Lassoing algorithms (Megan Rose Dickey, TechCrunch)
Do algorithms enforce our biases, or do they challenge our preconceptions?
21
05, 2017
14
04, 2017
Sense, emotion, and scientific discovery (Lewis Lapham, Lapham’s Quarterly)
How experience fosters discovery of all kinds, as well as a deeper reading of history and literature
22
02, 2017
Humanities in the Age of Big Data
Humanities in the Age of Big Data: an historian tries to unravel the consequences for ourselves and our way of life. Dataism is a new ethical system that says, yes, humans were special and important because up until now they were the most sophisticated data processing system in the universe, but this is no longer [...]
12
02, 2017
Singapore’s sciences require the humanities (Alfred Chua, Today Online)
Singapore's sciences require the humanities: how a leading university understands the need for engineers to train in the humanities. From the article: Technology and innovation may be the twin forces to power Singapore’s new economy but increasingly, social sciences and humanities are getting some unexpected attention and gaining importance in the workplace and helping policymakers [...]
22
01, 2017
Humanities aid the growth of STEM (Neil Kobitz, Chronicle for Higher Education)
Humanities aid the growth of STEM: a mathematics professor calculates their value, an important formula...when others are now estimating the worth of the NEH as close to zero. From the editorial: ... [F]or STEM majors, as much as for other future professionals, a broad background in the humanities is likely to give them a tremendous advantage in [...]
9
01, 2017
What do the humanities have to say? And who should listen?
What do the humanities have to say? And who should listen? A note from Mary Beard, at year's end: They have just issued on the website a top 24 of Cambridge research stories this year. On my reckoning, 19 of those are pure science.... You’d think from looking at this roster that none of the work that [...]
16
12, 2016
Tiny bubbles, of the mind (Sydney Finkelstein, BBC Capital)
Tiny bubbles, of the mind (make us feel happy / make us feel fine): the way technological mathematics limits our thinking, enclosing us in ever-smaller circles of awareness. From the article: The ubiquity of incredibly powerful algorithms designed to reinforce our interests also ensures that we see little of what’s new, different and unfamiliar. The [...]
30
11, 2016
Code can kill (Bill Sourour, Free Code Camp)
Embedding ethics in the code driving technology.
13
11, 2016
Technology’s cost, humanity’s price
Technology's cost, humanity's price: whether we understand the ways technology asserts its influence even over our most basic self-understanding Modern science and the total state, as necessary consequences of the nature of technology, are also its attendants. The same holds true of the means and forms that are set up for the organization of public [...]
26
10, 2016
STEM requires the humanities to grow (Scientific American)
STEM requires the humanities to grow: why learning classics along with coding is the best way forward. From the editorial: Promoting science and technology education to the exclusion of the humanities may seem like a good idea, but it is deeply misguided. Scientific American has always been an ardent supporter of teaching STEM: science, technology, engineering and [...]