Critical Thinking

Forget AI. Gene editing is still our most powerful — and dangerous — technology.

“If intelligence is the ability to respond to any argument, wisdom lies in knowing which parts of an argument to respond to.” Harvard debate coach Bo Seo explains how to argue better.

What makes some scientists culturally significant, while others remain in obscurity? Well, there’s a science to it.

It has perhaps never been easier to feel as if you’ve fallen behind in life. From the anxieties of comparing yourself to others online to our fetishization of success, it […]

Find food, have sex, not die. That’s pretty much all we need to do — but why do we make it so complicated?

Tim Ferriss has interviewed some of the most powerful thinkers in the world. This is what he learnt about how they operate.

History’s most remarkable leaders had this one trait in common. We can harness it too.

We are ~99% genetically identical to chimpanzees. But there are three key traits that separate us.

Poker pro Maria Konnikova on how to recognize which details matter and master the science of deduction.

Neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky on the science of temptation, and the limitations of your brain’s frontal cortex.

Looking probably isn’t something you need to practice. People believe they can apprehend a painting at a glance. They read coworkers’ messages and assume they understand a situation. Or they […]

What do communist dictators Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong have in common with U.S. Presidents like John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan? Hint: It’s the same thing they have in […]

Sometimes the value of soft skills feels almost secretive—like some scrap of knowledge handed down through an ancient society of corporate recruiters. Of course, that’s not the case or that’s […]

In recent years, women have made incredible strides in the business world. Forty-one women currently lead Fortune 500 companies. While that remains an unacceptably low percentage (8 percent) overall, it […]

Identity politics has become a highly contentious element within modern political discourse. Those who support this approach believe it bolsters the presence and power of those who would otherwise be […]

Anti-human business practices deteriorate their charges, and there’s perhaps no greater warning of this end result than the life of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel. Nobel invented dynamite in 1867 with […]

Even a year like 2020 couldn’t prepare Americans for the first few weeks of 2021. The year’s opening act was a siege on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of […]

For many, 2020 will not be remembered as a “best of” much. We don’t need to repeat the reasons here; it’s sufficient to point out that a 100-year pandemic was […]

Quick! There’s a runaway train on the tracks. Some dastardly evildoer has knocked the driver out cold and tied five people to the tracks ahead. The train is barreling down […]

There’s a fortune to be made in data and silicon, and everyone is out for their share. Artificial intelligence is this century’s gold rush. Its promises scintillate in them there […]

Smiling makes us feel happier. If you strike a superhero pose, you’ll feel more assertive and confident in your abilities. We all have a limited pool of self-control that can […]

Let’s talk about swans. All swans are birds or, more specifically, waterfowl. They are large and sport long, slender necks. They migrate south for the winter, traveling in that eye-catching […]

During a 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, Steve Jobs related an anecdote about an experience he had shortly after dropping out of college that conveys one of the qualities […]

One of Socrates’s best-known claims was that “I know that I know nothing.” It’s no fluke that this quote has survived more than 2,000 years or that Socrates is nearly […]

Why should customers buy from you instead of your competitors? That’s the question at the heart of making a sale in a competitive market, says Matt Dixon, Global Head of […]

When it comes to hiring great salespeople, the statistics do not paint a pretty picture. In the U.S., roughly a third of all salespeople leave or are fired from their […]

Every day, humanity generates 2.5 quintillion bytes of data. Every minute, users are sharing nearly 500,000 tweets, watching more than 4 million YouTube videos, and conducting more than 3.6 million […]

While fewer companies these days rely solely on interviews in deciding who to hire, interviews still have value in that they can reveal the difference between a candidate as a […]

“Trust is so important to how we scale an idea. Without that trust, we don’t take risks. And without risk we don’t build that next big thing,” says Nilofer Merchant, […]

 “Just tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it.” In her Big Think+ video, “Empower Your People — Conversational Moves for Engaging Your Team in Creative […]