Welsh teachers’ union wants changes to law after independent panel orders school to take back pupil who shot teacher.… 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Inevitably links go out of date.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.
To Boldly Split an Infinitive 
Feb 10th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Roy Hattersley cites Cobbett on grammar as a positional good, and calls a Tory MP half Polonius half rude mechanical.… Read the rest
Revisionist History of Empire
Feb 10th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Has Niall Ferguson’s TV version of Empire got its facts wrong?… Read the rest
The ‘Jukes’ Family and Eugenics
Feb 9th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Unnoticed methodological flaws, ideology deciding conclusions, fashion displacing careful analysis.… Read the rest
That Would Explain a Lot
Feb 9th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Psychologists study people’s tendency to over-estimate their abilities, especially the ability to think well.… Read the rest
Darwin Knew About the Sweet Peas
Feb 8th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Richard Dawkins says Darwin was right to bring together sexual selection and the Descent of Man.… Read the rest
Karl Marx Meets Leo Marx
Feb 7th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Policing the borders, becoming the Other, subaltern disciplines, historical privileging of the imperial metaphysic perspective as the agent of knowledge production. A feast of jargon awaits.… Read the rest
Does All His Own Stunts
Feb 7th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Derrida does his own problematizing and struggles to find sufficiently gnomic replies.… Read the rest
Education for Profit
Feb 7th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The EU may decide to ‘liberalise’ higher education, putting an end to government subsidies. What price history or philosophy, one wonders.… Read the rest
The Red Queen Process
Feb 7th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Inclusive fitness, the utility of altruism, gene shuffling, the mumbling professor turns into Indiana Jones. The importance of William Hamilton.… Read the rest
Vice-Chancellor and Minister Disagree
Feb 6th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Cambridge doesn’t attract enough working class students, says Hodge; it does, says Sir Alec.… Read the rest
Rebel From Newark
Feb 5th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Leslie Fiedler loved to smash his own idols, could leave nothing unsaid, disdained subtleties, and crowed at the grave of modernism.… Read the rest
Another ‘The Dog Ate My Data’ Case
Feb 4th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
This time it’s the pro-gun scholar who can’t find his figures.… Read the rest
Surveys, Damned Surveys and Statistics
Feb 4th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Where is that evidence again?… Read the rest
Caught Reading in School!
Feb 4th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Principal to teacher: your students were reading instead of watching television. Don’t let it happen again!… Read the rest
Free Speech For Me But Not For You
Feb 3rd, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Radicals when on the bottom, censors when on top. Napoleon, anyone?… Read the rest
Celebrate or Be Dull, Ben Okri Says
Feb 2nd, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Okri says Britain must respect its living writers.… Read the rest
Caricature or Anti-Semitism?
Feb 1st, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Goya’s ‘Saturn Devouring his Children’ is a powerful piece of visual rhetoric. Is it anti-Semitic if Saturn is Sharon?… Read the rest
Public Distrust of Science
Feb 1st, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The Royal Society is concerned about media coverage of new research before it has been peer reviewed (which does not mean checked by the House of Lords).… Read the rest
Alas, Poor Roses
Jan 31st, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Oliver Curry reviews a collection of arguments against evolutionary psychology edited by Steven and Hilary Rose. He finds their case unconvincing, to say the least.… Read the rest
