Trivers’s legendary papers of the early 1970s changed many disciplines.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
IMAX Nixes Darwin for Fear of ‘Offending’
Mar 28th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDecision also affects science museums.… Read the rest
Why so much fuss about ‘a piece of clothing’?
Mar 28th, 2005 | By Azam KamguianWhy so much fuss about ‘a piece of clothing’? In France and elsewhere in the west, teachers have a hard time with girls who come to school wearing the veil, who refuse to attend gym or biology courses, and who won’t read Voltaire because he was a non-believer.
In my speech, I will argue for banning the veil for young girls. I will refute views that promote and support veiling for young girls and try to demonstrate how banning the veil is vital for the advancement of children’s rights and the progress of our civil society.
Some feminists oppose the law to ban the veil in state schools and institutions on the grounds that the ban will strengthen Islamism. But … Read the rest
My Ancestor Was Not an Underwater Vent!
Mar 28th, 2005 3:49 am | By Ophelia BensonIt’s good to have idiots deciding what people get to see at the science museum, isn’t it. Well, that’s the market for you.
… Read the restSome IMAX theaters are refusing to carry movies that promote evolution, citing concerns that doing so offends their audience and creates controversy – a move that has some proponents of Darwinism alarmed over the influence of “fundamentalists.”…A dozen science centers rejected the 2003 release, “Volcanoes,” because of it speculation that life on Earth may have originated in undersea vents, says Dr. Richard Lusk, an oceanographer and chief scientist for the project. Because a only small number of IMAX theaters show science films, a boycott by a few can reduce the potential audience to the point that producers
Egypt Arrests Muslim Brotherhood Members
Mar 27th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMB pledged to use peaceful democratic means to establish an Islamic state. … Read the rest
Muslim Brotherhood Demo Blocked in Cairo
Mar 27th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPolice arrested some 50 members around the country on Saturday.… Read the rest
Genuine Trauma and Physiological Response
Mar 27th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBut the stimulus was still fantasy.… Read the rest
Michael Shermer on the Fossil Fallacy
Mar 27th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCreationists’ demand for fossils of ‘missing links’ reveals deep misunderstanding of science. … Read the rest
Tom DeLay’s Flexible Standard
Mar 27th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNo fiery rhetoric as congressman joined family consensus to let his father die.… Read the rest
Sanity Has Drama Enough
Mar 27th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBrenda Maddox reads Adam Phillips and considers Freud.… Read the rest
Academic Freedom? Wozzat?
Mar 27th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonGraham Larkin of Stanford and Bill Morrow of California legislature debate.… Read the rest
Human Rights Advisor to Turkish PM Resigns
Mar 26th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonYavuz Onen has bitterly criticised attitude of Turkish government on human rights.… Read the rest
Malaysia to Curb ‘Moral Policing’
Mar 26th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHuman rights, labour and women’s groups called on government to restrain state Islamic departments.… Read the rest
Most Tsunami Dead Were Women, Oxfam Says
Mar 26th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonReports of rapes, harassment and forced marriages from emergency camps.… Read the rest
Finding
Mar 25th, 2005 7:46 pm | By Ophelia BensonWow. Cool. Look – Huxley.
Let us understand, once for all, that the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it. It may seem an audacious proposal thus to pit the microcosm against the macrocosm and to set man to subdue nature to his higher ends; but I venture to think that the great intellectual difference between the ancient times with which we have been occupied and our day, lies in the solid foundation we have acquired for the hope that such an enterprise may meet with a certain measure of success.
The things one can find on the Internet. (Is it, or is it … Read the rest
Hazlitt
Mar 25th, 2005 4:56 pm | By Ophelia BensonExcellent. Hazlitt again. Say what you will about the Guardian – they do have a good books section, and they do keep having articles on Hazlitt. More than you can say for the New York Times!
I’ve said it before so why not say it again (especially since the article is saying much the same thing). Hazlitt is the most inexplicable case of undeserved literary obscurity that I know of in the case of an Anglophone author. Absolutely the top one. To be sure, there are Elizabethans and 17th century people who are well worth reading, who don’t get read all that much any more – Sidney, Nashe, Browne, Burton. But the barriers to reading them are easily … Read the rest
The Archies
Mar 25th, 2005 4:23 pm | By Ophelia BensonRight. Let’s get down to it. With some help from Polly Toynbee.
But here the usefulness of faith ends, for it is mainly the power of the religious lobby that forces people to die in pain and indignity due to beliefs on the nature of life and death shared by very few. For 20 years now, every poll on the subject shows that 80% of people want the right to be helped to die at a time and in a way of their own choosing. But that kind of “choice” is not on the agenda.
And furthermore, even if the beliefs were shared by very many, even if they were indeed universal, they would still be both wrong (in … Read the rest
Clifford Geertz on Very Bad News
Mar 25th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonJared Diamond and Richard Posner on collapse and catastrophe.… Read the rest
Polly Toynbee on the Elusive Easy Death
Mar 25th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDying people beg for a quick injection, in vain.… Read the rest
Jesus Candle Burns Elderly Woman’s Apartment
Mar 25th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPictures, heart medicine gone, but flag remains. A miracle.… Read the rest