Which is stunted in childhood as play is displaced by organized sports, television, video games… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Dennett’s Breaking the Spell Reviewed
Dec 27th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe spell he hopes to break is not religious belief but the conviction that it’s off-limits to scientific inquiry, taboo. … Read the rest
Daniel Dennett on Deeply Intuitive Idea Behind ID
Dec 27th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe idea that it takes a big fancy smart thing to make a lesser thing.… Read the rest
Evasion
Dec 26th, 2005 5:55 pm | By Ophelia BensonThis again. I seem to have this argument every ten days or so. The issues are just never framed properly – instead they’re framed evasively and euphemistically, and how can anything be discussed properly when the air is clouded by evasion and euphemism? I ask you.
What argument? The free speech one. The one that swirls around the thought that free speech is not about the easy cases but about the hard ones. One version of that is the discussion of hypocrisy and double standards, as in Mark Steyn’s inaccurate whinge about Hampstead big guns who ‘lined up’ to defend Rushdie but wouldn’t (according to Steyn) line up to defend Lynette Burrows, and as in this one about Orhan Pamuk … Read the rest
Johann Hari on the Ayn Rand Cult
Dec 26th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAyn Rand Institute called unpaid voluntary work an ‘unforgivable act of altruism’.… Read the rest
Psychoanalysis Tottering in France
Dec 26th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonLe livre noir is doing its bit.… Read the rest
Chandani Lokuge Reviews Amartya Sen
Dec 26th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSen sees identity as a personal choice that must be guided by a process of careful reasoning.… Read the rest
Student Admits ‘Little Red Book’ Story Was a Hoax
Dec 26th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe skeptical librarians were right. Well done, skeptical librarians.… Read the rest
Women Punished for Causing Tsunami
Dec 25th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSharia police force modelled on Saudi moral enforcers subjects women to public humiliation. … Read the rest
Seven Up
Dec 24th, 2005 7:05 pm | By Ophelia BensonA tag by Norm. Sevens.
Seven things to do before I die:
1) Go to Italy. 2) Write a book. 3) Participate in electing a rational, non-corrupt, thoughtful, educated, articulate, disciplined adult as president of the US. 4) Refrain from running a marathon. 5) Convert the pope to atheism. 6) Read all those books I should have read by now and haven’t. 7) See women achieve full and ineradicable human rights and equality everywhere on the planet.
Seven things I cannot do:
1) Play the cello. 2) Rock-climb. 3) Let it go. 4) Chinese calligraphy. 5) Help it. 6) Fly. 7) Keep things tidy.
Seven things that attract me to blogging:
1) It’s like writing in a notebook except … Read the rest
Nadia Urbinati on Seyla Benhabib
Dec 24th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe tension between the claims of national self-determination and universal human rights.… Read the rest
Rorty Reads Ian McEwan’s Saturday
Dec 24th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Thinking small is not the novel’s motto; it is its subject.’… Read the rest
Carl Elliott on Bioethics and Conflicts of Interest
Dec 24th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIndustry-funded bioethicists should not be writing the guidelines under which their own activities will be regulated. … Read the rest
Steve Fuller on ‘Intelligent Design’
Dec 24th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Darwin’s biography projects the politically correct image of a Christian who loses his faith through scientific inquiry.’ Eh?… Read the rest
Christian Reconstruction
Dec 24th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Those who refuse to submit publicly…must be denied citizenship.’… Read the rest
Our Minds Are Our Own – Except in Wales
Dec 23rd, 2005 8:11 pm | By Ophelia BensonWhat was that we were saying about theocracy?
More than half the secondary schools in Wales inspected in the past four years break the law by failing to pray every day, a BBC survey has revealed. All state schools should hold an act of worship each day, either for all pupils in assembly or as a class-based prayer…The 1944 Education Act promised lessons for children up to the age of 15, created grammar, technical and secondary modern schools – and also placed worship at the heart of school life. The 1988 Education Reform Act strengthened the legislation, further defining worship in schools as wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character.
Well there’s liberty of thought for you. There’s … Read the rest
Many Welsh Schools Break Law by Not Praying
Dec 23rd, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonState schools are required to ‘worship’ every day.… Read the rest
Wal-Mart Fined for Refusing Workers Lunch Breaks
Dec 23rd, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPlans to appeal.… Read the rest
New Rousseau Biography
Dec 23rd, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPassionate eloquence about cardiology.… Read the rest
A University Librarian Wonders
Dec 23rd, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonShort of a court order or National Security Letter, libraries would never report on a student’s reading habits. … Read the rest