People who like baseball call it "the thinking person’s game," but for the first 100 years, baseball was governed by a surprisingly limited range of critical thinking. Decisions were made by insiders, the current and former players who spent a lifetime around the diamond, and did things mostly one way: the way they've always been done. But in the last 3 or 4 years, that storehouse of common knowledge—much of which was kept guarded in a true "old boy's club"—has been cracked wide open. Now the game isn't driven by intuition, it's driven by data. And the math nerds who rode the bench in Little League—if they played at all—are now telling pro ballplayers what to do. Journalist Travis Sawchik tells Steve Paulson the story.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Sara Nelson tells Anne Strainchamps what publishers can do to make a book a best-seller and why the actual number of copies sold is a state secret.
Seduction seems like a dirty word these days. In our era of frankness, hook-ups and FWBs, why bother seducing someone?
Betsy Prioleau says charm is an endangered, misunderstood and useful art.
Roberta Gregory writes and draws the comic strip featuring the mis-adventures of Midge McCracken, AKA "Bitchy Bitch."
Siva Vaidhyanathan is the author of “Copyrights and Copywrongs.” He talks with Jim Fleming about the history of copyright and says it was intended to preserve future creativity.
Steven Johnson talks with Steve Paulson about new research in neuroscience that helps us understand human personality and how the brain shapes it.
Many recent conversations about the Wisconsin Idea have focused on the politics and controversies around it, but all the negative attention ignores the fact that at its core, it's an aspirational vision commited to truth and public education. Wisconsin poet laureate Kimberly Blaeser joined Anne Strainchamps to talk about the beauty behind the Wisconsin Idea, and how it reflects the natural world.
African Genre Fiction is breaking the mold of African literature. And “Broken Monsters” certainly does that. It is a crime novel written by a white South African that is set in Detroit.
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