A nuanced explanation and advocacy of how to do nuanced explanation and advocacy.
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Inevitably links go out of date.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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USA Today’s “Faith and Reason” asks questions
“Do you think a baby conceived in test tube is still a child in the eyes of God?” Gee, I don’t know. Maybe they’re all zombies and we should kill them.
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Hey, atheists all have something wrong with them
Agnostic has a think, concludes that “most of the new wave of atheists who offer screeds against faith” are ideologues. Exciting!
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The true nature of Steiner education
The role of the Steiner kindergarten teacher is to facilitate the ‘incarnation’ of the spirits and souls of children into their physical bodies…
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Greg Mayer on The Hall of Human Origins
At the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Many excellent displays but also lost opportunities.
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Philippa Foot 1920-2010
TPM republishes an interview with Foot from 2003.
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My reply to Caspar Melville on “new atheism”
In general it’s a good thing to be sceptical of one’s own commitments as well as other people’s. But…
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Another pre-emptive self-censorship
A cartoon that does not show Mohammed. Some newspapers turned pale and said no no no no we can’t run that.
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Sam Harris on the Daily Show
Harris says moral realism is suspect. Perhaps not suspect but complex, says Stewart. Quite.
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Jesus and Mo on the Vatican on condoms and IVF
The Catholic church is against both because…?
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Erich Vieth interviews Paul Kurtz
“They refused to publish my statement regarding my resignation…I consider this as similar to a Board of Bishops seeking to control its Founder.”
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Institute for Ideas throws more crap at secularism
“Militant secularists call for the Pope to be refused entry to the country on the grounds he offends victims of child abuse, sexism and homophobia.”
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Keith Olbermann and Steven Pinker talk evolution
What difference does it make to education? If you sow confusion about evolution, you sow confusion about biology.
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World Day against the Death Penalty
The Save Ashtiani campaign invites everyone to endorse a resolution against capital punishment.
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Vatican honcho pitches fit about Nobel for Edwards
All those abandoned or dead embryos are his fault, said the head of the “Pontifical Academy for Life.”
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The Allahabad court ruling is a blow against India’s secularism
Rather than wresting India from Hindu majoritarianism, the high court’s verdict has given legal imprimatur to it.
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The Observer profiles Karen Armstrong
“But like Kissinger, Armstrong has enemies.” Many devout Catholics, and…Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom. Ha!
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Marilynne Robinson reviews Sam Harris
“If he were to articulate a positive morality of his own, he might well arrive at its heights to find them occupied by the whole tribe of Unitarians.”
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Appiah reviews Sam Harris on morality
What he ends up endorsing is something very like utilitarianism, a philosophical position that faces a battery of familiar problems.
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Raheel Raza at the UN tells off the Pakistani ambassador
And Tariq Ramadan, for good measure.