Via wealth creation and common ground rules, science can promote peace.… Read the rest
Elliott Abrams Meets With Apostolic Congress
May 18th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonRapture Christians have that precious commodity: access.… Read the rest
Scientific ‘Proof’ of Astrology?
May 18th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBut if cell phones have stronger magnetic fields than Mars does, then…?… Read the rest
GM High-protein Corn
May 17th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCould supplement protein-deficient diets in Africa and South America. … Read the rest
More on the Invisible Adjunct
May 17th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNo health insurance, bad pay, no office, no respect – what’s not to like?… Read the rest
Scott McLemee Reviews Susan Jacoby
May 17th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe importance of secularism in US history.… Read the rest
Uncertainty
May 16th, 2004 9:46 pm | By Ophelia BensonReligious believers can be weird. Very, very weird. I know it’s not considered polite to say that – and that’s why I tend to avoid them rather than engage them in dialogue. Precisely because there is so much that it is not considered polite to say about religious believers, that yet becomes so glaringly obvious when one does try to engage them in dialogue. It’s kind of a You can’t win situation. You simply can’t say certain things, and yet the things you can’t say are at the center of the whole discussion – so the discussion is lamed and hobbled and disabled before it ever starts. It’s a stalemate. So the familiar and much-repeated idea that discussion on this … Read the rest
Does Faked ‘Evidence’ Matter?
May 16th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIf you really really believe the story is it okay to fake the evidence? Er, no.… Read the rest
What is Truth, Said Jesting Pilate
May 15th, 2004 9:29 pm | By Ophelia BensonSo perhaps it does matter after all, what the truth is, who is telling the truth and who is lying, who has it right and who is deceived, what pictures are authentic and what are fake. Is that possible? It looks that way. It looks as if in fact we do care whether on the one hand soldiers of a certain regiment did abuse Iraqi prisoners, or whether on the other hand someone faked up some pictures that purported to show that but in fact (being faked) did not, and gave said pictures to a large newspaper. You can see where it would make a difference. We can all think of other pictures that matter – pictures that we … Read the rest
No War-Crimes Cornettos, Thanks
May 15th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonJulian Baggini reviews books on Greed, Lust, Envy and Gluttony – and wants more.… Read the rest
Funny or ‘Funny’?
May 15th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘It has long been compulsory to say you adore Carry On films, just to show you’re not stuffy or priggish or politically correct.’… Read the rest
Daily Mirror Editor Sacked Over Faked Pictures
May 15th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSo the difference between truth and fakery does matter then?… Read the rest
Psychologists on Abu Ghraib
May 14th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘In all organisations…people will replicate in some way the personality of the number one person in charge’… Read the rest
Sad End For Famous Gender Experiment
May 14th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDavid (Brian/Brenda) Reimer commits suicide.… Read the rest
No hypotheticals
May 14th, 2004 | By Julian BagginiSir Victor [Blank] and the Trinity Mirror chief executive, Sly Bailey, both refused to answer "hypothetical questions" about Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan’s future if the images proved to be fake.
Chris Tryhorn, the Guardian , 6 May 2004
Unfortunately, there is no doubt that the vast majority of the images of coalition troops subjecting Iraqi prisoners to degrading treatment revealed recently are all too genuine. But at the time of writing, the authenticity of one of the first batch to appear remains in doubt. Experts have provided many reasons for thinking that the images of British troops mistreating prisoners published in the Mirror may be fakes.
If they are not genuine, this would be no small blunder. The perception … Read the rest
Testing, Testing
May 13th, 2004 7:45 pm | By Ophelia BensonA reader raises some interesting objections, in Letters and then at my suggestion in a comment, on our Freud-skepticism.
For example, there may be an alternative explanation for Jedlika’s finding that children of mixed race couples are more likely to marry someone of the same race as the opposite sex parent, but it is prima facie evidence for oedipal feelings that cannot be ignored.
I haven’t read the study in question – but just to deal with what is said in that sentence, I have to say I am not convinced. I am in fact quite skeptical. It seems to me that it is not at all obvious that oedipal feelings are the only possible explanation for why children of … Read the rest
Congress Party Returns in Huge Upset
May 13th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonA stunning upset of the Hindu nationalist BJP… Read the rest
Congress Party Defeats BJP
May 13th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCongress won 12 out of 26 seats in Gujarat.… Read the rest
BJP Out!
May 13th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSecularism returns in Indian election upset.… Read the rest
All Psychology is Speculative
May 13th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonEvolutionary psychology may be less so since it incorporates evolutionary constraints.… Read the rest