Word: belief
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Sports remain, particularly for American males, our dominant social metaphor. Our lives are guided, more than we dare admit, by the hope of winning, the fear of losing and the belief that we everywhere compete on level playing fields - even though the media almost daily instructs us that this is pure fantasy. That's why the doping scandals so outrage us and the reports of rapacious behavior by athletes so dismay us. We have a primitive need for tales about the walk-on who makes the team, the aging jock who summons the idealistic spirit of boyhood and wins...
...original authors of the Nature paper - Peter Brown and Michael Morwood, both of the University of New England in Australia - aren't about to surrender their belief in a new species. In an email, Brown says that the PNAS paper "provides absolutely no evidence that the unique combination of features found in Homo floresiensis are found in any modern human." Morwood points out that supporting papers have previously been published in elite journals like Science and Nature, while Brown argues that the asymmetry in the skull was due to the fact that the original skeleton was buried...
...make Iranians sound exquisitely polite or deceitful, depending on the point you're trying to make. At heart, it is a form of etiquette intended to harmonize social encounters, and involves displays of flattery and deference. Taarof does not seek to mask the truth, it simply rests on the belief that life is more pleasant when you do not needlessly inform every jerk you meet that he is indeed a jerk. What does this mean in practice? Say you go to meet the deputy foreign minister. You may not be certain if he likes you, for either way taarof will...
...consensus existed long before the arrival of firebrand Ahmadinejad, who makes the case in louder, more menacing tones. There's certainly disagreement over how much Iran should risk in running this course, and what incentives it should settle for in suspending it altogether. But there is a core belief here that without a nuclear program, Iran will be blocked from consolidating its growing influence in the region...
...they wouldn't evacuate are worried that the roads would be too crowded, and 67% believe shelters would be dangerous. That's understandable, unfortunately. One of the most damaging legacies of Katrina might be the TV images of looting and the graphic rumors of violence that crystallized our belief that we turn into savages in a disaster--a notion that is demonstrably untrue; after most disasters, including Katrina, the crime rate goes down. Ironically, 66% of those surveyed were also confident that if they stayed at home, they would eventually be rescued--a faith hardly justified by the Katrina experience...