Some believed the student, some doubted, so questions were pressed…
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Inevitably links go out of date.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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Debt Displaces Liberal Education
U. of Phoenix founder: ‘We’re not going for that “expand their minds” bullshit.’
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Martha Nussbaum on Religious Terror in India
Right-wing Hindu extremists who condone violence against minorities are still powerful.
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Retired IIT Professor M C Puri Killed in Attack
According to police, four to five persons opened fire with automatic weapons outside conference.
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Emeritus Professor of Mathematics Mourned
Puri specialised in operational research, had won many awards for his work.
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Daniel Dennett on Deeply Intuitive Idea Behind ID
The idea that it takes a big fancy smart thing to make a lesser thing.
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Dennett’s Breaking the Spell Reviewed
The spell he hopes to break is not religious belief but the conviction that it’s off-limits to scientific inquiry, taboo.
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Progressive Politics Depend on Imagination
Which is stunted in childhood as play is displaced by organized sports, television, video games
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Nun Bun Stolen!
Cinnamon roll said to look like Ma Teresa grabbed by someone who found it irritating.
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Holy Toast on ebay
Ancient piece of cheese on toast said to resemble Virgin Mary. Scoffers not convinced.
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Student Admits ‘Little Red Book’ Story Was a Hoax
The skeptical librarians were right. Well done, skeptical librarians.
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Chandani Lokuge Reviews Amartya Sen
Sen sees identity as a personal choice that must be guided by a process of careful reasoning.
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Psychoanalysis Tottering in France
Le livre noir is doing its bit.
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Johann Hari on the Ayn Rand Cult
Ayn Rand Institute called unpaid voluntary work an ‘unforgivable act of altruism’.
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Women Punished for Causing Tsunami
Sharia police force modelled on Saudi moral enforcers subjects women to public humiliation.
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Christian Reconstruction
‘Those who refuse to submit publicly…must be denied citizenship.’
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Steve Fuller on ‘Intelligent Design’
‘Darwin’s biography projects the politically correct image of a Christian who loses his faith through scientific inquiry.’ Eh?
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Carl Elliott on Bioethics and Conflicts of Interest
Industry-funded bioethicists should not be writing the guidelines under which their own activities will be regulated.
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Rorty Reads Ian McEwan’s Saturday
‘Thinking small is not the novel’s motto; it is its subject.’
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Nadia Urbinati on Seyla Benhabib
The tension between the claims of national self-determination and universal human rights.
