Fashionable nonsense has been with us since the time that prehistoric man first transcribed Of Grammatology on to the walls of the Lascaux caves. Here we cast an eye back at some historical highlights.


The machismo of the riots *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

In 1968, women and men occupied the barricades.… Read the rest



Milt Rosenberg interviews Frederick Crews [audio] *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

One of the greatest living skeptics talks about such follies as psychoanalysis, ID, and contemporary literary theory… Read the rest



About that Chinese encyclopedia… *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Foucault cited Borges, but some of his followers cite the encyclopedia as fact.… Read the rest



You Mean Movie Characters Aren’t Real People? *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

No it’s not just an accident that the character who gets Tom Hanks killed in Saving Private Ryan is both an intellectual and a coward. Spielberg is making a point, a bad point, and we need to pay attention.… Read the rest



Carol Tavris Wonders Where the Evidence Is *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘But the gender-genre books that are based largely on clinical intuition and popular psychology typically lack a basic skepticism toward received wisdom and the willingness to wrestle with an idea to see who wins.’… Read the rest



Science, Scientism, and Anti-Science in the Age of Preposterism *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘We are in danger of losing our grip on the concepts of truth, evidence, objectivity, disinterested inquiry.’… Read the rest



Limitations of Political Reporting *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Investors need to know the truth, but voters don’t. Or not.… Read the rest



Melvin Konner takes on the opponents of sociobiology. *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Biologists who had done no primary research in human sciences nevertheless issued anathemas on it.… Read the rest



Holocaust Denial on Trial *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Deniers distort history in order to promote antisemitism and white supremacy.… Read the rest



Irfan Khawaja takes issue with Daniel Pipes *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Militant Islam and militant Christian fundamentalism are indeed related.… Read the rest



Richard Dawkins’ review of Not in Our Genes *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

In their ‘paranoiac and demonological theology of science’ Lewontin, Kamin and Rose fire both barrels with equal monotony and imprecision: ‘determinism’ and ‘reductionism’. But the gallant little fire brigade has perpetrated a fatuous little book.… Read the rest



The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Consider Will Crooks, Labour MP. ‘Growing up in extreme poverty…Crooks spent 2d. on a secondhand Iliad, and was dazzled…’… Read the rest



The Yanomamo Controversy *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

A scandal in anthropology is complicated by politics, emotion, prestige – the usual sort of thing.… Read the rest



Washington, Jefferson and slavery. *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Washington freed his slaves in his will, Jefferson did not. The reasons of each tell us much about American history.… Read the rest



Urvashi Butalia on ‘honour’ killing. *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Women’s groups demand that murderers be treated according to laws of the land and not be allowed to find shelter behind the curtain of ‘culture’. … Read the rest



Science According to the X-Files *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘We are born of primordial slime, not at the hands of a benevolent and concerned supreme being who lovingly crafted us from clay.’… Read the rest



Ni Putes ni Soumises *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘We’re girls, so we’re less-than-nothings, Priscilla, 17, told Le Monde after her friend Sohane’s death.… Read the rest



Lies, Self-Deception and Magical Thinking *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Psychoanalysis was never, despite Freud’s ‘positivist rhetoric,’ a science; it was a ‘purely speculative enterprise,’ argues Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen.… Read the rest



Or Academic Pooh and Postmodern Instincts *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Literary criticism, cultural studies; love letter and satire.… Read the rest



Literature and theory duke it out. *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

If Lentricchia and Said have joined, the revenge of the emeriti may not be so regressive after all.… Read the rest