The Oxford dictionaries declared “post-truth” word of the year in 2016, reflecting “circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”. The rise of “fake news” has undoubtedly played a central role in this debate. Although there is much…
In common use ‘scepticism’ means a tendency to disbelieve or at least suspend belief in what you’re being told. But in philosophical circles it primarily means the tendency to disbelieve the evidence of the senses, or we might say, to not believe what we commonly take to be true…
The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is one of the longest running of modern times and is not comprehensible without some knowledge of its history. I will first revisit the most important points of that history. Then I’ll look at the attempt, beginning around 1991, to solve the…
As with many great discoveries they were found by chance. We had been working at Happisburgh for over a decade, but visited in May 2013 to continue geophysics on the beach. It was my colleague, Dr Martin Bates, who first spotted them. Lying on ancient estuary muds, he had found…
The Kim Cult Current North Korean national legend is very easily summarised. The Koryo Dynasty, between 918 and 1392, unified the peninsula. This was followed by what is called “feudal rule” until 1910, which was ended only by Japanese occupation. The Great Leader Kim Il Sung was born in 1912…
The election and assumption to office of President Trump in January 2017 and the Brexit vote and its unfolding implications have led to widespread discussions as to whether we are heading towards a “dystopia”. In the last month sales of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four have been massive, as concerned onlookers plumb…
The new leadership of the Green Party has called for a “progressive alliance” involving Labour, Greens, Plaid Cymru, the SNP and the Lib Dems to take on the Conservatives in a 2020 election. On 5 February 2017, Jonathan Bartley (Co-Leader, Green Party), Peter Taheri (Secretary/Chair Nominee, Hampstead and Kilburn Labour…
1. Liberal Democracy after Brexit and Trump Where do the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s election leave liberal democracy? Both events are to do with the discontent of the disenfranchised and those experiencing economic and cultural insecurity. And both reveal that conventional politicians on the left and the right failed…
Warning: this article contains sexually explicit descriptions. This piece starts with a warning: if you are worried about explicit sexual language, you should consider skipping to a different article. The need for such warnings is one of the features of sex and sex research, and the line between ‘explicit’ meaning…
In this unique and controversial discussion event, Lucy Anderson and Professor Keith Pilbeam addressed the question of whether our focus should be on creating a brand new EU rather than worrying about soft and hard versions of BREXIT, as well as other questions, head on. Lucy Anderson: Unless there is…
