Debt and the equation marks=money can poison the teacher-student relation.… Read the rest
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Inevitably links go out of date.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.
Christopher Hill Obituary
Feb 27th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe Marxist historian of the world turned upside-down.… Read the rest
The Times on Christopher Hill
Feb 27th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘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 Ophelia BensonJonathan 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 Ophelia BensonTwo 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 Ophelia BensonA 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 Ophelia BensonObituary of innovative sociologist of science.… Read the rest
Merton Obituary in New York Times
Feb 25th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonRole 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 Ophelia BensonTeach 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 Ophelia BensonParents 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 Ophelia Benson‘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 Ophelia BensonDoes 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 Ophelia BensonOn 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 Ophelia BensonOh 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 Ophelia BensonNo fantasy is too extreme when one wants to build some luxury flats.… Read the rest
Passions Rule
Feb 21st, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonScholars 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 Ophelia BensonJohn 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 Ophelia BensonKenan 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 Ophelia BensonHitchens, Menand, Wieseltier go to buffets over the Meaning of Orwell.… Read the rest
Analogies Don’t Work
Feb 19th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHistorians consider various popular analogies for the Iraq situation, and point out the bad fit.… Read the rest