SAL RESTIVO'S BLOG: THE SOCIOLOGICAL COGITO

Einstein’s Genius Wasn’t in His Brain; It Was in His Networks New Scientific Insights on the Source of Creativity Show How Social Networks Drive Ideas By Sal Restivo | February 20, 2020  In 2017, the “Genius” issue of National Geographic credited Albert Einstein’s ability to harness the power of his “own thoughts” to predict gravity waves, a century before gravity waves were detected using highly sophisticated technologies. Does this prove that Einstein really was, as many have claimed, the “genius of all geniuses?”  Einstein and his brain are iconic objects—a sacred scientific hero and a sacred relic––but thinking differently about him now can help us revise outdated ideas about genius and about ourselves. There are several reasons to question Einstein’s genius: First, the very idea of “genius” has come under critical scrutiny in contemporary research on creativity. Second, a new view of the social basis of creativity has emerged in the last quarter century; new ideas are cre...

  A contribution to Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, ed. by Jim Collier     Do We See Icons or Reality? A Review of Donald Hoffman’s  The Case Against Reality,  Brian Martin BY  SERRC   on   DECEMBER 5, 2019  • (  2  ) I magine looking at a computer desktop. You see various icons that you can modify, move around, stick into folders and delete. The desktop is a type of reality. If you wanted, you could formulate an ontology and epistemology, or laws explaining the behaviour of icons, images and the like. But the icons are not what is really happening in your computer. For that, you need to enter a different world, composed on microcircuits and tiny movements of electrons. In contrast to microelectronics, the desktop is a convenient way of interacting with your computer. Trying to understand the underlying reality would slow you down dramatically. So you start treating the desktop as reality,...

  The latest school shooting (in Uvalde, Texas) has produced exactly the same call for prayers and change as all the previous school shootings.  President Biden, like so many others, has asked why these mass shootings don’t happen with such regularity in other countries.  Let’s look at some of the resources we can turn to to get a grip on things.   The Right-Wing Lie That's Killing Our Children https://flip.it/udaJcq Trigger Points: Inside the Mission to Stop Mass Shootings in America, by Mark Follman (New York: Harper/Collins). Mark Follman is a longtime journalist and the national affairs editor for Mother Jones, where he leads investigative projects and writes on subjects of national security, politics and beyond. “An urgent read that illuminates real possibility for change.” —John Carreyrou, New York Times bestselling author of Bad Blood For the first time, a story about the specialized teams of forensic psychologists, FBI agents, and other experts who are s...