making sense of the absurd
502922
1. You're about 60 years old and you've spent your entire life as a carpenter.  You come home one day after a long backbreaking day spent planing a piece of wood.  Your young bride has some news for you.  She's pregnant.  Now, you haven't slept with her (at your age the only wood you play with is at the office) and so you ask, "Who have you been sleeping with?"  She says, "No one."  Do you:    A) Call her a lying slut.  B) Say to yourself, "Joseph, we must remember the Lord works in mysterious ways."  C) Say to her, "I don't believe you but this better be the LAST son of God."
611202
âOvertreated,â by Shannon Brownlee is the best description I have yet read of a huge economic problem that we know how to solve â but is so often misunderstood.
259309
One of the problems with trying to have a rational discussion about taxes is that so many people want to believe what's convenient rather than what's accurate. Believing, after all, requires so much less effort than thinking.
577934
None of us are smart enough to understand how these things wind up happening.
579803
Mental illness according to experts is assuming an alarming dimension all over the world. The preponderance of such cases is attracting the attention of individuals, governments and non-governmental organisations
54362
Deconstructing a pretty good joke, and the investment lesson held within.
580894
Some fashionable texts are based on ''shaky thinking.''
736676
Sometimes, the two concepts can blur.
269459
By Munz, Tania  LORRAINE DASTON and GREGG MITMAN (eds.), Thinking with Animals: New Perspectives on Anthropomorphism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. Pp. vii+230. ISBN 0-2311.3038-4. Pounds 32.00, $49.50 (hardback).
457842
One of the world's most bizarre scientific collections has gone on show.
299386
Fools share their thoughts on ethanol and energy.
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By Lindee, Susan  REBECCA M. HERZIG, Suffering for Science: Reason and Sacrifice in Modern America. New Brunswick, NJ and London: Rutgers University Press, 2005. Pp. ?+194. ISBN: 0-8135-3662-6.
253577
Imitation can be the sincerest form of confusion.
488087
Analysis: They may be amusing and provide unanticipated uses, but do they have functions for the long haul?
21011
When civilization falls, does it make a sound? Two books about the end of worlds--and what follows
116735
Alternative remedies abound, but which actually work?.
200479
Western knockoffs and Islamic bling: Debunking some popular stereotypes of life in Iran.