What should a scientist expect from an idea? That it be a reasonable advance in knowledge.
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Inevitably links go out of date.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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Afghan Senate Backs Death for Blasphemy
Also criticised foreign sources which tried to pressure the judiciary as it pursued blasphemers.
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Kenya’s Poor Are at Each Other’s Throats
In Kibera those who have nothing are looting those who have a little bit more.
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Targeted for Marrying a Kikuyu
Why, why, why? Why did they say they were doing this?
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The Archbishop’s Complete Speech
It’s about power, he explains. Any port in a storm.
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Campaign to Free Student Activists in Iran
Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq sponsors the petition.
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Human Rights Defenders Get Death Threats
AI calls for protection for activists threatened for being ‘traitors to their ethnicity.’
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The Dangers of Speaking Out in Syria
The 45-year-old state of emergency gives the security police wide powers of arrest and detention.
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Archbish Calls for Law to Punish ‘Cruel Words’
Wants new laws to protect religious sensibilities by punishing ‘thoughtless and cruel’ styles of speaking.
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Robert Irwin on Muzaffar Iqbal on Islamic Science
‘The book is a polemical essay, rather than a history, and welcome as such.’
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Christine Stansell on Katha Pollitt
What interests her is the play of illusion, self-delusion, and observational power as they shape our knowledge.
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Competing Views of Multiculturalism on the Left
One sees Islam as monolithic, the other doesn’t. One is Cold Warish, the other isn’t.
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Michael Walzer Sees it Differently
These oppositions don’t come close to an accurate description of the arguments that are actually going on today.
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How Not to Get Duped
Two general types of fallacies that are generally ubiquitous in political debates and other discourse.
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Two Forms of the Straw Man Argument [pdf]
The straw man works if the audience is inattentive.
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Academic Sentenced for ‘Insulting’ Ataturk
His crime was to say the early Turkish republic was not as progressive as portrayed in official books.
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Kenya: ‘People Are Killing Each Other’
‘We had been living together all this time before, we had peace, we worked together.’
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Gay Adoption Ruling Advances Family Equality
Decision marks a turning point in the European Court of Human Rights’ jurisprudence on family rights.
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‘Lack of Paternal Referent’
France failed to assess adoption by a lesbian the same way it would a single heterosexual.
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Starry-eyed Review of Tariq Ramadan
‘Nor does he lose sight of the animating purpose of true religion, to charge mankind with love and compassion.’