The shift from logic to history, and the perennial appeal of irrationalist programs.… Read the rest

The way to ‘reject the insipid relativism of the tabula rasa without denying or ignoring the freedom and variability of individual human beings and their cultures.’… Read the rest

Paul Krugman draws an interesting parallel with Stephen Jay Gould.… Read the rest

Conference brought Armenian
and Turkish scholars together for the first time to discuss the 1915 genocide.… Read the rest

TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

(1) Check out that tree. Isn’t it pretty?
(2) Therefore, God exists.… Read the rest

‘Whenever you’re told that you shouldn’t look into something, for some people, that is a very clear directive that you ought to keep looking.’… Read the rest

Meera Nanda had good reasons to fight against patriarchal, upper-caste Hindu traditions that would have suppressed all she valued. Science was not ‘elitist’ or Western but a way of life and a philosophy for social action.… Read the rest

No, linear doesn’t mean what pomos think it means.… Read the rest

Slaughter of innocents, human sacrifice, eternal torture – it’s all there.… Read the rest

Betrousered, two-eyed philosopher Ventre considers a world in which Things are Against Us.… Read the rest

When cultures are organized around controlling and using women, is blanket respect for Other cultures such a good idea?… Read the rest

Alternative to what? Testing and evidence?… Read the rest

NAGPRA is a well-intentioned piece of legislation that has grown into a monster of anti-scientific bias.… Read the rest

James Wood on the grim outlook for social realism and ‘hysterical realism’, which may allow a space for the aesthetic and the contemplative again.… Read the rest

‘Anthropologists are trained to appreciate cultural differences, but they can’t stand it within their own profession.’… Read the rest

‘Among his many weapons are a forensic curiosity, a vast learning, a savage wit, a commanding intellect, an international perspective and a moral authority that is built on something sturdier than cheap moralising.’… Read the rest

Dissent is part of all cultures, Asian decidedly included.… Read the rest

Some antievolutionists admit that they intend for intelligent-design theory to serve as a “wedge” for reopening science classrooms to discussions of God. … Read the rest

‘A superficially historicist, materialist case – our beliefs and assumptions are embedded in our practical forms of life – leads not only to a kind of epistemological idealism, but to the deeply convenient doctrine that our way of life cannot be criticised as a whole.’… Read the rest

NAGPRA proceeds from an antievolutionary perspective grounded in fundamentalist religious belief.… Read the rest