Before there was big science or big data, there was big humanities. Until the last third of the nineteenth century, the natural and physical sciences imitated many of the methods and practices of the humanities, especially disciplines like philology, which pioneered techniques in data mining, the coordination of observers, and the collection and sorting of information.
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What is the real goal of "innovation" at the New York Times? Is it intended primarily to enable the editorial leaders to use and inculcate the best practices of distribution, with additional staff possessing advanced skills in those practices, in order to support and advance strong journalism? Or is it something else?
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Transportation debates, like the famed battle between Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses over a proposed expressway through Manhattan, have historically been a local affair. This may be changing. Recent events in Tennessee show that even a local transportation project with widespread support from citizens across the political spectrum is not immune to the ideological politicization that has gripped our national discourse.
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We need a history and vision of the humanities capacious enough to see the humanities not as a particular method or set of disciplines but as a disposition, as a way of engaging the world.
Yes, there are still reasons to rejoice. One of the most powerful bulwarks of Jim Crow segregation began to fall that day in 1954, when the high court justices unanimously overruled the "separate but equal" doctrine encased in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision
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In our digitally instantaneous times, the desire for speed and efficiency is nothing new, including in our eating habits. Rob Rhinehart’s Soylent project is simply an accelerated response to popular demand for the cheap, convenient, and fast.