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.


Ethnomathematics *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘Mathematics is absolutely integrated with Western civilization, which conquered and dominated the entire world.’… Read the rest



So Sylvia Plath was a Poet? *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘Death and marriage may have fed and fuelled her writing, but – posthumously at least – they cramp her style.’… Read the rest



An ex-Muslim woman speaks out – and has to flee for her life. *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Most government-funded Islamic clubs ‘are run by deeply conservative men and perpetuate the segregation of women.’ … Read the rest



Richard Dawkins considers Fashionable Nonsense *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

It’s so uncool to think there is a real world.… Read the rest



Separation of Mosque and State *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘Among intellectuals and in the academic world, any attempt to blame Islam for women’s oppression is stamped as Orientalism.’… Read the rest



Norman Geras on Minimum Utopia *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

The facts of widespread human privation and those of political oppression and atrocity are available to all who want them.… Read the rest



Bias, as in Confirmation Bias *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Being on the side of the rich and powerful ought to make it hard to play victim, but the right in the US manages it by seeing ‘liberal’ bias in the media even when it’s…not there.… Read the rest



The margins are getting so crowded! *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Centrality is so uncool that the margins are as full of people as Bangkok or the Aran Islands.… Read the rest



Frank Furedi on Paranoid Parents *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

The world is a jungle, barely one child in a hundred escapes being murdered! Or so you would think.… Read the rest



When Religion Steps on Science’s Turf *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Richard Dawkins on the cowardly flabbiness of the intellect that afflicts otherwise rational people confronted with long-established religions. … Read the rest



Therapeutic Touch *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

The Skeptical Dictionary looks at energy medicine, the flow of chi or prana, auras, chakras…… Read the rest



Monolithic Thought Unfair to Astrology *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘The Epistemological Situation of Astrology in Relation to the Ambivalent Fascination/Rejection of Postmodern Societies’… Read the rest



Thomas Nagel on the Sleep of Reason *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Eerily patient explanations from Sokal and Bricmont of why gibberish is gibberish.… Read the rest



Tom Frank on ‘Market Populism’ *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Extreme diets and extreme investing, diversity all around, along with a consensus as ironclad as any in the ’50s.… Read the rest



The Great Convergence *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Beware of neo-Deistic pseudoreligion.… Read the rest



McCarthyism’s Indian Rebirth *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

The new chauvinism receives official sanction from government and academic institutions.… Read the rest



And ‘Post-Contemporary’ means…what, exactly? *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

If you number your paragraphs, will people mistake you for Adorno?… Read the rest



Paul Gross on the Politicization of Science Education *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Attempts to reshape science classes delegitimize science as an especially trustworthy form of knowledge and promote “other ways of knowing” instead. … Read the rest



Polly Toynbee on Religious Hatred Laws *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Confusing religion and race is a clever trap the religious have laid for a worried government rightly anxious about race. … Read the rest



Brian Appleyard’s Understanding the Present reviewed. *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘Scientists and their works are everywhere described in an arctic language of despair.’… Read the rest