Hermione Lee admires Salman Rushdie’s chutzpah: extolling unbelief in a Sunday address in King’s College Chapel.… Read the rest
Welcome to our archive of news stories relevant to the project of fighting fashionable nonsense. The stories are drawn from the electronic pages of the world’s media. On this page, you’ll find links to those stories that have been featured on Butterflies and Wheels during the current year. At the bottom of the page, you’ll find links to separate archives of stories from previous years.
We’re always pleased to hear about news stories that you think should be featured on Butterflies and Wheels. Just send an email here, if you want to point one out to us.
A note about links
Inevitably links go out of date. We suggest, therefore, that you make hard-copies of the stories that particularly interest you.
The Persistence of Superstition 
Dec 14th, 2002 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Magical thinking thrives when the other kind can’t perform miracles.… Read the rest
Rawls and Nozick
Dec 13th, 2002 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
It is instructive to consider the two opposing principles of equality and liberty taken to the extreme conclusions Nozick and Rawls did.… Read the rest
Threat Envy
Dec 12th, 2002 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
When piety equals incitement to murder, not to mention murder itself, there is nothing to negotiate.… Read the rest
How to Attract Corporate Interest
Dec 11th, 2002 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Issues of patenting and profit versus free exchange of knowledge surface in new stem cell research.… Read the rest
Troublesome DNA
Dec 10th, 2002 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Mormon scientist faces excommunication after DNA casts doubt on Mormon heredity story.… Read the rest
Situatedness and its Discontents
Dec 10th, 2002 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Are we doomed never to be able to see past our own situations?… Read the rest
Alternative Medicine in a World of Science
Dec 9th, 2002 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Why do we heed “the songs of the New Age pied pipers whose melodies interweave quantum physics and the workings of the colon”?… Read the rest
Be Cool, Don’t Study
Dec 9th, 2002 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Report says social conformity among black students works against academic achievement and for confronting the teacher.… Read the rest
Hawks, Doves, Dawks, Hoves
Dec 8th, 2002 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Containment, Kurds in jeeps, re-alignments, suspicion, fear, hope, revolution from above, Paine, Trotsky, Bosnia, Iraq…it’s all so complicated.… Read the rest
Anthropology and Consent
Dec 7th, 2002 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The Yanomamo want their blood samples back, and Neel is guilty of something or other.… Read the rest
Religion Disguised as Science
Dec 6th, 2002 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Intelligent Design theorists upstage Young-Earthers.… Read the rest
Blank Dogs and Straw Slates
Dec 5th, 2002 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Kenan Malik considers the implications of ideas about human nature.… Read the rest
Evans on Williams on Truth
Dec 5th, 2002 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
It’s good to read a philosopher who knows what he’s talking about when he talks about history, Richard Evans says.… Read the rest
What Does ‘Jihad’ Really Mean?
Dec 4th, 2002 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A historian examines the word and its re-definition.… Read the rest
Necessary Research or Delaying Tactic?
Dec 3rd, 2002 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
When is it time to say we know enough to act?… Read the rest
Hattersley on Rawls
Dec 2nd, 2002 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Rawls replaced evasion with precision, making bluster unnecessary when enemies of equality asked awkward questions.… Read the rest
“Talking too properly”
Dec 2nd, 2002 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Can identity politics make school seem “white”?… Read the rest
Too Polite and Agreeable
Dec 2nd, 2002 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Does ecofeminism even deserve a mention? Denis Dutton asks… Read the rest
Green Spoon Worm Inhales Husband
Dec 1st, 2002 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
David Barash reviews Olivia Judson’s book of sex advice for animals; disputes her definition of promiscuity, but on the whole approves.… Read the rest
