‘Among the more irritating consequences of our flagrantly religious society is the special dispensation that mainstream religions receive.’… Read the rest

Michael Bérubé on the Chomskian left and obfuscation… Read the rest

Jesus is reading The Philosophers’ Magazine.… Read the rest

Meera Nanda had good reasons to fight against patriarchal, upper-caste Hindu traditions that would have suppressed all she valued. Science was not ‘elitist’ or Western but a way of life and a philosophy for social action.… Read the rest

No, linear doesn’t mean what pomos think it means.… Read the rest

Slaughter of innocents, human sacrifice, eternal torture – it’s all there.… Read the rest

Betrousered, two-eyed philosopher Ventre considers a world in which Things are Against Us.… Read the rest

When cultures are organized around controlling and using women, is blanket respect for Other cultures such a good idea?… Read the rest

Alternative to what? Testing and evidence?… Read the rest

NAGPRA is a well-intentioned piece of legislation that has grown into a monster of anti-scientific bias.… Read the rest

James Wood on the grim outlook for social realism and ‘hysterical realism’, which may allow a space for the aesthetic and the contemplative again.… Read the rest

‘Anthropologists are trained to appreciate cultural differences, but they can’t stand it within their own profession.’… Read the rest

‘Among his many weapons are a forensic curiosity, a vast learning, a savage wit, a commanding intellect, an international perspective and a moral authority that is built on something sturdier than cheap moralising.’… Read the rest

Dissent is part of all cultures, Asian decidedly included.… Read the rest

Some antievolutionists admit that they intend for intelligent-design theory to serve as a “wedge” for reopening science classrooms to discussions of God. … Read the rest

‘A superficially historicist, materialist case – our beliefs and assumptions are embedded in our practical forms of life – leads not only to a kind of epistemological idealism, but to the deeply convenient doctrine that our way of life cannot be criticised as a whole.’… Read the rest

NAGPRA proceeds from an antievolutionary perspective grounded in fundamentalist religious belief.… Read the rest

Is feminism about being a fragile flower needing protection and consolation at every hint of conflict? Or is it about being a cactus and fighting back. Wendy Kaminer disavows florality.… Read the rest

‘Mathematics is absolutely integrated with Western civilization, which conquered and dominated the entire world.’… Read the rest

‘Death and marriage may have fed and fuelled her writing, but – posthumously at least – they cramp her style.’… Read the rest