Reading for Battle

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.

Science & Environment

Why Fukushima made me stop worrying and love nuclear power
Japan's disaster would weigh more heavily if there were less harmful alternatives. Atomic power is part of the mix
George Monbiot, Guardian, 21 March 2011

Oil-hungry China needs energy security rethink
China can probably weather current prices, and keep inflation at bay, provided oil doesn’t rise further. But its best hope to guard against future rises is to end its failing policy of hoping for preferential access to foreign supplies. Instead, a new approach of co-ordinating with oil-consuming nations is needed.
Trevor Houser, Financial Times, 17 March 2011

Faster. Higher. Stronger. Braver.
The cynics will claim that complete eradication of doping in sports is an impossibility, so embrace what is known, and educate athletes to use the substances responsibly. The idealist will recall that sports are beloved because they allow humans to go far beyond the potential that most people see in themselves, and in others.
Jennifer Gibson, BrainBlogger, 10 March 2011

The Eerie Silence: Searching for Ourselves in the Universe

If aliens ever contact us, it will be perhaps the single most significant event in human history. And Paul Davies will be responsible for saying something back. For fifty years the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence has been scanning the skies. Now Davies, head of SETI's Post Detection Task Group, explores what the mysterious silence it has so far encountered could mean. Here he looks at exciting new ways to make contact with extra-terrestrial life. He considers what form advanced alien intelligence is likely to take if it exists. And perhaps more importantly, what exactly it would mean if it didn't - how extraordinary it would be if we were alone, to be human and here in this staggering, eerie silence

Paul Davies, Penguin, 3 March 2011

The Most Human Human: what talking with computers teaches us about what it means to be alive

The author’s quest to be deemed more human than a com­puter opens a window onto our own nature. Interweaving modern phenomena like customer service “chatbots” and men using programmed dialogue to pick up women in bars with insights from fields as diverse as chess, psychiatry, and the law, Brian Christian examines the philosophical, bio­logical, and moral issues raised by the Turing Test

Brian Christian, Doubleday & Co Inc., 1 March 2011

Humans, Version 3.0
Where are we humans going, as a species? If science fiction is any guide, we will genetically evolve like in X-Men, become genetically engineered as in Gattaca, or become cybernetically enhanced like General Grievous in Star Wars.
Mark Changizi, SEED, 22 February 2011

Lincolnshire's US-style 'mega' dairy farm on hold as plans are withdrawn
Nocton Dairies says Environment Agency objections derailed proposed 3,770-cow facility but new submission is likely
Rebecca Smithers, Guardian, 16 February 2011

The detection of extra-terrestrial life and the consequences for science and society
Astronomers are now able to detect planets orbiting stars other than the Sun where life may exist, and living generations could see the signatures of extra-terrestrial life being detected. Should it turn out that we are not alone in the Universe, it will fundamentally affect how humanity understands itself—and we need to be prepared for the consequences. A Discussion Meeting held at the Royal Society in London, 6–9 Carlton House Terrace, on 25–26 January 2010, addressed not only the scientific but also the societal agenda, with presentations covering a large diversity of topics.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 13 February 2011

Alone Together

Facebook. Twitter. Second Life. 'Smart' phones. Robot pets. Robot lovers. Thirty years ago we asked what we would use computers for. Now the question is what we don't use them for.

Sherry Turkle, Basic Books, 3 February 2011

Life off Earth
Imagine standing on the west coast of Ireland a thousand years ago, told to remain on guard against a potential invasion. Then imagine looking out across the ocean, not knowing if there are any lands out there to be invaded from. Even if there are any lands, there is no way of telling whether they’re inhabited. You could spend your lifetime watching out for invaders who couldn’t exist.
Richard Swan, Culture Wars, 31 January 2011


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"Just when Kant's formulation that 'the public exercise of reason should be free' had begun to seem so remote and exhausted, the Battle should reinforce one's faith in the enduring worth of dissent and of the free traffic in ideas"
Swapan Chakravorty, professor of english, Jadavpur University