A Thinking Man

Read Full Post »

There is a slightly amusing discussion going on - I am reluctant to call it a debate - in the responses being made to a Times Online article by Sarah Ebner about whether or not magic should be taught in schools.
The article briefly describes the career of Brad Ross who started learning magic at the [...]

Read Full Post »

There are some things that you just know would never be allowed today if we had only known then, what we know now.  If somebody today had invented alcohol or tobacco, you know they would never get passed for general public consumption, and would only be allowed to be developed for secret military purposes.  Their [...]

Read Full Post »

Some time ago I wrote about the case of Anna Ciriani (What has sex got to do with it?) who lost her job as teacher in Italy because of her extra curricular activities as an internet porn star.  I argued that provided that these activities didn’t interfere with her classroom professionalism and delivery, that she should [...]

Read Full Post »

Teenagers who take the pledge to remain virgins until they are married generally fail to keep it. And they are less likely than those who haven’t taken the pledge to use contraception when they do break their vow.
Janet Rosenbaum, a post doctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, used data from [...]

Read Full Post »

My holiday reading was Godless: How An Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists by Dan Barker.  I had travelled a similar journey (albeit in a less publicised way).  Having made the change from being an evangelical leader, preacher, counsellor, and author (for over 30 years) to an unashamed, blogging atheist, I thought it [...]

Read Full Post »

Poetry, like prostitution, has been around for thousands of year (though I’d be willing to bet that prostitution was probably there first).  And both will continue for thousands more, despite the best efforts of zealots to promote it (as in the case of poetry) or stop it (as in the case of prostitution).  However, whereas the [...]

Read Full Post »

Are you spooked by the appearance of black cats?  Do you court disaster by walking under ladders of on cracks in the pavements?
There was a fascinating piece of research reported in the New Scientist recently which attempts to give an evolutionary explanation for the existence of superstitions.  Natural selection might explain why people sometimes believe [...]

Read Full Post »

As schools across most of the UK are about to start their Autumn terms, spare a brief thought for the teachers.  Although a few of them may have been swanning around for the past couple of months doing nothing but gardening, a few have been using the time to recover from the traumas of the [...]

Read Full Post »

What’s the point of education?
When I used to be a teacher trying to inspire teenagers with the English literature, I frequently encountered the questions: “Why do we have to do this? What has poetry got to do with me? What’s the point if I know what I am going to do (plumbing/hairdressing)? [...]

Read Full Post »