What is freedom?

Freedom is not the capacity to choose to have a coffee rather than a tea.  There can be little doubt that such choices are dictated by determinist physical processes, and only feel free because they are too complex for...

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To say that Christianity is true and Islam is not or vice versa…

To say that Christianity is true and Islam is not, or vice versa, is like saying that physics is true and chemistry is not.  You might say that physics underlies chemistry and in  a sense has a more profound...

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The great, wild, untidy, luxuriant hothouse of the Amazon

It  was in the great Brazilian rainforests that Darwin  felt most keenly the sense of the sublime, in ‘the great, wild, untidy, luxuriant hothouse’ of the Amazon. In Brazil even Humboldt’s ‘glorious descriptions’ did not do justice to the...

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To retrace our steps to the air of heaven…

From Virgil.  The Sybil warns Aeneas to think carefully before he journeys to the underworld – The way downward is easy from AvernusBlack Dis’s door stands open night and dayBu to retrace your steps to the air of heavenThere is...

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Heat spells trouble for France’s nuclear reactors.

 A problem with nuclear power I hadn’t thought of until I read Jeremy Rifkind’s Book The Zero Marginal Cost Society.  43% of France’s fresh water goes on cooling nuclear reactors and when it is returned to the earth it...

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Dear Adrian Chiles I loved…

Dear Adrian Chiles I loved your programmes about the Mediterranean, one of the most open and refreshing and personally honest things I have seen on television.  Thanks so much.   But when you were present at a baptism in a...

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Not only cooks but Luddites

Every great change in economic history has been brought about by technological innovations that in turn have profoundly altered economic relationships.  In the earlier middle ages the technology was the labour of the peasants, and the relationship that of...

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O clear glass of reason! O shining seat of wisdom!

O clear glass of reason! O shining seat of wisdom!  On the one hand the Government says it’s determined to contain global warming by cutting down on our consumption of fossil fuels.  On the other it is doing all...

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Cosmic mystery

How could you not admire Richard Dawkins for his wonderful writing, his enthusiasm for science and even more his courage, his determination and his unwavering pursuit of truth? The publication of The God Delusion was a great event.  It...

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No sky God but

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