This sad milestone is praised as a great victory for diversity and a boon to local Muslims.… Read the rest
What Questions Can Science Answer? 
Jul 16th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Science does not proceed phenomenon by phenomenon. … Read the rest
Dennett on the Folly of Pretence
Jul 16th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Today one of the most insistent forces arrayed in opposition to us vocal atheists is the “I’m an atheist but” crowd.… Read the rest
Baggini on Belief in Belief
Jul 16th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Belief in belief is powerful precisely because it is not usually explicit. … Read the rest
Haredi Riots in Jerusalem
Jul 16th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Protesting the arrest of a woman for allegedly starving her three-year-old son over the course of two years.… Read the rest
Nepal: Widows for Sale
Jul 16th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Anybody walking on the road could say, look, there’s a widow! I could get 50,000 rupees if I married her.’… Read the rest
India: Women Forced to Take Virginity Test
Jul 16th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
All the women who took part in a state-run mass wedding last month were forced to take the test.… Read the rest
Natalia Estemirova
Jul 16th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Her killing was probably connected to her investigative work – including the case of seven murdered women. … Read the rest
Colgate is not enough
Jul 15th, 2009 1:32 pm | By Ophelia BensonLast week a journalist had a very disgusting encounter with a group of Haredi men in Jerusalem. They were protesting the local council’s decision to open a municipal carpark on Saturdays, and she was there to report on their protest. She dressed conservatively, but then she accidentally walked up the wrong street.
… Read the restI suddenly found myself in the thick of the protest – in the midst of hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews in their long coats and sable-fur hats. They might be supremely religious, but their behaviour – to me – was far from charitable or benevolent. As the protest became noisier and the crowd began yelling, I took my recorder and microphone out of my bag to record the sound.
Image of Michael Jackson in Tree Stump!
Jul 15th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Appeared the day he died! Looks so totally exactly like him!… Read the rest
Laura Secor: Behind Iran’s Silence
Jul 15th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The Iranian authorities had an interest in making this story disappear, and they have done an effective job.… Read the rest
Meet ‘the Family’: Creepy Secret Religious Group
Jul 15th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Has a secretive network of fundamentalist Christians had undue influence over American policy? … Read the rest
Iran: 5 Years in Jail for Insulting Sanctities
Jul 15th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Singer sentenced for insulting sanctities, ridiculing the Koran, dishonouring the holy book of the Muslims.… Read the rest
New Culture Wars: History Classes in Texas
Jul 15th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Reviewers urge emphasizing the Bible, Xianity and the ‘civic virtue’ of religion in the study of US history.… Read the rest
Sotomayor Defends Herself
Jul 15th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Did anyone mention Dred Scott? Plessy v Ferguson? Bradwell v Illinois?… Read the rest
Free Speech in a Plural Society
Jul 15th, 2009 | By Salil TripathiThe Conference Room, British Library, London
February 20, 2009
Ian McEwan’s novel, Saturday, begins with the image of a sharp, bright light in the sky
that the neurosurgeon Henry Perowne sees from the corner of his eye on a restless
night when he is unable to sleep. It is a troubling time for Britain; it is February 15, 2003, the
day of the big march, where hundreds of thousands of people from around Britain are
going to come to central London, with the vain hope of stopping the impending war in
Iraq.
Perowne is a liberal; he does not like torture – in fact, he has learned much about Iraq by
treating an Iraqi refugee fleeing the terror of … Read the rest
At long last, have you no…
Jul 14th, 2009 1:42 pm | By Ophelia BensonI want to say a few brisk words about a new piece by Mooney and Kirshenbaum in Newsweek. First a few extracts.
… Read the restAs soon as Francis Collins, an evangelical Christian geneticist who headed up the pioneering Human Genome Project during the 1990s, was floated as the possible new director of the National Institutes of Health-he was officially named to the post on Wednesday-the criticisms began flying. Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne of the University of Chicago, for one, said Collins is too public with his faith…The poster boy for the so-called New Atheist movement today is biologist Richard Dawkins…The New Atheist science blogger PZ Myers, for instance, has publicly desecrated a consecrated communion wafer, presumably taken from a Catholic mass,
Mooney and Kirshenbaum Jump the Shark
Jul 14th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
They write an article for Newsweek all about what meanies Jerry Coyne and PZ Myers are. No, really.… Read the rest
Jerry Coyne Reviews Unscientific America
Jul 14th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
For a book advocating science literacy, it offers surprisingly little evidence to support its claims. … Read the rest
Ben Goldacre and Evidence-based Revenge
Jul 14th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Taking revenge ends up making people feel worse, not better.… Read the rest
