Reading Time: 16 minutes I have a friend; shocking, I know. He is not a climate change denialist, but he does believe that well-meaning greenies too often lay the blame for any unseasonable weather event at the feet of Climate Change (hereafter ‘CC’), and then use it as a stick to beat any of the usual green/left targets into […]
Alan J K Duval
Posted inPolitics
Are “Friends” electric (and politic)?
Reading Time: 9 minutes In this article, I discuss a response to the problems inherent in the current hyper-partisan political atmosphere by looking at Labour’s energy policy, the reasons why the Tories are in direct and complete opposition to it, and how adopting a much less extreme version of it might benefit a party such as the Lib Dems. […]
Posted inEthics and Morality, Politics, Psychology, The Secular
How “tribalism” miscasts left/right conflict
Reading Time: 5 minutes Here I explore how the way in which the left and the right define and then engage with in-groups and out-groups lead to the rift between them, before a rhetorical shot has even been fired. Let me start with some sweeping generalizations. These are intended to act as points, not in a spectrum, as the […]
Posted inEnvironment, Politics
Brexit will break Britain
Reading Time: 9 minutes I had an exchange with a hardcore leaver type on Twitter the other day. When pressed for support for his views, he produced this report, from Civitas, attacking the ‘”Insider Advantage” myth for remaining in the EU. The subheading of the report should make it clear what the argument being made is: “A comparative study […]
Posted inEnvironment, Ethics and Morality, Politics, Psychology, Science, Sex & Gender
Equality, Gender Roles, and Freedom
Reading Time: 4 minutes Back in January, when Johno and I did our talk, we were talking about findings that suggested that once freed up to do so (by being in freer societies), women tend to adopt gender-normative roles, which seems to make a mockery of the liberal push to get to freedom, and away from misogyny around gender […]
Posted inEthics and Morality, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology
How and why power corrupts (people and institutions)
Reading Time: 10 minutes I’ve previously spoken about moral epistemology (here, then here, here, here, and finally here). I think that it should be possible to look at people’s values – that which gives rise to their morality – and see how that might impact their way of processing information (i.e. their biases beyond those in the normal range […]
Posted inHealth, Politics
Scientists have established a link between brain damage and religious fundamentalism (among Vietnam vets)
Reading Time: 7 minutes You may have seen a flurry of articles bouncing around the ‘net recently, with reference to a paper in Neuropsychologia, called ‘Biological and cognitive underpinnings of religious fundamentalism.’ Here, for example, is an article on AlterNet that popped up on my Facebook feed, and here is another, on Salon, that I found during my research. […]
Posted inPsychology, The Secular
Who Is God? Believing, Bonding, Behaving, and Belonging…
Reading Time: 4 minutes Here is some of my chapter in Jonathan MS Pearce’s (ed.) recent anthology of chapters from writers here at Patheos Nonreligious (Not Seeing God: Atheism in the 21st Century) [UK here]. My chapter is “Not Seeing God in Religion”. Obviously, we implore you to get the book… The previous part to this can be found here. In […]
Posted inPsychology, The Secular
What Is God? What Is Religion?
Reading Time: 5 minutes Here is some of the beginning to my chapter in Jonathan MS Pearce’s (ed.) recent anthology of chapters from writers here at Patheos Nonreligious (Not Seeing God: Atheism in the 21st Century) [UK here]. My chapter is “Not Seeing God in Religion”. Obviously, we implore you to get the book… What is a god? Broadly speaking, […]
Posted inEnvironment, Science
Shameless Self Promotion…
Reading Time: 7 minutes Hey, folks! It’s been a while since I posted, I’ve had quite a bit on my plate, what with my MSc, and a start-up business project, and life in general. With Jonathan’s recent news, I’m going to try and help out a bit more, with occasional posts, not quite as regularly as before, but certainly […]