Belief that Earth was formed in 4004 BC not consistent with evidence from geology, astronomy, physics.
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Inevitably links go out of date.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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John Sutherland Interviews Lewis Wolpert
If religion is a result of the way our brains are wired, all the more reason to question the truth of our beliefs.
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Christians Sue for Right to be Intolerant
Christian Legal Society forms a national group to challenge tolerance policies in federal court.
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Bunting Keeps Flailing Away at Enlightenment
Frets at self-righteous certainty, gobsmacking ignorance, irrational bogeymen.
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School Head Cross About ‘Faith’ Schools
Government warns of religious division and fundamentalism but approves ‘faith’ schools.
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Bernard-Henri Lévy Savaged in a New Book
Best-selling books established Lévy as popular intellectual, irritated less well-known philosophers.
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Is Fred Barnes Kidding or Deluded?
Many people find ‘insurgent’ and ‘rebel’ unlikely designations for George W Bush.
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Germany’s Second Unification
Neither multicultural pieties nor hysterical fear-mongering will help anyone.
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The Sectarian Mind is at Home Everywhere
Todd Gitlin wonders why the left is so determined to eat its own.
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The Iran Plans
Some exciting possibilities.
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‘The Next Person to be Killed is Shirin Ebadi’
Through this belief – that the intellectuals had abandoned God – they justified the killings as religious duty.
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There is Nothing ‘Protective’ About Child Marriage
Feudalism, exploitation, caste hierarchy, patriarchy, tradition, seeing girls as slave labour.
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Misguided ‘Respect’ for Traditions
Aisha begged child-protection authorities for help; not wishing to be seen as culturally insensitive, they refused.
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The Passion Of Amartya Sen
‘We can be more than one kind of person, given different contexts, avers our argumentative Indian.’
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Experimental Philosophy and its Critics
Experimentalists can’t be sure subjects are responding to the philosophical principles at stake.
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BHL and Anatol Lieven Debate Neoconservatism
Have the neoconservatives advanced any notions which liberalism and the left could learn from?
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The New U and Non-U
Universalist or cultural relativist.
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James Randi’s Newsletter
Annual Pigasus awards, and a recommendation.
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Goethe as the Advocate of ‘Cheerful Pessimism’
Placing Goethe in a tradition reaching back to Epicurus and Lucretius.
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Arthur Danto on Descartes
Intellectual quarrels in the 17th century were waspish and insulting, like British book reviewing today.