All entries by this author

Progressive Politics Depend on Imagination *

Dec 27th, 2005 | Filed by

Which is stunted in childhood as play is displaced by organized sports, television, video games… Read the rest



Dennett’s Breaking the Spell Reviewed *

Dec 27th, 2005 | Filed by

The 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

The 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

This 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

Ayn Rand Institute called unpaid voluntary work an ‘unforgivable act of altruism’.… Read the rest



Psychoanalysis Tottering in France *

Dec 26th, 2005 | Filed by

Le livre noir is doing its bit.… Read the rest



Chandani Lokuge Reviews Amartya Sen *

Dec 26th, 2005 | Filed by

Sen 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

The skeptical librarians were right. Well done, skeptical librarians.… Read the rest



Women Punished for Causing Tsunami *

Dec 25th, 2005 | Filed by

Sharia police force modelled on Saudi moral enforcers subjects women to public humiliation. … Read the rest



Seven Up

Dec 24th, 2005 7:05 pm | By

A 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

The 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

‘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

Industry-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

‘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

‘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

What 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

State schools are required to ‘worship’ every day.… Read the rest



Wal-Mart Fined for Refusing Workers Lunch Breaks *

Dec 23rd, 2005 | Filed by

Plans to appeal.… Read the rest



New Rousseau Biography *

Dec 23rd, 2005 | Filed by

Passionate eloquence about cardiology.… Read the rest



A University Librarian Wonders *

Dec 23rd, 2005 | Filed by

Short of a court order or National Security Letter, libraries would never report on a student’s reading habits. … Read the rest