Everyday world presents intellectual challenges as daunting as those of cosmos and quantum.
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Inevitably links go out of date.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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The B-Word at a College of Ethnic Studies
He said ‘That bitch didn’t show up again?’ not ‘You, Professor X, are a bitch.’
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Why Can’t History Be More Like Lit Crit?
Concern with facts and critical thinking makes historian ‘uncomfortable with myths.’
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The AAUP on Academic Bill of Rights
Academic Bill of Rights infringes academic freedom in the very act of purporting to protect it.
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Teach Children to Call Each Other Poofs? Maybe Not
Nick Cohen: how not to conform to Daily Mail stereotypes of PC prigs.
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History in the Service of an Ideology
We take from the past what suits us; too often it’s a blinkered, nationalistic view
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Proud Atheist Mother of Atheist Daughter
She’d rather do things herself than have someone do them for her.
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Tsunami as Missionary Opportunity
‘What an incredible opportunity God is giving us to provide Bibles for the Bhojpuri for the very first time!’
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Iraqi Trade Unionist Attacked and Kidnaped
Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions yesterday denounced attack on one of its elected officials.
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‘Sincerely Held Religious Beliefs’
Colleges forced to choose between freedom of religion and equal protection under law.
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Education Secretary and Opus Dei
Particularly unquestioning form of religion seems at odds with background in rational inquiry.
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Simon Schama on Letters of Isaiah Berlin
‘The strenuous journey of an exceptional mind toward its own self-realization.’
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Buster the Bunny Visits Perverts in Vermont!
Lesbians, maple syrup, PBS – it’s all too much for US Education Secretary.
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Wedging Creationism into the Academy
Barbara Forrest and Glenn Branch on a case study of the quest for academic legitimacy.
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Teachers and Their Pesky Personal Preferences
‘She had an attitude like because she has a PhD we were wrong and don’t know as much as her.’
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Hitchens on Jihad in the Netherlands
Victims not just secular artists but people of Muslim origin who do not accept homicidal fundamentalism.
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Antony Flew’s Flawed Science
Gerald Schroeder on the physics of Genesis – it’s a joke, right?
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Katha Pollitt Asks: Jesus to the Rescue?
‘God’s politics tend to be the politics of the people who claim to speak for him.’
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‘Politically Incorrect’ History
Civil Rights Act bad, Black Codes and Japanese internment good. And this is a best seller.
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New Laws Will Keep Freedom to Insult Religion
Director of Public Prosecutions warns against inflated expectations of what law will do.