Battle Readings is a regularly updated compilation of articles, essays, and opinion pieces relevant to the themes of the Battle of Ideas.
Choose a theme from the listing on the left to narrow your search, or view all readings.
The perseverance of gene-therapy researchers in the face of adversity is to be applauded.
Robin Walsh, spiked, 17 January 2014
We don’t see any neuroscience backlash threatening to toss out the neuroscientific baby with the brain-water. And we’re glad about that. What we do see, however, is value in examining the language people use when talking about the relationship between the brain and the mind.
Sally Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld, Rationally Speaking, 16 September 2013
Mark Pagel, Penguin, 28 March 2013
As Wired for Culture demonstrates, the greatest intellectual threats posed to freedom and autonomy today are those put up by evolutionary biologists and psychologists
Angus Kennedy, spiked, 27 December 2012
"The UK has enjoyed massive growth in the green economy with 110,000 green jobs. Climate change policies also help us reduce our imports of fossil fuels and help to give us the lead in smart technologies as resources become more scarce."
Roger Harrabin, BBC News, 8 October 2012
The aim of this paper is not primarily to argue, as several commentators have in the past, that the purported “special status” of the embryo in English law is an empty concept giving no real protection. It is rather an attempt to understand why the special status of the embryo appears to be an empty concept, and how it is in fact functioning.
David Jones, Anscombe Bioethics Centre
An independent review by Darren Henley for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Education
Darren Henley, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 2012
One of the commonest questions I get is this: If being gay is genetic, and gay sex doesn't produce children, why don't those genes die out?
Simon LeVay, Huffington Post, 1 October 2012
The world faces a projected 40 percent shortfall in freshwater by 2030, according to a study by the 2030 Water Resources Group. Seventy percent of the water humans use now goes toward agriculture. So it's no surprise that the central theme of the annual World Water Week conference held last week in Stockholm is how to produce more food while using less water in the process.
Andy Wales, Huffington Post, 20 September 2012
We should seize the chance to authorise a gene therapy that has the potential to alleviate great suffering
John Harris, Guardian, 19 September 2012
Civil disobedience or violent criminality?
"The rules of the game at The Battle of Ideas makes beating about the bush impossible. When you are given 5 minutes to make your point, you either say something essential, or you reveal that you have nothing really to say. This eliminates 'the unbearable lightness' of speculation that haunts public debate."
Albena Azmanova, social philosopher, political commentator and activist
follow the Academy of Ideas
