Word: distortion
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Many economists have been staring through a veil of mathematics that can further distort what they see. "Economics research has become more a game of chess than a search for understanding reality," says economist David Colander of Middlebury College in Vermont. Colander and Arjo Klamer, a visiting professor at the University of Iowa, surveyed more than 200 graduate students at six top economics departments. When the students were asked what it took to advance rapidly in the economics profession, an astonishing 68% said "a thorough knowledge of the economy" was unimportant. At the same time, 57% picked "excellence in mathematics...
...idea of wormholes comes directly from the accepted concepts of general relativity. In that theory, Einstein argued that very massive or dense objects distort space and time around them. One possible distortion is in the form of a tube that can lead anywhere in the universe -- even to a spot billions of light-years away. The name wormhole comes about by analogy: imagine a fly on an apple. The only way the fly can reach the apple's other side is the long way, over the fruit's surface. But a worm could bore a tunnel through the apple, shortening...
...Instead, last week's GATT meetings, involving delegates from 103 nations, were dominated by an inconclusive and bitter row between the U.S. and the European Community. The chief issue was an American demand that all nations agree to the total elimination of subsidies to farmers, which the U.S. believes distort international trade...
THIS ghoulish fetish for reliving Kennedy's murder does more than distort how he is remembered, it affects the national self-image and willingness to deal with difficult, pressing problems...
...party's left wing blames the loss on Dukakis for trying to run from his ideological roots. They insist that, had Dukakis made a cogent defense of liberalism and inspired voters, rather than allowing Bush to distort the word "liberal" into a verbal cudgel roughly equivalent to "child molester," he could have beaten Bush. "Next time," they say, "we shouldn't hide our liberal colors...