social studies

The Edge Annual Question — 2006

WHAT IS YOUR DANGEROUS IDEA?
The history of science is replete with discoveries that were considered socially, morally, or emotionally dangerous in their time; the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions are the most obvious. What is your dangerous idea? An idea you think about (not necessarily one you originated) that is dangerous not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true?

This year, the third culture thinkers in the Edge community have written 117 original essays (a document of 72,500 words) in response to the 2006 Edge Question — “What is your dangerous idea?”. Here you will find indications of a new natural philosophy, founded on the realization of the import of complexity, of evolution. Very complex systems — whether organisms, brains, the biosphere, or the universe itself — were not constructed by design; all have evolved. There is a new set of metaphors to describe ourselves, our minds, the universe, and all of the things we know in it.

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Study says gays and lesbians have as well adjusted kids as straight couples

According to a study by Charlotte J. Patterson, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville:

Adolescents who have two moms as parents are no different from teens growing up with a mother and a father, a new study finds.

On measures of psychosocial well-being, school functioning, and romantic relationships and behaviors, the teens with same-sex parents were as well adjusted as their peers with opposite-sex parents. The authors found very few differences between the two groups. A more important predictor of teens’ psychological and social adjustment, they found, is the quality of the relationships they have with their parents.

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