Volume 125 Issue 5 September/October 2010

Editorial: Rationality rules: We should put our trust in reason, especially when it challenges our preconceptions

Cover Story

An audience with the Pope: If you were invited to address Benedict XVI during his UK visit, what would you say to him? Richard Dawkins, Philip Pullman, Claire Rayner, Ben Goldacre and many more take part in our Pope quiz. Illustrations by Ralph Steadman

Should Britain ban the burqa?: Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Kenan Malik debate whether the UK should follow the French
Great pretender: Feminist icon, anti-Catholic fabrication – or just a woman battling in a man’s world? Sally Feldman uncovers the mysteries of Pope Joan
Lies, damn lies and Chinese science: The People's Republic is becoming a technological superpower, but who's checking the facts? Sam Geall seeks out the Chinese science cops
Because you're worth it?: It can cure cancer, make you rich and even foster world peace, claim its advocates. But what proof is there, asks Ben Fine, that social capital has any benefits at all?
Aid wars: Mired in controversy from Afghanistan to Sudan, humanitarianism itself is in crisis. Susie Linfield surveys the battlefield
Stargazer: David Wootton, author of a new biography, uncovers evidence that Galileo really was a heretic
There will be blood: Butchery is always a messy business, but is religiously inspired ritual slaughter really worse than other methods? Physiologist Harold Hillman dissects the evidence
It's all just words: Blasphemer, failure, hypocrite, comedian – Stewart Lee tells Caspar Melville why he’s so offensive
No nonsense: Laurie Taylor interviews Mary Warnock: Philosopher Mary Warnock tells Laurie Taylor why religion and politics shouldn’t mix

Diary: Giordano Bruno, my hero: Stephanie Merritt reveals why she made the Renaissance monk her leading man
Endgame: Time is money: Laurie Taylor keeps his meter running
Chown's Cosmos: The Sun at night: The 'Super-K' detector is built 3,000 feet down in a mine beneath Hida in Japan. This is one of its most famous images. Marcus Chown explains

Q&A: Marilynne Robinson: She has won the Pulitzer and Orange prizes for her fiction, and been called the greatest writer of prose in the English language. With her new book she enters the God debate. We talk to Marilynne Robinson, author of Absence of Mind

Book review: The Coming of the Body by Hervé Juvin: Owen Hatherley embraces the society of the body
Book review: Slaughter on a Snowy Morn by Colin Evans: Louise Foxcroft on a bloody murder and the birth of forensic science
Farewell Gordon: Francis Beckett reviews two books telling the inside story of the implosion of New Labour
Book review: Learning to Live: Philosophy for Beginners by Luc Ferry: AC Grayling learns to live without God