Just when faith turns hot and dangerous, the government responds by encouraging more of it.… Read the rest
Welcome to our archive of news stories relevant to the project of fighting fashionable nonsense. The stories are drawn from the electronic pages of the world’s media. On this page, you’ll find links to those stories that have been featured on Butterflies and Wheels during the current year. At the bottom of the page, you’ll find links to separate archives of stories from previous years.
We’re always pleased to hear about news stories that you think should be featured on Butterflies and Wheels. Just send an email here, if you want to point one out to us.
A note about links
Inevitably links go out of date. We suggest, therefore, that you make hard-copies of the stories that particularly interest you.
Ayhan Surucu Gets 9 Years for Killing Sister 
Apr 14th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
So angry when his sister started to date German men that he put a gun to her head at a bus stop.… Read the rest
Judge Questions Prosecution of Schoolboy
Apr 14th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Racism bad, but is criminal prosecution of ten-year-olds the best response?… Read the rest
How Schools Deal With Racism
Apr 14th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Government’s emphasis is preventive rather than punitive. It is rare for CPS to take up a case.… Read the rest
Maruf Khwaja on Jamaat-i-Islami
Apr 13th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Pakistan has been eaten hollow by corrosive obscurantism unleashed by Jamaat and its sympathisers.… Read the rest
Catherine MacKinnon: Are Women Human?
Apr 13th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘If women were human, would we be sexual and reproductive slaves…worked without pay our whole lives?’… Read the rest
Scott McLemee on Cell Phones in Libraries
Apr 13th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
How about a taser gun, with trained shooters?… Read the rest
Ziauddin Sardar on Verso’s Radical Thinkers
Apr 13th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Traditions, and intellectual traditions in particular, rapidly ossify and degenerate into obscurantism.’… Read the rest
Worries About ‘Faith’ Schools
Apr 13th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Some of the ‘faith communities’ have agendas at odds with reason and science, says chaplain.… Read the rest
Norm Geras and Nick Cohen on Euston Manifesto
Apr 13th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Too many things that should be obvious in the light of the history of the past 100 years seem not to be so. … Read the rest
BHL on a Demagoguery Called ‘Youthism’
Apr 12th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Popular opinion is another master, no less capricious, emotional, arbitrary, than the master it corrects.… Read the rest
What Is an Intellectual?
Apr 12th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The British are not at all exceptional in suffering from ‘Dreyfus-envy.’… Read the rest
Ishtiaq Ahmed on National Identity
Apr 12th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘There is always the possibility for manoeuvre in defining identity.’… Read the rest
Academics Prefer Hedged, Impersonal Language
Apr 12th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Case studies are recorded, data are analysed, concepts are defined, all by an invisible agent.… Read the rest
So Naomi Wolf Has Found Jesus; This is News?
Apr 12th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
In all those years as an activist, she’d been neglecting her spirit. Ho hum.… Read the rest
Church Refuses to Serve Transsexual Woman
Apr 12th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
What she has done, Rev. Maxfield said, runs totally ‘contrary to God’s revealed will.’… Read the rest
Temporal Lobe Stimulus Triggers Sense of God
Apr 12th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
In some people; not in others. Dawkins did not find god.… Read the rest
Royal Society on Evolution, Creationism, ID
Apr 12th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Some versions of creationism are incompatible with the scientific evidence.… Read the rest
Enlightenment Values as Islamophobia
Apr 12th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
One might almost think there was no current cause for concern about Enlightenment values.… Read the rest
John Sutherland Interviews Lewis Wolpert
Apr 11th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
If religion is a result of the way our brains are wired, all the more reason to question the truth of our beliefs.… Read the rest
