Category: Best of Thinking Meat

In The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution, Elisabeth Lloyd (Arnold and Maxine Tanis Chair of History and Philosophy of Science and Prof...

I closed an earlier essay (That time of year) with a quote about the curious blend of terror and exhilaration that the contemplation of deep time can bring. On ...

That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang… Shakespeare’s sonnet compares human aging with the aging of ...

We live in an era when astronomers are making amazing discoveries about planets around other stars than our sun. The prospects are good that the science of comp...

Recently I was driving home after running some errands, upset over difficulties in a relationship that’s important to me. As I sat at a stop light, seethi...

It takes all kinds, my father would say when I was growing up. It took me awhile to realize that this is literally true for living things. Look at the different...

Recently I came home from work with my head so full of the next day’s chores that I couldn’t relax until I had made a list of all I needed to do. Th...

At my mother’s funeral, someone said to me, “You know, she’s not really gone.” I’ve thought about that a lot since then. I was rai...