Two recent studies seek to explain the origins of monogamy. Anna Vesterinen reports on the unromantic conclusions
On a flight back from Rio, the Pontiff gave a surprisingly candid press conference
NASA's distant image of the Earth and Moon, taken by the Cassini probe in orbit around Saturn, is the perfect homage to the famous Pale Blue Dot
A new study puts forward some categories of non-believer and reveals not all atheists are angry
Amongst the faithful throngs, Rory Fenton sings the praises of the physicist Paul Dirac, for whom physics revealed the simple beauty of creation
With his new book Daniel Dennett provides both a valuable toolkit for good thinking, and a reminder that for him philosophy is a contact sport. Caspar Melville meets him
Ecstatic states, the sense of a powerful truth others cannot see, emotions with the force of revelation. Religion and mental illness have a lot in common, says Robin Lawrence
Historian Jonathan Israel's magisterial three-volume history of the 'Radical Enlightenment' is the intellectual version of a JCB, ripping up the terrain around him. Kenan Malik follows him down the dark alleys of the Age of Reason.
JP O’Malley has a family reunion with the geneticist Steve Jones
It is tempting for secularists to simplify and imagine that religions are all bad, but that is to miss the history of faiths acting as a check on the arbitrary caprice of warlords and despots, says Padraic Rohan