Education professor propounds eccentric notion that teachers may know more than students.
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Inevitably links go out of date.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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End the excuses
Ian Buruma argues that it is time that people stopped hiding behind a sloppy relativism as a way to excuse the inexcusable.
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Kennewick Man to be studied
A federal magistrate judge has ordered the US government to let scientists study the bones of Kennewick Man, an ancient skeleton discovered on the banks of the Columbia River.
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Fantasy beats reason every time
Philosopher Simon Blackburn in despair at humanity’s capacity for self-deception.
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Perhaps not so radically different
Margaret Talbot takes Carol Gilligan to task for her claim that there are radical differences between male and female minds.
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Uncertain terrain
Skeptic editor Michael Shermer explains the difference between science and pseudoscience, and explores the intermediate area where the jury is still out.
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Blunt opinions
‘Naipaul has always eschewed the rhetoric of marginality.’
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Get real about human nature
Steven Pinker on the fears that lead to people embracing an erroneous conception of human nature.
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Oxymoron?
The evolution of the scientific creationist.
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Will Lingua Franca be back?
Intellectual arguments and personal bile make a compelling read.
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Doug and Dave
Where crop circles come from.
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Reputation
One of the three most important English language literary critics of the 20th century? Or is that a bit inflated.
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Sums on snails
Francis Galton counted silly things.
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Dawkins on Sanderson
A Headmaster’s hatred of any locked door which might stand between a boy and some worthwhile enthusiasm shows what real education is.
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Power to the Rich
Perhaps the most pro-business presidency the US has ever endured.
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Amateur Journalism
What was lost in judiciousness was gained in verve.
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Berkowitz on Rawls
‘How can the moral law be both a fact of reason and in need of justification by faith?’
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Philosophy and Biography
Is there any connection between the way we think and the way we live? Surely yes, but do biographers know what the connections are?
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Dawkins or Gould
What is and what is not at issue in the disagreements.
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Darwin and Jesus mix?
Michael Ruse says they can.