Volume 124 Issue 6 November/December 2009

Cover Story

Neurotrash: From ethics and art history to social policy experts are embracing neuroscience as the answer to understanding human behaviour. Raymond Tallis rallies the neurosceptics

Endgame: Crying out loud: Laurie Taylor meets national treasure Barry Cryer
Our own worst enemy: Self-censorship is handing victory to the extremists, says Sherry Jones

I shot the Pope: Keith Porteous Wood explains how he got the Vatican running for cover
After the watershed: The American sociologist Manning Marable, who died in April 2011, was one of his country's most acute social analysts. In this interview from 2009 he talks to editor Caspar Melville about race, Katrina and the prospects of the first black President
Beyond belief: Some sophisticated arguments for God have been made in response to the New Atheists. Richard Norman puts the ‘New Believers’ to the test. Illustrations by Irene Fuga
Better, juster, nobler: A new collection of his essays on religion suggest that JS Mill is just the enlightened infidel we need today, says Jonathan Rée
Living the life: Should philosophers practise what they preach? And if so, who would deserve a contemporary nomination? asks Fred Inglis
How to spot an AIDS denialist: Rogues, pseudoscientists, snake oil peddlers – Seth Kalichman reveals the sinister tactics used by those who deny the link between HIV and AIDS
Digging for Darwin: In our final tribute to Darwin year, Sally Feldman celebrates the life of Mary Anning, the woman whose work helped to lay the foundations for the theory of evolution
Déjà vu, only worse: Michail Ryklin sits in on a Russian censorship trial

Praise Jshua: Surely Easter is the time of year when we should spare a thought for the Messiah's less successful competitors? Here's Richard Herring, from the November issue, on one who never quite made it.

Poem: The Playboy Calendar and the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: How poet Martín Espada became a humanist
Outside story: A new exhibition space, The Museum of Everything, features hundreds of works by ‘the untrained, unintentional and unseen creators of our modern world’.New Humanist goes inside
Jihad jokes: Who dares make fun of Islam? Canadian television, apparently. Roger Davidson tunes in

First As Tragedy, Then As Farce by Slavoj Žižek: Owen Hatherley finds Žižek actually making sense
Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World by Barbara Ehrenreich: Keith Kahn-Harris enjoys Barbara Ehrenreich's antidote to positive thinking
The Arabs: A History by Eugene Rogan: Stephen Howe on a new history of the Arabs
Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives by Brian Dillon: Louise Foxcroft finds a portrait of famous hypochondriacs really hits a nerve
What happened to the women's movement?: Elizabeth Wilson reviews two new books on how to revive feminism