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Inevitably links go out of date.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.


And University Students Run Amok Too *

Feb 28th, 2003 | Filed by

Debt and the equation marks=money can poison the teacher-student relation.… Read the rest



Christopher Hill Obituary *

Feb 27th, 2003 | Filed by

The Marxist historian of the world turned upside-down.… Read the rest



The Times on Christopher Hill *

Feb 27th, 2003 | Filed by

‘No other historian had equalled Hill’s ability to blend a deeply sympathetic understanding of the poor and unlearned with a seemingly limitless knowledge of intellectual and religious doctrine and strife.’… Read the rest



The Old ‘Science is Superstition’ Ploy *

Feb 26th, 2003 | Filed by

Jonathan Reé reviews Dawkins’ new book: ‘Dawkins campaigns against superstition with the blind fervour of a religious fanatic.’ Good; too bad there aren’t more like him.… Read the rest



Fabricated Memories Can Be Scary Too *

Feb 26th, 2003 | Filed by

Two Harvard psychologists test the reactions of people who say they have been abducted by aliens.… Read the rest



News Flash: Enlightenment Hostile to Religion *

Feb 25th, 2003 | Filed by

A new book on the Enlightenment’s near-obsession with Judaism is a cautionary tale against ‘the seductions of rationalist absolutism.’ What of the seductions of irrationalism?… Read the rest



Robert Merton *

Feb 25th, 2003 | Filed by

Obituary of innovative sociologist of science.… Read the rest



Merton Obituary in New York Times *

Feb 25th, 2003 | Filed by

Role models and self-fulfilling prophecies and ‘an extraordinary range of interests that included the workings of the mass media, the anatomy of racism, the social perspectives of “insiders” vs. “outsiders,” history, literature and etymology.’… Read the rest



Watered-down Math Books *

Feb 24th, 2003 | Filed by

Teach history by all means, but don’t de-emphasize deductive reasoning and mathematical proofs.… Read the rest



On Channel 1 Tonight: Junior Threatens Teacher *

Feb 24th, 2003 | Filed by

Parents don’t believe their children behave badly in school, so one plan is to use CCTV and then show them the evidence.… Read the rest



Susan Sontag is not a Postmodernist *

Feb 23rd, 2003 | Filed by

‘Even as her early criticism anticipates every academic trend from Cultural Studies to Queer Theory, she has been resolute in her resistance to everything postmodern, insisting on standards, morals and distinctions and the authority of art, experience and truth.’… Read the rest



How Many Kinds of Truth Are There? *

Feb 23rd, 2003 | Filed by

Does the CIA know it when it sees it? Do UN inspectors? Truth commissions? Journalists, spies?… Read the rest



Richard Dawkins Answers Questions *

Feb 23rd, 2003 | Filed by

On poltergeists, the tooth fairy, God-shaped holes, surprise arrivals at Pearly Gates, and 42.… Read the rest



Women Are Mediocre *

Feb 23rd, 2003 | Filed by

Oh dear, how depressing. We have fewer stars and fewer total failures; we bunch up in the middle.… Read the rest



What Working Class? *

Feb 22nd, 2003 | Filed by

No fantasy is too extreme when one wants to build some luxury flats.… Read the rest



Passions Rule *

Feb 21st, 2003 | Filed by

Scholars in different fields are looking at emotion. (The list of books at the end of this article inexplicably omits Simon Blackburn’s Ruling Passions.)… Read the rest



Ringing Tone Provokes Suspicion *

Feb 21st, 2003 | Filed by

John Gray reviews Daniel Dennett’s Freedom Evolves, and says the obsession with freedom is a leftover from Christianity.… Read the rest



A Devil’s Chaplain Reviewed *

Feb 21st, 2003 | Filed by

Kenan Malik says ‘an obsessive concern with reason seems to me to be a virtue not a vice.’… Read the rest



Orwell Again *

Feb 20th, 2003 | Filed by

Hitchens, Menand, Wieseltier go to buffets over the Meaning of Orwell.… Read the rest



Analogies Don’t Work *

Feb 19th, 2003 | Filed by

Historians consider various popular analogies for the Iraq situation, and point out the bad fit.… Read the rest