Malcolm Gladwell revealed why you shouldn't go to Harvard: 1. America does not have a shortage of students who want science and math degrees. It has a shortage of students who finish them. Half of all high school seniors who intend to study STEM drop out by the end of their second year. The problem is not interest. It is persistence. 2. The obvious assumption is that smarter students persist longer. So Gladwell tested it. At Hartwick College, a small liberal arts school in New York, the top third of math SAT scorers took the majority of STEM degrees. The bottom third dropped out in large numbers. The data seemed to confirm it. Smarter kids stick around longer. 3. Then he looked at Harvard. The bottom third of Harvard's math SAT scores are equal to the top third at Hartwick. By the logic above, everyone at Harvard should graduate with a STEM degree. They are all brilliant. Nobody should be dropping out. 4. Harvard showed the exact same pattern as Hartwick. Top students graduated. Bottom students dropped out like flies. Even though the bottom Harvard students were objectively brilliant by any global standard. Something else entirely was driving the dropout rate. 5. That something is called relative deprivation theory. Human beings do not measure themselves against the world. They measure themselves against the people immediately around them. A Harvard student in the bottom third does not think I am in the top one percent of all students globally. They think that kid next to me keeps getting everything right and I keep getting it wrong. So they quit. 6. The research from UCLA puts a specific number on it. Your odds of graduating with a STEM degree fall by two percentage points for every ten point increase in the average SAT score of your peers. Choose Harvard over the University of Maryland and your chance of finishing a STEM degree drops by thirty percent. Thirty percent. Just to put a brand name on your resume. 7. Relative position matters more than absolute position when it comes to confidence, motivation, and self belief. The eightieth percentile student at Harvard looks up at the people above them and feels like they cannot compete. The number one student at a state school feels like they can conquer the world. That feeling drives everything. 8. The practical hiring implication is radical. Class rank matters more than institution name. Gladwell argues companies should have a don't ask don't tell policy for where someone went to college. Hiring only from top schools means missing the top students from every other school. That is not smart hiring. That is brand worship. 9. When choosing a college, never go to the best school you get into. Go to the school where you are guaranteed to be near the top of your class. Being a big fish in a smaller pond does not just feel better. It statistically produces better outcomes than being a small fish in the most prestigious pond available. 10. So why do we keep choosing Harvard over Maryland? Because we are flattered. Because the acceptance letter feels like validation. Because we make an irrational decision in a moment of enormous flattery and call it ambition. Gladwell's conclusion is simple and brutal. When we have the chance to join an elite institution we do things that are genuinely against our own interest and we feel great about it the whole time.

Jordan Peterson made a profound point on Chris Williamson’s podcast. When God dies, a lot of unexpected things die with Him, including science. Science isn’t some purely neutral, secular tool. It rests on deeply religious assumptions: that truth exists, that it’s knowable, that pursuing it is good, and that the universe makes sense. These aren’t scientific claims, they’re metaphysical, rooted in a religious worldview. The universities themselves grew out of monasteries. Without that deeper foundation, science eventually stops being about truth and becomes just another tool for power, ideology, or convenience. You lose the reason to be honest when the data gets inconvenient. Do you think science can survive long-term without any belief in objective truth or a higher moral order?

Cuando a Gaudí le preguntaron quién terminaría la Sagrada Familia, él respondió: «La terminará san José». Y cuando le recriminaban la lentitud de las obras, respondía: «Mi cliente —refiriéndose a Dios— no tiene prisa». #PapaLeónXIV #SagradaFamília #Gaudí

One of the most mind blowing 10 minutes of video Christianity has ever produced.

Very beautiful.

Is this an AI thing, or did he really say it’s like a spouse being murdered? x.com/CurtisHouck/status/206…

Absolutamente increíble. Lo que hoy ha hecho Barcelona se recordará mucho tiempo. La Sagrada Familia, Gaudí y los que durante 140 años han creído en ello, lo merecían.

Cardiology calls statins miracle drugs. Social media calls them poison. Both sides cite published scientific papers. How can they be looking at the same evidence and reaching opposite conclusions? As a cardiologist, I think both sides are are on to something. Let me explain. 🧵

Family estrangement often brings relief at first because people don't walk away from relationships hoping to be unhappy. But research shows that for many people, the relief doesn't last. Over time, family estrangement is associated with higher rates of depression, poorer physical health, and chronic unhappiness. We're wired for connection with our kin. When those bonds break, something deep within us recognizes that the relationship isn't as it should be. Not every family conflict can be repaired. Not every relationship is safe. But before accepting permanent distance as the only answer, it's worth asking whether reconciliation is still possible.

Bill Clinton: “The Palestinians were offered a state. They refused. A state wasn't their goal. Killing Jews was." This must be shared every single day.

🚨NEW: CNN's Michael Smerconish *OBLITERATES* calls to remove Trump from office🚨 "You'd expect the guy that posts about a whole civilization dying would be simultaneously busting up the White House furniture — but there's NEVER been ANY reporting of Trump like that behind closed doors." "In other words, it's not that there's a method to his madness — it's that the madness IS his method." "Trump is capable of EXACTLY what his critics say he isn't: patience, process and genuine deliberation." "90 minutes before his own deadline, a ceasefire materialized. That's NOT nothing." "It's certainly not the behavior of someone who needs the 25th Amendment invoked or warrants impeaching."

In 1979, a Harvard psychologist sent eight elderly men back in time and their bodies followed. Back in the 1970s, psychologist @ellenjl ran one of the most provocative experiments in the history of psychology. She invited eight men in their late 70s and early 80s to spend a week at a retreat. But when they arrived, something felt immediately off. The magazines were from 1959. The radio played music from the 50s. The TV showed old black-and-white programs. Every last detail of the environment had been wound 20 years into the past. Here's the twist: the men weren't asked to remember 1959. They were told to live as if it were 1959. They spoke about their careers in the present tense. They discussed world events as though they had just happened. They carried their own luggage, cleaned up after meals, and moved around like they used to. For a full week, they stopped seeing themselves as old men. And then something happened. Their bodies started to change. Tests conducted before and after the retreat showed measurable improvements across the board. Vision, hearing, grip strength, memory, flexibility, even posture. Arthritis symptoms improved. Independent observers, shown photographs of the men taken before and after, judged them to look an average of two years younger. After just one week. No medication. No surgery. Only a shift in environment and mindset. "Your body may be listening to the story your mind tells about what is possible." The study doesn't promise you can think yourself young forever. But it does suggest something worth sitting with: the body may take its cues from the narrative the mind keeps rehearsing. Think about how often you say things like: I'm too old for that. My back just does that now. I can't move like I used to. Those sentences don't land in a vacuum. The body hears them and sometimes, it obeys. The men in Langer's experiment didn't get a pep talk. They weren't told to think positively or push through the pain. The environment simply stopped confirming the story of decline and without that story running on repeat, something in them opened back up.

🔥🚨DEVELOPING: This footage of the moon is being considered the most detailed video of the celestial to date. Surajit: “1000 frames stacked using a Nikon Z8 and Takahashi TSA-120 telescope, producing a stunning 40MP masterpiece”

Could someone ask him to read the Koran For example the bits about killing 'infidels', and child marriage. and sexual slavery, and Female Genital Mutilation, and how husbands may beat wives, and worst of all, how dogs should be banned This not standard C of E stuff, is it ? Or even the bit about imposing Islam on the entire country, which might be irony, but I don't think so A lot of British people don't really want any of this, and the problem is that the Koran forbids compromise Not even the Scottish Presbyterians are as assertive as this

When the BBC interviews someone as well-informed and intelligent as Douglas Murray, they should find someone well-informed and intelligent to do it Not some clown like this He is very stupid But perhaps the BBC hadn't noticed

Well... Will we ?

Please, please, read this, dear Lenny It's real history and puts the whole sordid history of slavery into the right perspective (Particularly important for people who think Britain started it !!)

I think there's a complete collapse of confidence in the Labour government They are corrupt, they are liars and they are completely in over their heads Nothing good can happen until they are gone Oh ! That's the door bell ! Must be the police

The Islamic regime in Iran is the one that just a few weeks ago slaughtered 32,000 protestors, and then, when relatives came for the bodies, demanded payment for them One of the nastiest regimes the modern world had ever known, now supported by many of the marchers