[{"id":309191,"date":"2026-08-11T04:00:52","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T08:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/?p=309191"},"modified":"2026-08-10T03:10:41","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T07:10:41","slug":"perceptions-530","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/3quarksdaily\/2026\/08\/perceptions-530.html","title":{"rendered":"Perceptions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Sughra Raza. Catching Rays. Boston, June 2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

Digital photograph.<\/p>\n

Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sughra Raza. Catching Rays. Boston, June 2026. Digital photograph. Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3260],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-309191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mondaymagazine","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309191"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":309203,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309191\/revisions\/309203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":309243,"date":"2026-08-10T14:45:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T18:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/?p=309243"},"modified":"2026-08-10T05:03:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T09:03:24","slug":"three-myths-people-love-to-believe-about-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/3quarksdaily\/2026\/08\/three-myths-people-love-to-believe-about-english.html","title":{"rendered":"Three Myths People Love to Believe About English"},"content":{"rendered":"

John McWhorter at the New York Times<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\"\"Three things that people often mention to me, as a linguist, leave me wondering whether to just nod politely or disappoint them with the truth. In this space, I feel that I should deal only with the truth, so if I may, prepare for some fun-fact disappointment! Here are those things people share with me with bright eyes.<\/p>\n

English has a long list of fancy names for groups of animals.<\/strong>\u00a0Not just the boring old herd of cows, flock of birds and gaggle of geese.\u00a0There is<\/a>\u00a0also a murder of crows, a flamboyance of flamingos, a tower of giraffes, a charm of goldfinches, a conspiracy of lemurs, an ostentation of peacocks, a dazzle of zebras and so on.<\/p>\n

These collective words always seemed a little suspicious. Almost none of them are actually used. When is the last time you heard someone talking about a smack of jellyfish?<\/p>\n

In fact, many of these words were made up.<\/p>\n

More here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John McWhorter at the New York Times: Three things that people often mention to me, as a linguist, leave me wondering whether to just nod politely or disappoint them with the truth. In this space, I feel that I should deal only with the truth, so if I may, prepare for some fun-fact disappointment! Here…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5918],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-309243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recommended-reading","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309243"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":309246,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309243\/revisions\/309246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":309239,"date":"2026-08-10T13:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T17:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/?p=309239"},"modified":"2026-08-10T04:59:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T08:59:15","slug":"how-earths-night-lights-became-our-most-honest-economist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/3quarksdaily\/2026\/08\/how-earths-night-lights-became-our-most-honest-economist.html","title":{"rendered":"How Earth\u2019s night lights became our most honest economist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Frank Jacobs at Big Think<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\"\"Don\u2019t believe the Kremlin. It claims that from 2020 to 2024, the Russian economy grew by 13%. Instead, believe the lights Russians leave on at night. They reveal the country\u2019s GDP actually shrank by 8% over that period. So says Sweden\u2019s foreign minister Maria Malmer Stenergard in a\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0op-ed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Stenergard wasn\u2019t entirely guessing. Sweden\u2019s intelligence services arrived at that figure by measuring nighttime luminosity, an increasingly mature and rigorous branch of economic geography.<\/p>\n

Because unlike the Kremlin, night lights don\u2019t lie. Artificial light at night (ALAN<\/a>) provides strangely honest data on GDP, poverty, war, and many other things governments would rather scientists didn\u2019t measure. Recent analyses of NASA satellite data have made the field even more relevant, revealing the night side of the planet to be a subtle fact-checker of misinformation.<\/p>\n

More here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Frank Jacobs at Big Think: Don\u2019t believe the Kremlin. It claims that from 2020 to 2024, the Russian economy grew by 13%. Instead, believe the lights Russians leave on at night. They reveal the country\u2019s GDP actually shrank by 8% over that period. So says Sweden\u2019s foreign minister Maria Malmer Stenergard in a\u00a0New York Times\u00a0op-ed.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5918],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-309239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recommended-reading","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309239"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":309242,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309239\/revisions\/309242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":309236,"date":"2026-08-10T12:45:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T16:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/?p=309236"},"modified":"2026-08-10T04:54:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T08:54:19","slug":"robert-wright-on-ai-and-the-god-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/3quarksdaily\/2026\/08\/robert-wright-on-ai-and-the-god-test.html","title":{"rendered":"Robert Wright on AI and The God Test"},"content":{"rendered":"