TV could be an excellent medium for popularizing philosophy, but if it always has to be visually entrancing, well…… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Dictionary of Life Has Two Billion Entries
Nov 3rd, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe first letter is G, the two billionth is T.… Read the rest
Royals are Cross at Their Runaway Slave
Nov 2nd, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWhat it’s like to work for people who can’t fasten their own seat belts or recognize servants as human.… Read the rest
Adam Swift Defends Diane Abbott
Nov 2nd, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHow political principles and personal choices fit together matters.… Read the rest
Professional Deformation
Nov 2nd, 2003 1:27 am | By Ophelia BensonThere is a fascinating article about the discontents of professionalization here. It was written shortly after September 11, but what it says is still of interest. I don’t agree with absolutely all of it, but what of that; I do with most.
… Read the restReaders in a variety of fields may identify with the experience of a soon-to-be Ph.D. in English, someone who has always worked hard and played by the rules intellectually, who told me that since the terrorist attacks, she’s derived less comfort than she expected from working on her dissertation. She also confessed that she can’t blame the people who look at our discipline from the outside and say, “If you’re not getting at anything that sustains people, what’s
Science, History and the Hindutva Brigade
Nov 1st, 2003 8:15 pm | By Ophelia BensonYesterday a reader and fan of B&W’s emailed me to express her admiration of Meera Nanda’s new article, and her work in general. She also alerted me to another example of scholarship under attack by the Hindutva brigade. I’m extremely glad she did: I was entirely unaware of the campaign against the historian Romila Thapar. Read about it here and here. This whole subject is immensely depressing and dispiritng – it always is dispiriting to see humans determinedly marching backwards, and patting themselves on the back for doing it.
… Read the restWhile 72-year-old Thapar’s appointment was greeted with applause by serious students of history, little did anyone realise that acolytes of the Hindutva brand of politics, primarily those in the Indian
Romila Thapar
Nov 1st, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCampaign against historian by the Hindutva brigade.… Read the rest
MMR Debate Turns Nasty
Nov 1st, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThey were once colleagues. Now they’re bickering.… Read the rest
Open Letter to HM Government
Oct 31st, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPhilip Stott publishes the full letter from scientists on bad media coverage of the GM debate.… Read the rest
No Level Playing Field For GM Crops Debate
Oct 31st, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonScientists furious that UK government allowed the GM crops debate to be hijacked by the antis.… Read the rest
Lemmings Not Lemmings At All
Oct 31st, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonApparently it’s not true that they are really depressed.… Read the rest
Neurotic Brits Risk Measles Epidemic
Oct 31st, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonTake-up of MMR jab remains low despite ‘unequivocal evidence’ that it is not a risk factor for autism.… Read the rest
Academic Boycott of Israel – Part 2
Oct 31st, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonOxford prof suspended for rejecting Israeli student on the grounds of his nationality.… Read the rest
Dratted Ciabatta-Munchers
Oct 30th, 2003 8:33 pm | By Ophelia BensonHere is another installment in the on-going story of religious people demanding immunity from criticism for religion and religious people. This one is more irritating than most because so full of heavy-handed sneering (I like my sneering to be done with a light touch, thank you). Chattering classes, bien pensants, choking on their ciabatta – alliterative but crude. And then there’s the ever-popular rhetorical move of deciding what people’s motives are.
Why is baiting Christians a sport among the so-called bien pensants? Because the bien pensants most enjoy and benefit from the status quo, and sense, in the Christian, a subversive element who seeks to destroy their lifestyle.
Err – no. I for one don’t ‘bait’ Christians, but I … Read the rest
Where in the Brain is the Self?
Oct 30th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDamage to the brain can cause some odd experiences of self, a neurologist explains.… Read the rest
Amartya Sen on Being More Than One Thing
Oct 30th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWe’re not just Western or Hindu or Muslim.… Read the rest
Kenan Malik Reads Meera Nanda
Oct 30th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNanda is ‘particularly astute in demonstrating the reactionary consequences of anti-science relativism for the peoples of the Third World.’… Read the rest
Kenan Malik on Diversity
Oct 30th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAre multiculturalism and cultural identity really such brilliant ideas?… Read the rest
Science for Sale
Oct 29th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAre market values compatible with academic values?… Read the rest
Crooked Timber on Bad Writing
Oct 29th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIntentions are disentangled from results, to amusing effect.… Read the rest