By Lachlan de Crespigny Dr. Evan James never wavered in his determination to become an abortion provider. But he is unusual – few trainee doctors have a driving ambition to become abortionists. The U.S. has seen a 40 per cent drop in the nu…

Part 2 of 2 of a series on TSA searches and Opt-Out Day The first post in this series argued that the TSA search policy violates a fundamental liberal right to sexual privacy.  However, the fact that people have a reasonable claim tha…

Part 1 of 2 on the TSA and Opt Out Day   To say that the American Transportation Security Agency's new airport security policy requiring all passengers to either be scanned by a machine that sees through one's clothes or submi…

By Jahel Queralt-Lange Each year 10.9 million new cases of cancer are diagnosed worldwide, and 6.7 million people die. The good news is that better drugs are developing faster. We all want to hear about “wonder drugs” and the scientific and…

Today another show trial of a critic of Islam has been going on. No, not in Saudi Arabia. In Austria. Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff is being prosecuted for hate speech for describing Islam and Sharia law in public lectures. Reporters from the …

On the 4th of January 2006, the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (better known to his countrymen as ‘Arik’) suffered a massive stroke at his vast Sycamore Ranch. He was placed under induced coma from which he never recovered consciousnes…

by Julian Savulescu Paije Richardson's dreams of a new life were crushed tonight as the public voted him from the X Factor final rounds. On Dec 9, the fate of another young hopeful will be decided by the people’s choice. But this time i…

by Anders Sandberg The pope approves of the use of condoms to fight AIDS: according to an upcoming book he says it is acceptable when the intention is to reduce the risk of infection. While he still views abstinence as the proper way of fig…

Steve Clarke  Scott Atran’s Talking to The Enemy (HarperCollins: New York, 2010) has recently been published. This is a big, sprawling and very readable book which has much that is important to say about religious behaviour and the ro…

Lots of people believe in psychic powers, but there has never been any convincing evidence for their existence.  Though there are many anecdotes attesting to their existence (below I will say something about why we ought not to be imp…