Philosophers have long wrestled with the nature of good and evil. Are they an inseparable duality? Are some things inherently good or evil? These questions seem too abstract to be answered by science. But by asking questions such as “why are animals altruistic?” and “why do chimps sometimes violently kill one another?”, biologists have arrived …
Mobsters have always exploited world events for their own gain, says The Economist. But “for organised criminals, Brexit is perhaps the most promising rearrangement of the European scene since the fall of communism”. Clearly, much will depend on the outcome of exit negotiations. But if, for instance, Britain achieves its aim of maintaining an open …
Continue reading ‘Brexit, a field day for crooks. Bye, bye ataraxia!’ »
There were nearly 60,000 murders in Brazil in 2015, as many as China, all of Europe, Northern Africa, Japan, Indonesia, Australia, Canada, the US and New Zealand combined. (Metrocosm, 12 September 2017) And yet the Brazilian economy is quite lively. You can’t just put this down to fevelas and poverty.
“Britain is now one of just two countries in the EU (the other is the Czech Republic) not to have banned corporal punishment, nor to be considering doing so. If swearing at children is worse than swearing at adults, the same should apply to hitting them. Yet we deny children the protection from assault we …
In 2013, a report showed that people in the US were in worse health and dying younger than those in other rich nations. Despite the alarm generated, five years later things look worse. The report, subtitled Shorter Lives, Poorer Health, documented a large and growing US “health disadvantage”. Evidence showed that compared with people in …
