Word: discernible
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...only do creative people challenge basic assumptions, they discern previously unseen patterns. This, according to biochemist Calvin, is one of the most important abilities of the scientist. Gregor Mendel, cross-breeding peas in a monastery, noticed a pattern and extended the understanding of heredity. "It's no trick at all," Calvin notes, "to get the right answer when you have all the data. The real creative trick is to get the right answer when you have only half the data, and half of that is wrong...
...Moral Majority is seducing too many Americans into its truistic fantasyland. In its zeal to communicate the Word, the Moral Majority has forgotten who spoke it, and why. In its new-found political confidence, the Majority has intimidated America into doubting its confidence in the human ability to discern problems and try to solve them...
...Treves desperately clings to an ideal of social conscientiousness and obligation in the midst of the dehumanizing Industrial Revolution. As he walks calmly, briskly through London's filth and squalor, he seems almost noble. Hopkins' understated style captures Treves' interest in the Elephant Man as the doctor struggles to discern where cold scientific fascination ends and human compassion begins...
Much of the problem with Entropy is trying to discern anything new in the theory. Certainly the idea that progress in history does not exist has been around for a while--Henry Kissinger '50, for example, wrote an undergraduate thesis on the subject. As a genuine social democrat and a favorite of the left, Rifkin backs himself into a corner with his entropic world view. Why should we accept his weltanschaung instead of Plato's? What do we have to gain by accepting Rifkin's view when, as he says, progress is impossible? The author's blend of cold reality...
...clergy clowns find a theological justification for their unusual ministry in the injunction of St. Paul to the Corinthians to become "fools for Christ's sake" because God has "made foolish the wisdom of the world." They discern multilayered analogies between the clown and Christ: the clown's joy in living and mimed delight in simple things, like the scent of a flower, for instance, recall Jesus' command to "consider the lilies of the field, how they grow." The simplicity and childlike persistence of the clown can have a special meaning for Christians. "The clown refuses...