Worldview based on empirical inquiry, not faith or authority, is the clear choice against totalitarianism… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Chet Raymo on Meera Nanda
Dec 3rd, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
What looks like tolerant ‘permission to be different’ is actually condescension.… Read the rest
Instead of Celebrating Einstein Year
Dec 3rd, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Physicists worry about dramatic decline in the number of pupils studying physics at school.… Read the rest
New Homeopathy ‘Study’ a Tiny Bit Flawed
Dec 3rd, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
No control group, glaring exclusions and bias, little things like that.… Read the rest
Richard Dawkins on the Illusion of Design
Dec 3rd, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The unaided laws of physics could come to mimic deliberate design.… Read the rest
Nothing Like Squalor to Trigger Nostalgia
Dec 3rd, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Fleet Street hacks get bad rap; Scoop, Boot, Beast, set tone.… Read the rest
Tories Pick Posh Leader Thanks to Hugh Grant
Dec 3rd, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Notting Hill’ made it cool to be posh therefore Eton is okay. Eh?… Read the rest
A Valediction Forbidding Nonsense
Dec 3rd, 2005 2:07 am | By Ophelia BensonA couple of passages from the president of the Royal Society’s valedictory speech because they are so B&W.
… Read the restIn short, I guess that the same ill-understood circumstances that allow complex human societies to arise and persist also – and perhaps necessarily – have elements that are strongly antithetic to the values of the Enlightenment. What are these values? They are tolerance of diversity, respect for individual liberty of conscience, and above all recognition that an ugly fact trumps a beautiful theory or a cherished belief. All ideas should be open to questioning, and the merit of ideas should be assessed on the strength of the evidence that supports them and not on the credentials or affiliations of the individuals proposing
Dr Steve Steve
Dec 2nd, 2005 7:40 pm | By Ophelia BensonAnother brief item. Something I noticed yesterday when coding Meera’s wonderful article – on the Amazon page for Prophets Facing Backward there is, of all things in the world, a recommendation by (wait for it) Steve Fuller. What does he say?
This first detailed examination of postmodernism’s politically reactionary consequences should serve as a wake-up call for all conscientious leftists.
Uh…hello? This is the same Steve Fuller – the very same Steve Fuller, my darlings – who testified for the defense – for the ID side – at Dover a few weeks ago. So – uh – uh – what can one possibly wonder other than ‘why didn’t he heed his own advice?’ Why didn’t he hear his own wake-up … Read the rest
Contradiction thy Name is Horton Hess and Skaggs
Dec 2nd, 2005 7:21 pm | By Ophelia BensonA small point, one I wanted to make the other day but I was out of time and had to run off. The Bobby J Collitch of Knollitch textbooks again. The one called Elements of Literature for Christian Schools, to be specific.
Twain’s skepticism was clearly not the honest questioning of a seeker of truth but the deliberate defiance of a confessed rebel…Throughout her [Emily Dickinson’s] life she viewed salvation as a gamble, not a certainty. Although she did view the Bible as a source of poetic inspiration, she never accepted it as an inerrant guide to life.
Okay – so what do these bozos – Ronald Horton, Donalynn Hess and Steven Skeggs – mean by ‘the honest questioning … Read the rest
Eve Garrard on Gearty on Ignatieff
Dec 2nd, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
It’s no good saying our rights must never be violated if respecting one right involves infringing another.… Read the rest
Stephen Eric Bronner on the Enlightenment
Dec 2nd, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Many on the left have come to consider the Enlightenment as imperialist and a form of domination.… Read the rest
Founder of the Ljubljana Lacanians
Dec 2nd, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Zizek grew up bingeing on philosophy books and Hollywood movies.… Read the rest
Ayn Rand’s Version of Utopianism
Dec 2nd, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
It’s not just capitalism that Rand makes ridiculous by her worship.… Read the rest
Garton Ash Talks to Hirsi Ali
Dec 2nd, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Right to free speech is under threat from people whose position is: if you say that, we will kill you. … Read the rest
Having a Higher Truth is Different from Lying
Dec 2nd, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
And bullshitting is not the same as either.… Read the rest
Darkness at Noon
Dec 2nd, 2005 2:03 am | By Ophelia BensonNormblog’s Writer’s Choice was by Pamela Bone the other day. I’ve linked to several of her columns in the Age here. She’s another one of these eccentrics who think women’s rights shouldn’t be just for the lucky people of the developed world.
… Read the restOn that drive across town Perowne sees three black figures, women in the body and face-covering burqas, huddled together on a pavement.
“He can’t help his distaste, it’s visceral. How dismal, that anyone should be obliged to walk around so entirely obliterated… And what would the relativists say, the cheerful pessimists from Daisy’s college? That it’s sacred, traditional, a stand against the fripperies of Western consumerism? But the men, the husbands… wear suits, or trainers and tracksuits, or
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown Says It
Dec 1st, 2005 10:36 pm | By Ophelia BensonAnybody get the Evening Standard? Still got yesterday’s? Hang on to it (and if you feel so inclined, scan an article in it and send it to me). A commenter at Harry’s Place says Yasmin Alibhai-Brown wrote a searing article yesterday.
… Read the restShe relates how a woman in a burqa recognised her…and having followed her home last week, begged for help. She took off her burqa to reveal horrific injuries to her face and body which were inflicted by her father and brothers in their bid to control her desire for independence (She is a chemistry graduate from Bolton). She claimed that the burqa is being forcibly used to cover the injuries of many women she knows, and that her friend
Time to Re-read ‘On Liberty’
Dec 1st, 2005 10:17 pm | By Ophelia BensonTimothy Garton-Ash talked to Ayaan Hirsi Ali last week. He didn’t think ‘Submission’ was a very good film (I know people who agree with him, including people from the Netherlands), but he thinks it makes a necessary point.
… Read the restHowever, I have not a shadow of a doubt that Ali’s script is trying to make an important point about the suffering of women oppressed in the name of Islam – suffering that Ali knows at first hand both from her own experience and from acting as an interpreter for other women from Muslim backgrounds in the Netherlands. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is much more than just a voice for the voiceless oppressed. In person, she is a thoughtful, calm, clear, almost
Samira Munir
Dec 1st, 2005 5:48 pm | By Ophelia BensonHere’s a nasty piece of news. One that as far as I can tell has had zero attention in Anglophone newsmedia or blogs.
I’ve written to Azam and Homa and Maryam about it, and to Nick Cohen. Let’s hope it stops being a story in Norway and nowhere else.
Fjordman explains:
… Read the restSamira Munir, Norwegian politician of Pakistani origins, died two weeks ago. All the details surrounding her death have not been revealed, but the police have hinted that it may have been suicide. It is not impossible that this could be the case, but she had received death threats many times from the Pakistani community in Norway because of her courageous fight for the rights of Muslim immigrant women,