Daedalus articles from January 2004

Daedalus archives from January 2004

What we do & don't know about learning.
January 1, 2004... Suppose that we were commissioned to create a museum of learning. I don't mean a stuffy, hands-off collection of old manuscripts or films, but rather a state-of-the-art exploratorium that displayed the full spectrum of learning types and, in...

A short history of psychological theories of learning.
January 1, 2004... Learning remains an elusive topic, despite the endless research lavished on it. And what we mean by it, of course, is shaped by how we choose to study it. Concentrate on how children master their native language and you arrive at a very...

Finding our inner scientist.
January 1, 2004... In 1946, the philosopher of science Karl Popper had a fateful meeting with the philosopher of language Ludwig Wittgenstein at the Cambridge Philosophy Club. In a talk to the Club, with Wittgenstein in the audience, Popper described several...

Behind the ape's appearance: escaping anthropocentrism in the study of other minds.
January 1, 2004... Look at Megan. Not just at her distinctively chimpanzee features--her accentuated brow ridge, her prognathic face, her coarse black hair--but at the totality of her being: her darting eyes, her slow, studied movements, the gestures she makes as...

How do neurons know?
January 1, 2004... My knowing anything depends on my neurons--the cells of my brain. (1) More precisely, what I know depends on the specific configuration of connections among my trillion neurons, on the neurochemical interactions between connected neurons, and...

Learning through others.
January 1, 2004... Learning is a biological adaptation. The majority of organisms on Earth learn little or nothing during their individual lifetimes. On the other hand, many mammals are born in a highly immature state and so they must individually learn things...

Bootstrapping & the origin of concepts.
January 1, 2004... All animals learn. But only human beings create scientific theories, mathematics, literature, moral systems, and complex technology. And only humans have the capacity to acquire such culturally constructed knowledge in the normal course of...

The automation of discovery.
January 1, 2004... Scientific revolutions are sometimes quiet. Despite a lack of public fanfare, there is mounting evidence that we are in the midst of such a revolution--premised on the automation of scientific discovery made possible by modern computers and new...

October.
January 1, 2004... The day was hot, and entirely breathless, so The remarkably quiet, remarkably steady leaf fall Seemed as if it had no cause at all. The ticking sound of falling leaves was like The ticking sound of gentle rainfall as They quietly...

The Annunciation.(Short Story)
January 1, 2004... The bear in the driver's seat wasn't made of flesh or any other three-dimensional substance, but of light and color, like characters in animated cartoons. The car it drove had approached him from behind, pulled nearer to the sidewalk, and...

On the social science wars.
January 1, 2004... In the spring of 2003, as the founding editor of Perspectives on Politics, I helped to launch the first new journal sponsored by the American Political Science Association (APSA) in over a century. The new journal grew out of the general...

On literature & childhood.
January 1, 2004... The book that most deeply affected me as a child was David and the Phoenix by David Ormondroyd. First published in 1957, the book is about a boy who becomes friends with a wise and sometimes wisecracking phoenix, until it burns and dies and...

On a writer's endgame.(Richard Stern)
January 1, 2004... Haven't I given specimen clues, if no more? At any rate I have written enough to weary myself--and I will dispatch it to the printers, and cease. But how much--how many topics, of the greatest point and cogency, I am leaving...

Cambridge's first African Ph.D.?(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2004... November 26, 2003 To the Editor: I was struck by the statement in the Summer 2003 issue of Daedalus that Kwame Anthony Appiah "is reputed to be the first African to have received a Ph.D. at Cambridge" (page 104). It is quite certain...