Welcome back to class, and we hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving break with your family.
We’ve updated your Curated Library with a host of new articles that help connect your classes to the latest news and happenings. But one essay, featured in the weekend’s Globe and Mail, is a must read:
In Nature Labs, as you’ve probably noticed by now, we focus extensively on the importance of thoughtful debate and respectful disagreement, underscoring that by working to understand the perspectives of others, we have a better chance of uncovering shared solutions that can move us forward as a country. And new research echos this ethos.
Different scientists, who fundamentally disagree on whether money equals happiness, found that they both were able to improve their science by working to understand how their counterpart’s research concluded such a different result. The outcome? A more complete, robust answer to the long-running debate about money and happiness, and a new approach to science and reserach: adversarial collaboration.
It’s not an entirely a new idea – former US President Abraham Lincoln was famous for having a political team of rivals and, heck, even your humble Nature Labs creators have long championed the concept – but the concept is now backed by science and, if you’ll allow us, is an approach – as the Globe argues – we all need to embrace: in science, in research, in storytelling, in politics, in career and in every facet of our lives.
Take a read and hopefully it will spark ideas for how you too can embrace adversarial collaboration in your studies and in your life.
Here are a few other stories we think are worth your attention this week:
- I hated writing—until I learned there’s a science to it
- The Issue with Anti-Zionism
- ‘We’re losing billions of birds’: Backyard risks to Alberta’s birds and how you can help make fall migration a successful one
- ‘No malicious intent’: CTV News boss says Poilievre clip altered for time and to cover ‘technical error’
- Nearly 50% of researchers quit science within a decade, huge study reveals
- Why is blue the rarest colour in nature?
- Indigenous groups in U.S. and Canada clash over cross-border land claims