Hari has heard priests tell people that condoms come pre-infected with AIDS and are the reason people die of it.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Dawkins on Newsnight Tonight 
Sep 22nd, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Talking to Jeremy Paxman about The God Delusion.… Read the rest
Bad Science: the Fish Oil Files
Sep 22nd, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Equazen won’t let Ben Goldacre review the research evidence unless he signs a confidentiality agreement.… Read the rest
The Economist on The God Delusion
Sep 22nd, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘If nothing else, his book should help bring the atheists out of the closet.’… Read the rest
Michael Shermer on Conservatives and Evolution
Sep 22nd, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Ways to find compatibility.… Read the rest
SciAm on Dikika Baby
Sep 22nd, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Skeleton provides new information on A. afarensis locomotion.… Read the rest
Brown on Dawkins
Sep 21st, 2006 9:13 pm | By Ophelia BensonAndrew Brown doesn’t admire Dawkins’s new book, despite agreeing on the basics.
In his broad thesis, Dawkins is right. Religions are potentially dangerous, and in their popular forms profoundly irrational. The agnostics must be right and the atheists very well may be. There is no purpose to the universe. Nothing inconsistent with the laws of physics has been reliably reported. To demand a designer to explain the complexity of the world begs the question, “Who designed the designer?” It has been clear since Darwin that we have no need to hypothesise a designer to explain the complexity of living things. The results of intercessory prayer are indistinguishable from those of chance.
Despite all the trillions of words in theological … Read the rest
Bush Muses on Flawed Logic
Sep 21st, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
If you object to torture you must think Murkans are no better than those Bad People. QED.… Read the rest
Conspecific of Lucy Found in Ethiopia
Sep 21st, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Stunningly complete skeleton of 3 year old female Australopithecus afarensis found in Awash region.… Read the rest
Why the IAEA Matters
Sep 21st, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Because once the inspectors are barred, speculation and exaggeration move in.… Read the rest
Elif Shafak Acquitted of ‘Insulting Turkishness’
Sep 21st, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Government may amend Article 301 which makes ‘denigrating Turkish national identity’ a crime.… Read the rest
Michael Walsh on the Pope
Sep 21st, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Pope’s desire to re-Christianise Europe underlies his Regensburg address.… Read the rest
No Good Blaming the Internet for Sockpuppetry
Sep 21st, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Deception is deception, whatever the medium.… Read the rest
Andrew Brown on Dawkins on God
Sep 21st, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Why does religion persist in the face of arguments and evidence?… Read the rest
Scott McLemee on Walter Benn Michaels
Sep 21st, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Michaels will have none of this repackaging of racist pseudoscience as “anti-racist” cultural relativism.’… Read the rest
The public arena has grown hostile to reason
Sep 20th, 2006 10:13 pm | By Ophelia BensonI went to hear Chris Mooney on his book tour on Sunday, at dear Ravenna Third Place, which I have known since before it was born. He mentioned that he’d heard Al Gore was going to do a book about the war on reason, and sure enough. I’ve always found Gore too conservative in many ways, but on the other hand I’ve always liked his, shall we say, anti-anti-intellectualism, or ‘wonkishness’ as it’s usually called. Wonkishness is a good thing.
… Read the restAs described by editor Scott Moyers, the book is a meditation on how “the public arena has grown more hostile to reason,” and how solving problems such as global warming is impeded by a political culture with a pervasive
Shabnam Ramaswamy’s Women’s Court
Sep 20th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Tells men she is like Durga with her ten hands. In one hand a stick, in another a law book, in another a flower.… Read the rest
Interview with Walter Benn Michaels
Sep 20th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Race gives a certain fantasy of what equality is: a world that is equal if there are no racists.… Read the rest
Walter Benn Michaels on the Trouble with Diversity
Sep 20th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘We like to talk about the differences we can appreciate, and we don’t like to talk about the ones we can’t.’… Read the rest
Gore Writing Book on ‘the Assault on Reason’
Sep 20th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
On public hostility to reason: problem-solving impeded by unwillingness to let facts drive decisions.… Read the rest
