The After Time

… Prediction, in which most so-called experts were no better than dart-tossing monkeys when their predictions were checked. They were overconfident, encouraged by the lack of feedback on their accuracy (also known as confirmation bias), and, despite the scientific veneer, are victims of all the cognitive biases and illusions that plague the rest of …

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Jeremy Irons Reads T. S. Eliot

… sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.
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Studying Stones

… sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.
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Winning the Second World War

… Germany deployed many spies to Britain but every one of them was caught and turned into a double agent. These turncoats spent the rest of the war feeding misleading information back to the Germans. Early on, MI5 chairman J. C. Masterman, an Oxford don, realized that, “we actively ran and controlled the German espionage system …

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All the Fish in the Sea

… sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.
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This Is How an Empire Falls

… sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.
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A Pre-Columbian Bestiary

… as a dragonfly, this insect belonging to the infraorder of Anisoptera is characterized by an elongated body, strong, transparent wings, and large, multifaceted eyes.
The dzaby is a uniquely logocentric insect. It feeds on a diet of letters. Different species prefer particular selections: in the Peruvian Altiplano, dzabys feed on Bs, Hs, Ts, and …

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Figures in the Frame

… and an occasional evergreen in the foreground, with Monhegan Island in the middle distance.
Coastal Maine’s notorious fog sometimes clouds the view, but fog can also feed the imagination—allowing us to see things that are never quite there. With no clear horizon visible in the mist, sightlines might as well be infinite. Yes …

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I Want to Believe

… sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.
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Righteousness Like a Mighty Stream

… declaring, “THOSE THAT DENY THEIR HISTORY ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT!” This vulgarization of the philosopher George Santayana’s maxim suggests that someone close to him does feed him pithy insights at times. Is it perhaps William Barr, who on May 11 responded to a reporter’s question about how history would treat his efforts …

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