By Keith Devlin @KeithDevlin@fediscience.org, @profkeithdevlin.bsky.social  In the 1940s, American mathematicians faced that question. (Enough said “yes” to create the atomic bomb. These can be hard questions, with overwhelming consequences.) Post-9/11/2001, I (as a freshly naturalized American) found myself pondering the same question. Now, as a retiree, my younger American colleagues are likely going to face that question...

By Dave Kung Change is hard, especially for us humans. As much as we want to believe that we evaluate options on their merits, the truth is that we are deeply conservative (small “c”), regularly defaulting to the status quo. Change at scale is even harder. Policy experts posit that real tectonic plate shifts require...