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Great Ideas E03 – The Median Isn’t the Message

By Stephen Gould My life has recently intersected, in a most personal way, two of Mark Twain’s famous quips. One I shall defer to the end of this essay. The other (sometimes attributed to Disraeli) identifies three species of mendacity,…
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Great Ideas E02 – Great Scientific Ideas That Changed the World

By Steven L. Goldman It is easy to fall into one of two traps in dealing with ideas: either to dismiss them as abstractions and, thus, of less consequence than concrete things, such as swords, plowshares, and factories, or to glorify them…
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Great Ideas E01 – I, Pencil

By Leonard E. Read I am a lead pencil—the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write. Writing is both my vocation and my avocation; that’s all I do. You may wonder why I should write a genealogy.…