Dr Paul Allen

The structure of our brains is responsible for our tendency to imagine rosy futures for ourselves in which things work out much better for us than others, reports a recent Time  cover story .  Author, neuroscientist  Tali Sharot , says this means we are “hardwired for hope.” But what resemblance does this optimistic bias have to the hope of the gospel? Studies consistently find that people tend to believe their futures will be better than the present and that they will fare better in the future than others will, a fundamentally egotistical tendency psychology has termed the “ optimistic bias .”  Recent imaging studies in cognitive neuroscience reveal that optimistic bias arises through the interaction of structures in the brain that monitor and regulate emotion with structures responsible for remembering the past and imagining the future. Optimism is effectively hardwired into how our brains work, making our optimistic beliefs remarkably robust when confronted ...

When an institution so central to human experience suddenly changes shape in the space of a generation or two, it’s worth trying to figure out why.” Belinda Luscombe of  TIME  magazine made that observation in the course of reporting on a major study of marriage undertaken by  TIME  and the Pew Research Center .  In the cover story for the magazine’s November 29, 2010 edition, Luscombe summarizes their findings with a blunt statement: “What we found is that marriage, whatever its social, spiritual, or symbolic appeal, is in purely practical terms just not as necessary as it used to be.” Without doubt, marriage has been utterly transformed in the modern world. In Western nations , the concept of marriage as a sacred covenant has given way to the idea that marriage is merely a legal contract. The limitation of sexual intercourse to marriage went the way of the Sexual Revolution , even as the ideal of permanence gave way to no-fault divorce and serial monogamy . An...

When an institution so central to human experience suddenly changes shape in the space of a generation or two, it’s worth trying to figure out why.” Belinda Luscombe of  TIME  magazine made that observation in the course of reporting on a major study of marriage undertaken by  TIME  and the Pew Research Center .  In the cover story for the magazine’s November 29, 2010 edition, Luscombe summarizes their findings with a blunt statement: “What we found is that marriage, whatever its social, spiritual, or symbolic appeal, is in purely practical terms just not as necessary as it used to be.” Without doubt, marriage has been utterly transformed in the modern world. In Western nations , the concept of marriage as a sacred covenant has given way to the idea that marriage is merely a legal contract. The limitation of sexual intercourse to marriage went the way of the Sexual Revolution , even as the ideal of permanence gave way to no-fault divorce and serial monogamy . An...