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The strange case of Professor Gray and other provocations -- Science and scientism -- Consequences -- Neuromania: a castle built on sand -- From Darwinism to Darwinitis -- Bewitched by language -- The sighted watchmaker -- Reaffirming our humanity -- Defending the humanities -- Back to the drawing board

These essays, written in the spirit of Goethe's Epimetheus who ""traces the quick deed to the dim realm of form-combining possibilities"", display the depth and breadth of Tallis's fascination with our lives. Whether discussing philosophical ""hardy perennials"" like time, or a mundane artefact like ink, Tallis challenges us to think differently about who we are and why we are. The first part of the book - Analysis - dives into the deep-end to explore some of the big questions in philosophy: perception, knowledge and belief; time; the relationship between mathematics and reality; and probabili

In this startlingly original and persuasive book, Raymond Tallis shows that it is easy to underestimate the influence of small things in determining what manner of creatures humans are. He reveals that over time the repeated and multiple effects of the seemingly insignificant can make an enormous difference and argues that the independent movement of the human index finger is one such easily overlooked factor. Indeed, not for nothing is the index finger called 'the forefinger'. It is the one we most naturally deploy when we want to winkle things out of small spaces, but it plays a far more sig

A review essay on a book by J. G. Merquior, From Prague to Paris: A Critique of Structuralist and Post-Structuralist Thought (New York: Methuen, 1986 [see listing in IRPS No. 53]). Merquior evaluates the use that French poststructuralists have made of Ferdinand de Saussure's structuralism. Linguistics was transformed from an "item-centered" to a system-centered science following Saussure's recognition of the arbitrariness of the sign, the dissociation between signifier & signified, & the intralinguistic nature of the signified. Merquior argues that Saussure's insights have been misinterpreted by later structuralists & poststructuralists. Generally, he takes issue with the structuralist tenet that language is a closed-off system, unresponsive to reality; he also offers a critique of the structuralist theories developed within specific disciplines. The assumptions underlying structuralist literary criticism are examined. Also, the methodological props of Claude Levi-Strauss's anthropology (primacy of structure, search for binary oppositions) are reviewed & their implications highlighted. Moreover, the premises of Jacques Lacan's perspective (decentering of the self & dissolution of consciousness into impersonal systems of meanings) are reviewed. The final critique is addressed to Jacques Derrida's doctrine that everything is a sign in a universe of nonpresence. 24 References. B. Convert

The Coalition Government passed into law an unprecedented assault on the NHS. Doctors, unions, the media, even politicians who claimed to be stalwart defenders failed to protect it. Now the effect of those devastating reforms are beginning to be felt by patients – but we can still save our country's most valued institution if we take lessons from this terrible betrayal and act on them.

An alliance of researchers lays out a framework for taking decisions based on thinking critically about claims and comparisons. Everyone makes claims about what works. Politicians claim that stop and search will reduce violent crime; friends claim that vaccines cause autism; advertisers claim that natural food is healthy. One group of scientists claims that "deworming" programmes (giving deworming pills to all school children in affected areas) improve school performance and health, calling deworming one of the most potent anti-poverty interventions of our time. Another that deworming does not improve either school performance or health. Unfortunately, people often fail to think critically about the trustworthiness of claims, including policy makers weighing claims made by scientists. Schools do not do enough to prepare young people to think critically 1. So many people struggle to assess the trustworthiness of evidence. As a consequence, they may not make informed choices. To address this deficit, we present here a general tool: Key Concepts for Making Informed Choices (Table 1, with examples in Box 2). We hope scientists and professionals in all fields will use, evolve and evaluate it. The tool was adapted, drawing on the expertise of two dozen researchers, from a framework developed for healthcare 2 (Box 1). Ideally, the Key Concepts for Making Informed Choices should be embedded in education for citizens of all ages. This should be done using learning resources and teaching strategies that have been evaluated and shown to be effective. Trustworthy evidence People are flooded with information. Simply giving them more is unlikely to be helpful unless its value is understood. A recent survey in the UK showed that only about a third of the public trust evidence from medical research; about two-thirds trust the experiences of friends and family 3. Not all evidence is created equal. Yet people often don't appreciate which claims are more trustworthy than others; what sort of comparisons are needed to evaluate ...