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| Tuesday 26 August 2008 |
Humans are more important than animals
When it comes to using animals in research, the only moral judgement should be: does it benefit humankind?
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| Friday 27 June 2008 |
How do we break free of the rules of biology?
Chris Fernyhough has written a sometimes touching book on his daughter’s mental development in the first three years. But he fails to get to the heart of the infant’s transition from biological machine to human agent.
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| Friday 30 May 2008 |
Jim Crow dressed up in multicultural drag
It’s more than 50 years since the landmark Brown case challenged the segregation of blacks and whites in American schools. Yet under the yoke of multiculturalism, new, liberal-justified forms of segregation are rife.
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| Thursday 15 May 2008 |
Abortion: get out the vote
An academic offers tips on how you can pressure your MP to turn up to Tuesday’s vote in parliament and defend the 24-week limit.
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| Friday 18 April 2008 |
A catfight over consciousness
Ignoring all the piss and vinegar about Ted Honderich and his difficult personality, is his book On Consciousness any good? Well, yes and no.
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| Friday 28 March 2008 |
Honderich: the thinking man’s unthinking man?
Ignoring all the piss and vinegar about philosopher Ted Honderich – who has been labelled by fellow academics as rambling, bumbling, bombastic, hateful and stupid – is his book On Consciousness actually any good? Well, yes and no.
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| Friday 29 February 2008 |
What makes humans special?
When both trendy authors and top psychologists claim that man should accept his ‘rightful position in the cosmos’ as ‘just another animal’, it pays to revisit George Herbert Mead’s humane attempts to explain human consciousness.
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| Friday 21 December 2007 |
How powerful is the ‘power of persuasion’?
A witty new book lists the psychological tricks you can play on people to make them say ‘Yes!’ to doing strange and unusual things. But the human mind is not putty that can be moulded.
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| Friday 30 November 2007 |
A brainless analysis of American politics
Drew Westen’s attempt to explain voting patterns in America by examining the nerve activity in voters’ brains is light on political insight and heavy on Yank-bashing.
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| Wednesday 28 November 2007 |
Sticking a needle in alternative medicine
Exotic therapies such as acupuncture might make people feel good. But the role of medicine is to cure patients' illnesses, not make them happy.
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| Monday 22 October 2007 |
Abortion: What You Didn’t Need To See
The Channel 4 Dispatches documentary on late abortion and fetal pain was a gratuitous and confused mess.
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| Friday 21 September 2007 |
Let’s make the world
storm-proof
The idea that hurricanes are blowback for man’s polluting ways overlooks the fact that it is only man – through development and construction – who can offset the impacts of freak weather.
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| Thursday 23 August 2007 |
We’re no slaves to our senses
Free will and agency are not merely the creation of nerve endings in the human brain. So while neuroscience can tell us a lot, it does not hold the key to understanding human uniqueness.
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| Thursday 21 June 2007 |
Of spiders and men
The building behaviour of animals is fascinating (spiders can even weave webs in outer space!) But contrary to the claims of Gould and Gould, it's no feat of engineering, artistry or complex thinking.
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| Wednesday 14 February 2007 |
Mother Teresa and the ‘me, me, me’ culture
The new book Mother Teresa: Saint or Celebrity? shows that the nun was as ruthless as any other celeb in protecting her public image.
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| Thursday 20 April 2006 |
So, can a fetus feel pain?
A new study showing that premature babies launch a ‘brain response’ following a heel lance is cited as evidence that fetuses feel pain. One expert begs to differ.
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| Thursday 13 April 2006 |
Avian flu: this is not 1918
The discovery of a dead infected swan in Fife has led to warnings of another 1918-style flu epidemic. Let’s have some historical and scientific perspective.
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| Tuesday 4 April 2006 |
We need more drugs testing - on animals and humans
We mustn't let the disastrous trials at Northwick Park hospital blind us to the need for further medical innovation.
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| Thursday 2 March 2006 |
The hard arguments about vivisection
Some scientists advocate experiments on animals while simultaneously apologising for them. Bad move.
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| Monday 28 November 2005 |
Bush isn’t the only one who’s anti-science
The Republican War on Science is on the money about the Bush administration. But it neglects to mention the sins of Democrats and even scientists themselves.
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