volume_up play_arrow pause Essay/Fairness & Equality In defence of hierarchy As a society we have forgotten how to talk about the benefits of hierarchy, expertise and excellence. It's time we remembered Stephen C Angle, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Julian Baggini and others
volume_up play_arrow pause Essay/Self-Improvement The self-help game Millions believe that pop psychology can change their tennis skills, their love life or their moods. Are they all wrong? Rami Gabriel
volume_up play_arrow pause Idea/History of Ideas How Camus and Sartre split up over the question of how to be free Sam Dresser
Essay/Cosmopolitanism This is your morning I left the US, the land of my birth, sickened by racial injustice. But the return to a homeland is not a simple matter Enuma Okoro
volume_up play_arrow pause Idea/Education Why schools should not teach general critical-thinking skills Carl Hendrick
Essay/Ecology & Environmental Sciences A tale of three dogs Coyotes, dingoes and wolves are all dogs, as intelligent and loyal as our familiars. Our treatment of them is unconscionable Brandon Keim
Essay/Fertility, Pregnancy and Childbirth The twin boom The proportion of twins in the population has waxed and waned in human history. For the first time we understand why Laura Spinney
Essay/Religion Is God a silverback? Protective, omnipotent, scary and very territorial. The monotheistic God is modelled on a harem-keeping alpha male David P Barash
Essay/Gender & Sexuality The weaponised loser Mass shootings have one thing in common: toxic masculinity. Where does it come from and what can be done to stop it? Stephen T Asma
Idea/Cognition & Intelligence Listening to speech has remarkable effects on a baby’s brain Sandra Waxman
Essay/Sleep & Dreams Life in Circadia The ticking of the bodyclock can help us fight cancer, safeguard our hearts, time our meals, and enhance our intelligence Jessa Gamble
volume_up play_arrow pause Idea/Gender The invention of the paper bag was a triumph of feminism Hadley Meares
Essay/History American secular The founding moment of the United States brought a society newly freed from religion. What went wrong? Sam Haselby
Essay/Nature & Environment Ghosts and tiny treasures We are quick to condemn a hunter posing with his prey, but all too slow to cultivate a chronic passion for wild things Bryan Pfeiffer
Essay/Nature & Environment Who owns the earth? Private land ownership is a beautiful dream gone badly wrong. It’s time to reinstate the forgotten ideal of the commons Antonia Malchik
Essay/Food & Drink Recipe for success Who should we admire more: the Michelin-starred chef with his teams and glamour, or the unsung but brilliant cook? Julian Baggini
Idea/Ecology & Environmental Sciences Why E O Wilson is wrong about how to save the Earth Bram Büscher & Robert Fletcher
volume_up play_arrow pause Essay/Cognition & Intelligence Playing games for real My father was hopelessly, joyously addicted to gambling and I his moral critic. How did I end up playing pro blackjack? Marina Benjamin
Idea/Ecology & Environmental Sciences Why we need to stop thinking so much about climate change Brandon Keim
Essay/History of Ideas What if? Whether to kill baby Hitler might be a political firecracker, but can counterfactuals say anything deeper about the past? Rebecca Onion
Essay/Biology Paradigms lost Science is not a ‘body of knowledge’ – it’s a dynamic, ongoing reconfiguration of knowledge and must be free to change David P Barash
Essay/Cosmopolitanism The dimming of the light With its revolutionary heat and rational cool, French thought once dazzled the world. Where did it all go wrong? Sudhir Hazareesingh
Essay/Memoir Beyond A remote island, an Arctic expedition, a one-way trip to Mars – what drives our urge to explore the farthest reaches? Veronique Greenwood
Essay/Meaning & the Good Life The quiet alarm Just like pain, boredom is an aversive and unpleasant experience that we need to have in order to truly live well Andreas Elpidorou
volume_up play_arrow pause Essay/Memoir Hotel Melancholia Travel is supposed to make us feel more alive, so why is the hotel room a place of such loneliness and despair? Suzanne Joinson
Essay/Astronomy In the beginning Cosmology has been on a long, hot streak, racking up one imaginative and scientific triumph after another. Is it over? Ross Andersen
Essay/Computing & Artificial Intelligence The info moralist Persecuted little guy, or powerful revolutionary – what sort of wunderkind was Aaron Swartz? Ed Lake
Essay/Biology Insectophilia In Japan, beetles are pets, grasshoppers a delicacy and fireflies are adored. Is the creepy-crawly a Western invention? Andrea Appleton