Nature Publishing Group should be careful about what it links to, even via reader posts.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Goldacre on evidence based smear campaigns
May 15th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonA new experiment shows again that correction of falsehoods only entrenches them.… Read the rest
Ben Goldacre on whistleblowers
May 15th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDoctors are expected to blow the whistle, but they can be punished for doing so. That’s bad.… Read the rest
The pope visits Fátima
May 14th, 2010 3:05 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe pope is telling everyone what to do, again – not that he ever stopped, but still it’s interesting to see that he apparently feels no shyness or hesitation, no doubts about his moral authority, even now that it has been searchingly and thoroughly revealed that he and his church have been protecting child rapists and bullying their victims for many decades.
This is interesting, in its way. I think ordinarily people who have been morally compromised the way the pope has become a little bashful about pretending to be moral bosses. It’s interesting that the pope doesn’t, especially since the content of his moral bossing is so godawful – so harmful for actual existing people, so fretful about … Read the rest
Life inside two mental boxes
May 14th, 2010 10:21 am | By Ophelia BensonAnthony Grayling nails Terry Eagleton (who has written a new book pretending to say something about evil).
… Read the rest[H]e sets off on one of those complexifying journeys, like the route of a pinball bouncing backwards and forwards among a thicket of pingers, from William Golding to St Augustine, Macbeth to Pseudo-Dionysus, original sin to the Holocaust, Shakespeare to Freud, Satan to Thomas Mann, Arendt to Aristotle, and so copiously on – a verbal pinball ride among the entries in the telephone book of Western culture, to tell us what evil is. But do not expect, by the end, a conclusion, still less a definition, nor even a summary. Eagleton has been too long among the theorists to risk a straightforward statement.
Grayling reviews Eagleton on evil
May 14th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonA verbal pinball ride among the entries in the telephone book of Western culture.… Read the rest
Roger Scruton urges pessimism
May 14th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNot John Gray’s misanthropic nihilism, but reasoned avoidance of false hopes.… Read the rest
Tatchell calls pope “arch-homophobe”
May 14th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWill the new coalition government think twice about welcoming this ghastly bigot to the UK?… Read the rest
Pope denounces abortion and gay marriage
May 14th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonInexplicably, he still assumes he is a moral authority.… Read the rest
Paul Anderson responds to City University Islamic Society
May 13th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAll speaker meetings held on university premises should allow participation by all members of the university.… Read the rest
Peculiar George
May 13th, 2010 5:21 pm | By Ophelia BensonMore Pitcher. He’s an embarrassment to the Anglican church and to the Telegraph (whether the Anglican church and the Telegraph know it or not) so let’s by all means rub it in.
He was so pleased with his stupid abusive self-admiring reply to Sholto Byrnes that he re-posted it on the Telegraph blog. Well all right then, that makes it worth ridiculing.
(I’m doing what I’m criticizing him for doing, of course, and I do it all the time. But 1) I’m not an Anglican vicar 2) I write more restrainedly when I write on other people’s sites and 3) I do it better than he does. Plus did I mention I’m not a vicar?)
He starts by alluding … Read the rest
Therapists want to be free to…whatever
May 13th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonFox, henhouse.… Read the rest
“Nicky”?
May 13th, 2010 12:36 pm | By Ophelia BensonI think I’m going to start being more thorough about observing the antics of George Pitcher. I find him really remarkable, and all the more so because he’s an Anglican vicar. He’s such a bizarre ambassador for his institution.
Yesterday he extruded a little heap of sneers at Nick Clegg and atheism and Nick Clegg’s atheism.
One aspect of this new Con-Dem Government that hasn’t got an airing yet is that David Cameron is a devout Christian and his new deputy-dawg Nick Clegg is an atheist…I’ve had a right ear-bashing from Nicky’s press office in the past for describing his atheism as “numbskull”. I’m sorry, I’m sure he’s up there with AC Grayling and Dr Simon Heffer.
Really. This is … Read the rest
Psychotherapists must address failure of self-regulation
May 13th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThousands of psychotherapists are considering adopting new titles to avoid government regulation.… Read the rest
More impressive eloquence from George Pitcher
May 13th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“I’ve had a right ear-bashing from Nicky’s press office in the past for describing his atheism as ‘numbskull’.” … Read the rest
MEMRI on Iran’s enforcement of hijab
May 13th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“Sister, sister, the reward for wearing the hijab is Paradise,” “Violating the Islamic dress code leads to the spread of corruption.”… Read the rest
Michael Totten talks to Paul Berman
May 13th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe Flight of the Intellectuals begins and ends with Tariq Ramadan, who has been glorifed by the people who talk trash about Ayaan Hirsi Ali.… Read the rest
Brave new world
May 12th, 2010 6:30 pm | By Ophelia BensonAnd then there’s this whole idea that we can make morality a science by basing it on universal desire for well-being.
One problem with that is that we don’t all have the same view of what constitutes well-being, to say the least. We don’t agree on what constitutes well-being in general and we certainly don’t agree on what constitutes it for self as opposed to other.
And suppose someone did come up with a survey that found – convincingly – that aggregate well-being was higher when women were more or less forced, by the lack of opportunity to do anything else, to be wives and mothers and nothing else, and lower when they had wider opportunities and correspondingly more freedom. … Read the rest
The detention and execution of Shirin Alam Holi
May 12th, 2010 | By Shirin Alam HoliShirin Alam Holi, born in 1981 in a small village near Maku, was executed in Evin Prison on May 9th 2010 after passing one year and nine months in prison. She was charged with cooperating with Pajak (the Iranian branch of PKK) on Nov. 29th 2009 and sentenced to death. Her lawyer and family had no information about her execution.
Shirin was arrested in June 2008 in Tehran by Sepah Pasdaran and transferred to Evin Prison after 21 days interrogation and torture in an unknown place. She described what happened to her completely in a letter which she gave to her family. In this letter she related many physical as well as mental pressures she endured during the interrogation and … Read the rest