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.


‘Without a theory, you can’t meet the people.’ *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Miller wonders why ‘unavailing Latinate neologisms’ convince so many people that something profound is being said.… Read the rest



Deep, unconscious anti-science bias. *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Scientists are humorless nerds, and crop circles and crystals are more fun.… Read the rest



Frank Lentricchia takes it all back. *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘When I grew up and became a literary critic, I learned to keep silent about the reading experiences of liberation that I’d enjoyed since childhood.’… Read the rest



A look at Kent Hovind’s dissertation. *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

In fact Patriot University seems to have no standards.… Read the rest



Barbara Forrest on The Wedge at Work *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

How Intelligent Design Creationism Is Wedging Its Way into the Cultural and Academic Mainstream… Read the rest



Derek Freeman Replies *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Ad hominem denigration doesn’t make the case.… Read the rest



Martin Gardner looks at a Center for nonsense studies. *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Dowsing, homeopathy, Tarot cards and their relevance to mental health professions, and, of course, alien abductions.… Read the rest



Livid Quietism on the Right *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘The anti-intellectuals are finally on the side of power at its most unforgiving and voracious.’… Read the rest



What we need is a robust universalism. *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘There is nothing sacrosanct about any culture or religion’s rituals. Cultures are neither monolithic, unchanging, nor without internal critique and resistance…’… Read the rest



Scott McLemee on Orwell *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Prose as a window-pane opens onto a reality that is solidly and visibly ‘out there.’… Read the rest



Frederick Crews on Freud *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘the claims of psychoanalytic theory are not interpretations but determinate propositions about how the mind regularly works’… Read the rest



The Impact of Religion on Children’s Education *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Azam Kamguian on what the anti-secularist backlash has done to education.… Read the rest



Gangsta Rap Culture Not Such a Good Thing? *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Education has been portrayed as ‘white’ – what use is it when strutting the streets?… Read the rest



Yale as a Place Where Language Goes to Die *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Helena Echlin on the misery of being a PhD candidate in English and American literature at Yale. She has to stifle her urge to write ‘eh?’ in the margins, discovers that obfuscation is de rigeur, and that people who talk nonsense are now looked upon not as sloppy thinkers, but as sages.… Read the rest



Massimo Pigliucci on Science and Religion *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Do scientists ‘keep the faith’ and if so is that a good thing? Is religion a good source of morality?… Read the rest



The Baghdad blogger. *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

What life was really like in Saddam’s Iraq and what it’s like now.… Read the rest



Grade Inflation *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

When students are consumers, they want what they pay for.… Read the rest



Byatt Reviews Browne’s Darwin Biography *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘There has been a tendency among Marxist, or marxisant, critics of Darwin, and social Darwinism, to criticise, or ridicule, the theory as a simple product of the society in which it was developed.’… Read the rest



Kevin McDonald on Crews on Freud *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘psychoanalysis, unlike a scientific theory but very much like certain religious or political movements, has essentially been immune from attacks leveled at it either from inside or outside the movement.’… Read the rest



Francis Crick on Atheism *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘What could be more foolish than to base one’s entire view of life on ideas that, however plausible at that time, now appear to be quite erroneous?’… Read the rest