All entries by this author

Bunting Mocks Phrase ‘the Muslim Community’ *

Feb 27th, 2006 | Filed by

Then proceeds to use it herself; frets about ‘Islamophobia’.… Read the rest



Ian Buruma on Sexual Frustration and Violence *

Feb 27th, 2006 | Filed by

Sexual frustration and bitter misogyny may be factors in mass murder.… Read the rest



Trevor Phillips on Free Speech and Sharia *

Feb 27th, 2006 | Filed by

‘We have one set of laws. If you want to have laws decided in another way, you have to live somewhere else.’… Read the rest



‘Repressed Memory’ Challenge

Feb 27th, 2006 | By Harrison G. Pope, Jr. and James I. Hudson

$1000 reward to anyone who can produce a published case of “repressed memory” (in fiction or non-fiction) prior to 1800

Our research suggests that the concept of “repressed memory” or “dissociative amnesia” might be simply a romantic notion dating from the 1800s, rather than a scientifically valid phenomenon. To test this hypothesis, we are offering a reward of $1000 to the first person who can find a description of “repressed memory” in any written work, either nonfiction or fiction (novels, poems, dramas, epics, the Bible, essays, medical treatises, or any other sources), in English or in any work that has been translated into English, prior to 1800. We would argue that if “repressed memory” were a genuine natural phenomenon that … Read the rest



The Briar Patch

Feb 26th, 2006 6:56 pm | By

This is a surprising news item.

Michael Ruse and Daniel Dennett are two of the most prominent philosophers writing about issues related to evolution. It seems they have been engaging in a bit of e-mail correspondence on the side. How do I know this? Because Ruse inexplicably sent the entire correspondence to William Dembski. I say this is inexplicable because there is no indication that Dennett consented to have his private e-mails made public. For Ruse to make public e-mails that were intended as part of a private correpsondence is an incredible breach of professional ethics.

Especially since, as you discover if you look at the correspondence, it was Ruse who initiated it. So – he asked Dennett … Read the rest



Statements Aspiring to the Status of Facts

Feb 26th, 2006 5:56 pm | By

Ah. Someone finally points it out.

The notion of free speech, at its best, speaks to freedom of conscience – the idea that there’s no opinion or worldview whose expression should be proscribed. But it is ever more subject to be hijacked by the muddy notion that it protects all statements aspiring to the status of fact – be they truthfully believed or cynically falsified. Should we, necessarily, protect the statement “nobody died at Belsen”, any more than we regard as free speech a false claim in an advertisement for a vitamin supplement? I’m not sure.

Precisely. Neither am I. Furthermore, I am pretty sure that it’s not helpful to ignore that aspect of the issue when discussing the … Read the rest



The Usual

Feb 26th, 2006 5:34 pm | By

Here it is again.

A virulently anti-Semitic film about the Iraq war has provoked a storm of protest in Germany after it sold out to cheering audiences from the country’s 2.5 million-strong Turkish community.

The Turkish community – as if they all live together in a rather large and crowded village somewhere. How much does this insistence on ‘the ___ community’ foster audiences that cheer anti-Semitic movies, one wonders. Talk of ‘the community’ and celebration of Hate Week are cheek by jowl.

At a packed cinema in a largely Turkish immigrant district of Berlin last week, Valley of the Wolves was being watched almost exclusively by young Turkish men.

So – yet again, as with the riots in the … Read the rest



Was Banaz Killed for ‘Honour’? *

Feb 26th, 2006 | Filed by

Last seen in Mitcham; disappearance may be in connection with a failed arranged marriage.… Read the rest



Azar Majedi Says Please Don’t Apologize! *

Feb 26th, 2006 | Filed by

We should not apologize to these reactionary forces.… Read the rest



News From Middle East Women *

Feb 26th, 2006 | Filed by

U.K: victim of honour killings; Iran: young woman sentenced to die for killing attacker; much more.… Read the rest



Pizza Jillionaire to Build Catholic Town in Florida *

Feb 26th, 2006 | Filed by

Abortions, pornography and contraceptives will be banned in Ave Maria; ACLU plans to sue.… Read the rest



Ken Should Have Been Sent to Sensitivity School *

Feb 26th, 2006 | Filed by

If only the tribunal had a sense of irony.… Read the rest



Nick Cohen on Larry Summers *

Feb 26th, 2006 | Filed by

Misreporting what he said was part of the pressure that got him out.… Read the rest



Are Threats Non-violent? *

Feb 26th, 2006 | Filed by

”Because they attack property, and never life, the ALF is a non-violent organisation; non-violence is their core value.’… Read the rest



Oxford Researchers Speak Out Against ALF *

Feb 26th, 2006 | Filed by

On a direct action website ALF announces attacks on anyone linked to the university.… Read the rest



Bad Language

Feb 25th, 2006 10:49 pm | By

I suppose you saw that shockingly bad review by Leon Wieseltier of Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell in the NY Times last Sunday? It’s so awful I keep blinking with surprise when I read it. It’s not just that it’s incompetent, as Brian Leiter points out, it’s that the tone is so unpleasantly abusive, spittle-flecked, bad-mannered. It is, to use a pompous term that nevertheless seems to fit, inappropriate.

For a sorry instance of present-day scientism, it would be hard to improve on Daniel C. Dennett’s book…In his own opinion, Dennett is a hero. He is in the business of emancipation, and he reveres himself for it…Giordano Bruno, with tenure at Tufts!…Dennett is the sort of rationalist who gives

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Affirmation is not Denial, and Vice Versa

Feb 25th, 2006 7:19 pm | By

And then, more straightforwardly, there’s more of the confusion about free speech, in which people compare unlike things and then stand back triumphantly and say ‘See?’ No, we don’t see, because the two cases are different, not the same, so there’s nothing to see.

In the past few months, Europe has been flexing its muscles as a guarantor of freedom of expression – both in the Danish cartoons of Muhammad, and before that in its criticism of the trial of the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk for raising the subject of the Turkish genocide of the Armenians in the early 20th century. What a delicious irony that a Europe so sniffy about Turkish justice when it came to Pamuk should

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Here, Then There, Then Somewhere Else

Feb 25th, 2006 6:14 pm | By

Lot of people around saying weird things today. Is there something in the water?

Andrew Brown for instance. He seems to change direction with every paragraph, and much of what he says in the process seems snide and silly.

It is hard being an atheist with a sense of proportion. No one in this country will persecute you and it’s not really very hard to disbelieve in God, but the temptation to strike attitudes in front of the universe persists…Thus, Daniel Dennett writes early in this book: “I for one am not in awe of your faith. I am appalled by your arrogance, by your unreasoning certainty that you have all the answers” – and he’s not talking about

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John Cornwell Reviews Breaking the Spell *

Feb 25th, 2006 | Filed by

‘Religion persists because it is evidently human to believe in something beyond what one can perceive.’… Read the rest



Cartoons Offend and Beheadings Don’t? *

Feb 25th, 2006 | Filed by

Beware: graphic.… Read the rest