Why do champions read

He is sort of a radical utilitarian. He thinks that we should embrace any technologies that make life go better for humanity and not to turn these things down because either we feel squeamish or it sounds too radical. He says the basic test is: does it make life better? And if that is stem cell research or intervening in evolution to make humans longer-lived or more intelligent we should go and do it. Yes, I do by and large. I think his arguments are sound and that ethical conservatism hinges on a number of different fallacies, all of which he persuasively deals with.

Well he makes a very interesting distinction. In sports drug-taking, or what we can call enhancement, is a very different thing from enhancement in life. If, for example, I take an enhancement that helps me to run faster, and that enhancement is denied to others, then I win at their expense. If, on the other hand, we all take a drug or enhancement that improves our times by ten per cent the relative performance is exactly the same.

But you may as well not give anyone the drug in the first place because you will all be in the same position. Yes, enhancing in any zero sum game can only help somebody at the expense of somebody else and so there is a valid case for making certain types of enhancements illegal in certain sports. But in life if you could enhance humanity so that you could engineer, for example, immunity from the common cold I would be happy to have that even if it meant interfering with the fabric of my DNA.

But critics would talk about the unfairness of the situation where you have the haves and the have-nots. Yes and Harris deals with that. He talks about the dubious ethics involved in withholding enhancements for some until they are available to all.

Because, if we did that historically, there would have been no education for anybody until it was universally available. If you delay enhancing and helping a group of people until you can help absolutely everybody, equally there would be no innovation at all.

I suppose it hinges on the idea that if some people get that advantage eventually it will trickle down to others. And I think it is dubious ethics to withhold a really powerful benefit for humanity on the basis that not everyone can have it simultaneously. But sport is different. If you introduce enhancements which are not available for everyone, of course that would undermine its appeal.

Next up is Carol Dweck looking at how people develop their beliefs about themselves in her book Self-Theories. Essentially, what she means by that is that if you believe that success hinges on talent, it follows that any time you fail you are likely to interpret that as meaning that you have insufficient talent and you are likely to give up, which is a perfectly rational thing to do if your premise is correct.

If it is true that excellence hinges on effort you will eventually excel. Dweck has lots of research to show that we can inculcate the growth mind set — the mind set that believes that excellence hinges on effort by praising effort rather than talent. But I do think that you have to have some kind of aptitude in the first place.

They might not be a world champion but they could certainly become very good. A better example than sport, which is a zero sum game, is mathematics. A lot of people think, well I am never going to get any better at that, and they give up. But why? The evidence often is that they have only tried it for a few hours.

When do nominations close? Nominations are open from January to December , with a final submission deadline of p.

EST on Friday, December 15, Nominations received after this time and date will not be eligible. Mailed submissions postmarked on or before December 15, , will be eligible for consideration. When are Reading Champions selected? Entries will be reviewed on or about the 15th of each month, and up to five Reading Champions will be selected each month.

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