Biology as a scientific discipline, what it means to be a species, more.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Harry Frankfurt
Feb 16th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘I could never make up my mind what I was interested in, and philosophy enabled you to be interested in anything.’… Read the rest
Squeaky Wheels
Feb 15th, 2005 11:57 pm | By Ophelia BensonThis is good. Now if lots of people start saying the same thing, maybe one of these days it will begin to sink in.
… Read the restIn case it isn’t already obvious, competition has broken out between the religious elements of our society for the label of ‘Most Sensitive’. Every time someone gets offended, it has become standard policy to complain that followers of other faiths are treated with more respect…[B]roadcasters, production companies and even theatre houses can fall into a trap of trying to keep the ‘representatives’ happy. In an environment where they’re evidently competing with each other, this is a dangerous policy because there is no way back. With Behzti for example, it gave the impression to those being
Scott McLemee on Harry Frankfurt on Bullshit
Feb 15th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIndispensable for those at the fragrant crossroads of academe and journalism.… Read the rest
Three Powers: Britain, Russia, Madame de Staël
Feb 15th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonA political and literary intellectual in an age when women weren’t expected to be either.… Read the rest
Intelligence Without Language
Feb 15th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNew research casts doubt on the claim that intelligence requires language.… Read the rest
Why Are You so Silent?
Feb 14th, 2005 10:35 pm | By Ophelia BensonHmm. There’s an odd statement in here – in the AAUP’s statement on the Ward Churchill fuss. Well, that’s not surprising, I guess. Pretty much whenever people start talking about freedom of speech and academic freedom, odd statements get made. It seems to be a subject that inspires odd statements – no doubt because there are so many competing goods at issue, and because people don’t always notice the competitive aspect, so they’ll cheerfully make contradictory statements from one sentence to the next.
Needless to say, the AAUP thinks Churchill should not be fired for writing the ‘little Eichmanns’ article, no matter how livid the right-wing pundits get. Needless to say, I agree with them, however much I may mock … Read the rest
Fatwa on Rushdie Reaffirmed
Feb 14th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘History shows that the Muslims have in no era accepted their sanctities being defiled.’… Read the rest
Competing for Title of ‘Most Sensitive’
Feb 14th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonTendency to assume loudest religious groups represent everyone in their communities.… Read the rest
Brenda Maddox on Women and Science
Feb 14th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonShock-horror: she doesn’t care whether women go into science or not.… Read the rest
Rationalist International Bulletin # 140
Feb 14th, 2005 | By Rationalist InternationalVatican: The Kidnap Program
After the end of the Second World War, the Vatican issued a secret order to the French church authorities, directing them to keep all baptized children from Jewish families in their custody, who had been accommodated in Catholic homes and convents during the Nazi occupation of France. The Vatican had decided that these children should not be returned to their surviving Jewish parents, but handed over to Christian institutions to ensure their Christian education. This secret Vatican order, a document in French language dated October 23, 1946, has recently been digged up by Italian church historians and was published in January in translation in the respected Italian daily Corriere della Siera. It triggered yet another controversy … Read the rest
Conversation With John Searle
Feb 13th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonTo do philosophy well you have to know everything, and no one does.… Read the rest
President of NAAS Contradicts Michael Behe
Feb 13th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Because “intelligent design” theories are based on supernatural explanations, they can have nothing to do with science.’… Read the rest
A Certain Storman ‘Norman’ Geras on Radio
Feb 13th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonFamous obscure Marxist talks about blogs and Iraq war.… Read the rest
US Government Scientists Told to Alter Findings
Feb 12th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCommercial interests applied political pressure to reverse conclusions thought harmful to business.… Read the rest
Science Teachers Refuse to Read ID Statement
Feb 12th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe struggle between ‘Godly America’ and ‘Worldly America’ continues.… Read the rest
Happy Darwin Day
Feb 12th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonScience is our most reliable knowledge system, acquired through human curiosity and ingenuity.… Read the rest
High Tension
Feb 11th, 2005 8:50 pm | By Ophelia BensonA couple of further thoughts on the Taboo question. There is a lot of tension in all this – because there are some rational, non-ostrich-like, non-fingers-in-ears, non-You Can’t Say That reasons for worry about, for instance, saying that a particular identifiable set of people may have, in however small a statistical sense, less of a given ability than another set or sets. One such reason is the self-fulfilling prophesy. The worry is that if you tell people – especially and all the more so if you tell them officially academically scientifically studies have shownically – that they are, or they belong to a group or subset of the population that is, statistically, however slightly and tail end effectly, innately less … Read the rest
More Republican Fans Than He Wants
Feb 11th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHitchens was getting bored with politics and politicians.… Read the rest
Death of a Playwright
Feb 11th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMichael Billington: ‘He had to create a tradition rather than inheriting one.’… Read the rest