Makes certain kinds of research mortal rather than venial sin. Why mess around?
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Inevitably links go out of date.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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Ben Goldacre on Drug Companies and Truth
To make sensible decisions, doctors need information. But drug companies have repeatedly been shown to bury unflattering data.
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The Placebo Effect: the Coolest Thing in Medicine
Many people with your kind of condition have been helped by ’sugar pills’; we feel a sugar pill may help you.
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Fundamentalist State School ‘Worst in London’
First non-Anglican non-Catholic ‘faith’ school to get state funding is in meltdown.
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American Psychological Association and Torture
APA ignored evidence that psychologists designed and provided training for ‘enhanced’ interrogation.
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Pope Pretends to be Liberal
Convinces no one.
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Surveys Probably Undercount Atheists in US
Surveys of unpopular opinions offer dubious results.
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Autism Payout Reignites Vaccine Controversy
US government decision to compensate case may undermine public confidence in vaccines.
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Kafka Fraud Revealed
‘The Metamorphosis’ wasn’t fiction at all. Literary critics turn pale with shame.
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Afghanistan: Thousands Protest Motoons Again
Good to know they have nothing more important to worry about.
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3,000 UK Women a Year Forced Into Marriage
The study found at least 300 cases in Luton where victims had contacted community organisations.
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Lords Approve Abolition Of Blasphemy
After an acrimonious debate in which the bogeyman of secularism was repeatedly invoked.
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Debate on Blasphemy Abolition: Column 1118
York: ‘the protection of society is achieved by ensuring that the Christian religion is treated with respect.’
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Women’s Day in Afghanistan
When the Taliban took over, the public lives of women effectively came to an end.
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Bush Vetoes Limits on Torture
The bill would have limited all American interrogators to techniques allowed in the Army Field Manual.
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Normblog on Appiah on Moral Obligation
The socialist idea is that we sign up to a code according to which people do not die unrescued.
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International Women’s Day Protests
Italy, Iraq, Colombia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, China.
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Jane O’Grady Reviews Revolution in Mind
The unconscious was not Freud’s discovery, but that of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche via Hume and Locke.
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Rayyan Al-Shawaf Reviews Desiring Arabs
Joseph Massad portrays Arab violence as inevitable wherever there is gay and lesbian assertiveness.
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Sholto Byrnes Interviews Samantha Power
Author of A Problem From Hell and one of five senior foreign policy advisers to Obama.