Technology

E-Disharmony?

Online Dating Isn’t Threatening Monogamy

  • Claude S. Fischer

Remarkable Facts

On Thomas Nagel’s radical claim that science should go teleological.

  • Elliott Sober

Names, Trains, and Corporate Deals

Why Public Transit Shouldn’t Sell Naming Rights

  • Frank Pasquale

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Toward a Realistic World Heritage List

  • Andrew Blackwell

Bodies with Histories

The new search for the biology of race.

  • Anne Fausto-Sterling

The Loneliness Scare

Isolation Isn’t a Growing Problem

  • Claude S. Fischer

Sign up for our newsletter

That’s Not Really Destroying America

An interview with Fischer about his new BR column.

  • Claude S. Fischer
  • David V. Johnson

Digital Culture Wars

Contemporary American politics privileges policing and punishment, while marginalizing the arts and the commons.

  • Frank Pasquale

The Networked Era: An Interview with Michael Nielsen

Why discussion boards and online marketplaces can make it easier for scientists to pool their data and find far-flung collaborators.

  • Michael Nielsen
  • Lindsey Gilbert

Big Brother Buys a GPS

On New Challenges to the Fourth Amendment.

  • Pamela S. Karlan

Cheating Death

Philosophers Ponder the Afterlife

  • Alex Byrne

Passing Through

Why the Open Internet Is Worth Saving

  • Evgeny Morozov

Can Technology End Poverty?

Many development experts promote information and communication technology (ICT) as a way to relieve global poverty. They should pay more attention to the human beings who use it.

  • Kentaro Toyama
with responses from
  • Nicholas Negroponte
  • Dean Karlan
  • Archon Fung
  • Evgeny Morozov
  • Ignacio Mas
  • Nathan Eagle
  • Jenny C. Aker
  • Christine Zhenwei Qiang

Books After Amazon

Amazon isn’t just bad for cities; it’s also bad for books.

  • Onnesha Roychoudhuri

Our Man in Guatemala

An eminent medical historian discusses two major, blatantly unethical studies the U.S. government conducted on syphilis patients in Guatemala and Alabama.

  • Susan Reverby

Colonial Studies

What humans can learn from the non-hierarchical organization of ants.

  • Deborah M. Gordon

Sharing Liberally

The main argument of Cognitive Surplus rests on a striking analogy. 

  • Evgeny Morozov

Big Pharma, Bad Medicine

Conflicts of interest undermine the goals of medical care and harm the public.

  • Marcia Angell
with responses from
  • Adriane Fugh-Berman
  • David Korn
  • Howard Brody
  • Dan W. Brock
  • Frank Britt & Marissa Seligman
  • Emma D’Arcy
  • Suzanne Gordon
  • David Bollier

Speak, Memory

Can digital storage remember for you?

  • Evgeny Morozov

Unhealthy Opposition

The value of academic-industry relationships.

  • Thomas P. Stossel

What Does That Server Really Serve?

How programs like Google Docs rob users of their freedom.

  • Richard M. Stallman

Africa Calling

Can mobile phones make a miracle?

  • Jenny C. Aker
  • Isaac M. Mbiti

Misunderstanding Darwin

Natural selection’s secular critics get it wrong.

  • Ned Block
  • Philip Kitcher

Living With Coal

Coal sits at the center of the most inconvenient truth about global-warming policy.

  • David G. Victor
  • Richard K. Morse
trending_flat
Get our newsletter

Vital reading on politics, ideas, and culture to your inbox

A political and literary forum, independent and nonprofit since 1975

Registered 501(c)(3) organization

Help Us Stay Paywall-Free

Donate

Become a Member

Subscribe