Why choose stupidity? Why ask why?
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Inevitably links go out of date.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.
-
Politics Meets Science – and Wins
Some decisions should be made by peer-review, not politicians.
-
Atheism is as American as Cherry Pie
Christopher Hitchens reads Susan Jacoby on the hidden history of secular America.
-
Why Would Icarus Want to be the Ploughman?
Roger Scruton admires rural silence, settling, grunts, tradition. Ecch.
-
Mistreatment of Prisoners Called Routine in U.S.
Humiliation, sex slavery, beatings not as rare as they might be.
-
The TLS Reviews the ‘Rapture’ Series
The UN as antichrist, superheated blood making people explode – such fun.
-
Kant and Epicurus Were a Bit Off the Mark
Simon Blackburn investigates lust; Hobbes calls it a delight of the mind.
-
So It’s Actually Not Paranoia to Fear ‘Pope-Rule’
Bishops are leaning on Kerry to oppose abortion rights.
-
Samantha Power Reads Hannah Arendt
Why we still have trouble noticing when an abyss opens.
-
Samuel Johnson Prize Shortlist
John Clare, the Gulag, Everything, East Germany, Africa.
-
Richard Webster Listens to ‘In Our Time’
As flat-earthers are to geography, so Freudians are to medical history.
-
Webster on Freud on Hysteria
Neurology had barely begun, so concussion was diagnosed as hysteria.
-
Girls Poisoned for Going to School
Militants angry about Karzai government’s reversal of Taliban ban on female education.
-
Anti-Vaccination Panic
When immunization works, people forget how awful the disease is – and bad thinking takes over.
-
Other People Are Biased, But I’m Not
The idols of the tribe are alive and well, Michael Shermer points out.
-
A Tory Bohemian in Small-town Michigan
Burkean, Kirkian conservatives are more communitarian than libertarian.
-
US Losing its Edge in Science
Europe now the world’s largest producer of scientific literature.
-
Why Do Archbishops Still Get Attention?
‘In a culture not characterised by respect…we are strangely reluctant to criticise irrational beliefs.’
-
Save the Imaginary Beast!
Sweden has a mythical lake-dwelling Something on its Endangered Species list.
-
Rise in Mumps Cases in Scotland
Rise illustrates value of mass immunisation programmes, BMA says.