All entries by this author

Primates Expect Others to Act Rationally *

Sep 7th, 2007 | Filed by

A new study shows that non-human primates infer others’ intentions in a sophisticated way.… Read the rest



Excerpt from Grayling’s Towards the Light *

Sep 7th, 2007 | Filed by

A Western citizen is a possessor of rights and opportunities that only an aristocrat could hope for in the past.… Read the rest



More Kack from Madeleine Bunting *

Sep 7th, 2007 | Filed by

Dawkins doesn’t understand myth, he’s arrogant, Cornwell’s book is a powerful riposte.… Read the rest



Secular Group Sues Round Rock School District *

Sep 7th, 2007 | Filed by

Americans United for Separation of Church and State: allowing a majority vote on prayer violates federal law.… Read the rest



Two Women Beheaded in Pakistan *

Sep 7th, 2007 | Filed by

A note found on the bodies said ‘We have started doing this to end obscenity in the area.’… Read the rest



Letter to a Friend: On Islamic Fundamentalism

Sep 7th, 2007 | By Daphne Patai

September 11, 2006 8 p.m.

Today is September 11th and I suppose every single person in this country knows what they were doing on this date five years ago. I recall the feeling of unreality I had as I watched a small TV screen here at home repeatedly play tiny images of two towers collapsing. And then, in the immediate aftermath, do you remember how many in this country – especially among intellectuals and academics – wanted to discuss what “we” had done to “deserve” this? Those were hard days, and in many respects the years since then have been harder still, for although I had by then already spent decades in the strange ideological climate of American academic life, … Read the rest



“John Cornwell”

Sep 6th, 2007 5:44 pm | By

Richard Dawkins takes an exasperated look at John Cornwell’s throughgoing misrepresentation of his book. In one example, Cornwell takes part of a general discussion of consolation, which includes this passage –

We can also get consolation through discovering a new way of thinking about a situation. A philosopher points out that there is nothing special about the moment when an old man dies. The child that he once was “died’ long ago, not by suddenly ceasing to live but by growing up. Each of the seven ages of man “dies’ by slowly morphing into the next. From this point of view, the moment when the old man finally expires is no different from the slow “deaths’ throughout his life.

and … Read the rest



Simon Blackburn on Moral Relativism *

Sep 6th, 2007 | Filed by

Should we just tolerate other ways of living? Can philosophers be experts in morality? … Read the rest



On Consequentialism *

Sep 6th, 2007 | Filed by

Brad Hooker, a consequentialist himself, outlines and defends his position in this interview with Nigel Warburton.… Read the rest



Charlie Savage on the Imperial President [audio] *

Sep 6th, 2007 | Filed by

Boston Globe reporter’s book describes how the Bush-Cheney admin has expanded executive power.… Read the rest



Hillary Clinton and Jesus *

Sep 6th, 2007 | Filed by

For 15 years, HC has been part of a secretive religious group that seeks to bring Jesus back to Capitol Hill.… Read the rest



Dawkins Reads John Cornwell *

Sep 6th, 2007 | Filed by

Cornwell does some annoyingly creative reading of Dawkins.… Read the rest



Dawkins Meets (and Reviews) Hitchens *

Sep 6th, 2007 | Filed by

America is far from the know-nothing theocracy that two terms of Bush had led us to fear. … Read the rest



Boys Do Ruin Schools for Girls *

Sep 5th, 2007 | Filed by

Boys benefit from being in a classroom with girls, but girls do not benefit from being in a classroom with boys.… Read the rest



Extract from Natalie Angier’s The Canon *

Sep 5th, 2007 | Filed by

Science is huge, a great ocean of human experience; it’s the product and point of having the most deeply corrugated brain of any species this planet has spawned. … Read the rest



Exam Plans are a Betrayal *

Sep 5th, 2007 | Filed by

Royal Society of Chemistry head criticizes plans to make science questions easier.… Read the rest



Italy Asks UK not to Deport Emambakhsh *

Sep 5th, 2007 | Filed by

The case of Pegah Emambakhsh has become front-page news in Italy while going almost unreported in Britain. … Read the rest



Women’s Rights? What Are They? *

Sep 5th, 2007 | Filed by

Proposed law forbids abortions without written permission from the father of the fetus.… Read the rest



The New Islam project

Sep 4th, 2007 3:08 pm | By

Meet Tahir Aslam Gora.

Tahir Aslam Gora is a Canadian-Pakistani writer, novelist, poet, journalist, editor, translator and publisher…In 2005 Gora translated into Urdu Irshad Manji’s book, The Trouble with Islam. He is currently translating Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel. Gora writes a column for The Hamilton Spectator and is currently working on two manuscripts; one on Canadian multiculturalism, the other on Islam and the need for its transformation into “a humane theology.” In Pakistan he was a noted critic of religious intolerance. He fled to Canada in the spring of 1999 following threats to his life.

A critic of religious intolerance who received threats to his life by people keen to show what religious intolerance really is.

[M]any

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Thinking about writing

Sep 4th, 2007 12:35 pm | By

Funny stuff from Jo Wolff.

Why is academic writing so boring? I am impatient by nature, easily irritated, and afflicted with a short attention span. That I ended up in a job where I have to spend half the day blinking my way through artless, contorted prose is a cruel twist of fate. But the upside is that it gives me plenty of opportunity to reflect on why reading academic writing is so often a chore and so rarely a joy…As far as I know there has been little, if any, literary analysis of academic writing…But, by chance, I recently read a short piece of literary theory, and, to use one of the two metaphors academics allow themselves, the scales

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