A distant view of home
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
Science & Technology
Five things you should know about poo
Does faecal matter? asks David Waltner-Toews
Help us create a Thinkers Library for the 21st Century
Our chief web designer, John Oxton-King, wants your help to create a definitive online resource for rationalism.
Art versus science at Westminster Abbey
Amongst the faithful throngs, Rory Fenton sings the praises of the physicist Paul Dirac, for whom physics revealed the simple beauty of creation
Thinking machine: an interview with Daniel Dennett
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
Book review: Goldblatt’s Descent by Michael Honig
Inhumane doctors in a conformist system. Theodore Dalrymple reviews a satire of the NHS.
Your cousin the scientist
JP O’Malley has a family reunion with the geneticist Steve Jones
Iain M Banks’ Universe
The Scottish novelist was one of our greatest writers of science fiction, says Francis Spufford
Book review: Why Genes are not Selfish and People are Nice by Colin Tudge
Colin Tudge's attempt to overturn "dangerous" neo-Darwin materialism fails spectacularly, says Craig Purshouse
Introducing the Rationalists’ Parliament
With its focus on reason and evidence, our parallel assembly goes deeper than jeering and groupthink, says Adam Smith