‘In the clamorous and bloodstained souk of the world…people still go unrepentantly on looking out for good lives’… Read the rest

‘We no longer defer to bishops or politicians; scientists are simply facing the same fate.’ Yes but bishops are one thing and scientists are another. We can demand that scientists produce evidence, but what evidence can a bishop offer?… Read the rest

What a coincidence that we’re here and not on that nasty Pluto.… Read the rest

Centrality is so uncool that the margins are as full of people as Bangkok or the Aran Islands.… Read the rest

‘The Epistemological Situation of Astrology in Relation to the Ambivalent Fascination/Rejection of Postmodern Societies’… Read the rest

Slaughter of innocents, human sacrifice, eternal torture – it’s all there.… Read the rest

NAGPRA is a well-intentioned piece of legislation that has grown into a monster of anti-scientific bias.… Read the rest

Terrorists, freedom fighters, fundamentalists, postcolonialism, the Enlightenment – all contested, as usual. … Read the rest

‘When I grew up and became a literary critic, I learned to keep silent about the reading experiences of liberation that I’d enjoyed since childhood.’… Read the rest

No it’s not just an accident that the character who gets Tom Hanks killed in Saving Private Ryan is both an intellectual and a coward. Spielberg is making a point, a bad point, and we need to pay attention.… Read the rest

Biologists who had done no primary research in human sciences nevertheless issued anathemas on it.… Read the rest

Beware of neo-Deistic pseudoreligion.… Read the rest

Confusing religion and race is a clever trap the religious have laid for a worried government rightly anxious about race. … Read the rest

‘Among his many weapons are a forensic curiosity, a vast learning, a savage wit, a commanding intellect, an international perspective and a moral authority that is built on something sturdier than cheap moralising.’… Read the rest

NAGPRA proceeds from an antievolutionary perspective grounded in fundamentalist religious belief.… Read the rest