"Deliciously creative.., the variety astonishes...intellectual skyrockets of stunning brilliance. Nobody in the world is doing what Edge is doing." Denis Dutton, ARTS & LETTERS DAILY THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER James Flynn has defined "shorthand abstractions" (or "sHA's") as concepts drawn from science that have become part of the language and make people smarter by providing widely applicable templates ("market", "placebo", "random sample," "naturalistic fallacy," are a few of his examples). His idea is that the abstraction is available as a single cognitive chunk which can be used as an element in thinking and debate.