Climate change and confirmation bias: what would it take to change your mind?

Ask yourself the following: what would it take to make you change your mind on a strongly held belief? An empirical one, a matter of fact. Especially one which you have, in part, defined yourself by. It’s very difficult to do. The power of confirmation bias is well known; Jonathan Haidt, in his fantastic book…

The awkward truth about lie detectors

From Tuesday’s paper: Why are police forces trialling polygraph machines when many experts argue that they simply don’t work? Polygraphs, the lie detector machines beloved of Fifties comic books and Jeremy Kyle shows, have a chequered history. American law‑enforcement agencies continue to use them, despite what critics claim is a lack of evidence that they…

London Olympics 2012: table-tennis-inspired patriotism

Here’s one thing I love about the Olympics: watching people who are the best in the world at some incredibly niche sport, and seeing just how extraordinary at said sport it is possible to be. For instance. I went to see the men’s second-round table tennis yesterday, at the Excel Centre, lost in some of…

Kids, disrespecting their elders since 500BC

Kids today, eh? The stuff they come out with. No manners; so uncouth, so crude, so scatological and sex-obsessed. Not like the old days. Just look at this pub graffiti. I’ve taken out names, to protect identities, and paraphrased some of the rude bits, in order to make it suitable for a family newspaper: “I…

Archbishop Tartaglia really ought to shut up about gay life expectancy until he’s got his facts straight

I try, every so often, to remind people that opponents of gay marriage aren’t all vicious bigots; that many are opposed on grounds of simple conservatism, not a virulent dislike for gay people. I believe that, I really do. But sometimes, the opponents of gay marriage make my job very difficult. Back in April, Archbishop…

Local casinos: John Whittingdale’s crazy plan to extract revenue from human misery

I lived in Australia for a year, in Brisbane and then Sydney, when I was 20. In almost every pub, there was a room full of “pokies” – slot machines, one-armed bandits – out the back. In every one, even on gorgeous summer days a hundred yards from Koogee Beach, a few pale, troglodytic creatures…

I’m not a socialist for the same reason I’m not a creationist: because Darwin was obviously right

Funny thing. Every time I write about evolution, and why it is obviously the only viable explanation for the complexity of life on Earth, people underneath rant on about socialism. “Atheists should never be allowed around young minds, because they have been poisoned by socialism, the religion of evil”, one says under my most recent…

Creationist free schools can believe what they like, so long as they teach that humans are related to lobsters

My colleague Damian Thompson, while happily acknowledging that Creationism and its evasive twin Intelligent Design are idiotic nonsense, thinks the anxiety over Creationist-led free schools is led by a British Humanist Society eager to see God-heads under the bed. I’m not so sure. He’s right to say that whatever these schools are, they’re not full-strength,…

It’s a straight red for the five-a-side killjoys

From Saturday’s paper: Slapping VAT on on an activity that’s so good for us is despicable You know the feeling. The opposing team’s attack breaks down, and your teammate picks up the ball and strides forward a few yards. You run into space ahead of him, anticipating the pass, which slides neatly into your stride….

The Times continues its tradition of revealing the identity of police bloggers

It appears that we got caught out by a conman last year. The Times points out that Inspector Winter, the anonymous police blogger and Twitterer who made such a name for himself with his “front line” accounts of the London riots in the summer that he got commissioned by this newspaper for a first-person piece,…

John Terry: not guilty of racism, but guilty of talking like a 10-year-old

[ooyala id=”0wNjZ4Mjpuw1eseL1xNvHzgcSfob1Ezu” ] So, John Terry. Not a racist, or at least not guilty of actually racially abusing Anton Ferdinand. The rehabilitation of football’s most hated man continues: after he, together with fellow Chelsea defender and universal hate figure Ashley Cole, were held to be among the bright-ish stars, or starlike objects, of England’s surprisingly-not-actually-embarrassing…

London Olympics 2012: stop whining, everybody, it could be amazing

Stop your whining, everybody. With all due respect to my fellow bloggers Iain Martin and James Delingpole, stop your whining, and at least try to enjoy it. I’m talking about the Olympics, obviously. And I have to address their concerns, and my own. Yes, London’s transport system is going to creak and groan and probably,…