history

The Big Secret in the Academy Is That Most Research Is Secret

December 5, 2023
news
science, history, politics, radiation

The dangerous rift between open and classified research. # By Kate Brown In 1987, a year after the Chernobyl accident, the US Health Physics Society met in Columbia, Maryland. Health physicists are scientists who are responsible for radiological protection at nuclear power plants, nuclear weapons plants, and hospitals. They are called on in cases of nuclear accidents. The conference’s keynote speaker came from the Department of Energy (DOE); the title of his talk drew on a sports analogy: “Radiation: The Offense and the Defense. ...

Origins of IFS in the bicameral mind

October 26, 2023
opinion
internal family systems, history

This article was published in PARTS & SELF magazine and is reprinted here verbatim. Richard Schwartz derived the Internal Family Systems (IFS) method through clinical experience. While many reports of positive outcomes attest to the method’s validity, IFS is seen by some as a somewhat separate and niche approach within the broader field of psychology. One way of placing IFS in a historical context is to look for theories of psychological evolution that hinge on the differentiation of Parts from a mono-mind. ...

The alphabet versus the goddess (1999)

November 28, 2020
book
history, religion, spirituality, meditation

Many assume that the invention of a phonetic alphabet only brought benefits. In a somewhat speculative reassessment of history, Shlain makes the case that the phonetic alphabet advanced lawyer-style thinking that greatly facilitated the justification of violence. The book is unlikely to be 100% true, but also unlikely to be 100% false. <—> Shlain, L. (1999). The alphabet versus the goddess: The conflict between word and image. Penguin.