Word: lessers
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Since antiquity, philosophers have argued that higher mental abilities -- in short, thinking and language -- are the great divide separating humans from other species. The lesser creatures, Rene Descartes contended in 1637, are little more than automatons, sleepwalking through life without a mote of self- awareness. The French thinker found it inconceivable that an animal might have the ability to "use words or signs, putting them together as we do." Charles Darwin delivered an unsettling blow to this doctrine a century ago when he asserted that humans were linked by common ancestry to the rest of the animal kingdom. Darwinism raised...
...popular broadcast reviewers like Siskel and Ebert ("Two thumbs up!"), are still prized by movie marketers. But in the scramble to fill up ads with gushy testimonials -- especially for films that haven't opened yet or have drawn tepid reviews -- publicists are turning increasingly to a cadre of lesser lights, mostly from radio and TV, with seemingly boundless enthusiasms. Susan Granger, who reviews for Connecticut's WICC radio and is now syndicated on about 100 stations, has lured moviegoers with passionate quotes for everything from Consenting Adults ("spine-tingling, disturbing, sexy, seductive!") to Forever Young ("a heart grabber that lifts...
...plain but strong language, Clinton pleaded with the public to weigh the mild immediate pain of higher taxes against the far greater eventual pain of letting deficits run wild. "Unless we change," said the President, "we will be condemning our children and our children's children to a lesser life than we enjoyed...
...effects of fare wars and sluggish ticket sales, which have buffeted lesser players in the airline business in recent months, finally hit the industry's top tier. Boeing, the world's biggest planemaker, announced that it would lay off 28,000 workers over the next 18 months -- nearly 20% of its total work force. Meanwhile, British Airways, widely touted as "the world's most profitable airline," did manage to report a profit, but barely. Earnings for the third quarter fell to $28.7 million, a stomach-wrenching 80% drop from a year...
Black faculty members express concern with the potential exclusivity of the University's sources for faculty recommendations as a concern. Departments often solicit names from colleagues in other schools, and an "old boys network" of a few high-level institutions can exclude candidates from lesser-known venues...