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.


Norman Levitt on Kennewick Man *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

What is a government department doing endorsing the idea that traditions and myths count as evidence?… Read the rest



Curtis White on The Middle Mind *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Book reviews in glossy magazines, worshipful interviewers on public radio and tv, ‘annoying’ as the ultimate condemnation…… Read the rest



Stanley Fish Defends Postmodernism *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Terrorists, freedom fighters, fundamentalists, postcolonialism, the Enlightenment – all contested, as usual. … Read the rest



Dawkins on Darwin’s Genetics *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘Sexual selection really is a good candidate for explaining a great deal about the unique evolution of our species.’… Read the rest



Webster Reviews Fisher and Greenberg *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘the findings were nicely congruent with the hypothesis’ – yes, they always are, that’s the problem.… Read the rest



Out of Islam *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘I don’t need a Hell to fear to be ethical, or a paradise to reward me for my good.’… Read the rest



Not What You Think but How You Think *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘He was very easily irritated by anything bogus, anything facile or hypocritical.’… Read the rest



Samantha Power on genocide and failures to prevent it. *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Why did it take the US Senate forty years to ratify the UN Genocide Convention?… Read the rest



Memory and trauma *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Sally Satel looks at the way we construct narratives about our symptoms.… Read the rest



Katha Pollitt on Multiculturalism and Women. *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘A Russian, an Italian, could not justify beating his wife to death by referring to the customs of dear old Moscow or Calabria’… Read the rest



‘Independent’ Peer Review *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

The Bush administration wants scientists it can trust.… Read the rest



Paul Kurtz on Belief *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Why do people believe or disbelieve?… Read the rest



Multicultural Pseudoscience *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Bernard Ortiz De Montellano on gibberish dressed up as education.… Read the rest



Richard Dawkins Karate-chops Fashionable Nonsense *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Dawkins on fun and games.… Read the rest



Thomas Kuhn Examined *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

The shift from logic to history, and the perennial appeal of irrationalist programs.… Read the rest



Durkheim on Religion *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

The way to ‘reject the insipid relativism of the tabula rasa without denying or ignoring the freedom and variability of individual human beings and their cultures.’… Read the rest



Why Lit-crits want economists to sound more like lit-crits. *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Paul Krugman draws an interesting parallel with Stephen Jay Gould.… Read the rest



Historic Conference in Chicago March 2000 *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Conference brought Armenian
and Turkish scholars together for the first time to discuss the 1915 genocide.… Read the rest



More Than 500 Arguments for the Existence of God *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

(1) Check out that tree. Isn’t it pretty?
(2) Therefore, God exists.… Read the rest



Rigoberta Menchu *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘Whenever you’re told that you shouldn’t look into something, for some people, that is a very clear directive that you ought to keep looking.’… Read the rest