Posts in: 2012s


Homer Now

THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER is that no one to date has rivaled the Homeric epic’s extraordinary staying power—nearly three millennia now, and still going strong. Peter Green reviews the present field of translations and revisions. Homer Now

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Political "Science" and Its Forecasting Failures | Rightly Understood |Big Think

Generally, political science does its best work when it begins with the perspectives of the statesman (or political leader) and the citizen and then goes on to refine and enlarge what’s seen about political life by those who are actually engaged in it. The attempt to impose a scientific perspective alien to the phenomena almost always leads us to see a lot less than is really there. Political "Science" and Its Forecasting Failures | Rightly Understood | Big Think

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David Karpf: UVA Board's Lazy Business Sense

A modern-day Good Will Hunting might gain his education through MIT’s online lectures rather than a Boston public library card, but the great mass of privileged 18-year-olds will keep heading off to college. Neither the University of Phoenix nor MIT’s online courses offer a replacement for the college experience that students are currently paying for. And competition does not equal disruption. David Karpf: UVA Board's Lazy Business Sense

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Raiders of the Lost Relics

many of the Bible-related archaeological claims made in recent years have been tainted with “exaggeration and speculation the likes of which haven’t been seen since pieces of the ‘true cross’ were found all across Europe in the Middle Ages.” Raiders of the Lost Relics

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Measurable Outcomes vs. Higher Education?

Reading tough books carefully—attending to textual details, considering the diverse ways of life of and predicaments faced by the characters, following arguments, writing accurately and thoughtfully about their contents, applying what what you’ve learned to your own way of life and personal predicaments—is usually justified these days by the outcomes of critical thinking and analytic reasoning. I, for one, am impressed by how murky these phrases turn out to be, and how questionable—to say the least—are the standardized devices that have been invented to measure them.

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