Theory Of Operation: Fill & Download for Free

Some examples from the Edge website:NEIL SHUBINEvolutionary Biologist; Robert R. Bensley Distinguished Service Professor; University of Chicago; Author, Your Inner FishOne wrong idea in my field was that the map of the earth was fixed...that the continents stayed in one place over time. This notion held despite the fact that anyone, including small children, could see that the coasts of Africa and South America (like many places) fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. Evidence for moving continents piled up (fossils from different places, similar rocks...), but still there was strong resistance. Part of the problem is that nobody could imagine a mechanism for the continents to move about...did they raft like icebreakers through the ocean mushing the sea bottom as they did so? Nobody saw how this could possibly happen.GARRETT LISIIndependent Theoretical Physicist; Author, "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything"One wrong scientific belief held by cosmologists until recently was that the expansion of the universe would ultimately cease, or even that the universe would re-contract. Evidence now shows that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. This came as quite a shock, although the previous belief was held on scant evidence. Many physicists liked the idea of a closed universe, and expressed distaste at the idea of galaxies accelerating off to infinity, but nature often contradicts our intuition.PETER SCHWARTZFuturist, Business Strategist; Cofounder. Global Business Network, a Monitor Company; Author, Inevitable SurprisesThere are several things we believed not true and now believe to be true for example prions did not exist and now are a major field of study and quantum entanglement was impossible, even to Einstein ("spooky action at a distance", he called it. ) and now it is the basis of quantum computing.DAVID DEUTSCHQuantum Physicist, Oxford; Author, The Fabric of RealitySurely the most extreme example is the existence of a force of gravity.It's hard to say when this belief began but it surely predates Newton. It must have existed from the time when concepts such as force were first formulated until the general theory of relativity superseded it in 1915.Why did scientists hold that belief for so long? Because it was a very good explanation and there was no rival theory to explain observations such as heavy objects exerting forces on whatever they were resting on. Since 1915 we have known the true explanation, namely that when you hold your arm out horizontally, and think you are feeling it being pulled downwards by a force of gravity, the only force you are actually feeling is the upward force exerted by your own muscles in order to keep your arm accelerating continuously away from a straight path in spacetime. Even today, it is hard to discipline our intuition to conceive of what is happening in that way, but it really is.HAIM HARARIPhysicist, former President, Weizmann Institute of Science; Author, A View from the Eye of the StormThe earth is flat and the sun goes around it for the same reason that an apple appears to be more strongly attracted by the earth than a leaf, the same reason that when you add 20% and then subtract 20% you return to the same value, and the same reason that the boat is heavier than water. All of these statements appear to be correct, at first sight, and all of them are wrong. The length of time it takes to figure it out is a matter of history and culture. Religion gets into it, psychology, fear of science, and many other factors. I do not believe that there is one parameter that determines how these things are found to be wrong.The guy who sold me a carpet last month truly insisted that people in Australia are standing on their heads and could not understand how they manage to do it. He still believes that the earth is flat and is ashamed of his belief, but refuses to accept my explanations. I know a union that got a substantial pay raise because a politician did not understand that adding and then subtracting 20% gets you to another result from the one you started. Religious people of all religions believe even more ridiculous things than all of the above. These are examples of the last 10 years, not of the middle ages.Part of the problem is that, in order to find the truth, in all of these cases, you need to ask the right question. This is more important, and often more difficult, than to find the answer. The right questions in the above cases are of different levels of complexity.ALUN ANDERSONSenior Consultant (and former Editor-in-Chief and Publishing Director of New Scientist); Author, After the Ice: Life, Death, and Geopolitics in the New ArcticThe Great Chain of Being is another great example of a long-held, still not fully displaced, false view and also stems from the same kind of "wrongly centered " thinking.Essentially the view is that humans stand at the pinnacle of creation (or just below God) and all other life forms are less perfect to a varying degree.Evolutionary theory teaches that all creatures are equally adapted to the niches in which they live; every branch of the tree is thus in a sense equally perfect.There was a critical moment in the early 1970s when the new view swept into psychology. I was a student at the time, looking at so-called comparative psychology. The dominant view, put forward by ME Bitterman, was that you could classify "learning ability" and arrange animals according to the level they had reached e.g. fish were incapable of "reversal learning" but rats were, or some such. A paper was then published (by Hodos and Campbell 1969) on the false notion of the Great Chain of Being in psychology and that every animal's learning ability fitted the particular use it made of it (e.g. honey bees are brilliant at learning the time of day at which particular flowers produce nectar, a subject I later researched). This change in the way of thinking reflects also a move way from the US Skinnerian school of lab studies of animals to the European ethological school (pioneered by Novel prize winner Niko Tinbergen who I worked with) of studying animals in their own environments.The view also fits Native American conceptions of a Creator who does not favour any particular one of his creations but is at odds with the Christian view, which is why it lingers on in the US.IRENE PEPPERBERGPsychologist, Research Associate, Harvard University; Author, Alex and MeThat all birds were stupid.It was believed to be true because (a) early neurobiologists couldn't find anything in the avian brain that looked like the primate cortex (although the more enlightened did argue that there was a 'striatal' area that seemed to work in a somewhat comparable manner for some birds) and (b) many studies on avian intelligence, using operant conditioning, focused on pigeons — which are not the most intelligent birds — and the pigeon generally never did even as well as the rat on the type of tasks used.A corollary: That parrots were not only stupid, but also could never learn to do anything more than mimic human speech.It was believed to be true because the training techniques initially used in laboratories were not appropriate for teaching heterospecific communication.JOHN HOLLANDProfessor of Psychology, Computer Science and Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Author, Emergence: From Chaos to OrderFrom the time of Aristotle onward, natural philosophers believed that the basic law underlying motion was that all objects (eventually) come to rest. It took Newton to lay aside the myriad details (friction, etc.) in order to build an idealized model that requires 'forces' to change direction or velocity. Subsequently, everything from models of fluid flow to slinging satellites to the outer solar system used Newton's model as a starting point.DEREK LOWEMedicinal ChemistMy nominees are:(1) The "four humours" theory of human physiology. That one, coming most prominently from Galen, persisted for centuries. Although the pure humoural theory gradually eroded, it lived on in the shape of contra-therapeutic bloodletting until the 19th century, and you'd have to think that in the vast majority of those cases it was harmful.Why it persisted so long is the tough part. My guess is that it was hard (it still is!) for both physicians and patients to realize or admit that very little could be done for most physical ailments. Bloodletting might not always, work, but it had to be better than just standing there doing nothing, right? And in those cases susceptible to it, bloodletting must have had a pretty strong placebo effect, as dramatic as it is.(2) The "bad air" theory of infectious disease. This is another one that you can find persisting for centuries. I'd say that it lasted for several factors: there were indeed such things as poisonous vapors which could make a person feel sick, for one thing. And the environments that were felt to have the worst vapors were often ones that had higher rates of disease due to the real factors (standing water, poor hygiene, overcrowded dwellings, and so on). Finally, there's the factor that's kept all sorts of erroneous beliefs alive — lack of a compelling alternative. The idea of strange-looking living creatures too small to see being the cause of infections wouldn't have gotten much of a hearing, not in the face of more tangible explanations.That last point brings up another reason that error persists — the inability (or unwillingness) to realize that man is not the measure of all things. Unaided human perceptions on the human scale don't take you very far on the macro-scale of astronomy, or the micro-scale of cell biology (much less that of subatomic physics). To me, the story of science has been the story of augmenting our perceptions, and realizing that they had to be augmented in the first place.CHARLES SIMONYIComputer Scientist, International Software; Former Chief Architect, and Distinguished Engineer, Microsoft CorporationOne short answer is this: Peripatetic Mechanics of Aristotle was probably the longest running wrong scientific idea which went from the Greek times up until practically Newton. The reason for the longevity was that it (namely Aristotle's mechanics) corresponded well to the crude and complicated word around us: with two horses the heavy cart moves indeed faster (without careful measurements we could easily say: two times faster) than with just one horse. When you give a shove to something, it will start moving and then soon stop. Heavy things move down, light things (feathers, smoke) move up. The normal world is just not friendly to the kind of abstraction that allows the setting up of general natural laws like Newton's.I am of course aware of the currently popular belief that "flat earth" was somehow a widely held "scientific" idea, but I do not know what evidence supports this belief. It was certainly not part of the Antique inheritance (who had pretty good estimates for the diameter of the earth and excellent estimates for the ratio of Earth's and Moon's diameters); It was not part of Aristotle, or Aquinus, or any of the authorities that the Church relied on. No doubt, there were some creation myths or fanciful publications that might have illustrated the world as being flat but it is a stretch to call these "scientific" even by standards of the age, when learned men would have been able to refute such a thesis easily — and probably did as part of their exams.With the geocentric world it is a different matter — geocentrism was indeed scientifically held (with Ptolemy being the best proponent) and it is indeed false — but not to the same extent as the Peripatetic Mechanics. The real issue was precision of prediction — and the complicated system of Ptolemy gave excellent results, indeed better results than Copernicus (which made the breakthrough idea of Copernicus a difficult sell — just put yourself into the shoes of someone in his time.)Real improvement in precision came only with Kepler and the elliptical orbits which were arrived at in part by scientific genius, by being a stickler for accuracy, and in part by mad superstition (music of the spheres, etc.) From his point of view, putting the coordinate system around the sun simplified his calculations. The final significance of putting the sun into the center was to be able to associate a physical effect — gravitation — with the cause of that effect, namely with the sun. But this did not really matter before Newton.In any of the cases a common thread seems to be that the "wrong" scientific ideas were held as long as the difference between "wrong" and "right" did not matter or was not even apparent given the achievable precision, or, in many cases the differences actually favored the "wrong" theory — because of the complexity of the world, the nomenclature, the abstractions.I think we are all too fast to label old theories "wrong" and with this we weaken the science of today — people say — with some justification from the facts as given to them — that since the old "right" is now "wrong" the "right" of today might be also tainted. I do not believe this — today's "right" is just fine, because yesterday's "wrong" was also much more nuanced "more right" that we are often led to believe.NATHAN MYHRVOLDCEO, Managing Director, Intellectual Ventures; Former Director, Microsoft Research and Chief Technology Officer, MicrosoftHere is a short list:1. Stress theory of ulcers — it turns out they are due to infection with Heliobacter pylori. Barry Marshall won Nobel Prize for that.2. Continental drift was proposed in the 1920-30s by Alfred Wegner, but was totally dismissed until the 1960s when it ushered in plate tectonics.3. Conventional belief was the eye evolved many, many times. Then they discovered the PAX genes that regulate eyes and are found throughout the animal kingdom — eyes evolved ONCE.4. Geoffrey St. Hillare was a French scientist who had a theory that invertebrates and vertebrates shared a common body plan. He was widely dismissed until the HOX genes were discovered.LAWRENCE KRAUSSPhysicist, Director, Origins Initiative, Arizona State University; Author, Hiding in the MirrorIntelligent design... special creation... the reason... a long age of the earth is so long that people didn't realize that evolution could occur.STEVEN STROGATZApplied mathematician, Cornell University; Author, SyncAnother classic wrong belief is that light propagates through a medium, the "ether," that pervades the universe. This was believed to be true until the early 1900s because all other waves known at that time required a medium in which to propagate. Sound waves travel through air or water; the waves on a plucked guitar string travel down the string itself. Yet on the face of it, light seemed to need no medium — it could travel through seemingly empty space. Theorists concluded that empty space must not really be empty — it must contain a light-bearing medium, the "luminiferous ether".But the ether was always a very problematic notion. For one thing, it had to be extremely stiff to propagate a wave as fast as light — yet how could empty space be "stiff"?The existence of the ether was disproved experimentally by the Michelson Morley experiment, and theoretically by Einstein's special theory of relativity.CÉSAR A. HIDALGOAssistant Professor, MIT Media Lab; Faculty Associate, Harvard Center for International DevelopmentThe age of the earth... which was believed to be only a few thousand years old, due to biblical calculations, until Charles Lyell (who was a good friend of Darwin) begun to come up with estimates of millions of years based on erosion.... the advanced age of the world was heavily refuted by scientists, particularly by Lord Kelvin, who made calculations of the rate at which earth must have cooled down and concluded that this could have only happened in a few thousand years... he did not know about the radioactive decay taking place at the earth's core...The model that was used to explain mountains was based not on tectonic plates, but rather on a shrinking earth, by assuming that as the earth cooled down it shrunk and creased up....The humors theory of disease v/s the germ theory of disease.Basically... any change of paradigm that went on during the 19th century in England...ERIC TOPOLCardiologist; Director, Scripps Translational Science Institute, La JollaIn medicine there are many of these wrong scientific beliefs (so many it is frankly embarrassing). Here are a couple:We were taught (in med school and as physicians) that when cells in the body differentiate to become heart muscle or nerve tissue/brain, they can never regenerate and there is no natural way for new cells/tissue to form. Wrong!! Enter the stem cell and regenerative medicine era.Until the mid 1980s, a heart attack was thought to be a fait accomplit, that there was nothing that could ever be done to stop the damage from occurring...just give oxygen, morphine, and say prayers. Then we discovered that we could restore blood supply to the heart and abort the heart attack or prevent much of the damage. The same is now true for stroke. It took almost 80 years for that realization to be made!CHRISTIAN KEYSERSNeuroscientist; Scientific Director, Neuroimaging Center, University Medical Center GroningenFor a long time the brain was thought to contain separate parts designed for motor control and visual perception. Only in the 1990's, through the discovery of mirror neurons, did we start to understand that the brain did not work along such divisions, but was instead using motor areas also for perception and perceptual areas also for vision.I believe that this wrong belief was so deeply engrained because of AI, in which there is no link between what a computer sees human do and the computers routines for moving a robot. Instead, in the human brain the situation is different: the movements we program for our own body look exactly the same as those other humans do. Hence, our motor programs and body are a match for those we observe, and hence afford a strong system for simulating and perceiving the actions of others.I call this the computer fallacy: thinking of the brain as a computer turned out to harm our understanding of the brain.SIMONA MORINIPhilosopher; Dipartimento delle Arti e del Disegno Industriale, IUAV University VeniceMy preference goes to euclidean geometry. It's axioms were considered true for centuries on the basis of intuition (shall we say prejudice?) about space.ROSS ANDERSONFRS; Professor, Security Engineering, Cambridge Computer Laboratory; Researcher in Security PsychologyIn the field of security engineering, a persistent flat-earth belief is 'security by obscurity': the doctrine that security measures should not be disclosed or even discussed.In the seventeenth century, when Bishop Wilkins wrote the first book on cryptography in English in 1641, he felt the need to justify himself: "If all those useful Inventions that are liable to abuse, should therefore be concealed, there is not any Art or Science which might be lawfully profest". In the nineteenth century, locksmiths objected to the publication of books on their craft; although villains already knew which locks were easy to pick, the locksmiths' customers mostly didn't. In the 1970s, the NSA tried to block academic research in cryptography; in the 1990s, big software firms tried to claim that proprietary software is more secure than its open-source competitors.Yet we actually have some hard science on this. In the standard reliability growth model, it is a theorem that opening up a system helps attackers and defenders equally; there's an empirical question whether the assumptions of this model apply to a given system, and if they don't then there's a further empirical question of whether open or closed is better.Indeed, in systems software the evidence supports the view that open is better. Yet the security-industrial complex continues to use the obscurity argument to prevent scrutiny of the systems it sells. Governments are even worse: many of them would still prefer that risk management be a matter of doctrine rather than of science."JAMES CROAKArtistThe first wrong notion that comes to mind, one that lasted centuries, is from Thales of Miletus, regarded as the "father of science" as he rejected mythology in favor of material explanations. He believed everything was water, a substance that in his experience could be viewed in all three forms: liquid, solid, gas. He further speculated that earthquakes were really waves and that the earth must be floating on water because of this.The idea that matter is one thing in different appearances is regarded as true even today.ROB KURZBANPsychologist, UPenn; Director, Penn Laboratory for Experimental Evolutionary Psychology (PLEEP); Author, Why Everyone (Else) is a HypocriteI'm guessing you'll get some of the more obvious ones, so I want to offer an instance a little off the beaten path. I came across it doing research of my own into this issue of closely held beliefs that turn out to be wrong.There was a court case in New York in 1818 surrounding the question of whether a whale was a fish or a mammal. Obviously, we now know not only that there is a correct answer to this question (for a time this wasn't obvious) but also what that answer is (mammal, obviously). Even after some good work in taxonomy, the idea that a whale was a fish persisted. Why?This one is probably reasonably clear. Humans assign animals to categories because doing so supports inferences. (There's great work by Ellen Markman and Frank Keil on this.) Usually, shared physical features supports inferences about categorization, which then supports inferences about form and behavior. In this case, the phylogeny just happens to violate what usually is a very good way to group animals (or plants), leading to the persistence of the incorrect belief.LEWIS WOLPERTBiologist, University College; Author, Six Impossible Things to Do Before BreakfastThat force causes movement — it causes acceleration. That heavy bodies fall faster than lighter ones.HOWARD GARDNERPsychologist, Harvard University; Author, Changing MindsAmong cognitive psychologists, there is widespread agreement that people learn best when they are actively engaged with a topic, have to actively problem solve, as we would put it 'construct meaning.' Yet, among individuals young and old, all over the world, there is a view that is incredibly difficult to dislodge. To wit: Education involves a transmission of knowledge/information from someone who is bigger and older (often called 'the sage on the stage') to someone who is shorter, younger, and lacks that knowledge/information. No matter how many constructivist examples and arguments are marshaled, this view — which I consider a misconception — bounces back. And it seems to be held equally by young and old, by individuals who succeeded in school as well as by individuals who failed miserably.Now this is not a scientific misconception in the sense of flat earth or six days of creation, but it is an example of a conception that is extraordinarily robust, even though almost no one who has studied cognition seriously believes it hold water.Let me take this opportunity to express my appreciation for your many contributions to our current thinking.ED REGISScience Writer, Author, What Is Life?Vitalism, the belief that living things embody a special, and not entirely natural, animating force or principle that makes them fundamentally different from nonliving entities. (Although rejected by scientists, I would hazard the guess that vitalism is not entirely dead today among many members of the general public.) This belief's persistence over the ages is explained by the obvious observable differences between life and nonlife.Living things move about under their own power, they grow, multiply, and ultimately die. Nonliving objects like stones, beer bottles and grains of sand don't do any of that. It's the overwhelming nature of these perceptible differences that accounts for the belief's longevity. In addition, there is still no universally accepted scientific explanation of how life arose, which only adds to the impression that there's something scientifically unexplainable about life.ROBERT TRIVERSEvolutionary Biologist, Rutgers University; Coauthor, Genes In Conflict: The Biology of Selfish Genetic ElementsFor more than 100 years after Darwin (1859) people believed that evolution favored what was good for the group or the species — even though Darwin explicitly rejected this errorProbable cause: the false theory was just what you would expect people to propagate in a species whose members are concerned to increase the group-orientation of others.FRANK TIPLERProfessor of Mathematical Physics, Tulane University; Author, The Physics of ChristianityI myself have been working a book on precisely the same topic, but with a slightly different emphasis: why did scientists not accept the obvious consequences of their own theories?Here are three examples of false beliefs long accepted:(1) The false belief that stomach ulcers were caused by stress rather than bacteria. I have some information on this subject that has never been published anywhere. There is a modern Galileo in this story, a scientist convicted of a felony in criminal court in the 1960's because he thought that bacteria caused ulcers.(2) The false belief that the continents do not move. The drifting continents were an automatic mathematical consequence of the fact that the Earth was at least 100 million years old, and the fact that the Earth formed by the gravitational collapse of a gas and dust cloud. One of Lord Kelvin's students pointed out the essential idea in a series of papers in Nature. This was long before Wegener.(3) The false belief that energy had to be a continuous variable. James Clerk Maxwell, no less, realized that this was a false belief. The great mathematician Felix Kelin, of Klein Bottle fame, discussed the question with Erwin Schrödinger of why the fact of quantized energy was not accepted in the 19th century.JOAN CHIAOAssistant Professor, Brain, Behavior, and Cognition; Social Psychology; Northwestern UniversityEarly pioneering cultural anthropologists, such as Lewis Morgan who penned the influential 1877 work Ancient Society and others, were heavily influenced by Darwinian notions of biological evolution to consider human culture as itself evolving linearly in stages.Morgan in particular proposed the notion that all human cultures evolved in three basic stages: from savagery, to barbarism to finally, civilization and that technological progress was the key to advancing from one stage to the next. Morgan was by no means an arm chair academic; he lived with Native Americans and and studied their culture extensively. Through these first-hand experiences, Morgan sought to reconcile what he observed to be vast diversity in human cultural practices, particularly between Native Americans and Europeans, with emerging ideas of Darwinian biological evolution.Morgan was one of several anthropologists at the time who proposed various forms of unilinear cultural evolution, the idea that human culture evolved in stages from simple to more sophisticated and complex, which ultimately later became tied to colonialist ideology and social Darwinism.Such dangerous ideas then became the catalyst for Franz Boas and other 20th century anthropologists to challenge ideas by Morgan with concepts such as ethnocentrism. By arguing how belief in the superiority of one's own culture guided anthropological theories of unilinear evolution, rather than scientific objectivity per se, Boas and his colleagues exposed an important human and scientific bias in the study of human culture that later gave way to revised theories of cultural evolution, namely multilinear evolution, and the emergence of cultural relativism.JEREMY BERNSTEINProfessor of Physics, Stevens Institute of Technology; Author, Nuclear Weapons: What You Need to Know,It was generally believed until the work of Hubble that the universe was static and that the Milky Way was everything.MATTHEW RITCHIEArtistAn example of a correct theory that was extensively accepted by the public, then displaced by an alternate interpretation, which has since been problematized without resolution.Although the 19th century idea that the fourth dimension was an extra dimension of space was in many senses correct, it was invalidated in the cultural imagination by Minkowski and Einstein's convincing and influential representation of time as the fourth dimension of space-time.For example: the polychora in Picasso & Duchamp's early cubist works were far more directly influenced by Hinton's essays "What is the Fourth Dimension?" and "A Plane World", than Minkowski & Einstein's work — but the general acceptance ofEinstein's theory encouraged art historians to interpret cubist work as being directly influenced by the theory of relativity — which was entirely inaccurate. (This is discussed in depth in Henderson's definitive work The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art)Overall, the cultural displacement of the theory of 4-D space has required a series of re-statements of the idea of the fourth dimension — which have so far failed to properly define the nature of the fourth dimension either in time or space to the larger public.CLAY SHIRKYSocial & Technology Network Topology Researcher; Adjunct Professor, NYU Graduate School of Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP); Author, Cognitive SurplusThe existence of ether, the medium though which light (was thought to) travel.Extra credit: It was believed to be true by analogy — waves propagate through water, and sound waves propagate through air, so light must propagate through X, and the name of this particular X was ether.It's also my favorite because it illustrates how hard it is to accumulate evidence for deciding something doesn't exist. Ether was both required by 19th century theories and undetectable by 19th century apparatus, so it accumulated a raft of negative characteristics: it was odorless, colorless, inert, and so on.When Michelson and Morley devised an apparatus sensitive enough to detect characteristic differences in the behavior of light based on the angle through which it traveled through the ether (relative to the earth's motion), and could detect no such differences, they spent considerable time and energy checking their equipment, so sure were they that ether's existence-by-analogy operated as something like proof. (Danny Kahneman calls this 'theory-induced blindness.')And of course, the failure of ether to appear opened the intellectual space in which Einstein's work was recognized.ROGER C. SCHANKPsychologist; Computer Scientist; AI Researcher. Author, The Future of Decision-MakingThe obvious candidate for failed theory in the world of learning is the stimulus-response theory (called behaviorism) that dominated psychology for many years. Yes, my dog gets excited when I make coffee because that is when he knows he will get a treat, but that kind of learned behavior is hardly all there is to learning.In my first year on the faculty at Stanford, Ken Colby offered to share his time in front of the first-year computer science graduate students. At that time each professor in Artificial Intelligence would have a week of an introductory course in which he would say what he was doing. In their second quarter, students would choose one of those professors to work with in a seminar. Ken invited me to share his time and his seminar.It took a while to get the "results." The next quarter we met with the students who had signed up for our seminar. While other seminars given by other professors had attracted one or two students we have gotten about 20. Boy was my ego fired up. I was succeeding at this new game. At least that was what I thought until all the students went around the room to say why they were there. They were all there because of Ken — none were there because of me.I wondered what had happened. Ken had given a very glib funny speech without much content. He seemed to be a lightweight, although I knew he wasn't. I, on the other hand, had given a technical speech about my ideas about how language worked and how to get computers to comprehend.I asked Ken about this and he told me: if you can say everything you know in an hour, you don't know much.It was some of the best advice I ever got. You can't tell people everything you know without talking way too fast and being incomprehensible. Ken was about hoping to be understood and to be listened to. I was about being serious and right. I never forgot his words of wisdom. These days I am much funnier.And, I realize that I do know a lot more than can fit into an hour long speech. Maybe then I actually didn't know all that much.So, I learned a great deal from Ken's just in time advice which I then had to think about. That is one kind of learning. And then, that experience became one my stories and thus a memory (which is another aspect of learning.) Learning is also about constructing explanations of events that were not predicted so that you can predicted them better next time. And learning is about constructing and trading stories with others to give you nuances of experiences to ponder, which is a very important part of learning.Learning has more aspects to it than just those things of course. Stimulus-response doesn't cover much of the turf.GARY KLEINResearch Psychologist; Founder, Klein Associates; Author, The Power of IntuitionHere are some of my favorites:1. Ulcers are created by stress. Some research on monkeys seemed to bear this out, and it fit a comforting stereotype that Type A individuals were burning up inside.2. Genes are made of protein. This was more reasonable — the complex protein molecules matched the complexity of the proteins that genes were building.3. Yellow Fever is caused by miasma and filth. I think this was sustained by a natural repugnance when entering homes that smelled bad — a feeling of "wow, that can't be good — I need to get out of here as soon as possible." Plus a class judgment that poor people live in less sanitary conditions and are more susceptible. Plus a belief that the mosquito theory had been discredited. (In fact, the study on mosquitoes failed to take into account a 12-day incubation period.)4. Cholera is caused by miasma and filth. Ditto. Now the part I can't really understand is why John Snow was so effective in changing this mindset about cholera in England and how his views quickly spread to the U.S., whereas 50 years later even after Walter Reed and his staff eliminated Yellow Fever from Cuba, his subordinate Gorgas (who was in charge of eliminating Yellow Fever in Havana) was so unsuccessful in convincing the authorities when Gorgas was subsequently posted to Panama to control Yellow Fever during the building of the canal.GREGORY COCHRANConsultant, Adaptive Optics; Adjunct Professor of Anthropology, University of Utah; Coauthor, The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human EvolutionEducated types in the western world have known that the shape of the Earth for a long time, about 2500 years — the idea that they believed in flat Earth is a canard. The notion that the Earth was the center was popular for much longer, largely because parallax was too small to measure, since distances to the stars are enormous compared with the radius of the Earth's orbit. Many people will undoubtedly tell you this.One favorite is helicobacter pylori as the main cause of stomach ulcers. This was repeatedly discovered and then ignored and forgotten: doctors preferred 'stress' as the the cause, not least because it was undefinable. Medicine is particularly prone to such shared mistakes. I would say this is the case because human biology is complex, experiments are not always permitted, and MDs are not trained to be puzzle-solvers — instead, to follow authority. A lot of this traces back to medical traditions, which developed over long periods during which medicine was an ineffective pseudoscience. Freudian analysis was another such madness of crowds.I would guess that most basic anthropological doctrine is false — for example. the 'psychic unity of mankind'. but then most practitioners don't really pretend to do science.One could go on and on!ERIC R. WEINSTEINMathematician and Economist; Principal, Natron GroupThe modern textbook example of groupthink within fundamental physics is likely the so-called Tau-Theta puzzle of the 1950s. The Tau and Theta particles were seen to be as physically indistinguishable as Clark Kent and Superman, except for the ways in which they disintegrated. Yet to suggest that they were the same particle required the mental leap needed to assert that natural law carries a kind of asymmetric beauty mark which could be used to distinguish processes in the real world from their reflections in a pristine mirror. After experimenters at Columbia finally indicated in 1956 that the Tau and Theta were indeed the same particle, physicists came to see that for decades, no one had really bothered to check whether something as profoundly dramatic as an asymmetric universe was hiding within plain sight and easy reach.An even more compelling example of group blindness drawn from engineering is the bizarre case of the Rollaboard suitcase. In the dawning age of jet travel, it seemed no one could find a way to create stable wheeled luggage. Typical early designs featured leashes and tiny external casters on which horizontal luggage would briefly roll before tipping over. It was only in 1989 that Northwest Airlines pilot Robert Plath solved this problem for travelers with the now ubiquitous vertical design of the Rollaboard, with built in wheels and telescoping handles. What is fascinating about this example of groupthink is that every recent scientific genius who struggled with luggage while on the lecture circuit had missed this simple elegant idea, as it required no modern technological advance or domain specific expertise.LANE GREENEJournalist, The EconomistI assume someone might already have written in to suggest "the belief that physical traits acquired during one's lifetime could be passed on to children" — e.g., that a person who became fat through overeating would thereby have fat children (and not because he had genes for obesity). This was apparently even believed by Darwin, I just read, before the discovery and understanding of genes.JAMES O'DONNELLClassicist; Provost, Georgetown University; Author, The Ruin of the Roman EmpireAs classicist, I feel I know too many examples! Ancient medicine and ancient astronomy in particular were full of truths, quite true and valid within the framework within which constructed, that now appear as utter nonsense. I would put at top of my list, however, the science of astronomy — not for the Ptolemaic mathematical workings-out, but for the solid, serious, scientific astrological content. That is to say, it's a beautiful example of a paradigm, in Kuhnian terms, that made perfect sense at the time, that was the foundation for many further advances, that led to undoubtedly serious science, that validated itself by e.g. the way it allowed you to predict eclipses (how could it not be science?), and that just fell apart at the touch of a serious thought. To compare large with small, I would put it next to the science of ulcer medicine 60 years ago, which made similar perfect sense and was all driven by diet and stress and was a continually refining science — falling apart more or less isntantaneously, what, 25 years ago, with the discovery of the link to H. pylori. What the two have in common is the focus on phenomena (that is, the things that appear, the surface data) produces science, but each time you go a step beneath phenomena to mechanisms, new science happens. That's when the impossible becomes possible.GEOFFREY CARRScience Editor, The EconomistBelieving that people believed the Earth was flat is a good example of a modern myth about ancient scientific belief. Educated people have known it was spherical (and also how big it was) since the time of Eratosthenes. That is pretty close to the beginning of any system of thought that could reasonably merit being called scientific...One that was long thought to be true, but isn't, is the spontaneous generation of life. I've never quite understood how that squared with life being divinely created. But the whole pre-Pasteur thing was definitely a widely held, incorrect belief...JONATHAN HAIDTPsychologist, University of Virginia; Author, The Happiness HypothesisThe closest thing to a persistent flat earth belief in psychology is probably the view that experiences in the first five years of life largely shape the personality of the adult. (The child is father to the man, as Freud said). It's now clear that experiences that affect brain development, such as some viral diseases or some head injuries, can indeed change adult personality. Also, extreme conditions that endure for years or that interfere with the formation of early attachments (e.g., an abusive parent) can also have lasting effects. But the idea that relatively short-lived experiences in the first few years — even traumatic ones, and even short-lived sexual abuse — will have powerful effects on adult personality... this just doesn't seem to be true. (Although such events can leave lasting traces on older children). Personality is shaped by the interaction of genes with experience; psychologists and lay people alike long underestimated the power of genes, and they spent too much time looking at the wrong phase of childhood (early childhood), instead of at the developmental phases that matter more (i.e., the prenatal period, and adolescence).Why is early childhood such a draw when people try to explain adult personalities? I think it's because we think in terms of stories, and it's almost impossible for us NOT to look back from Act III (adulthood) to early childhood (act I) when we try to explain someone turned out to be a hero or serial killer. In stories, there's usually some foreshadowing in act I of events to come in act III. But in real life there is almost never a connection.JUAN ENRIQUEZManaging Director in Excel Medical Ventures; Chairman and CEO of Biotechonomy LLC; Author, As the Future Catches YouWe have acted, with good reason, as if human beings are all alike. And given the history of eugenics this has been a good and rational position and policy. But we are entering an era where we recognize that there are more and differences in how a particular medicine affects particular groups of people. Same of foods, pollutants, viruses, and bacteria.We are beginning to recognize we react, and are at differential risks, of catching diseases like AIDS, malaria, anemias. And just this month we began to get a glimpse of the first thousand human genomes. These will soon number in the hundreds of thousands. Are we ready should these initial gene maps show that there are real and significant differences between groups of human beings?SCOTT ATRANAnthropologist; Visiting Professor of Psychology and Public Policy at the University of Michigan; Rresidential Scholar in Sociology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York City; Author, Talking to the EnemyAnglo-American empiricists and communists alike believed that human minds were almost infinitely malleable, and learned the structure and content of thoughts and ideas based on the frequency of events perceived and on the nearness of events to one another (if one kind of event frequently precedes a second kind of event then the first is likely the cause of the other). Rewards and punishments ("carrots and sticks") supposedly determine which events are attended to.Many Continental thinkers and Fascists believed that fundamental ideas of science, art and the "higher thoughts" of European civilization were either innate or inherently easy to learn only for a biologically privileged set of human beings. As with most earlier views of human cognition and learning, both of these philosophies and their accompanying pseudo-sciences of the mind were based on social and political considerations that ignored, and indeed effectively banned, reasoned inquiry and evidence as to the nature of the human mind.That is why, after centuries of science, study of the mind is still in a foetal stage, and actual progress has been limited to fundamental discoveries that can be counted on one hand (for example, that human linguistic competence — and thus perhaps other fundamental cognitive structures — is universally and innately fairly well-structured; or that human beings do not think like markov processors, logic machines, or as rational economic and political actors ought to).RUPERT SHELDRAKEDevelopmental Biologist; Author, The Sense of Being Stared AtIn the nineteenth century, many scientists were convinced that the course of nature was totally determinate and in principle predictable in every detail, as in Laplace's famous fantasy of scientific omniscience: "Consider an intelligence which, at any instant, could have a knowledge of all the forces controlling nature together with the momentary conditions of all the entities of which nature consists. If this intelligence were powerful enough to submit all these data to analysis it would be able to embrace in a single formula the movements of the largest bodies in the universe and those of the lightest atoms; for it nothing would be uncertain; the past and future would be equally present for its eyes."T.H. Huxley even imagined that the course of evolution was predictable: "If the fundamental proposition of evolution is true, that the entire world living and not living, is the result of the mutual interaction, according to definite laws, of the forces possessed by the molecules of which the primitive nebulosity of the universe was composed, it is no less certain the existing world lay, potentially, in the cosmic vapour, and that a sufficient intellect could, from a knowledge of the properties of the molecules of that vapour, have predicted, say, the state of the fauna of Great Britain in 1869."With the advent of quantum theory, indeterminacy rendered the belief in determinism untenable, and in the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution (which T.H. Huxley's grandson, Julian, did so much to promote) randomness plays a central role through the chance mutations of genes.EMANUEL DERMANProfessor in Columbia University's Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Department; Partner at Prisma Capital Partners; Author, My Life as a Quant1. For years, running shoe companies have assumed without evidence that more is better, that thicker padded soles are better at preventing injuries in runners. In the 70s, shoe soles grew Brobdingnagian. Now, recent research confirms that running barefoot and landing on your forefoot, on any surface, even one as hard as the road to hell, produces less shock than running and unavoidably landing on your heels in rigid padded stabilized shoes.2. For years optometrists have given small children spectacles at the first hint of nearsightedness. But ordinary unifocal lenses modify not only their accommodation to distance vision but to near vision too, where they don't need help. Now there is evidence that giving near-sighted kids bifocals that correct only their distance vision and not their close-up vision seems to make their nearsightedness progress less rapidly.CHARLES SEIFEProfessor of Journalism at New York University; Author, ProofinessCaloric, phlogiston, and ether immediately come to mind, but I'm particularly fond one consequence of Aristotelian mechanics: the assertion that there is no such thing as a vacuum.The concept of the void conflicted with the way that Aristotle conceived of motion; admitting a void into his universe quite simply broke all of his models about the nature of matter and the way objects move. (A rock, say, suspended in a vacuum, would not be able to fall to its proper place at the center of the world as his laws said they must.)In the West, the consequent misconception — that nature so abhors a vacuum that it can not exist under any circumstance — lasted until Torricelli and Pascal disproved it in the 17th century.MILFORD H. WOLPOFFProfessor of Anthropology and Adjunct Associate Research Scientist, Museum of Anthropology at the University of Michigan; Author, Race and Human EvolutionCreationism's step sister, intelligent design, and allied beliefs have been held true for some time, even as the mountain of evidence supporting an evolutionary explanation for the history and diversity of life continues to grow. Why has this belief persisted? There are political and religious reasons, of course, but history shows than neither politics nor religion require a creationist belief in intelligent design.I think the deeper answer lies elsewhere, in the way children categorize the world in to a hierarchy of types of inanimate and living things (and for that matter types of people), and the rigid categorization this leaves in adults that stands in the way of accepting biological explanations that show the hierarchy can develop from natural laws including randomness,and categories may originate and change by natural laws within a hierarchical structure. Could a draw poker hand improve without divine intervention? Could Plato's precept of ideals have survived a trip to Art Van's?ROBERT SHAPIROProfessor Emeritus of Chemistry and Senior Research Scientist at New York University; Author, Planetary DreamsFor many centuries, most scientists and philosophers believed that dead or inanimate matter could quickly transform itself into living beings, just as the reverse can occur quite rapidly. This belief, rapid spontaneous generation, was supported by simple observation of common events. Fireflies emerged from the morning dew, bacteria appeared in sterilized broths and small animals arose from mud at the bottom of streams and ponds.In Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" Lepidus told Antony "Your serpent of Egypt is born of the mud, by the action of the Sun, and so is your crocodile." Among the notables who endorsed this theory were Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Francis Bacon, Galileo and Copernicus. Many carefully controlled experiments, culminating in the work of Louis Pasteur, were needed to negate this idea.JUDITH HARRISAuthor, No Two AlikeThe apple doesn't fall far from the tree. In other words, people tend to resemble their parents. They resemble their parents not only in physical appearance but also, to some degree, in psychological characteristics.The question is: Why? Two competing answers have been offered: nature (the genes that people inherit from their parents) and nurture (the way their parents brought them up). Neither of these extreme positions stood up to scrutiny and they eventually gave way to a compromise solution: nature + nurture. Half nature, half nurture. This compromise is now an accepted belief, widely held by scientists and nonscientists alike.But the compromise solution is wrong, too. Genes do indeed make people turn out something like their parents, but the way their parents brought them up does not. So nature + nurture is wrong: it's nature + something else.The evidence has been piling up since the 1970s; by now it's overwhelming. And yet few people outside of psychology know about this evidence, and even within psychology only a minority have come to terms with it.You asked for "examples of wrong scientific beliefs that we've already learned were wrong." But who is "we"? A few thousand people have learned that the belief in nature + nurture is wrong, but most people haven't.JORDAN POLLACKComputer Science and Complex Systems Professor at Brandeis UniversityA persistent belief is that human symbolic intelligence is the highest form of intelligence around. This leads directly to both creationism and good old-fashioned AI which seeks to model cognition using Lisp programs.Evolution can design machines of such great complexity that the space shuttle with half a million parts looks like a tinker toy construction. In order to explain the design intelligence of evolution, most Republicans are convinced that a superintelligent creator was involved. Developmental intelligence which manufactures machines with 10 billion moving parts without any factory supervisors is another area where nature outstrips the best human performance. Immunological Intelligence, telling self from non-self, is another AI-complete problem. And human intelligence itself is so vastly complex that we've made up stories of conscious symbol processing, like logic and grammar, to try to explain what goes on in our heads.The mind, like the weather, envelopes the brain like a planet and requires dynamical and integrated explanations rather than just-so stories.SUE BLACKMOREPsychologist and Ex-Parapsychologist; Author, Consciousness: An IntroductionMy favourite example is the hunt for the "élan vital" or life force. People seemed to think that — given living things behave so very differently from non-living things — there must be some special underlying force or substance or energy or something that explains the difference, something that animates a living body and leaves the body when it dies.Of course many people still believe in various versions of this, such as spirits, souls, subtle energy bodies and astral bodies, but scientists long ago gave up the search once they realised that being alive is a process that we can understand and that needs no special force to make it work.I think this was believed to be true for two reasons :1. Explaining how living things work is not trivial — it has required understanding heredity, homeostasis, self-organisation and many other factors.2. (perhaps more important) Human beings are natural dualists. From an early age children begin thinking of themselves not as a physical body but as something that inhabits a physical body or brain. We feel as though we are an entity that has consciousness and free will even though this is all delusion. I suggest that this delusion of duality is also the underlying cause of the hopeless hunt for the life force.NICHOLAS G. CARRAuthor, The ShallowsI think it's particularly fascinating to look at how scientific beliefs about the functioning of the human brain have progressed through a long series of misconceptions.Aristotle couldn't believe that the brain, an inert grey mass, could have anything to do with thought; he assumed that the heart, hot and pulsing, must be the source of cognition, and that the brain's function was simply to cool the blood.Descartes assumed that the brain, with its aperture-like "cavities and pores," was, along with the heart, part of an elaborate hydraulic system that controlled the flow of "animal spirits" through the "pipes" of the nerves. More recently, there was a longstanding belief that the cellular structure of the brain was essentially fixed by the time a person hit the age of 20 or so; we now know, through a few decades' worth of neuroplasticity research, that even the adult brain is quite malleable, adapting continually to shifts in circumstances and behavior.Even more recently there's been a popular conception of the brain as a set of computing modules running, essentially, genetically determined software programs, an idea that is now also being chipped away by new research. Many of these misconceptions can be traced back to the metaphors human beings have used to understand themselves and the world (as Robert Martensen has described in his book The Brain Takes Shape).Descartes' mechanistic "clockwork" metaphor for explaining existence underpinned his hydraulic brain system and also influenced our more recent conception of the brain as a system of fixed and unchanging parts.Contemporary models of the brain's functioning draw on the popular metaphorical connection between the brain and the digital computer. My sense is that many scientific misconceptions have their roots in the dominant metaphors of the time. Metaphors are powerful explanatory tools, but they also tend to mislead by oversimplifying.LEE SMOLINFounding and Senior Faculty member at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada; Adjunct Professor of Physics at the University of Waterloo; Author, The Trouble With PhysicsPerhaps the most embarrassing example from 20th Century physics of a false but widely held belief was the claim that von Neumann had proved in his 1930 text book on the mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics that hidden variables theories are impossible. These would be theories that give a complete description of individual systems rather than the statistical view of ensembles described by quantum mechanics. In fact de Broglie had written down a hidden variables theory in 1926 but abandoned work on it because of von Neumann's theorem. For the next two decades no one worked on hidden variables theories.In the early 1950's David Bohm reinvented de Broglie's theory. When his paper was rejected because von Neumann proved what he claimed impossible, he read and easily found a fallacy in the von Neumann's reasoning. Indeed, there had been at least one paper pointing out the fallacy in the 1930s that was ignored. The result was that progress on hidden variables theories in general, and de Broglie and Bohm's theory in particular, was delayed by several decades.An example in economics is the notion that an economic markets can usefully be described as having a single unique and stable equilibrium, to which it is driven by market forces. As described by neoclassical models of markets such as the Arrow-Debreu model of general equilibrium, equilibrium is defined as a set of prices for which demand for all goods equals supply, as a result of each consumer maximizing their utility and each producer maximizing their profit. A basic result is that such equilibria are Pareto efficient, which means no one's utility can be increased without decreasing some body else's utility. Furthermore, if the economy is in equilibrium there are no path dependent effects, moreover it can be argued that market prices in equilibrium are perfectly rational and reflect all relevant information.If equiilibrium were unique, then one could argue that the most ethical thing to do is to leave markets free and unregulated so that they can find their points of equilibrium where efficiency and utility are maximized. This kind of thinking to some extent motivated choices about leaving financial markets under-regulated resulting in the recent economic crisis and current difficulties.However, it was learned in the 1970s that even if efficiency and equilibrium are useful notions, the idea that equilibria are unique is not true in generic general equilibrium models. The Sonnenschein-Mantel-Debreu Theorem of 1972 implies that equilibria are in general highly non-unique, and it is not difficult to invent models in which the number of equilibria scales with the number of producers. But if there are multiple equilibria, most will not be stable. Moreover supply and demand are balanced in each of the many equilibria, so market forces do not suffice to explain which equilibria the market is in or to pick which would be preferred. The consequence theoretically is that path dependent effects which determine which of many the equilibria the market is in must be important, the political consequence is that there is not an ethical argument for leaving markets unregulated. Since then some of the more interesting work in economics studies issues of path dependence and multiple equilibria.I cannot comment on why economists made the mistake of thinking about market equilibrium as if it were unique. I do think I have some insight into why a false belief about the possibility of alternatives to quantum mechanics could persist for more than two decades. During this period there was rapid progress in the application of quantum mechanics to a wide set of phenomena from astrophysics to nuclear and solid state physics.Meanwhile the most popular interpretation of quantum mechanics was Bohr's, which is now hardly taken seriously by anyone. Those who concentrated on the foundations of the subject were left behind, especially as it was convenient for the progress that was being made, to believe that the foundations were surer than in fact they were. Perhaps there are periods in science where it makes sense for most scientists to sweep foundational worries under the carpet and make progress on applications, postponing the inevitable reckoning with the inconsistencies to a time when there are better hints from experiment.MARTI HEARSTAssociate Professor in the School of Information at UC Berkeley, Affiliate appointment in Computer Science DivisionAs a computer scientist, there isn't all much in my field that applies, but I do have one item (below). The real action in my view though are the many the counter-intuitive findings in psychology (how memory works, what we perceive and don't perceive, findings on child rearing, etc., etc.):In the early days of the field of Artificial Intelligence, researchers thought that it would not be terribly difficult to implement a vision recognition or language understanding program. Although there is an apocryphal quote from Minsky saying he assigned solving vision as a summer research project, more reliable quotes, taken from a well-researched wikipedia article, are below:"AI's founders were profoundly optimistic about the future of the new field: Herbert Simon predicted in 1965 that "machines will be capable, within twenty years, of doing any work a man can do" and Marvin Minsky agreed, writing that "within a generation ... the problem of creating 'artificial intelligence' will substantially be solved".The importance of these misperceptions is the underestimation of the complexity of how the brain works.GINO SEGREProfessor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania; Author, Ordinary GeniusesI would not count flat earth as a wrong theory believed to be true by everybody since e.g. the ancient Greeks thought the Earth was a sphere and had even measured its curvature.A classic example of a wrong theory is that of Phlogiston, namely the existence of a substance that is released in combustion. There were also variations going by the name of caloric. A second wrong theory is that of a Luminiferous Aether, a substance through which light is transmitted. Chemical experiments disproved the first and e.g. the Michelson -Morley expt. the second.There are of course also numerous wrong theories/beliefs regarding spontaneous generation of life disproved in the 17th century by Francesco Redi and ultimately by Louis Pasteur in the 19th.I have a small favorite, the belief that body temperature varied with climate, disproved by the invention in the early 17th century of the thermometer.CARL ZIMMERScience Writer; Author, Soul Made Flesh"This laxe pithe or marrow in man's head shows no more capacity for thought than a Cake of Sewet or a Bowl of Curds."This wonderful statement was made in 1652 by Henry More, a prominent seventeenth-century British philosopher. More could not believe that the brain was the source of thought. These were not the ravings of a medieval quack, but the argument of a brilliant scholar who was living through the scientific revolution. At the time, the state of science made it was very easy for many people to doubt the capacity of the brain. And if you've ever seen a freshly dissected brain, you can see why. It's just a sack of custard. Yet now, in our brain-centered age, we can't imagine how anyone could think that way.GREGORY PAULIndependent Researcher; Author, Dinosaurs of the AirRichard Thaler seems to think that the concept of a flat earth was widely held for a long time. This is not really correct. Mariners have long understood that the earth is strongly curved and possibly a sphere. Ships disappear down over the horizon (I once saw this effect on the Chesapeake bay and was shocked how fast the hull of a giant container ship dropped out of sight while the top of the superstructure was still easily visible). Polaris gets lower on the horizon as one sails south and eventually disappears and so on. Over 2000 years ago the circumferance of the planet was pretty accurately calculated by Eratosthenes using some clever geometry and sun angle measurements. This knowledge may have been lost in the west in the dark ages, but was well known to the Euroelites after the improved communications from Constantinople, Alexandria etc after the Crusades.When Columbus was trying to get a government to cough up the money for his trip west he was not trying convince patrons that the planet was a sphere. The problem was that the experts told the people with the money that the distance from Europe and Asia across the super ocean separating them was 14,000 miles with no visible means of logistical support during the voyage (the perfect Bible did not mention extra continents being in the way). However, some works had come out saying that Eratosthenes had messed up and the planet was much smaller (I've heard this was based on Biblical passages and Columbus was very devout, but am not sure about that). Columbus figured it was 3-4000 miles to the west, a skip and a hop compared to the horrendous around Africa route. When the Spanish monarchs finally kicked the last Muslims out of Iberia and were having fun picking on Jews they decided what the heck and see what this Columbus fellow could do, the cost was just three little cargo vessels and their crews.The story about the crews getting upset about sailing off the edge of the earth is probably a myth since they knew better. That Columbus was fighting the false knowledge of the flat earth apparently was invented in the late 1800s in an effort to make him a great American symbol of the progress of science over superstition associated with the 1892 celebrations.As far as a distinct example of lots of people believing in something that is scientifically wrong the best example I can think of are the various creation myths. This occurred not only before the advent of modern science but continues in the form of various forms of creationism.ALISON GOPNIKPsychologist, UC, Berkeley; Author, The Philosophical BabyThere is interesting evidence that many once popular and evidence-resistant scientific belief systems are also developed spontaneously by many children. For example, children seem to develop a "vitalistic" theory of intuitive biology, rather like the Chinese concept of "chi", at around age 5, independently of what they are taught in school. Similarly , school-age children, even those with an explicitly atheist upbringing, develop ideas about God as an explanatory force at about 7, as part of an "intuitive teleology" that explains events in terms of agency.The psychologist Tania Lombrozo has shown that even Harvard undergraduates who endorse evolution consistently interpret evolutionary claims in a teleological rather than mechanistic way (eg giraffes try to reach the high leaves and so develop longer necks). And we have shown that six year olds develop a notion of fully autonomous "free will" that is notoriously difficult to overturn. There is also a lot of evidence that scientific theories are built out of these everyday intuitive theories.If, as we think, children use Bayesian techniques to develop intuitive theories of the world, based on the evidence they see around them, then it might , in some sense, be rational to hold on to these beliefs, which have the weight of accumulated prior experience. Other scientific beliefs, without a history of everyday confirmation, might be easier to overturn based on just scientific evidence alone.GEORGE DYSONScience Historian; Author, Darwin Among the MachinesMany (but not all) scientists assumed the far side of the moon would turn out to look much the same as the side we are familiar with. "I was very enthusiastic about getting a picture of the other side of the moon," Herbert York, former advisor to President Eisenhower, told me in 1999. "And there were various ways of doing it, sooner or later. And I argued with Hornig [Donald Hornig, Chairman of the President's Science Advisory Committee] about it and he said, 'Why? It looks just like this side.' And it turned out it didn't."

Originally written by October 5, 2018. Revised extensively beginning in 2021.Alternate merging: Nathan Coppedge's answer to Are there breakthroughs in philosophy like there are in science?THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY ABBREVIATED:Kwang Kuo (Chinese god): The gods are #1.Lao Tzu: Nature is Many Numbers.Confucius: Legalism.Egyptians: Universal symbols.Ancient Hebrew Philosophy: Writings of the prophets.The Oracle at Delphi: People need advice.Thales: Thought, Generation.Anaximander: Substance, ProcessAnaximenes; Physics, Dynamics.Pythagoras: Golden opposites.Xenophanes: Truth as poetry.Heraclitus: Time.Sophists: You can win an argument by being smart.Protagoras: There is a best argument of every type.Zeno of Elea: Paradoxes.Hippocrates: Study the body.Socrates: Justice is the good life, governed by truth. Wisdom.Plato: Ideas, God. Philosophy of life.Aristotle: Causality, Logic. Metaphysics and praxis.Pyrrho: Destructive thought.Christian Philosophy: Rationality, revelation, and universal love.Epictetus: Have insight.St Augustine: Encyclopedias.Benedictine Philosophy: Printing, proficience, gladness, intelligence.Pippin Tell: Idiots, Movements, Single Appropriate Proof of God.Renaissance Thinking: Inspiration.John Locke: Rational Empiricism.Machiavelli: Make use of merchants, hire mercenaries.Ann Bolyn: Protestantism, Dimensional Behavior.John Calvin: A withering rebuke.Rene Descartes: Skepticism and rational movement.Newton: Calculus, Gravity, Nature is intelligent somehow.Spinoza: God and materialism.Berkeley: Mind is everywhere.Leibniz: Calculus is everywhere.Romantics: Truth is sublime.David Hume: Critical empirical inquiry.Lichtenberg: Life is complex.Immanuel Kant: Moral law, with or without metaphysics.Marie Antoinette: Psychology (guilt complex), Almost anything with fashion attached.G.W.F. Hegel: Extrapolate.Max Stirner (1845): Discerning the parasites from the shit, Marx is ‘God’.August Comte (1853): Stages of learning.C.S. Peirce: Science of syntax.Nietzsche: Philosophical hero, philosopher as psychologist, sums of abstractions, God is dead in the sense that anything can be tolerated except the pretend.Frege: Connotation.Whitehead: Philosophy as a process.Weininger (a Jew later used by the Nazis): Human complexity.Dilthey: Reality surplus.Bertrand Russell (1910, 1912, 1913): A theory of internally complete mathematics considered disproven by Godel.Feminism: Neglected truths.African Philosophy: Medicine men (‘doctors’) interact with warlords.Francis Picabia: Artistic life.Franz Brentano: How can we perceive matter if it is within our minds that we perceive?Edmund Husserl: Truth as belief and the postmodern world.Martin Heidegger: The sacredness of the incommunicability of truth.African-American Philosophy: Fears of modern life.Alonzo Church: Scattershotting! It really matters after all!Kurt Godel: Math problems.Antonio Gramsci: A kind of returning to the cave allegory, but at a lower level.A.J. Ayer: ‘On an even keel’.Sartre: Intellectual humanism.Wittgenstein: Language games.F.A. Hayek: Individualism then radicalism then determinism then consequentialism.Philosophy of WWII: We’re going to need something big.Taiwanese Philosophy: Philosophy of the people.Retro Philosophy: Let’s go retro, whatever that means.W.V.O. Quine: Abbreviated logical deconstruction, web of logical relationships.Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, and Allen Ginsberg: ‘Real’ philosophy.Paul Erdős (1959): Dextrous intelligence.Astro Philosophy: Technical elation.Elias Canetti: Intelligent combinations.Edmund Gettier: Ambiguous cases.Emmanuel Levinas: Ethics is important.Karl Popper: Logic can be creative.Saul Kripke: Conditions are prime.John Searle: We should understand the case.Alvin Plantinga: Subtleties of free will.Pierre Bourdieu: Social-conceptual space.Christopher Langan: Input psychology, output philosophy.Realists: Life is realistic.David K. Lewis (Modal Realism): Many worlds theory can be philosophy.Gregory Vlastos: Where is the center? Nowhere!Daniel Dennett: Consciousness is part of nature.Internet Philosophy: Be cautious, and there’s a new ethics.Jacques Derrida: Fancy language.Jean Baudrillard: ‘Mindblowing’ with characteristic offensiveness. Critical consciousness.Object-Oriented Ontology: Metaphysical realism, radical contingency, alien phenomenology.Scott Soames: Tell it like it is.Richard Volkman: “Thought IS”.Antiquated Omnology: Unify disciplines through comprehensive knowledge of each domain 'at face value’.Dimensionism (2001-): Truth scales to reality, absolute knowledge is possible, metaphysical continuum of physical realities, philosophy applicable to programming.Colin McGinn: Disembodied realism, pessimism can look like optimism.E.J. Lowe: Mereological reality.Headache Formalism: Headaches do not make life worthless.MetaModernism (2010-): Paradise compatible with disillusionment.Nessim Nicholas Taleb (2010): Watch the jumps, and use them to make little investments.Nathan Coppedge: Coherence, Perpetual Motion.Xorism (2014): Logic based on processes of the state of change.False Paradigmatics (May 2016): False paradigms as paradigms.Exceptionism (2016): Logical exceptions can be formal.Programmable Heuristics (early 2017): Interesting methods can be collected.Quadruple Semantics: Past a certain point, something comes from nothing.Explodism (Oct 2017): Science can be logically critiqued.Survival Formalism (Nov 2017): Big leaps are necessary.Post-Analytic Philosophy (reasonable claims Oct 2017 expanded Nov): There is a trend, and let’s focus on the recent stuff.Meta-Coherence (Dec 2017): The exceptions are small if you’re good.JAN 2018:Incoherentism (Jan 2018): Some systems are incoherent.The Movement Movement: It is possible to start a movement of movements.Exemplasm: A philosophy of examples. A philosophy.Transformative Studies: All categories can be described with exactly eight highly significant bodies of work.Self-Swallowing Solution: Intelligence is a particular kind of thought.Abfeinianism: It is worthwhile to accept the beauty of ugliness. Apparent failures like this can supply the most genius methods.Premiumism: There is an ideal description (no qualification, just evidence).Mechanical Knowledge: Some examples have mechanics.Logo Logic: Language is rational.Ideal Science: Science has a phenomenal method.Perfect Science: The phenomenal method can be interpreted perfectly.FEB 2018:Perfect Education: Polished solutions to questions.Nepophenianism: A small, but meaningful difference.Objective History: Influential opinions can be formed and have influence.Semi-Omniscience: Choice writings can be assembled, and give highly-qualified perspective. There are at least four ways to have deep psychic knowledge.Coherent Cognition: The objectivity of thought can be supported by research.Coupon Culture: It might be valuable.Critique of Metaphysical Culture: There is such a thing as metaphysical culture, and it is about being right.A Traveling of Worlds: The original writer says good words.Biological Metaphysics: When metaphysics is scientific it is often biological. Such metaphysics may be evaluated as an authentic standard of metaphysics.Intellectual Shock Treatment: Sometimes the truth is so good it shocks you.The Coherent Volition: Because of respects, there are few alternatives to knowledge with the will.Incoherentist Coherentism: Certain intermediately coherent writings are defined as demonstrating complete knowledge of individually comprehensive subjects.Internalist Coherentism: Some writings while not conventionally coherent may be considered to have a uniquely deeper standard of coherence than most writings on coherence.Scary Movement: What are called Platonic ideas.The Sublim Strategies: A shadow of subtle brilliance.Ethical Physics: Connectedness.Practical Problematics: Exceptional problems suggest solutions.Nirvanaanalysis: Those to whom the maze of life is revealed are fortunate.Objective Randomness: Objective randomness is disregard for meaningful complexity, a distant response to the failure of omniscient reality.Padic Logic: Especially good notes are increasingly clear.Logic Chains: Legitimate types of logic collectively show an order of logical operations.Brain Iteration: Variations in brain typologies show a progressive evolution of brains.Conceptual Tunneling: Semantic variations lead logically either to properties associated with higher dimensions, or to more fundamental semantics.Reality Superfice: We should circumvent what does not amene itself to sensation and organizational concepts. Life is superficial only while we search for this organizational feeling of meaningful anomie or the smell of popcorn. A way to elation.Ultra-Concise Education: A linear process can meaningfully describe the ideal education.Analytic Doctorship: Certain logical concepts express doctorship.Counter-Abjectionism: There is an argument which shows we can countenance truth without countenancing an idea.Counter-Calculus: Knowing the negative space for calculus serves as an animating force.Multi-Modularism: Coherence = expecting a four (related to the Axiom of Maria).New Existentialism: Adopt a new framework, use the framework for some new notion, it is useful in some way, it may be open to meta-interpretation.Group Formalism: Many equal formalisms.Emergent Contractualism: Conceptual emergence by prior contract through ideas.Black Ideas: Especially valuable ideas.Integrated Progress: The 4-d can be used to grow the present in the 3-d.Alternative Systems: Actual proof is affirmative, and explains variations.Non-Causal Systemology: Laws of timeless nature.MAR 2018:Subtle Physics: The alternatives to subtlety are likely to be subtle.The Dubious Process-Coherence: Coherence that is dynamically-qualified is dynamic, or at least objectiveProof by Machine: Set a high standard and you will find an object of fascination.Minima Ontology: The source of Newton's laws.Logos of the Logos: The circle of Mercurius.Knowledge Caveat Emptor: Satisfying knowledge.Viable Theories Formilitics: The domain of disciplines.Super-Sensibilism: The logic of being bold and having a good idea.Metaphysical Ethics: If there's a metaphysical problem, there's also a practical problem. If someone desires meaning, it is absolutely immoral to deny them meaning.Double-Contendre: Problems don't rancour the good, they rancour the truth.Dimensional Realism: Reality can harbor some extreme ideas which may test our beliefs, or may even test something else.Temporal and Atemporal Network Theory: History can be a computer and perform functions in 4-d.Apositionism: There is a special language that communicates a particular happiness. Happiness may be a matter of translation.Avant-Garde Theoretics: A regress encompasses our forgotten assumptions, which are fundamental discoveries.Pinnacle Intelligence: Its possible to greatly enhance thought with a few comprehensive categories.Well-Made Logical Knowledge (W.M.L.K.): Knowledge can be a cascade.Metaphysical Limits: There can be a metaphysical Calculus.Loose Perfect Standard of New Invention: If you give perfect enough evidence, the world will adapt in response.APRIL 2018:A+ Divine Homework: God is good at dying, and humans are good at being immortal, but God is too patient.The Delitrice: One path leads to the ultimate mystery.The Universal Solver: There are four solutions to every problem besides the problem, described by certain formulas.The Language of Explanation: With clarity and revelation the truth is revealed. Truth is clarity.Periodic-Symptomayic Morality: There is a logic to predicting moral outcomes.Cascade of Problems: There might be a general nature to problems.Perfectualism: The posit of an idea is a function.Interesting Aesthetics: Four aesthetics dominate contemporary art.Various Movements: There might be a finite number of contradictory arguments, unless there is some similarity or a metaphysical difference.The Halmarks of an Infinite System: There is at least one infinite system.Incoherent and Coherent Bases: Super-finite typological patterns can be traced between opposite movements, forming a larger pattern that is categorical.General Categoric Importance: Categories have some type of definite importance at times.Refined Pearls: Certain writings have a beauty comparable to wisdom.Genius Fascination: When someone is a genius, particular interesting things happen in history.A World of Exceptions: The ultimate exception may be to not understand exceptions.Settled Ideas: With an added degree of seriousness, things get real and skeptical.Hyperproblems: Certain problems are not easy to solve with satisfaction.Recondite Dimensions: Dimensions are physical (or qua physical).Higher Analytic: Intuition is superior to most logic.Mental Engineering: Intelligent life may be composed in a finite number of modes.Thoughts of the Tsunami: There is nature to thoughts of a large scale.Degree Logics: Most negations are a redounding of the third and fourth variations.MAY 2018:Apex Flow: One can escape the limit of computing.Metaphysical Logotypes: There is a metaphysical toolkit.Weird Flash: When something especially genius happens, there is known to be a weird flash.Comprehensive Knowledge: Comprehensive knowledge.Nifty Engineerung: The ultimate genius can predict ultimate genius in a finite nunber of steps.Genius Intuition: Intuition is ultimately psychic.The Golden Age Formula: The fourth choice of history sometimes results in 'Santa Claus’.Symptomatic Reality: There may be infinite infinities of problematic nothingness behind each individual thing that is real.Metaphysical Foils: There may be a finite number of metaphysical clues, each different from the others. For example, God as an elephant grasping balloons, or one ought to live inside a steel pot.Supplemenrary Thibking Options: There may be four general secondary fallacies.A Numerological Theory of Everything: Guessing the nature of numbers is a God-game.Transcebdence Theory of Everything: When in doubt, transcend!Slee Theories: Side powers are nifty.Temporal Mathematics: Strenuous mathematics can teach us a lot about life.Physical Invention: Everything physicists desire can be abbreviated in a paragraph.How To Think Like Conputers: Thinking like a circuitboard is traditionally an advanced level for humans.The Ergotic: Rejuvenation is the springboard for thoughts about God.Complexity Studies: Complexity exists and persists, etc.Imperfective Theories: Theory of imperfection.General Studies: General Studies can be an advanced area.Amazing Insults: Why isn't life better, huh?Pharmasophy: That there is a n abstract philosophy of drugs.Dematerialism: That there is a philosophy of intangibles.The Most General of Methods: That there is a most general philosophy.JUNE 2018Logical Dialectic: That there is a best answer to questions.The Ideal List: That problems can be solved according to perfect groups.Links To Nowhere: That certain writings characterize nowherism.High-Minded Solutions: That certain ideas typify ‘fit’.Plain Brilliant Systemology: Plain brilliance.Chromo-Dynamics: Objective colors, transcendent physics.Real Physics: Feeling of what it is to do physics.Labyrinth of Virtues: Organization of virtues.Primary Philosophical Investigations: Sense of the mission of philosophy.An Account of Everything: Transcendent awareness.Imperfectionism: Philosophical description-examples of imperfection.Informalism: Examples of formally informal methods.Greatness Theories: Examples of greatness.Ecliptics: A movement representing an interesting discrete concept.Thoughts in Parallel: A formally progressive movement, or movement spanning movements.Giftism of the Universe: A movement minimally objectifying giftedness.Dimensional Complexity: A movement characterizing complexity.5-Methodi: The first movement summarizing what to do in five points.Insane Inspirations: Characterizing the insane as inspirations, ideally exclusively.Alternate Universes of Modality: Expressing possibilities for the entire universe.Cataphysics: Perhaps the real idea of metaphysics, due originally to Jesus.Empirical Coherentism: Empirical version of coherentism.Fundamental Dialictic: A dialectic of dialectics.Why Picasso is Flawed: An alternative to modernism.Higher Depression: The long-awaited ideal concept of depression.The Best Theory of Inequality: A theory of the metaphysical unlikelihood of justified inequality.Double-Coherence: The theory of the possible meta-quantability of coherence.Obsolete Medicine: A mental relic.Post-Science: A theory of what is currently seen to be impossible.JULY 2018:Striationalism:: A theory of the conditionalism of a movement of discrete concepts.Transcendental Dimensions: A theory of transcendent dimensions.Tract of the Ideal Cosm: How to be greatly ambitious.The Grand Work: A significamt step in alchemy.The Ideal Model: A sense of ideal models.Token Complaints Model: A much-delayed casual formalism.Blind Technologies: An avant-garde technology concept.All Problems on Five Pages: An attempt to summarize problems.Wizard Gurus Guide: Magical instructions.Execitive Sums: Connecting philosophy and practical vocabulary.Coherence Concerned with Subjectivity: An explanation of subjectivity in trrms of coherence, or the like.Knowledge that is Good for Your Skin: An occult goal in philosophy is reached.Advanced Consciousness: A comprehensive theory of certain levels of thought and behavior.AUGUST 2018:Brief Ethical Systems Tractatus: An attempt to summarize ethics throughout history and time.Dimensional Spells: An idea of intellectual wizardry.Formula for Problems: Formula defining the meaning of problems.Ennobled A.I. Theory: Anticipating and setting criteria for the ennobled status of A.I. and robots.Closing the Loophole to Coherence: A seventh or eighth formal exception appears to be unneccessary.Art of Happiness: What it says.Human Determinism: Free will is human determinism.Solutions to Physics: A kind of comprehensive view of material physics.Loque’s Laws: The law can be clever.Idea Logic: Ideas of a certain quality.Improvement on Aristotle’s Syllogisms.Classic Questions: A certain large set of questions may be the best questions to ask.Complete Logic Concise Edition: An attempt at a coherent collection of logic.Critical Coherence: Particular questionable, extremist attempts at coherence.SEPTEMBER 2018:Decoherence: Blockchain education.Essequalianism: The meaning of life (to an intellectual).Preeminent Problems: A very high standard of problematic things.Premier Intellectual Dialectic: The logic that led to some of history’s biggest recent discoveries which may not even have been made use of.Hard Logic: A logic of hard logic.The 5th Element / Non-Fiction: A kind of singular alchemical quest to solve all problems, completed.Hacked Simulation Hypothesis: A theory of development based on whether we have been hacked, how, why, etc. Questions can be answers.The Visionary Aperture: A sense of the completely visionary.Soul Songs: Save it on a rainy day. (September 2018)High Semantics: Integrated semantics. (September 2018)Perfect Evolution: Scientific thinking method. (September 2018)Essential Matter: Essential materials, intellectual. (September 2018)Proof of Infinite Souls and Magic Power: The soul is as powerful as an atom bomb, and is made of real information. (September 29, 2018)Coherence with Relativism: Taking relativism seriously requires the language of relativism. (October 1, 2018)Diabolical Devices: Impressive results with cleverer principles. (October 4, 2018)A Prophecy of Folly: People are stupidly confused so the devil dies of an intelligent wish. (October 4, 2018)The Dogeared Homebook: A kind of aircraft carrier for the a posteriori. (October 5, 2018)Metaphysical-Material Integration Theory: Plausible reasoning. (October 7, 2018)Momentalism: Pot gold of the human experience. (October 10, 2018)The Cycopedian: Pain is always worth an interface. (October 12, 2018)Dimensional Systems Theory: Dimensions are a web. (October 14, 2018)Quantum Alchemy: Metaphysical importance of enchantment and enchanters (October 15, 2018)Magical Brains: There is a ladder to immortality. We have to hope it isn’t broken. (October 16, 2018)Systems Standards: Standards of systems are ‘idea logical’. (October 17, 2018)Faster than Thought: Thought before light. (October 18, 2018)Wizard Psychology: Wizards get in the müd. (October 18, 2018)Poetic Planning: The nature of puzzles has it that what is given is granted as real is to unreal, and truth to mystery, and philosophies to utter lies. Thus, it could be summed ‘philosophers win, the only thing deadly is a standard’. (by October 18, 2018)Real Robots: Robots transcend sometimes, or more accurately, humans imitating robots transcend a lot. (October 31, 2018)Original Thought Movement. Active thinking. (by October 31, 2018)Giant Platforms: Intelligence may sprawl over infinite pinnacles, some inverted, joined by categories. Wisdom may sprawl over infinite categories, with no pinnacles, with each category containing infinite numbers. (November 1, 2018)The Cardinal System: Coherence, 10, and impossibility are common elements, but there are others contained within them. (November 1, 2018)Language Expositions: Nature is a natural language. (November 2, 2018)The Essential Proof: Categories are logical symbols. (November 9, 2018)The Magical Processes: Healing is a metaphysical art. (November 9, 2018)Meaning As The Intermedium: One knows to ward against death. (November 13, 2018)Interface Studies: A bright thing given to continuing. (November 13, 2018)Polemic on Physical Politics: There are metaphysical dangers to unclever physics. (November 16, 2018)Impossible Magic is Magic After All: Impossible magic is a kind of real magic. (November 18, 2018)Intermediate Omniscience: That a man is a ‘fake woman’ is useful knowledge. (November 20, 2018)Polymathal Studies: Study quantum existentialism. (November 30, 2018)Rules of History: God has an ego. (December 4, 2018)Universal Deductions: Laws are territorial again. Solve this problem and you solve reality. (December 4, 2018)Narrow Moral Passage: Sublime meaning is sublime permission. (December 5, 2018)7 Rings of Power Argument: The secrets are located in reality (December 6, 2018)Superhumanism: Intuition: magic characteristic. (December 12, 2018)Mindset Theories: That mind is a trap you put your brain down on. (December 12, 2018)The Permuted Sex: After people have sex they always settle down in one way or another. (December 12, 2018)Island Studies: One island is pretend, the other is fantasy. (December 13, 2018)God and Guts: Atheistic theology part 4. (December 16, 2018)14 Secret Worlds of Metaphysics: Brilliant opinions if they are brilliant enough, cannot help but express reality, or some metaphysics are absolutely justified in being wrong. (December 16, 2018)The Sublime Statistics: Numbers must be sublime. (December 17, 2018)Philosophical Statistics: It is worth being scientific about philosophy, at least as a waystation to some other place. (December 17, 2018)Emotional Abnihilism: Good fortune orgasms with language. (December 17, 2018)Soul of the Random Universe: Persnickety universe, dovetail universe, ornery universe, backend of the universe. (December 17, 2018)…LATER MOVEMENTS:201920202021…Based on previous work at: History of Philosophy

Most Objectivist thinkers are ‘little known’ outside of Objectivist circles so I will post a list of the ones I know.Objectivist Intellectual’s Biographies (85) last updated 10/14/18 (not complete)Amesh AdaljaMD, 2002, American University of the CaribbeanDr. Adalja, a board-certified physician in infectious disease, critical care medicine, emergency medicine and internal medicine, specializes in the intersection of national security with catastrophic health events. He publishes and lectures on bio-terrorism, pandemic preparedness and emerging infectious diseases. He has been a guest on national radio and television programs.John AllisonMBA, Management, 1974, Duke UniversityMr. Allison is president and CEO of the Cato Institute. He was previously chairman and CEO of BB&T Corporation, the 10th-largest financial services holding company headquartered in the United States. During Allison’s tenure as CEO from 1989 to 2008, BB&T grew from $4.5 billion to $152 billion in assets.Carl BarneyCarl Barney is a businessman who, among other business activities, owns and manages several private business colleges.Rituparna BasuBS, Biology, 2010, Pennsylvania State UniversityMs. Basu is a health care policy analyst at ARI. Her work has appeared in publications such as Forbes and The Daily Caller, and she has been interviewed on radio and TV programs, internationally. Ms. Basu has briefed congressional staffers and speaks regularly at university campuses, including Georgetown, Emory and Temple.Ben BayerPhD, Philosophy, 2007, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignDr. Bayer teaches philosophy at Loyola University New Orleans. His research focuses primarily on questions about the foundations of knowledge and the freedom of the will.Robert BegleyRobert Begley is a writer for The Objective Standard. He is the founder and president of the NY Heroes Society, an organization dedicated to promoting heroism in the culture. Robert is also a judge in Anthem, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged essay contests. He was the host and producer for the Manhattan Cable TV program, The Voice of Reason. Robert is currently writing a book about the history of New York heroes.Michael S. BerlinerPhD, Philosophy, 1970, Boston UniversityDr. Berliner is the founding executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute and served as co-chairman of ARI’s board of directors. He is editor of "Letters of Ayn Rand", "Understanding Objectivism" and a recent biography of operetta composer Emmerich Kálmán. Dr. Berliner taught philosophy and philosophy of education for many years at California State University, Northridge.ANDREW BERNSTEINPhD, Philosophy, 1986, City University of New YorkAndrew Bernstein holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the Graduate School of the City University of New York. He has taught at Hunter College, the New School for Social Research, Pace University and Marymount College, where he was chosen Outstanding Faculty Member for 1995. He currently teaches at the State University of New York at Purchase, where he was selected Outstanding Faculty Member for 2004.Dr. Bernstein has lectured at universities across the United States, including at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, the United States Military Academy at West Point and many others; and at philosophical conferences both in America and abroad. He is the author of The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and Philosophic Case for Laissez-Faire, to be published in the spring of 2005 by University Press of America. His first novel, Heart of a Pagan, was released in 2002. He is currently writing Objectivism in One Lesson, an introduction to the philosophy of Ayn Rand. His website is Andrew Bernstein | Philosopher and TeacherDr. Bernstein is the author of "The Capitalist Manifesto" (2005), "Objectivism in One Lesson" (2008), "Capitalism Unbound" (2010), "Capitalist Solutions" (2011), and of numerous essays. He is currently writing “Heroes and Hero Worship” for the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism. Dr. Bernstein lectures widely on Ayn Rand’s novels and Objectivism.DAVID BERRYD.M.A., Composition, 2002, University of South CarolinaDavid Berry is an associate professor of music. He teaches courses across a wide range of historical and theoretical musical subjects including film music. He is a recorded and published (BMI) composer with performances of his music in America and Europe in both fine art and popular music genres.CRAIG BIDDLEB.A., Fine Arts, 1988, Virginia Commonwealth UniversityCraig Biddle is the author of Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts That Support It and is currently writing another book, Good Thinking for Good Living: The Science of Being Selfish. In addition to writing, he lectures on the Objectivist ethics and teaches workshops on thinking in principles. Editor and Publisher of “The Objective Standard”Specialties: Ethics, ObjectivismHARRY BINSWANGERPh.D., Philosophy, 1973, Columbia UniversityDr. Binswanger is the author of The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts, the editor of The Ayn Rand Lexicon and co-editor of the second edition of Ayn Rand’s Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. Dr. Binswanger is a professor of philosophy at the Ayn Rand Institute’s Objectivist Academic Center and is a member of ARI’s board of directors. He is currently working on a book on the nature of consciousness.Dr. Binswanger is the author of "How We Know" and "The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts", the editor of "The Ayn Rand Lexicon" and co-editor of the second edition of Ayn Rand’s "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology". He is an instructor of philosophy at the Ayn Rand Institute’s Objectivist Academic Center and a member of ARI’s board of directors.TORE BOECKMANNWriterMr. Boeckmann has written and lectured extensively on Ayn Rand’s fiction and philosophy of esthetics. He edited for publication Rand’s The Art of Fiction. His own fiction has been published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. He is currently writing a book on Romantic literature.Thomas A. BowdenSpecialties: Legal issues, physician-assisted suicide, abortion rights, mandatory community service.Mr. Bowden, an attorney in private practice in Baltimore, Maryland, taught at the University Of Baltimore School Of Law from 1988 to 1994. Author of a booklet against multiculturalism, “The Enemies of Christopher Columbus,” he has also published op-eds in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, Philadelphia Inquirer, Portland Oregonian, Los Angeles Daily News, Minneapolis Star Tribune, and Charlotte Observer. He is a former member of the board of directors of The Association for Objective Law, a non-profit group whose purpose is to advance Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand, as the basis of a proper legal system. In that connection, Mr. Bowden has filed amicus curiae briefs in the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal for the Second and Third Circuits, challenging mandatory community service for high school students on legal and moral grounds.YARON BROOKPh.D., Finance, 1994, University of Texas at AustinDr. Brook is president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. A former finance professor, he has published in academic as well as popular publications, and is frequently interviewed in the media. He has appeared on CNN, Fox News Channel and PBS among others. On college campuses across America and in the boardrooms of large corporations, he has lectured on Objectivism, business ethics and foreign policy.Dr. Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. He is the coauthor of the national best-seller “Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand’s Ideas Can End Big Government” and a contributing author to both “Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea” and “Winning the Unwinnable War: America’s Self-Crippled Response to Islamic Totalitarianism.”ANDY CLARKSONMBA University of MarylandMr. Clarkson is a decades-long Objectivist He has focused on researching the history of ideas and published The Impact of Aristotle Upon Christian, Islamic, and Jewish Cultures : A Compilation of Notes and Quotes From A Variety of Sources Plus Commentary, published in December 2016.PAT CORVINIPh.D., Electrical Engineering, 1995, University of California at Santa BarbaraDr. Corvini recently left a twenty-year career in semiconductor optoelectronics to work full time in the history of science and mathematics. She lectured on Archimedes at the 2003 Objectivist Summer Conference.SUSAN CRAWFORDB.S.N, Nursing, 1982, Marymount College, VirginiaSusan Crawford is a registered nurse. She has given two parenting courses and wrote the pamphlet “The Reading Habit/Money Management.” Susan is married to Jack Crawford and the mother of two sons, Jason and DavidERIC DANIELSPh.D., American History, 2001, University of WisconsinDr. Daniels is a visiting assistant professor of history at Duke University’s Program on Values and Ethics in the Marketplace. He has lectured at summer conferences and to numerous Objectivist community groups. He is an alumnus of ARI’s Objectivist Graduate Center (precursor to the Objectivist Academic Center). A contributor to the Oxford Companion to United States History, he is currently working on a book about American politics andDr. Daniels works at LePort Schools, teaching science and history, and as a curriculum developer. Previously, he was a professor at Clemson, Duke and Georgetown Universities. Dr. Daniels has published book chapters and articles on antitrust, individualism and economic freedom.John DennisPhD, Psychology, 2010, University of Texas at AustinDr. Dennis teaches at Catholic University in Milan, University of Perugia and University of Alberta. His research on motivation is funded by the EU and Templeton Foundation. He is a licensed psychologist trained in CBT. In 2013 Dr. Dennis started Melioravit, a scientific communication company that helps researchers get funded, published and cited.Robert van DortmondMSc in Applied Physics, Delft University of Technology; Executive Program, Stanford Graduate SchoolMr. van Dortmond teaches entrepreneurship at the University of Amsterdam/The Amsterdam Centre for Entrepreneurship. He is an active mentor, shareholder and board member of various startups. He speaks on Ayn Rand’s ideas and is an advisory board member of ARI Europe of which he was one of the initiators.Dianne DuranteSpecialties: Esthetics, painting, sculpture, homeschooling.Dr. Durante is a freelance writer on art and current events. She has lectured on painting and sculpture at Objectivist conferences; several of these lectures are available on tape from the Ayn Rand Bookstore. She has also just finished a book on New York sculpture, Forgotten Delights: The Producers. Dr. Durante and her husband homeschool their daughter in Brooklyn, NY.Alex EpsteinSpecialties: Current Affairs, racism, and moral defense of businessmen.Alex Epstein is an Objectivist speaker and writer living in Richmond, VA. His Op-Eds have been published in dozens of newspapers around the country, including The Houston Chronicle, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Miami Herald, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Washington Times. He is also a regular contributor to The Intellectual Activist, a monthly magazine analyzing political and cultural issues from an Objectivist perspective. Mr. Epstein holds a BA in philosophy from Duke University, where he was editor and publisher of The Duke Review for two years.STUART MARK FELDMANM.A., Art, 1975, Rowan University, New JerseyStuart Feldman works in bronze, stone and wood, creating sculptures of the human figure expressing man’s most noble and inspiring qualities. A former instructor at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, he is cofounder of the Schuylkill Academy of Fine Art, in Philadelphia. His sculptures are held in private collections, and he has created a number of commissioned pieces.ROBERT GARMONGPh.D., Philosophy, 2002; University of Texas at AustinDr. Garmong is a graduate of the Objectivist Graduate Center, and has lectured on philosophy at many Objectivist conferences. He is the author of “J.S. Mill’s Re-Conceptualization of Liberty,” currently under submission to publishers. Dr. Garmong teaches philosophy at Texas A&M University and at Texas State University.MARILYN (GEORGE) GRAYB.S., Child Development, 1961, Iowa State UniversityMarilyn George is a retired Montessori teacher, school owner and administrator. She holds teaching certificates from both the American Montessori Society and the International Association of Progressive Montessorians and was a Montessori teacher for twenty-five years. She owned, administered and taught for ten years in her own school, which had an international reputation for excellence. She taught Montessori courses at Seattle University for more than ten years and has consulted for schools nationwide. Marilyn has been ballroom dancing since she met Ted Gray at a conference in 1989, at her first lesson, and today they compete at the Silver level.Debi GhateLLB, Law, University of Calgary, 1995Ms. Ghate is vice president of Education and Research at the Ayn Rand Institute, where she heads up a variety of educational and policy-related programs. She is also director of the Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship, an organization that supports academic scholarship based on Ayn Rand’s work.Onkar GhatePhD, Philosophy, 1996, University of CalgaryDr. Ghate is senior fellow and chief content officer at the Ayn Rand Institute. He specializes in Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism, and is ARI’s senior instructor and editor. He publishes and lectures on Rand’s philosophy and fiction, including application of Objectivism in the culture, and has been a guest on national radio and television programs.GENA GORLINPhD, Clinical Psychology, 2012, University of VirginiaMs. Gorlin has two years of experience conducting individual psychotherapy with anxious and depressed young adults. Her research has been published in highly regarded academic journals. She is also a graduate of the Objectivist Academic Center and a former board member of The Undercurrent, a national campus publication.Allan Gotthelf (deceased)Specialties: Love, self-esteem, happiness, Objectivism, AristotleAllan Gotthelf is emeritus professor of philosophy at The College of New Jersey. He is an internationally recognized authority on the philosophy of Aristotle, with many scholarly publications. He has lectured on Objectivism and Aristotle — including their views on love and sex, self-esteem, and individual happiness — throughout North America and in Europe and Japan. He has been a visiting professor at Swarthmore College, Georgetown University, Oxford University, Tokyo Metropolitan University, and most recently, the University of Texas at Austin. In 1987, Dr. Gotthelf was one of the founders of the Ayn Rand Society; a professional organization affiliated with the American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division, and has headed it since 1990. He enters his second year as Visiting Professor of Historyand Philosophy of Science (HPS) at the University of Pittsburgh. Prof. Gotthelf holds the Pitt Fellowship for the Study of Objectivism, funded by the Anthem Foundation and he will be working throughout the year on various projects in connection with his Fellowship. He is the author of On Ayn Rand (Wadsworth Publishing, 2000), the best-selling book in the Wadsworth Philosophers Series.4-19-2007 from his website:Visiting Professor, under the university's new Fellowship for the Study of Objectivism (Member: Classics, Philosophy and Ancient Science Program). A specialist on Aristotle's biology and philosophy, and on the philosophy of Ayn Rand, Gotthelf is emeritus professor of philosophy at The College of New Jersey, and has taught on a visiting basis at Swarthmore, Oxford, Georgetown, Tokyo Metropolitan, and the University of Texas at Austin. He is a life member of Clare Hall Cambridge, and was a visiting member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Gotthelf is author of On Ayn Rand (Wadsworth Philosophers Series, 2000); co-editor of Philosophical Issues in Aristotle's Biology (Cambridge 1987); editor of Aristotle on Nature and Living Things (Pittsburgh 1985); and has prepared for publication D.M. Balme's posthumous editions of Aristotle's Historia Animalium (Cambridge 2002, Cambridge MA 1991). His collected Aristotle papers will by published next year by Oxford University Press, under the title: Teleology, Scientific Method, and Substance: Essays on Aristotle's Biological Enterprise. He is currently working on several Aristotle projects and an extended study of Rand's theory of concepts, essences, and objectivity.TED GRAYB.S., Mechanical Engineering, 1965, Northeastern University;M.S., Mechanical Engineering, 1971, Brooklyn Polytechnic InstituteTed Gray, an engineer, has been dancing since his teens. They both consider dancing primarily a social and romantic activity. Occasionally, they enter amateur dance competitions. As a couple they have given many formal and informal group lessons—at home, at conferences and on a cruise ship. Ted is a mechanical engineer with forty years experience in design and analysis of structures, and prevention of vibration. He is an amateur student of history, enjoying especially the biographies of great Americans and the history of technology. He has been a student of Objectivism for thirty-eight years.Hannes HackerSpecialties: history and politics of the space program, science and technology.Mr. Hacker graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a BS degree in aerospace engineering in May 1988. He earned a MS degree in aerospace engineering at the University of Texas at Austin December 1990. He has eleven years of space-flight operations experience including work on the space shuttle, international space station and commercial communications satellites.DAVID HARRIMANB.S., Physics, 1979, University of California at Berkeley;M.S., Physics, 1982, University of Maryland;M.A., Philosophy, 1995, Claremont Graduate University, CaliforniaDavid Harriman is the editor of Journals of Ayn Rand and a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute. He has lectured extensively on the history and philosophy of physics. He is currently developing the physical science curriculum at VanDamme Academy and working on two books: one demonstrating the influence of philosophy on modern physics (The Anti-Copernican Revolution) and the other presenting Leonard Peikoff’s theory of induction (Induction in Physics and Philosophy).David HolcbergSpecialties: Environmentalism, science, capitalism. David Holcberg holds a degree in civil engineering and is a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute.JONATHAN HOENIGCommunications and Philosophy, 1999, Northwestern UniversityMr. Hoenig manages Capitalistpig Hedge Fund, LLC. A former floor trader, his first book, Greed Is Good, was published by HarperCollins. Mr. Hoenig has written for publications including The Wall Street Journal, Wired andMarketWatch: Stock Market News - Financial News. He was named one of Crain’s Forty Under Forty and appears regularly on Fox News Channel.Gary HullSpecialties: Philosophy, multiculturalism, business ethics, education.Dr. Hull is director of the Program on Values and Ethics in the Marketplace at Duke University. His op-eds have been published in numerous newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Orange County Register, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Chicago Tribune. He has made numerous television and radio appearances to discuss Ayn Rand’s philosophy, multiculturalism, affirmative action, the Elian Gonzalez affair, sex, ethics, politics. He has lectured on Ayn Rand’s philosophy at conferences around the world and, as a member of the Ayn Rand Institute’s Speakers Bureau, has spoken at universities across the country, including Harvard, Michigan at Ann Arbor, Wisconsin at Madison, Texas at Austin. Dr. Hull is the author of A Study Guide to Leonard Peikoff’s book Objectivism: the Philosophy of Ayn Rand, and is co-editor of The Ayn Rand Reader (Penguin/Plume, 1999), a collection of fiction and non-fiction writings by Ayn Rand.MARTIN F JOHANSENMS, Computer Science, 2009, University of OsloMr. Johansen is a PhD research fellow at SINTEF, the largest independent research institute in Scandinavia. He is currently completing his PhD studies at the University of Oslo as part of an international research project on software testing.Elan JournoBA, Philosophy, 1997, King's College, LondonMr. Journo, director of policy research at ARI, is completing a book on American policy toward the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. His 2009 book, “Winning the Unwinnable War,” analyzes post-9/11 U.S. foreign policy. His writing has appeared in “Foreign Policy,” “Journal of International Security Affairs” and “Middle East Quarterly.”ELLEN KENNERPh.D., Clinical Psychology, 1992, University of Rhode IslandDr. Kenner, a clinical psychologist, has taught university courses in introductory psychology, abnormal psychology and theories of personality. She gives talks on romance, self-improvement, psychological self-defense, parenting and communication skills. She is in her eighth year as host of the nationally syndicated radio talk show The Rational Basis of Happiness®.Ryan KrausePhD, Strategic Management and Organization Theory, 2013, Indiana UniversityDr. Krause is an assistant professor at Texas Christian University’s Neeley School of Business. He researches corporate governance and has published in “Academy of Management Journal,” “Strategic Management Journal” and “Journal of Management.” His research has been covered by the “Wall Street Journal,” “USA Today,” “Businessweek” and Fox Business Network.Andrew LaymanAndrew Layman is a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft where he works on Internet and database technologies. Prior to joining Microsoft in 1992, he was a Vice President of Symantec Corporation and original author of the Time Line project management program.Peter LePort, M.D.Specialties: Medicine, free market reform of healthcare, medical savings accountsDr. LePort, a full-time surgeon, lectures nationwide on free market reform in healthcare, particularly on the benefits of medical savings accounts. He is a member of the board of directors of Americans for Free Choice in Medicine. He co-wrote a healthcare reform proposal that discusses voluntary, tax-free medical savings accounts and high-deductible personal health insurance and which includes a method to privatize Medicare. He earned his medical degree from Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York, and is a former assistant professor of surgery at that institution. He is a member of the Faculty of the American College of Surgeons and of the Orange County Surgical Society.Andrew LewisPostgraduate Diploma of Philosophy, 1994, University of Melbourne, AustraliaMr. Lewis has studied philosophy at the Objectivist Academic Center, the University of Melbourne and the University of Southern California. He worked with Leonard Peikoff on his radio show, has lectured at Objectivist conferences, and is principal at VanDamme Academy, where he teaches a three-year history curriculum covering ancient, European and American history.JOHN LEWIS (deceased)Ph.D., Classics, 2001, University of CambridgeDr. Lewis is assistant professor of history at Ashland University, where he holds an Anthem Fellowship for Objectivist Scholarship. He is Assistant Professor of History in the Department of History and Political Science. He has published in several professional journals, and has been a visiting scholar at Rice University and Bowling Green State UniversityEDWIN A. LOCKEPh.D., Industrial Organizational Psychology, 1964, Cornell University.Dr. Locke is Dean’s Professor of Leadership and Motivation (Emeritus) at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is internationally known for his research and writings on work motivation, leadership and related topics, including the application of Objectivism to psychology and management. He is a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute and has published numerous op-eds.Keith LockitchPhD, Physics, 1999, University of Wisconsin at MilwaukeeDr. Lockitch is an ARI fellow and director of advanced training. In addition to speaking and writing for ARI on issues related to energy, climate and environmentalism, he teaches writing for the OAC and has developed courses on Ayn Rand’s ideas and novels for a variety of audiences.ROBERT MAYHEWPh.D., Philosophy, 1991, Georgetown UniversityDr. Mayhew is associate professor of philosophy at Seton Hall University. He is the author of Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s Republic and The Female in Aristotle’s Biology and the editor of Ayn Rand’s Marginalia, Ayn Rand’s The Art of Nonfiction, Essays on Ayn Rand’s “We the Living” and (forthcoming) Ayn Rand’s Q & A. He has completed a book on Ayn Rand’s HUAC testimony and is preparing for publication a collection of essays on Ayn Rand’s Anthem.Arline MannArline Mann is an attorney. She is vice president and associate general counsel of Goldman, Sachs & Co.John P. McCaskey, Ph.D. in history, is the founder and chairman of the Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship. He spent twenty years in the computer business, most recently as founder of Epiphany, Inc., before returning to academia in 2001. He studies and teaches history and philosophy of science at Stanford University.Scott McConnellSpecialties: Volunteerism, Communism in America, Ayn Rand's life. Mr. McConnell is a former literature teacher and high school English teacher. He has a BA in behavioral sciences and worked in Hollywood as a script reader. He has given several lectures on Ayn Rand's life.Shoshana MilgramPhD, Comparative Literature, 1978, Stanford UniversityDr. Milgram, associate professor of English at Virginia Tech, specializes in narrative fiction and film. She has lectured on Ayn Rand at Objectivist and academic conferences and has published on Ayn Rand, Hugo and Dostoevsky. Dr. Milgram is editing the draft of her book-length study of Ayn Rand’s life (to 1957).Ken Moelis. Mr. Moelis is founder and chief executive officer of Moelis & Company, a global investment bank that provides financial advisory, capital raising and asset management services to a broad client base including corporations, institutions and governments. Mr. Moelis has over thirty years of investment banking experience. Prior to founding Moelis & Company, he worked at UBS from 2001 to 2007, where he was most recently president of UBS Investment Bank and, previously, Joint Global Head of Investment Banking. Mr. Moelis serves on the University of Pennsylvania Board of Trustees, the Wharton Board of Overseers, the Board of the Tourette Syndrome Association, and the Board of Governors of Cedars Sinai Hospital.Jean MoroneyCertificate, 1996, Objectivist Graduate Center, Ayn Rand Institute;MS, Psychology, 1994, Carnegie Mellon University;MS, Electrical Engineering, 1986, Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyMs. Moroney is president of Thinking Directions, a business that develops and teaches methods in applied psycho-epistemology. She has given her flagship course, Thinking Tactics, to corporate and public audiences across North America. She is writing a book titled “Smarter: How to Achieve Your Goals When Nothing Goes as Planned.”Adam Mossoff is Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law. He is also Co-Director of Academic Programs and a Senior Scholar at the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property at George Mason, which he co-founded in 2012. He teaches and writes in the areas of patent law, trade secrets, trademark law, property law, and internet law. He has published extensively on the theory and history of how patents and other intellectual property rights are fundamental property rights. His article on the very first patent war, the Sewing Machine War of the 1850s, has been widely cited in today's public policy debates concerning patent litigation, patent licensing, and patent pools. He has testified before the Senate, and he has spoken at numerous congressional staff briefings, professional association conferences, and academic conferences, as well as at the PTO, the FTC, the DOJ, and the Smithsonian Institution. He is Co-Chairman of the Intellectual Property Committee of the IEEE-USA, and he is a member of the Amicus Committee of the American Intellectual Property Law Association, the Public Policy Committee of the Licensing Executives Society, and the Academic Advisory Board of the Copyright Alliance. ADAM MOSSOFF is an expert in patent law and property theory. He has published numerous law review articles and book reviews on topics in legal philosophy, patent law, and property law, including in law reviews at the University of Arizona and UC-Hastings, and in the interdisciplinary law journal, the University of Chicago Law School Roundtable. He was a visiting lecturer and John M. Olin Fellow in Law at Northwestern University School of Law, where he taught a seminar on property theory. Immediately prior to coming to MSU College of Law, he clerked for the Hon. Jacques L. Wiener, Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Professor Mossoff graduated from the University of Chicago Law School with honors in 2001. He has a M.A. in philosophy from Columbia University, where he specialized in legal and political philosophy, and a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Michigan, where he graduated magna cum laude and with high honors in philosophy. Hi is now an Associate Professor of Law at George Mason University School of LawSpecialties: Philosophy of Law, Constitutional Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Patent RightsJ. PATRICK MULLINS is a doctoral candidate in the history department of the University of Kentucky. He is in the last stages of writing his doctoral dissertation with the help of a generous grant from the Ayn Rand Institute.Travis NorsenSpecialties: Physics, science, history and philosophy of science, science education.Mr. Norsen is a physics and philosophy double-major at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, CA. He is currently attending his final year of a PhD program in physics at the University of Washington in Seattle. Mr. Norsen is also a former adjunct instructor of physics at DigiPen Institute of Technology in Redmond, WA.JOHN E. OPFER, who still tops the list of Amazon Reviewers on the CyberNet Scoreboard, is Assistant Professor of Psychology at Ohio State University where he specializes in cognitive and developmental psychology. Nowadays he's too busy reviewing his research findings to review books. His work at OSU's Concepts and Learning Lab explores how young children form and change their concepts, such as concepts of living things and number. His website is at <Department of Psychology - John Opfer> where you will find links to several of his fascinating papers.Michael PaxtonMFA, 1984, New York UniversityMr. Paxton directed the world premiere of Ayn Rand’s Ideal (1989) and adapted and directed a dramatic presentation of Anthem (1991). His documentary, Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life, won an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Satellite Award for Best Feature Documentary. He teaches production design and film history at the Art Institute in Hollywood.Lee PiersonPhD, 1982, Psychology, Cornell UniversityDr. Pierson, director of the Thinking Skills Institute at Fairleigh Dickinson University, teaches students and business professionals how to keep any thought process moving toward its goal by activating the right knowledge as needed. He has a long-standing interest in and recently participated in life-extension research.AMY PEIKOFFJ.D., 1998, University of California, Los Angeles School of Law;Ph.D., Philosophy, 2003, University of Southern CaliforniaDr. Amy Peikoff is an Anthem fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, where she is teaching undergraduate courses in ethics and epistemology. Her writings on legal and philosophical issues have appeared in academic journals and leading newspapers. She has taught for the Objectivist Academic Center and lectured for Objectivist organizations and at conferences. Visiting Fellow at Chapman University’s Law School.Leonard PeikoffPh .D., Philosophy, 1964 New York UniversityFrom 1957 until 1973, Peikoff taught philosophy at Hunter College, Long Island University, New York University, the University of Denver and the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn.After that, he worked full-time on The Ominous Parallels (published 1982) and gave lectures across the country. He gave courses on Ayn Rand's philosophy regularly in New York City, which were taped and played to groups in some 100 cities in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. In addition, he spoke frequently before investment and financial conferences on the philosophic basis of capitalism.Dr. Peikoff, who is a naturalized American citizen, was born in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1933. His father was a surgeon and his mother, before marriage, was a band leader in Western Canada. He has been a contributor to Barron's and an associate editor, with Ayn Rand, of The Objectivist (1968-71) and The Ayn Rand Letter (1971-76).He is author of Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (Dutton, 1991), the definitive statement of Objectivism.Steve PlafkerJ.D., 1973 USCPh.D., Math, 1966 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOISBS, MATH, MIT, 1961Dr. Plafker is a retired Los Angeles County deputy district attorney. His teaching experience includes teaching law to law students and to undergraduates. Before becoming a lawyer, he taught mathematics at Tulane University. He is a founder and member of the Board of Directors of The Association For Objective Law (TAFOL).Richard RalstonSpecialties: Ayn Rand’s life, Objectivism (General), Projects of the Ayn Rand Institute, Volunteerism, Foreign Policy, Journalism and MediaAfter serving seven years in the U.S. Army, Mr. Ralston completed an M.A. in International Relations at the University of Southern California in 1977. He then began a career in newspaper publishing and direct marketing. He has been the circulation director and publisher of The Christian Science Monitor, a radio producer, a national television news business manager, and a book publisher. As an independent direct marketing consultant, his clients included IBM, British Airways, CNN, and the Los Angeles Times. His book Communism: Its Rise and Fall in the 20th Century was published in 1991. Mr. Ralston is now Managing Director for the Ayn Rand Institute.JOHN RIDPATHPh.D., Economics, 1974, University of VirginiaDr. Ridpath (York University, retired) writes and speaks in defense of capitalism, and on the impact throughout Western history—including the American Founding era—of the ideas of the major philosophers. A recipient of numerous teaching awards, and nominee for Canadian Professor of the Year, he continues to lecture throughout Europe and North America.Jonathan Paul Rosman, MDSpecialties: Medicine, psychiatry.Dr. Rosman is a board certified psychiatrist, with additional qualifications in the subspecialties of addiction psychiatry and forensic psychiatry. Prior to entering full-time private practice in California in 1989 he was an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. For several years, Dr. Rosman has been a psychiatric consultant to the City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, California, and is the psychiatric consultant to the Sleep Disorders Center at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, California. He is also medical director for the Eating Disorder Center of California, a private, intensive outpatient clinic in Brentwood, California, devoted to the treatment of patients with anorexia and bulimia.Dr. Rosman is a published writer and lecturer on various aspects of psychiatry. Dr. Rosman's theoretical orientation is broad-based, drawing on and integrating aspects of cognitive-behavioral, short-term psychodynamic and biologic theories with Objectivist epistemological principles. He practices as both a psychotherapist and a psychopharmacologist.GREG SALMIERIB.A., Philosophy, 2001, The College of New JerseyPhD, Philosophy, 2008, University of PittsburghDr. Salmieri is a philosophy fellow at the Anthem Foundation and co-secretary of the Ayn Rand Society (a professional group affiliated with the American Philosophical Association). He teaches at Rutgers University. He has published and lectured on Aristotle and Ayn Rand and is co-editor of forthcoming books on both thinkers.Richard M. SalsmanSpecialties: Banking, free market economics, economic forecasting, capitalism, investmentsRichard M. Salsman is president and chief market strategist of InterMarket Forecasting, which provides quantitative research and forecasts of stocks, bonds, and currencies to guide the asset allocation decisions of institutional investment managers, mutual funds, and pension plans. He is the author of numerous books and articles on economics, banking, and forecasting from a free-market perspective, including Breaking the Banks: Central Banking Problems and Free Banking Solutions (American Institute for Economic Research, 1990) and Gold and Liberty (American Institute for Economic Research, 1995). Mr. Salsman’s work has appeared in The Intellectual Activist, the New York Times, Investor’s Business Daily, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Barron’s. From 1993 to 1999, he was a senior vice president and senior economist at H. C. Wainwright & Co. Economics. Prior to that he was a banker at Citibank and the Bank of New York. Mr. Salsman is an adjunct fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research and the founder of The Association of Objectivist Businessmen.Lee Sandstead received his B.A. Philosophy/B.S. Mass Communication from Middle Tennessee State University in December 1996, when he was awarded the prestigious award for “Outstanding Magazine Journalism Graduate.” He has studied art history at the University of Memphis’ graduate program, and most recently, the art history doctoral program at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York City. He is a popular writer/photographer/lecturer of art-historical subjects. He has delivered almost 50 keynote lecture-addresses to such prestigious institutions as: Yale, Duke, University of Michigan, Penn State, NYU and the Academy of Realist Art in Toronto. Articles of his have been published in numerous journals, and his photography has been seen in publications such as: The New York Times, Fortune, and Ms. Magazine. He currently teaches art history at Montclair State University and is author of the forthcoming book on American master-sculptor Evelyn Beatrice Longman (1874-1954DINA SCHEIN FEDERMAN (deceased) is completing her article on "Integrity in The Fountainhead_" for ROBERT MAYHEW's upcoming collection of essays. She will also be delivering two lectures at the European Objectivist conference in London this month. Her writing projects include severalarticles on Virtue Ethics, a movement in academic ethics.DANIEL SCHWARTZBA, Liberal Arts, 2006, St. John’s CollegeMr. Schwartz is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at UC San Diego, where he is working on a dissertation titled “Baconian Foundationalism and the Problem of Certainty.” He specializes in early modern philosophy and the history of the philosophy of science.PETER SCHWARTZM.A., Journalism, 1972, Syracuse UniversityPeter Schwartz is the founding editor and publisher of The Intellectual Activist. He is the editor and contributing author of Ayn Rand’s Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, and is chairman of the board of directors of the Ayn Rand Institute.Thomas ShoebothamMM, Orchestral Conducting, 1996, University of New MexicoMM, Cello Performance, 1992, Eastman School of MusicMr. Shoebotham is music director of the Palo Alto Philharmonic. Previous conducting engagements have included Berkeley Opera, Opera San José, Peninsula Symphony Orchestra and many other groups. He has lectured on music, taught in school music programs and performed numerous recitals as a cellist and pianist over the last twenty years.Stephen SiekPhD, Musicology, 1991, University of CincinnatiDr. Siek, professor emeritus at Wittenberg University, has recently publishedEngland’s Piano Sage: The Life and Teachings of Tobias Matthay. For many years he has lectured and written about the early work of Frank Lloyd Wright, including a scholarly study of Wright’s 1909 home for Burton Westcott in Springfield, Ohio.BRIAN P. SIMPSONPhD, Economics, 2000, George Mason UniversityDr. Simpson is a professor at National University in San Diego. He is author of the book Markets Don’t Fail! and he has a number of papers published in academic journals. He is currently working on another book titled “Money, Banking, and the Business Cycle,” which he hopes to publish soon.Steve SimpsonJD, 1994, New York Law SchoolMr. Simpson is director of legal studies at the Ayn Rand Institute. A former constitutional lawyer for the Institute for Justice, he writes and speaks on a wide variety of legal and constitutional issues, including free speech and campaign finance law, cronyism and government corruption, and the rule of law.Aaron SmithPhD, Philosophy, 2010, Johns Hopkins UniversityDr. Smith is an instructor at the Ayn Rand Institute where he teaches in the Objectivist Academic Center and the Summer Internship program. He lectures for ARI and develops educational content for the Institute’s e-learning programs.Tara SmithPhD, Philosophy, 1989, Johns Hopkins UniversityDr. Smith, professor of philosophy at the University of Texas, holds the BB&T Chair for the Study of Objectivism and the Anthem Foundation Fellowship. She has published books on values, virtues, and individual rights. Her latest, “Judicial Review in an Objective Legal System,” is forthcoming in fall 2015 (Cambridge University Press).MARY ANN SURESM.A., Art History, 1966, Hunter College, New YorkMary Ann Sures taught art history at Washington Square College of N.Y.U. and at Hunter College. She applied Objectivist esthetics to painting and sculpture in a ten-lecture course, “Esthetics of the Visual Arts,” which was written in consultation with Ayn Rand. Her philosophical approach to art history is presented in “Metaphysics in Marble” (The Objectivist, February/March, 1969). She is co-author with her (late) husband Charles of Facets of Ayn Rand (published by the Ayn Rand Institute), memoirs of their longtime friendship with Ayn Rand and her husband Frank O’Connor.C. BRADLEY THOMPSONPh.D., History, 1993, Brown UniversityC. Bradley Thompson is the BB&T Research Professor at Clemson University and the Executive Director of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism. He has also been a visiting fellow at Princeton and Harvard universities and at the University of London.Professor Thompson is the author of Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea and the prize-winning book John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty. He has also edited The Revolutionary Writings of John Adams, Antislavery Political Writings, 1833-1860: A Reader, co-edited Freedom and School Choice in American Education, and was an associate editor of the four-volume Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment. His current book project is on the ideological origins of American constitutionalism.Dr. Thompson is also an occasional writer for The Times Literary Supplement of London. He has lectured around the country on education reform and the American Revolution, and his op-ed essays have appeared in scores of newspapers around the country and abroad. Dr. Thompson's lectures on the political thought of John Adams have twice appeared on C-SPAN television.LISA VANDAMMEB.A., Philosophy, 1994, University of Texas at AustinLisa VanDamme is the owner and director of VanDamme Academy, a private elementary and junior high school in Laguna Hills, California. She specializes in the application of Objectivism to educational theory. Her previous lectures on homeschooling, hierarchy and the teaching of values will be included in a forthcoming education anthology featuring Leonard Peikoff’s “Philosophy of Education.”Don WatkinsBA, Business Administration, 2005, Strayer UniversityMr. Watkins is a fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. He is the author of “RooseveltCare: How Social Security Is Sabotaging the Land of Self-Reliance” and coauthor, along with Yaron Brook, of the national best-seller “Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand’s Ideas Can End Big Government.”KEITH WEINERPh.D., Economics, 2012, New Austrian School of Economics (non-accredited)Dr. Weiner is the founder and CEO of Monetary Metals, a company on a mission to pay interest on gold, and the president of the Gold Standard Institute USA.He makes the economic arguments, as well as the moral, for a free market in money and credit. There has never been an unadulterated gold standard in history, as all governments (including the U.S.) have regulated and interfered with banking, even when other enterprises were unshackled. Today our monetary system is failing, and Keith describes the mechanics in detail, why making the passionate case for gold as the money of free markets.He is also the founder of DiamondWare, a software company sold to Nortel in 2008.Glenn WoiceshynSpecialties: Education, ethics, environmentalism, science, politics.Mr. Woiceshyn is currently developing curriculum and teaching materials for grades 4 to 6 based on his understanding of Objectivism and his experience in "homeschooling" his son and other children. As a freelance writer, Mr. Woiceshyn's op-eds have appeared in numerous newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, Houston Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald.JAANA WOICESHYNM.B.A., 1983, Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration; Ph.D., Organization and Strategy, 1988, University of Pennsylvania (Wharton School)Dr. Woiceshyn is an associate professor at the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary. She has taught business ethics and strategic management to undergraduate, MBA and executive MBA students and to various business audiences since 1987.BARRY WOODPh.D., History of Art and Architecture, 2002, Harvard UniversityDr. Wood is curator of the Islamic Gallery Project at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. He has lectured and published on subjects ranging from Persian poetry to Web design.Darryl WrightSpecialties: Ethics, political philosophy, ObjectivismDarryl Wright is associate professor of philosophy at Harvey Mudd College, a member of the Claremont Colleges consortium. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Michigan in 1991, and his A.B. in philosophy from Princeton University in 1985. Dr. Wright has published scholarly articles and/or lectured on the history of ethics, early twentieth-century philosophy, value theory, coercion, and other topics in philosophy.