An ash cloud produced by the eruption of the Eyjafjallajoekull volcano in Iceland has led to the severe disruption of airline transportation in the UK and across a wide swathe of Europe, with UK airspace almost completely closed since midda…

The last few weeks have seen an explosion of reports concerning the status of the worldwide fight against tuberculosis, largely precipitated by World TB Day last month on March 24. Tuberculosis was once considered a disease of the past, an …

The paradox of tragedy, one that has puzzled philosophers for over two millennia, is that people like to go to watch tragedies at the theatre – and tragedies are depressing.   How can one enjoy being miserable? This weekend I we…

Headlines in a number of newspapers in the last day or two have claimed scandalous failures in organ donation consent in the UK. According to ‘Sky News’, organs were “taken without consent”, while the Sun claims that “NHS doctors took the w…

An interesting document has just dropped into my in-box. It is a ‘Declaration of Christian Conscience’, to be found at www.westminster10.org.uk It is signed by a number of Christian leaders, all of them noted for their theological conservat…

The Guardian has an article about student use of cognition enhancers. It is pretty similar to many others and I have already discussed my views on the academic use of cognition enhancers ad nauseam on this blog. However, it brings up someth…

Michael Ruse begins a recent short essay on what Darwin might teach us about morality with a striking question and an even more striking answer: ‘God is dead, so why should I be good? The answer is that there are no grounds whatsoever for b…

One of the consequences of the epistemic corruption of the climate issue is that by criticising the failings in epistemic duty of these scientists I will be seen as having taken a side. But there are no sides on factual issues: there are ju…

    Homeopathy is form of alternative medicine which was first developed in the late 18th Century and has been hovering on the fringes of medicine ever since. Homeopathic remedies are prepared by a process of extreme dilution of a harmful s…

In Australia, Norrie is understood to be the world’s first person to have ‘Sex Not Specified’ on their birth certificate. The NSW government has legally recognised that Norrie is neither male nor female. “Norrie, 48, was born in Scotland an…