Disputation about gambling has resulted in some of the ugliest fighting seen in recent years in Taiwan's parliament.

ECONOMIST: Taiwan��s other big bet

But theoretical disputation has if anything strengthened the bond.

ECONOMIST: Richard Leacock

His flair for disputation never moderated.

ECONOMIST: Rudiger Dornbusch

His house in Altadena, a modest bungalow surrounded by exotic fruit trees that he and his wife planted, often serves as a late-night design-and-disputation forum, with a full bar in the living room. (When I visited on the day of the Curiosity landing, the mirror above the mantel was covered in half-erased equations.) The session at J.

NEWYORKER: The Martian Chroniclers