“It turns out that Mortenson’s books and public statements are permeated with
falsehoods.”
Category: Latest News
Welcome to our archive of news stories relevant to the project of fighting fashionable nonsense. The stories are drawn from the electronic pages of the world’s media. On this page, you’ll find links to those stories that have been featured on Butterflies and Wheels during the current year. At the bottom of the page, you’ll find links to separate archives of stories from previous years.
We’re always pleased to hear about news stories that you think should be featured on Butterflies and Wheels. Just send an email here, if you want to point one out to us.
A note about links
Inevitably links go out of date. We suggest, therefore, that you make hard-copies of the stories that particularly interest you.
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Three Cups of Deceit [pdf]
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70 days in prison for burning a Koran
It was a library book.
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My conversation with Johan Signert
About theocratic misogyny, “compassion” and religion, gnu atheism and the backlash.
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Catholics join “smash the offensive” brigade
Thugs shredded Serrano’s “Piss Christ.” Gallery is leaving the destroyed work on show “so people can see what barbarians can do.”
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Wendy Grossman on the flowering of atheism
As an ideology, strong atheism tends to emerge under the threat of theocracy.
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“What can science say about atheism?”
“Atheism clearly isn’t natural.” Wha?
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Katha Pollitt on anti-abortion movement v. women
Many of the 370-plus anti-abortion bills now wending their way through state legislatures are simply about creating misery, anxiety and fear.
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Simon Blackburn on morality without God
“Aristotle himself thought that ethics concerned wellbeing. But he appreciated, as Harris does not, the twists and turns involved in that simple sounding idea.”
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MCB considers face-veil mandatory
Cites the Koran: “It is not for a believer, man or woman, that they should have any option in their decision when Allah and his Messenger have decreed a matter.”
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Coyne on Blackford on New Atheism
What explains the unusual vitriol heaped upon the Gnus by certain non-gnu atheists?
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Grayling on a secular Good Book
“We have to take the Socratic challenge to lead the examined life. You must transcend the teachings and the teachers. Don’t be a disciple.”
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Nick Cohen on Cameron and PR and the NHS
Cameron’s “political guru” wrote a book on how corporations could fight anti-capitalist protesters by emphasising the benefits they delivered…
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New Humanist talks to Anthony Grayling
His disdain for the notion of submission before a deity is put with characteristic force.
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Kenan Malik reviews Sam Harris
Harris is nothing if not self-confident. There is a voluminous philosophical literature on the relationship between facts and values. Harris chooses to ignore most of it.
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Ayn Tea Atlas Rand Party Shrugged
It’s a bad movie, therefore a minority taste, therefore the Tea Party will love it.
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Ben Goldacre on what a government leaflet gets wrong
It begins, like much pseudoscience, with uncontroversial truths. Then the trouble starts.
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Sam Harris and Robert Winston in conversation
Winston claims that Dawkins and Harris “balkanise the world a good deal more” than religion does. Srsly.
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Pregnant woman attempted suicide, is accused of murder
Prosecutions like this are increasing in the US and are a result of movements that seek to give the foetus rights that trump those of women.
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Saudi women banned from voting
Inconceivable. Social considerations. Technical reasons. Not enough booths. No procedures. Postponed. Future. Proper conditions. Protocol.
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Anthony Grayling talks to Fox News
Extraordinary – the interviewer asks sensible questions and Grayling has time to answer. On Fox News!