homunculus

I’ve just heard a lovely programme on BBC Radio 4 about the late, great Ken Campbell. Catch it while you can. I saw Ken perform several tim...

My piece on the cognition of atonal music has appeared in Prospect . I’m happy to say that it’s part of the site’s free content, but here i...

It’s a funny business, bioethics. I’d never really before now looked into what it is that people called bioethicists do – but the more I do ...

It seems that Google Books is one of the talking points of the Frankfurt book fair this year. Angela Merkel has waded into the fray to cond...

[This is my forthcoming Material Witness column for Nature Materials , which seemed sufficiently low-tech to warrant inclusion here.] Shou...

[My latest Muse for Nature news…] Sometimes all you need to do scientific research is string, sealing wax and a bit of imagination. Wh...

I’m aware that I risk derision and worse by saying, with attempted insouciance, that I have just been reading Erasmus’ Praise of Folly , but...

[This is my latest Muse article for Nature News. I have the feeling that I’ve encountered guanxi several times in a personal context, and...

Darwin on screen For a limited time only, I can be heard on BBC Radio 3’s Nightwaves talking about the new Darwin biopic Creation . The fil...

Truly wonderful It’s official, then: the Royal Society Science Book Prize goes to The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes. The decision was an...

The soul and the embryo Perhaps you noticed this article in the Guardian last year by David Albert Jones, a bioethicist at St Mary’s Colle...

Francis Collins and his God – but no, not more of that New Atheist stuff… [ Well, not really. This is the pre-edited version of my latest co...

The weather forecast [Here’s the pre-edited version of my review of Giles Foden’s new book Turbulence , which appears in the latest issue o...

Don’t call me sir The Financial Times has a little article on the Royal Society Science Book Prize, on the back of an interview with Jared...

Artificial babies are so last century [Here’s the pre-edited version of my latest Muse for Nature’s online news.] The best way to understan...

Finally on the Reason Project Now that the dust has settled somewhat, I’m in a position to see what people made of my debate with Sam Harris...