Study blames admissions policies that favor children of alumni, and the movement to tighten admissions standards, for failure to narrow racial gap.… 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Inevitably links go out of date.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.
‘Cultural Difference’ and its Discontents 
Jan 10th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Brian Barry’s Culture and Equality: An Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism was short-listed for the British Academy prize, which rewards academic excellence combined with accessibility to the general reader.… Read the rest
The Attention of People Who Care
Jan 9th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
David Bromwich disagrees with Louis Menand that dispassion is the proper state for a critic.… Read the rest
Did the Chinese Discover America?
Jan 9th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Renting the Royal Geographical Society lecture hall and inviting an audience is one way to get attention.… Read the rest
Exam Still Bowdlerizes Texts
Jan 8th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
New York Regents’ exam continues to re-write and abridge literary excerpts, despite promises not to. Quis custodiet?… Read the rest
Less Optimistic But More Impatient
Jan 8th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Edmund Gordon studies the achievment gap between black and white students.… Read the rest
Language Has to be Taught
Jan 8th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
And the television doesn’t do the job.… Read the rest
Richard Sennett on the Cello and Respect
Jan 8th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The sociologist is more ambivalent than he was in his ‘ferocious Marxist phase’.… Read the rest
Fresh Meat? Old Meat? Scraps?
Jan 7th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Did hunting shape human evolution, or was it foraging and scavenging? Or both?… Read the rest
Edge Science Questionaire
Jan 7th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Edge asks scientists what they would tell the President, if he asked them, are the most pressing science issues he should be attending to. Alas, he hasn’t asked.… Read the rest
More on the Edge Question
Jan 7th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The New York Times editorial on Edge’s science question, with extracts from several answers.… Read the rest
Is Pointing Out the Obvious ‘Racist’?
Jan 6th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Culture minister worries aloud about glamorization of guns by rappers, finds self ‘at the centre of a race row’.… Read the rest
Is Language a Spandrel?
Jan 5th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Chomsky, Hauser, and Fitch think it may be, Pinker thinks the idea is eccentric.… Read the rest
Is It Distraction, or Multi-Tasking?
Jan 4th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Can students learn critical thinking while playing solitaire or surfing the Web?… Read the rest
Hidden Ecological Explanations
Jan 4th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Is culture a human category, or can animals have it? Do orangs and chimps learn culture, or adapt their behavior to their environment?… Read the rest
When Good Scientists Go Bad
Jan 3rd, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
They become journalists and friends of the Raelians and are selected to ‘check’ the ‘evidence’ of cloned baby.… Read the rest
M.I.T. Investigating its own Laboratory
Jan 2nd, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Physicist at M.I.T. accuses lab of hiding flaws in missile defense program.… Read the rest
An Evening in Hell
Jan 1st, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The MLA convention: interviews, fear and trembling, publish or perish, cutbacks, no vacancies, ‘literary theorists are the snappiest dressers’.… Read the rest
Research on Free Will
Dec 31st, 2002 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Is it an empirical question rather than a philosophical one?… Read the rest
Paradigm Shift in Progress?
Dec 31st, 2002 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Physicists disagree about revisions to special relativity.… Read the rest
