Volume 121 Issue 3 May/June 2006

Editorial: Start making sense: Do you get the feeling that you're constantly swamped by religion? Are you worried that the humanist, rationalist or secularist world view is losing out to zealotry? Is reason on the back foot?

Cover Story

Spirited away: Some atheists start believing in anything after they give up believing in God, says Meera Nanda

Birth Control: Barckley Sumner warns of an increasingly common new form of eugenics
Sinking feeling: Laurie Taylor questions yet another time-honoured certainty
Pleasure principles: In the second of our series on thinkers who are significant for humanism, Peter Cave marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of John Stuart Mill
New testaments: 30 years after the Soweto uprising, Carol Lee meets some survivors

Because you're worth it: Why do all the major religions have a fetish about women's hair? Sally Feldman celebrates a hidden source of power
Sex Crimes: Brian Whitaker traces the evolution of Middle-Eastern homophobia
Best of enemies: Capitalism and central planning need each other, argues Steven Lukes
Intelligent design: Jonathan Derbyshire witnesses the strange death of the public thinker
Judgement days: Laurie Taylor finds out how long we've got
Meme Wars (part 2): Natural selection applies to everything. Ideas evolve just as life does, says Susan Blackmore
Meme Wars (part 1): Evolution cannot explain culture: there are limits to the uses of Darwinism, says Adam Kuper

Fear factor: Ben Marshall embraces his phobia
Drawing conclusions: Martin Rowson's uniquely drawn review of Will Eisner
Culture of fear: Judith Vidal-Hall reviews a new collection on censorship
Wonderful world: Tony Russell reviews Thomas Brother's new book on Satchmo and New Orleans
Natural selection: Steven Gould was a great evolutionary biologist, perhaps best known for the 'punctuated equilibrium' idea (coined with Niles Eldredge in 1972), which has been one of the most influential refinements to our understanding of Darwinian evolution.
Freak show: Paul Kurtz reviews a new book on American fundamentalism
Dying light: Toby Saul reviews Everyman by Philip Roth
Lost gods: Andrew Mueller on the ghost of punk