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POPSWhy The Loudest are Often the Most Wrong This classic paper by Kruger and Dunning, Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments , examines the psychological reasons for the unfortunately common correlation between ignorance and confidence. We argue that when people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the mistaken impression that they are doing just fine. As Miller (1993) perceptively observed in the quote that opens this article, and as Charles Darwin (1871) sagely noted over a century ago, "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." ( PDF here .)
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POPSScience of Search: How to Make Out, or Levitate How-to searches also reveal our aspirations. Comprising 12% of the instructional searches were those questions geared towards self improvement: how to "lose weight," "gain weight," "make money," and, for those truly in search of instant gratification, "make money fast." On the darker side, over 9.5% of the searches were for illicit or illegal activities, with marijuana use figuring high on the list ("how to grow marijuana," "grow pot," "grow weed") but also some very concerning questions: "how to commit suicide," "how to make meth," even "how to make a bomb." We apparently feel comfortable enough with our computers and the Internet to query just about anything. Search continues to grow in importance as we sift through the mountain of information available to us. As the growth of "how to" searches increases, its clear that we are turning to search engines as sources of knowledge and insight into getting things done.
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POPSLiving in the Age of Abundance Puts the marvel of modern American life in perspective. Review by George F. Will of Brink Lindsey's new book, The Age of Abundance: How Prosperity Transformed America’s Politics and Culture . Ever since mass affluence, a phenomenon without precedent in the human story, exploded upon postwar America, social and political theorists have wondered, and worried, about the moral and even the spiritual consequences of material conditions. Putting scarcity behind us has been pleasant, but has it been good for us — meaning good for our souls? (Also see How Rich are You? )
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POPSThai school offers transsexual toilet Thailand is well known for its tolerance of transgender men, and they are very visible in everyday life. Sex-change surgery has become a speciality of the Thai health industry, and it is relatively inexpensive; patients come here from all over the world for the operation. Despite their high profile in Thailand, transsexuals complain that they are still stereotyped - they can find work easily enough as entertainers, in the beauty industry, the media, or as prostitutes, but it is much harder to become a transgender lawyer or investment banker. And their biggest complaint is that they cannot change their legal status. Despite a proposal during the drafting of a new constitution last year, to allow them to change the gender on their identity cards, this has not yet been approved. What the third toilet looks like .
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POPSTurkish-Armenian writer shot dead I am so upset and so shocked that I can't write anything as a comment. Can't stop my tears while writing this. Terribly sad. Hrant Dink was one of the most important thinkers and intellectuals of Turkey. Dammit... Still can't believe this.
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POPSThe Perpetual Baby - A Child Frozen In Time Brooke Greenberg (born January 8, 1993) is a teenaged girl (as of 2006) who has not aged physically or mentally and looks like an average six to twelve-month-old. Her medical condition has never been diagnosed.
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POPSStrange Similarities: The Assassinations of Kennedy & Lincoln Some skeptics say that you could take any two famous people and find a number of similar-type coincidences between them. The only problem with that theory is that there really haven't been any listings of such comparisons. And certainly none has been as extensive as the Lincoln-Kennedy similarities. In conclusion: Facts concerning the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy are amazingly similar. It is uncertain if such coincidences have any meaning, but they certainly are strange.
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POPSColourful beginning for humanity "Colour symbolism is an abstraction and we cannot work this abstraction without language; so this is a proxy for trying to find in the archaeological record real echoes for the emergence of language," Dr Barham told the British Association's Science Festival.
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POPSDenialists & Logical Fallacies So familiar ... Time and time again you see someone exasperated by the crank who won't turn despite being shown again and again where their error is, and finally just call the guy an idiot. That's actually not an ad hominem. That might be totally true and highly relevant to the argument at hand. Sometimes people are just too stupid or too ignorant to realize when they've been soundly thrashed, and true cranks will stubbornly go on, and on and on...
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POPSHot Priests Parade Oh yeah, if these priests were to say the homily on the months they were put in as models in the calendar, I'd hear mass everyday on March.
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POPSJumping Portraits Philippe Halsman defied gravitas: The freezing of motion has a long and fascinating history in photography, whether of sports, fashion or war. But rarely has stop-action been used in the unlikely, whimsical and often mischievous ways that Philippe Halsman employed it. ... Halsman's pictures of politicians, celebrities, scientists and other luminaries appeared on the cover of Life magazine a record 101 times, and he made hundreds of other covers and photo essays for such magazines as Look, Paris Match and Stern. Because of his vision and vigor, our collective visual memory includes iconic images of Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Robert Oppenheimer, Winston Churchill and other newsmakers of the 20th century.
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POPS The greatest letters ever written When the Swiss lawyer Albin Schram died in 2005, he left behind an extraordinary collection of letters by some of Western civilisation's greatest minds. They will soon go under the hammer - but here are the highlights of the collection. Another: Oscar Wilde's thankyou letter to Emily Wren, whose son Chrissie had sent a seasonal gift, dated 13 December 1888. "I cannot tell you how charmed I am with Chrissie's present. It is a very sweet picture of him, and I prize it very much in memory of my little friend. I have considered it my duty to write him a letter expressing my gratitude... Give my regards to your husband." See source for more.
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POPSPeople power transforms the web in next online revolution Watching 'I Love Bees' unfold is a bit like being in Detroit in 1905 when Henry Ford was still experimenting with mass production. A new organisational possibility is unfolding before our eyes. Where might We Think culture take us? We are just at the start of exploring how we can be organised without the hierarchy of top-down organisations. There will be many false turns and failures. But there is also huge potential to create new stores of knowledge to the benefit of all, innovate more effectively, strengthen democracy and give more people the opportunity to make the most of their creativity. The motto of the generation growing up with the collaborative logic of the web is not the solitary 'I think, therefore I am', it is be the social 'We think, therefore we are'.
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