The Best of MIT Press
20+ most popular MIT Press articles, as voted by our community.
Committed to the daily re-imagining of what a university press can be since 1962. | RTs ≠ endorsements
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The Myth of Objective Data
When we view objectivity and subjectivity as opposites rather than complements, we distort the empirical realities of data collection.
«This despair helps my students recognize an apparently banal assignment as a real design situation. It teaches them that data is created, not found; and that creating it well demands humanity, rather than objectivity.»
The Plant-Inspired Robots That Could Colonize Mars
Barbara Mazzolai’s roboplants could analyze and enrich soil, search for water and other chemicals, or even be used to grow infrastructure from scratch.
An Illustrated Guide to Mouth Gestures and Their Meanings Around the World
An excerpt from François Caradec’s book “Dictionary of Gestures.”
MIT Press on Apathy
What Nihilism Is Not
In order to preserve nihilism as a meaningful concept, it's necessary to distinguish it from pessimism, cynicism, and apathy.
MIT Press on Brain
Finding Language in the Brain
Psycholinguist Giosuè Baggio sheds light on the thrilling, evolving field of neurolinguistics, where neuroscience and linguistics meet.
‘That Car Looks Like It’s Been In an Accident’: On Memory and Confabulation
An excerpt from “Dreaming as Delirium: How the Brain Goes Out of Its Mind."
MIT Press on Consciousness
How Did Consciousness Evolve? An Illustrated Guide
Two leading voices in evolutionary consciousness science explore the subject through words and images.
MIT Press on Environment
An Environmentalist’s Lessons for an Improvisational Life
Improvisation is the essence of environmental learning, sparking the imagination, stimulating creativity, and helping us reinvigorate how we think about our residency on Earth.
«watching the breeze gently ruffle the patches of open water»
MIT Press on History
What 250 Years of Innovation History Reveals About Our Green Future
If history is any indication, an unstoppable wave of competitive innovations is heading our way again.
«As do our jobs. Our answers to that old question “What do you do?” change: “I design webpages and facilitate SoMe.” That would be social media, by the way. In 1995, both the job itself and the answer would be utter gibberish. With each technical wave also come new social discourses.»
MIT Press on Math
The Extraordinary Ways Rhythm Shapes Our Lives
Rhythm plays an important role in how we perceive — and connect with — the world.
MIT Press on Meditation
On Meditation and the Unconscious: A Buddhist Monk and a Neuroscientist in Conversation
An excerpt from "Beyond the Self: Conversations between Buddhism and Neuroscience."
MIT Press on Poetry
Can AI Write Authentic Poetry?
Cognitive psychologist and poet Keith Holyoak explores whether artificial intelligence could ever achieve poetic authenticity.
MIT Press on Running
Running and the Science of Mental Toughness
There is more to running than just training your muscles and improving your stamina. It is also a mental sport, and maybe even more so than previously believed.
«In his opinion, what runners refer to as exhaustion has nothing to do with their physical ability to carry on or not. It is simply a matter of deciding to give up.»
MIT Press on Science
The Two-Century Quest to Quantify Our Senses
The quantification of bodies, senses, and experience did not begin with surveillance capitalism but can be traced back to mathematical and statistical techniques of the 19th century.
How Expectations and Conditioning Shape Our Response to Placebos
Kathryn Hall, an expert on placebos, considers the ways that expectations and learning affect our response to them.
«Strikingly, participants given literature that mentioned headaches as a possible side effect of montelukast experienced headaches more frequently, even if they were taking a placebo.»
Popular
These are some all-time favorites with Refind users.
A Philosopher's Case Against Death
The acceptance of death is deeply embedded in our culture; it's time to overthrow that idea.
The Powerful Role of Magical Beliefs in Our Everyday Thinking
New research on magical thinking challenges many traditional views of cognition.
«Control is an important coping strategy, and a lack of control can lead to mental health issues such as anxiety and depression.»
When Cities Treated Cars as Dangerous Intruders
To many urban Americans in the 1920s, the car and its driver were tyrants that deprived others of their freedom.
Philosophy for Passengers: Reflections On ‘Passenger Time’
We are, all of us, time’s passengers, witnesses to its passing, which is also our own.
«The time of our lives passes between two black boxes, two Xs, two vanishing poles: unrepresentable, unreachable.»
How New Ideas Arise
Architect and poet Paolo Belardi traces the many conditions and situations that have inspired extraordinary ideas across the arts and sciences.
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