Biology's big idea

Ecology's Big, Hot Idea

L ife is complicated. It comes in all sorts of shapes, sizes, places, and combinations, and has evolved a dizzying variety of solutions to the problem of carrying on living. Yet look inside a cell and life takes on, if not simplicity, then at least a certain uniformity—a genetic system based around nucleic acids, for example, and a common set of chemical reactions for turning food into fuel. An...

What's the big idea? Toward a pedagogy of idea power

A key to understanding why School is what it is lies in recognizing a systematic tendency to deform ideas in specific ways in order to make them fit into a pedagogical framework. One of these deformations is described here as " disempowering ideas. " The insight leads to a new direction for innovation in education: re-empowering the disempowered ideas. Doing so is not easy: it needs a new epist...

THE BIG IDEA Beware the Next Big Thing

THE BIG IDEA Before You Make That Big Decision

The Big Idea: Creating Shared Value Rethinking Capitalism

In recent years business increasingly has been viewed as a major cause of social, environmental, and economic problems. Companies: trapped in an outdated approach to value creation. They continue to view value creation narrowly, optimizing short‐term financial performance in a bubble while missing the most important customer needs and ignoring the broader influences that determine their longer‐...