Studies show brain differences, also that beliefs affect test performance.
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Inevitably links go out of date.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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Watch Out! Stop Eating! Throw Up!
Everything is dangerous, everything is toxic, there is no safe level, we’re all doomed.
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Peter Benenson 1921-2005
His 1961 newspaper article ‘The Forgotten Prisoners’ changed the world for the better.
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Richard Dawkins on the Giant Tortoise’s Tale
Islands provide the barrier to sexual intermingling that evolution needs.
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First, Do No Harm
Next, get agreement on what will do harm. Best of luck!
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A C Grayling Reviews Fuller on Popper and Kuhn
Popper’s promotion of critical spirit of scientific enquiry preferable to Kuhn’s incommensurability.
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Did Larry Summers Have a Cunning Plan?
If not, he wasn’t doing his job and doesn’t know what it is, Stanley Fish says.
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Scott McLemee Goes to Derrida Conference
Where Jack Balkin suggests that Bush has hoisted Derrida by his own aporias.
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Dynamic Behind Campus Free-speech Fights
Parochial argument turned into national banquet for right-wingers hungry for culture enemies.
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Bush Admin Science Advisor Gets One Thing Right
John Marburger stated point blank, ‘Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory.’
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Todd Gitlin on Permission to Speak Freely
Conformity is self-fulfilling, lending itself to enshrinement of the smug and the narrow.
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Beliefs Should Precede ‘Positioning’
Michael Tomasky: Democrats just don’t talk about fundamental ideas enough.
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‘Christian Voice’ Ought to Shut Up
Tells cancer charity not to accept donation from ‘Jerry Springer – The Opera’ – and charity obeys.
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Harry Frankfurt Talks to the Boston Globe
On the difference between lies and bullshit, and whether there is more of the latter.
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Ted Honderich on Infuriating Both Sides
You can infuriate both sides and be wrong; but independence of mind is anathema to some on any side.
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Use Bottled Water in the Bird-bath
Shampoo the teddy-bear, dodge the asteroid, take holistic arboreal medicine.
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More Than a Stretch
Todd Gitlin and Michael Bérubé say they didn’t say what Horowitz says they said.
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Occultism and Pseudoscience in Russia
New freedom of press often turns into poisonous propaganda of pseudoscience.
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The ‘Hype’ of Holocaust Commemoration?
French stand-up comic tries to justify his remarks; vandals daub swastikas on Muslim and Jewish sites.
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Economists’ Rational-actor Model Self-fulfilling
Repeated exposure to self-interest model makes selfish behavior more likely.