Dear Mr. Dawkins, You’ve said lately that fairy tales are quite harmful. Your reason for thinking this is simple, and true: you told attendees at the Cheltenham Science Festival, “I think it’s rather pernicious to inculcate into a child a view of the world which includes supernaturalism … Even fairy tales, the ones we all
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“Le grand absent—c’est l’Empire” C. Dufour, Constantinople Imaginaire Everywhere Western man longs for Constantinople and nowhere has he any idea how to find her. To do so is to reclaim, at last, the meaning of an empire that once defined a hierarchy of imagination long ago abandoned by our civilization; of an eleven-century political, religious and
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Not long ago, my colleague Daniel Lattier suggested that a new logical fallacy has been lurking around town. This fallacy, he wrote, could be labeled “ad nostalgiam.” A person commits this fallacy when she reflexively accuses someone of nostalgia for pointing out some particular thing was once better or superior. Revered Princeton professor, theologian, and
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The Washington Post led off its Wednesday coverage with an interesting interactive story that carried this admission: nations around the world are walling off at an unprecedented rate. The numbers are clear: In 2015, work started on more new barriers around the world than at any other point in modern history. There are now 63
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One of the things that defines humans most is our ability to read others’ minds – that is, to make inferences about what others are thinking. To build or maintain relationships, we offer gifts and services – not arbitrarily, but with the recipient’s desires in mind. When we communicate, we do our best to take
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I have a bit of a confession to make. I have never played chess, nor have I really ever had the desire to do so. (Sorry, chess fans.) However, I may be changing my mind on this issue, particularly after reading a piece by Benjamin Franklin entitled, “The Morals of Chess.” Franklin begins by saying,
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