesting work. I also wish I’d given myself greater latitude to make mistakes. As high achievers, law students often put enormous stress on themselves to be perfect, and I was no different. But as a new lawyer, I, of course, made mistakes; that’s the inevitable result of inexperience. Rather than expect perfection and be inevitably disappointed, I’d have been better off to let myself be tripped up by inexperience – and focus, instead, on reducing mistakes caused by carelessness. Finally, I tried to rely more on other associates within the firm for advice on assignments and office politics. When I learned to do this, I found that these insights gave me either the assurance that I was using the right approach, or guidance as to what the right approach might be. It didn’t take me long to realize that getting the “inside scoop” on firm politics was crucial to my own political survival. Once I figured this out, I made sure I not only exchanged information with other junior associates, but I also went out of my way to gather key insights from mid-level and senior associates, who typically knew more about the latest political maneuverings and happenings. Such information enabled me to better understand the various personal agendas directing work flow and office decisions and, in turn, to better position myself with respect to issues and cases circulating in the office.

A month after the fall of the Berlin Wall the US invaded Panama, killing a couple of hundred or maybe a couple of thousand people, destroying poor neighborhoods, reinstating a regime of bankers and narcotraffickers—drug peddling and money laundering shot way up, as congressional research bureaus soon advised—and so on. That’s normal, a footnote to history, but there were two differences: one difference is that the pretexts were different. This was the first intervention since the beginning of the Cold War that was not undertaken to defend ourselves from the Russians. This time, it was to defend ourselves from Hispanic narcotraffickers. Secondly, the US recognized right away that it was much freer to invade without any concern that somebody, the Russians, might react somewhere in the world, as former Undersecretary of State Abrams happily pointed out.

A remarkable pheromone-and-allomone combination is used as a “propaganda substance” by an American species of slave-maker ant. Slavery is widespread in ants of the north temperate zone. It starts when colonies of the slave-making species conduct raids on other ant species. Their workers are shiftless at home, seldom engaging in any domestic chore. However, like indolent Spartan warriors of ancient Greece, they are also ferocious in combat. In some species the raiders are armed with powerful sickle-shaped mandibles capable of piercing the bodies of their opponents. During my research on ant slavery I found one species that uses a radically different method. The raiders carry a hugely enlarged gland reservoir in their abdomen (the rear segment of the three-part body) filled with an alarm substance. Upon breaching the victim’s nest, they spray large quantities of the pheromone through the chamber and galleries. The effect on the defenders of the allomone (or, more precisely, pseudo-pheromone) is confusion, panic, and retreat. They suffer the equivalent of our hearing a thunderously loud, persistent alarm coming from all directions. The invaders do not respond the same way. Instead, they are attracted to the pheromone, and as a result they are able easily to seize and carry away the young (in the pupal stage) of the defenders. When the captives emerge from the pupae as adults, they become imprinted, act as sisters of their captors, and serve them willingly as slaves for the rest of their lives.

there are no other professional communities in which individual creative work is so exclusively addressed to and evaluated by other members of the profession. The most esoteric of poets or the most abstract of theologians is far more concerned than the scientist with lay approbation of his creative work, though he may be even less concerned with approbation in general. That difference proves consequential. Just because he is working only for an audience of colleagues, an audience that shares his own values and beliefs, the scientist can take a single set of standards for granted. He need not worry about what some other group or school will think and can therefore dispose of one problem and get on to the next more quickly than those who work for a more heterodox group. Even more important, the insulation of the scientific community from society permits the individual scientist to concentrate his attention upon problems that he has good reason to believe he will be able to solve. Unlike the engineer, and many doctors, and most theologians, the scientist need not choose problems because they urgently need solution and without regard for the tools available to solve them. In this respect, also, the contrast between natural scientists and many social scientists proves instructive. The latter often tend, as the former almost never do, to defend their choice of a research problem—e.g., the effects of racial discrimination or the causes of the business cycle—chiefly in terms of the social importance of achieving a solution. Which group would one then expect to solve problems at a more rapid rate? The

The sieges of Gvozdansko, Croatia and Alamo, U.S. tell the true stories of small bands of heroes who stood against massive armies to defend their homelands. They echo innate human devotion to the idea of fighting for freedom across the world. Alamo was designate by UNESCO as a World Heritage site in 2015. Gvozdansko deserves more research and the same level of respect and protection for its equal relevance. The Croatian landmark was the site of the pivotal 103-day Battle of Gvozdansko in 1578 against the Ottoman army. Among those who fought and died there were the common miners together with their families.

The Founding and the Constitution WHAT GOVERNMENT DOES AND WHY IT MATTERS The framers of the U.S. Constitution knew why government mattered. In the Constitution’s preamble, the framers tell us that the purposes of government are to promote justice, to maintain peace at home, to defend the nation from foreign foes, to provide for the welfare of the citizenry, and, above all, to secure the “blessings of liberty” for Americans. The remainder of the Constitution spells out a plan for achieving these objectives. This plan includes provisions for the exercise of legislative, executive, and judicial powers and a recipe for the division of powers among the federal government’s branches and between the national and state governments. The framers’ conception of why government matters and how it is to achieve its goals, while often a matter of interpretation and subject to revision, has been America’s political blueprint for more than two centuries. Often, Americans become impatient with aspects of the constitutional system such as the separation of powers, which often seems to be a recipe for inaction and “gridlock” when America’s major institutions of government are controlled by opposing political forces. This has led to bitter fights that sometimes prevent government from delivering important services. In 2011 and again in 2013, the House and Senate could not reach agreement on a budget for the federal government or a formula for funding the public debt. For 16 days in October 2013, the federal government partially shut down; permit offices across the country no longer took in fees, contractors stopped receiving checks, research projects stalled, and some 800,000 federal employees were sent home on unpaid leave—at a cost to the economy of $2–6 billion.1 39

Attempting to be neutral in one’s intellectual endeavors (whether research, argumentation, reasoning, or teaching) is tantamount to striving to erase the antithesis between the Christian and the unbeliever.