‘In philosophy “certainty” has a specific meaning, and it means that there is no doubt.’
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Inevitably links go out of date.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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Rust Belt Philos on life-saving abortion and ‘trust’
Funny how it’s only in the case of abortion that we have to trust that God has a plan.
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Nigel Warburton on Mohammed and the fundamentalists
The scale of the internet censorship imposed in Pakistan is startling, and not just to “free speech fundamentalists.”
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Jerry Coyne on whether depression is adaptive
Depression does not meet the minimal requirements for qualifying as a biological adaptation.
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Grayling on the Dalai Lama
We should endlessly iterate the obvious, that the religions are mutually exclusive, mutually blaspheming, mutually hostile, bitterly and deeply divisive, and thus a rash of open sores in the flesh of humanity.
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Rabbi Lior: a woman’s job is to be a housewife
A woman has enough to do inside the house.
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No indecent euphemisms!
“$#*!” is filthy, and it’s a shameless demonstration of contempt for families.
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Gita Sahgal on Amnesty’s corporate amnesia
In many ways, Amnesty International has come to resemble the forces that it has done so much to oppose.
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Elon Moreh: rabbi bans women from public office
“Women who desired to affect public opinion should do so through their husbands.”
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BBC TV is sadly secular, says presenter
BBC Radio, on the other hand, is very religious. Hurrah.
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Dalai Lama on ‘one faith, many truths’
Finds good in all religions. No good in atheism though.
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Priest Arrested in Brazil on altar boy charges
The third case of sexual abuse involving a priest in Brazil in the last two months.
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Priest says better a dead woman than an abortion
“There are some situations where the mother may in fact die along with her child,” says Rev. John Ehrich, medical ethics director for the Diocese of Phoenix.
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Two errors and a slur
Of Karl Giberson’s, that Jerry Coyne points out. Giberson replies, but incompletely.
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Giberson explains about theodicy
How does Jerry Coyne know, I don’t know, nobody knows, therefore God is just.
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Dawkins and Randi mourn Martin Gardner
He was immensely lively, and brimming with youthful intelligence and curiosity, right to the end.
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Phil Plait on Martin Gardner
‘Martin’s books showed me how to think around some problems, how to take that needed step to the side to see the solution.’
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Giberson to ‘new’ atheists: play nicely
Cites ‘the New Atheist Noise Machine,’ says ‘the New Atheists are behaving like a boorish bunch of intellectual bullies.’ Nice.
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David Colquhoun on the Integrated Health Trust
The advisory board of IHT consists almost entirely of supporters of various forms of alternative medicine.
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Absurd objections to the first synthetic bacterium
PZ goes through them so that you don’t have to.