How does a liberal intellectual face up to the dilemmas of liberalism during a war on terror?
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Inevitably links go out of date.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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Baggini on Polkinghorne on Science and Religion
Polkinghorne and Beale often use God to plug the spaces left by science’s incompleteness.
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Philosophy’s Great Experiment
X-phi wants to kick down the walls of recent philosophy and place experimentation back at its centre.
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Aaronovitch Notes: All Theocracies Are Coercive
Crooke’s failure to see that theocracy is unlikely to lead to a world of ‘compassion and justice’ is stunning.
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Saudi Underwear Panic
No fitting rooms! Jobs are for men! These are too small! Daily life in a theocracy.
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Are Christians Persecuted in the UK?
If a teachers tells a child not to tell her friends they are going to hell, is that persecution?
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Darwin Was Agnostic and Nontheist and Antitheist
Rick Weiss and Matt Nisbet are using a misrepresentation of Darwin to make a case against New Atheists.
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Carl Zimmer Fact-checks George Will
The fact-checker doesn’t rely on press releases or blog posts, but calls scientists up to get the best information.
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Theocracy and the Death of the Critical Intellect
I must exorcise the temptation to choose against the divinely sanctioned authority of the church.
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Are ‘Honor’ Killings Simply Domestic Violence?
Denial is rife.
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Katha Pollitt on Freedom of Speech, Round 5,425
Women can’t point out sexism in the Bible or Koran but clerics can use those texts to declare women inferior?
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Andrew Sullivan on Defending Blasphemy
Hari’s article is a classic piece of political polemic, the kind of thing that no free society should ever suppress.
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Homeopathy: the Opposite of Science
BSc courses in homeopathy are closing. Yessss!
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OIC Secretary-General on Durban II
‘It should be every individual’s right to criticize practices in breach of human rights.’ Indeed.
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‘On the Media’ on Islam and Free Speech
Left out some crucial facts, especially the 3 added cartoons, especially the farmer in the pig-mask.
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Bubble and Bust in Ireland
Banking and politics in bed together; how familiar, how deranged.
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IHEU on a Bad Week for Free Speech
‘It’s time our leaders learned that Islam is just another religion.’
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IHEU on Durban II and Freedom of Expression
Defamation of Religion is a concept that has no place in Human Rights discourse.
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Colin Blakemore on Science and Religion
Science has rampaged over the landscape of divine explanation, as ‘why’ questions became ‘how’ questions.
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Clawback of Executive Pay is Gaining Traction
‘When companies fail to perform, should they give millions of dollars to their senior executives?’
