Book NotesRupert Shortt reviews Ian Linden’s fascinating new book, Global Catholicism: To clear the ground, [Linden] traces the process by which the Church, once notorious for the slogan “error has no rights”, began a rapprochement with the contemporary world in the Second Vatican Council (1962–5), and recovered long-buried strands of its own tradition in the… Continue reading

I had not seen this before. Ken Miller reduces Christopher Hitchens to namecalling in place of actual argument. Good for Ken. It might be time for Hitch to take a break, head to warmer climes and drink himself shapeless. Maybe he’ll be surprised by what he finds when he wakes up.

10 Years Ago Today…Professor William Alfred, who probably influenced me more than any other teacher I’ve had, passed away on May 20th. This small clip is from an evening of poetry he hosted at Harvard’s Memorial Hall, with Stockard Channging and Bill Murray. Tommy Lee Jones was also one of his famous pupils, and it… Continue reading

The Problem with Maureen DowdDan Kennedy pretty much nails it. It’s not the plagiarism, it’s rather what we’ve learned about how she works. Or rather, doesn’t work.

John Wilkins has an interesting post on the problems that philosophers have had with evolution: The odd thing about this is that as people were asserting that essentialism is dead (see the article on species linked above), they were being essentialists about concepts and units and ranks. Ernst Mayr, for example, who asserted that species… Continue reading