News

Necessity Is the Mother of Invention, and Has Been for Over 3,500 Years

And that is an ancient cultural surprise worth celebrating. Far more than imaginary Gods, Ravens, and Spirits.

13 Aug 2021 · 4 min read

Why Violence and Looting Have Exploded Across South Africa

The poor and unemployed have demonstrated that their patience is limited and that they are a keg of dynamite waiting to go off.

R W Johnson

16 Jul 2021 · 11 min read

Are Activists Protecting Asians from Hate—or Protecting Their Narrative of White Supremacy from Criticism?

But often it seems that means and end have become reversed, and that these crimes now serve as a prop in the larger ideological campaign against our supposedly white-supremacy-saturated culture—a campaign that Asians themselves are now being pressured to join.

Hai Di Nguyen

8 Jun 2021 · 11 min read

The Narrative and Its Discontents

This mindset is nigh-incomprehensible to people of The Narrative who are used to being guided by a single source of truth enforced by social consensus.

Jacob Falkovich

16 Feb 2021 · 9 min read

Making the Profane Sacred

It is an attack on the free reporting of information if context no longer matters, and it is an attack on education if a respectful discussion about language itself risks dismissal.

Lawrence M. Krauss

11 Feb 2021 · 6 min read

How The Intercept Abandoned Its Truth-Seeking Mission—And Lost Its Best Journalist

In the case of the media, we’ve had a running social experiment underway since 2015 that helps us answer this question.

Zaid Jilani

30 Oct 2020 · 9 min read

COVID-19 Science Update for March 25th: Understanding Models

This clustering phenomenon explains why the COVID-19 policy debate among politicians, doctors, and pundits now has become somewhat surreal, with world-class experts telling us either that we are facing an “apocalypse,” or that the pandemic will fizzle and we’re all “going to be fine.”

Jonathan Kay

25 Mar 2020 · 12 min read

As Newspapers Fade, Journalists Are Finding New Ways to Cover Local News

Less local reporting means less transparency, less informed voters, and lower levels of civic engagement.

Alexandra Hudson

6 Feb 2020 · 7 min read

The Real Ballot Question in South Africa: How to Keep the Country from Falling Apart

Corruption, escalating unemployment, social unrest, and failing public infrastructure plague the nation.

R W Johnson

7 May 2019 · 7 min read

How Our Little Humanist Club Got Taken Over by Social Justice Dogmatists

It seems wrong that the Executive Director of a humanist association should be able to use his organization’s governing mechanisms to shut down pushback against his publicly expressed ideological agenda.