On public hostility to reason: problem-solving impeded by unwillingness to let facts drive decisions.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Indolink on Nussbaum on Hindutva 
Sep 20th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
New book traces background of Gujarat riots in ideology of the Hindu right. … Read the rest
Explain
Sep 19th, 2006 6:50 pm | By Ophelia BensonGeorge Johnson in SciAm offers some welcome clarity.
… Read the rest…there has been a resurgence in recent years of “natural theology”–the attempt to justify religious teachings not through faith and scripture but through rational argument, astronomical observations and even experiments on the healing effects of prayer….Owen Gingerich, a Harvard University astronomer and science historian, tells how in the 1980s he was part of an effort to produce a kind of anti-Cosmos, a television series called Space, Time, and God that was to counter Sagan’s “conspicuously materialist approach to the universe.” The program never got off the ground, but its premise survives: that there are two ways to think about science. You can be a theist, believing that behind the veil
Fresh Air on Christian Zionism
Sep 19th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Christian Zionists don’t want peace in the Middle East. The Messiah is on his way!… Read the rest
Michael Sandel and Thomas Nagel Discuss
Sep 19th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Rawlsian liberalism, abortion, the status of the fetus, political liberalism, why they matter.… Read the rest
Timothy Garton Ash on Islam in Europe
Sep 19th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Frets about something called ‘Enlightenment fundamentalism.’… Read the rest
Theism and Science Not All That Compatible
Sep 19th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘What sounds like a harmless metaphor can restrict the intellectual bravado that is essential to science.’… Read the rest
Pregnancy Centers Give Disinformation on Abortion
Sep 19th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Report says 20 of 23 federally funded centers gave false or misleading information about abortion risks.… Read the rest
Brenda Maddox’s Biography of Ernest Jones
Sep 18th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Psychoanalysis turned out to be more like a religious cult or a fractious, fissile political party than a science. … Read the rest
Matt Ridley’s Biography of Francis Crick
Sep 18th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘This was a man who gave far more to the world than just the double helix.’… Read the rest
Michael Bérubé on the Dangeral Classroom
Sep 18th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
As students, you should expect to feel uncomfortable about your beliefs as a matter of course.… Read the rest
Madeleine Bunting is Cross at the Pope
Sep 18th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Offend, offence, offended, Islamophobe, outrage, insensitive, difference, oh dear.… Read the rest
Karen Armstrong is Cross at the Pope
Sep 18th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Offended, offensive, Islamophobia, western, medieval, Danish cartoon crisis, oh dear.… Read the rest
Junk Politics
Sep 17th, 2006 4:49 pm | By Ophelia BensonNo I’m still here, I haven’t run off with the minstrels. It’s just that there’s this deadline for TPM (The Philosophers’ Mag, you know) and I’ve been taken up with that. But I was reading an old Harper’s the other day, from November 2003, and found a lively article by Benjamin DeMott on ‘Junk Politics’ (excerpted from an eponymous book published a couple of months later). It’s not online, unfortunately, so I’ll give you an extract or two.
… Read the restThe case is that both the essential planks and the elaborating tropes of today’s junk politics are troublingly underexamined, yet they’ve been functioning for some time as major agents of public confusion…Junk politics introduces new qualifications for high political office…It tilts courage
Taslima Nasrin on Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Sep 17th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Ayaan’s questions may not be new, but they need to be reiterated, especially by women.’… Read the rest
Secretive MPAA Has Power, no Accountability
Sep 17th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Violence is fine, lesbian sex unfine; what’s that about, and why are these people anonymous?… Read the rest
FCC Questioned About ‘Lost’ Report
Sep 17th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
FCC hides report that says media consolidation is bad for tv news, says dog ate homework.… Read the rest
Booker Shortlist Saves Bookies a Fortune
Sep 17th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Favourites dropped, list full of young unknowns.… Read the rest
Argument Over Gibson ‘Passion’ Inspires Strangling
Sep 17th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Man upset by violent crucifixion scenes, so throttles wife.… Read the rest
On Jahanbegloo and openDemocracy
Sep 16th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Anthony Barnett cites greater responsibility on those who seek to encourage ‘velvet revolutions’.… Read the rest
