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TIME OUT FROM ENGLISH GRAMMAR
This section features wide-ranging, thought-provoking articles in English on any subject under the sun. Its objective is to present new, mind-changing ideas as well as to show to serious students of English how the various tools of the language can be felicitously harnessed to report a momentous or life-changing finding or event, to espouse or oppose an idea, or to express a deeply felt view about the world around us.
The outstanding English-language expositions to be featured here will mostly be presented through links to the websites that carry them. To put a particular work in better context, links to critiques, biographical sketches, and various other material about the author and his or her works will usually be also provided.
Pondering our inability to predict cataclysms where it matters most
At this time when one major natural disaster after another has been happening in various parts of the world, the air is rife with speculation on what’s to befall the planet and humanity next. Will there be another highly destructive earthquake and tsunami like the one that recently hit the northeastern coast of Japan? Will there be another nuclear crisis like the one that struck the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant? If so, when and where will these natural disasters happen? Setting aside the usual doomsday predictions of wild-eyed religious fanatics, what has science and logical thinking taught us about the probability of these natural disasters happening in our very own midst? Indeed, with all the experiential data that science has gathered over the centuries, can these natural disasters be predicted with at least a fairly reasonable degree of accuracy?
In “When We Cannot Predict,” a symposium organized by Edge.org, a website devoted to discussions of cutting-edge science, 12 leading scientists, academics, and professional thinkers share their views about natural cataclysms, the probability of their happening, and the grave risks they bring to our life and well-being. The contributors to the symposium are Bruce Parker, physical oceanographer; Kevin Kelly, editor-at-large of the technology magazine Wired; Mary Catherine Bateson, cultural anthropologist and writer; Douglas Kenrick, psychology professor; Douglas Rushkoff, media analyst and documentary writer; Roger Schank, psychologist and computer scientist; Ed Regis, science writer and book author; Gregory Paul, independent science researcher and author; Eiko Ikegami, sociology professor; Rodney Brooks, emeritus professor of robotics; J. Doyne Farmer, chaos theory pioneer; and James J. O'Donnell, classicist and book author.
An intelligent synthesis of their views can help assuage our fear of natural disasters and minimize the risk when we are confronted by the unforeseeable.
Read “When We Cannot Predict” in Edge now!
ANOTHER SUGGESTED READING:
In her book Dancing With Strangers: Communication Skills for Transforming Your Life At Home and At Work (Arietta Press, 143 KB Kindle Edition), communication skills trainer Betty Lochner shares insights and strategies that can be immediately used to improve relationships, such as how to engage in hard conversations, how to manage conflict situations, how to live and work effectively with people from different generations, and how to tap the power of expressing appreciation. Dr. Robert Maurer, University of Washington clinical faculty member and motivation book author, says of Dancing With Strangers: “Betty’s wonderful book is a primer for relationships, a map and guidebook for life. The tools she provides are invaluable and her humor and lightness make the journey a pleasure.”
Read product details of Betty Lochner’s Dancing With Strangers at Amazon.com now!
