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.
Whether it's because students are increasingly suspicious of humanity's attempt to grasp the laws of nature, or merely uninspired when comparing it with easier and trendier subjects, the numbers of physics students are falling globally
Helen Gavaghan, Nature, 17 March 1999
It is clear that, in light of the scale of reduction needed, no substantial sector of the economy can be excused from reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, and especially those fossil fuel-consuming ones contributing most damage.
Mayer Hillman, Government of London, 1 April 1998
John Gillot and Manjit Kumar, Monthly Review Press, 31 December 1997
Luc Ferry, University of Chicago Press, 14 September 1995
World population growth—and how to slow it—continues to be a subject of great controversy. The planet's poorest nations have yet to find effective ways to check their population increase—at least without restricting citizens' rights and violating such traditions as the custom of having large families as insurance in old age.
Time, 24 October 1977
Unversed in the subtleties of philosophy, the natural scientists (and some philosophers who preferred to follow them rather than trust philosophy, and who saw their task as “drawing philosophical conclusions from the discoveries of real science”) thought that the basic question of philosophy – the relation of consciousness to being, to matter – should be treated exclusively as a question of the relationship between soul and body, the mental and the Physiological.
Feliks Mikhailov, The Riddle of the Self, 1976
"What is the Brain? If you don't know that, you've forgotten how to think"
Look Around You
Stuffed presents a global perspective on food production and proposes a sustainable, fairly traded path we can follow to secure food for everyone and protection for the planet. Essays from respected experts give an overview of the politics and food issues.
Pat Thomas, Soil Association
The choices we make when we buy food are serious choices. More and more people understand this. They no longer see themselves as passive food 'consumers'. Rather, they embrace their roles as 'creators', knowing that the foods they decide to grow or purchase will create a different future for themselves, their families, generations to come, and the natural world.
Alice Waters, Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture
European Spring?
"Who would choose to go to a session on free will at 10:30 on a Sunday morning? A few hundred of the most engaged, passionate and discursive participants I have encountered. As a neuroscientist on the panel I felt my science was aired and challenged in exemplary fashion. As a passionate believer in engagement I couldn’t have been more delighted."
Daniel Glaser, head, special projects, public engagement, Wellcome Trust
follow the Academy of Ideas
