issue: book reviews
Friday 26 June 2009
Restating the case for human uniqueness
A brilliant new book cuts through all the media-oriented research about ‘clever chimps’ using tools, doing maths and feeling human emotions, and reminds us that, in truth, there is nothing remotely human about primates.
Friday 24 April 2009
It’s time to move beyond the nature/nurture divide
In advising parents to ignore hectoring experts, Judith Rich Harris’s book still packs a punch 10 years on. But its use of evolutionary theory and social psychology to explain how people are ‘shaped’ leaves much to be desired.
Thursday 19 March 2009
Chimps are like humans? Stop monkeying around
This week it was revealed that chimps use sticks to smash open beehives. But there’s nothing remotely ‘human-like’ in such behaviour.
Monday 2 February 2009
The mother of all interventions
We should roundly reject the new UK report which argues that time-stretched parents are producing damaged children.
Monday 29 December 2008
‘Autistic children are now seen as a burden’
Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, author of Defeating Autism, talks to Helene Guldberg about how raising a child with autism can be made infinitely harder – emotionally, financially and practically – by the charlatanic ‘war on autism’.
Friday 18 January 2008
Humanity, thou art sick
Shyness is now ‘social phobia’, and dissent is ‘Oppositional Defiant Disorder’. How did everyday emotions come to be seen as illnesses?
Wednesday 14 November 2007
A playground tumble can do you good
More experts recognise that a scraped knee can be a positive experience for a child. Let’s hope they now relax about other ‘dangers’ in kids’ lives.
Friday 24 August 2007
A childish panic about the next generation
Many of those fretting over the state of contemporary childhood, concerned that kids are passive, cooped up and sedentary, are motivated by naked nostalgia - sometimes even by snobbery.
Thursday 28 December 2006
A hard cell
Eve Herold on why we should take sides in the Stem Cell Wars, and cheer those scientists pushing the boundaries.
Friday 20 October 2006
'There's no such thing as "stress"'
Angela Patmore has been branded a ‘heartless bitch’ for her attack on the stress management industry. Calm down and get a life, she tells her critics.
Thursday 3 November 2005
Man is more than a beast
The primatologist Frans de Waal says we should get in touch with ‘our inner ape’. Speak for yourself.
Friday 29 July 2005
Singer on 'speciesism': a specious argument
In his new book In Defense of Animals, Peter Singer reduces the value of human life to a tick-list of capabilities.
Monday 9 May 2005
How can we halt the 'march of unreason'?
Dick Taverne on why we need to defend the Enlightenment against dodgy science and ‘dogmatic environmentalists’.
Friday 8 April 2005
All in the hormones?
Vivienne Parry, author of The Truth About Hormones, questions whether chemicals control our destinies.
Friday 30 July 2004
Keep taking the tablets
Forget the scare stories, says Diarmuid Jeffreys, author of a history of aspirin – the little white pill is ‘one of the most amazing creations in medical history’.
Friday 23 May 2003
Scaring into space
A new book by Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal, gives humanity a 50/50 chance of survival.
Thursday 24 January 2002
'This is a case of table pounding'
The ‘Skeptical Environmentalist’ Bjorn Lomborg tells Helene Guldberg how he has weathered the storm of reaction against him.