‘I found a dimpled spider, fat and white…’… Read the rest
Fashionable nonsense has been with us since the time that prehistoric man first transcribed Of Grammatology on to the walls of the Lascaux caves. Here we cast an eye back at some historical highlights.
Ramin Jahanbegloo on a philosophy of tolerance
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAttentiveness towards others and openness towards truth is still not a matter of common sense in some religious and political cultures.… Read the rest
Stalking the wild taboo
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe Seville Statement on Violence was written in the language of sociopolitical activism, not that of science.… Read the rest
A Duty to Annoy
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIs 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
Ethnomathematics
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Mathematics is absolutely integrated with Western civilization, which conquered and dominated the entire world.’… Read the rest
So Sylvia Plath was a Poet?
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Death and marriage may have fed and fuelled her writing, but – posthumously at least – they cramp her style.’… Read the rest
An ex-Muslim woman speaks out – and has to flee for her life.
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMost government-funded Islamic clubs ‘are run by deeply conservative men and perpetuate the segregation of women.’ … Read the rest
Richard Dawkins considers Fashionable Nonsense
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIt’s so uncool to think there is a real world.… Read the rest
Separation of Mosque and State
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Among intellectuals and in the academic world, any attempt to blame Islam for women’s oppression is stamped as Orientalism.’… Read the rest
Norman Geras on Minimum Utopia
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe facts of widespread human privation and those of political oppression and atrocity are available to all who want them.… Read the rest
Bias, as in Confirmation Bias
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBeing on the side of the rich and powerful ought to make it hard to play victim, but the right in the US manages it by seeing ‘liberal’ bias in the media even when it’s…not there.… Read the rest
The margins are getting so crowded!
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCentrality is so uncool that the margins are as full of people as Bangkok or the Aran Islands.… Read the rest
Frank Furedi on Paranoid Parents
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe world is a jungle, barely one child in a hundred escapes being murdered! Or so you would think.… Read the rest
When Religion Steps on Science’s Turf
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonRichard Dawkins on the cowardly flabbiness of the intellect that afflicts otherwise rational people confronted with long-established religions. … Read the rest
Therapeutic Touch
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe Skeptical Dictionary looks at energy medicine, the flow of chi or prana, auras, chakras…… Read the rest
Monolithic Thought Unfair to Astrology
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘The Epistemological Situation of Astrology in Relation to the Ambivalent Fascination/Rejection of Postmodern Societies’… Read the rest
Thomas Nagel on the Sleep of Reason
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonEerily patient explanations from Sokal and Bricmont of why gibberish is gibberish.… Read the rest
Tom Frank on ‘Market Populism’
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonExtreme diets and extreme investing, diversity all around, along with a consensus as ironclad as any in the ’50s.… Read the rest
The Great Convergence
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBeware of neo-Deistic pseudoreligion.… Read the rest
McCarthyism’s Indian Rebirth
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe new chauvinism receives official sanction from government and academic institutions.… Read the rest