INSTITUTE for the MEANINGS
of SCIENCE
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Founder & Director
“It seems plain and self-evident, yet it needs to be said: the isolated knowledge obtained by a group of specialists in a narrow field has in itself no value whatsoever, but only in its synthesis with all the rest of knowledge and only inasmuch as it really contributes in this synthesis toward answering the demand, τίνες δá½² ἡμεá¿–ς; ‘Who are we?’”
-Erwin Schrödinger​​
Science is our most powerful source of knowledge; it has answers to issues of fundamental human importance. New forms of knowledge and scientific breakthroughs happen every day, yet this knowledge often has no path to reach those who need it.
The Institute for the Meanings of Science is dedicated to advancing fundamental science and its systematic development by collaboration between leading scientists and scholars in the physical sciences, life sciences, and humanities, while integrating and publishing their insights to create a new culture of scientific literacy and debate.
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With support from the Templeton World Charity Foundation, the Marginalia Review of Books' Meanings of Science in the Modern World project integrates science's deepest insights and brings them to everyone.
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The project began at Oxford University, convening a team of global science experts, philosophers, and historians of science to formulate a new vision of the scientific enterprise, and has now led to over 30 high-impact publications on cutting edge science, reaching 300,000 people in our open-access pages.
Science has answers to issues of fundamental human importance. But if such knowledge is only distributed to a select few, then there can be no integration with other forms of knowledge for the public good.
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Science and Religion: An Origins Story
Origins: How Philosophy Remade Science and Religion
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MARGINALIA REVIEW of BOOKS
Editor-in-Chief
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Knowledge disintegrated into specialized silos lacks meaning and has no impact, yet meaning that is not based on science and scholarship magnifies human prejudice and tribalism.
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Marginalia's mission is to use the two great knowledge technologies of the modern world—the internet and the research university—to solve the crisis they have created: the fragmentation of rigorous knowledge from human meaning.​
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Marginalia combines the virtues of the university and the internet to create new forms of critical knowledge that intersect journalism, scholarship, and public discourse.
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Curated by expert editors and guided by Marginalia' s vision of democratizing depth in an age drowning in the shallows, our pages unite the separated silos of the university, arts, science, and culture into a single space of insight and learning.​​
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Inaugural Essay and Vision
Beyond Borders: America, Immigration, and the Future of Information
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Marginalia Review is a charitable organization.
THE WRITING COLLEGE
Architect & Co-Founder
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Alphabetic literacy was the greatest technological revolution in the world.
Without language, there is no Scientific Revolution. There is no Silicon Valley. The word made tech.
Without language, there is no way to articulate, publish, and share innovation and discovery. Reading and writing are how science happened and is happening.
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Therefore, alterations in the nature and structure of written systems constitute the most fundamental alterations of the human species because technologies transform us. We not only use them to inhabit a world, they become a world that we inhabit.
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Technologies of the word transform us because we are creatures of the word.
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Language is a technical vehicle for human curiosity and discovery. That is why when language dies, so do we.
The Writing College specializes in keeping language alive by training deep literacy and analytical thinking through reading and writing as the most powerful technologies available for self-transformation.
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BECOMING HUMAN PROJECT
Creator, Host, & Founder
Est. 2020
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The Becoming Human Project is a multimedia project that brings philosophy as a way of life to everyone and seeks to build a community of creators pursuing a more meaningful life.
The project was born from a new story of the human that I seek to live and share with others, and it brings my original research, courses, and conversations with scientists, artists, and writers to the widest possible audience.
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The project began with my audio series Becoming Human: Origins, How Philosophy Remade Science and Religion, which tells the story of how an atheistic revolution in philosophy, beginning with Socrates and Jesus, remade religion and science, and set the stage for our post-human age. It argues that the dominant story of reason, science, and religion is a modern myth, and must be replaced if we are to make real progress.
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