[A long time ago, I promised various skeptical friends that I would write a post on the idea of 'privilege', something about which I have had grave doubts for some time. Unfortunately life and work got in the way, and the post remained unwritten. However, I then made the same undertaking to various classical liberal [...]
April 15, 2013 – 11:18 pm
Over the weekend, I was a guest at this really rather splendid skeptical convention (responsible for the terrific animation above). I and my fellow panellists (three lawyers, one science writer) got to talk about libel and defamation law, and how it relates to social media. This is, I think it’s fair to say, controversial right now. [...]
…And not people for the laws. First, an apology for my lengthy absence. I have discovered that working and studying at the same time is difficult, so much so that I have resolved never to combine the two again. However, the study has now finished, and even better, I have a month to prepare for [...]
By skepticlawyer
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Also posted in Law, Marriage, Personal liberty, Public Policy, Religion
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Tagged #equalmarriage, Cato Institute, Foundation for Economic Education, Hollingsworth, James Peron, Liberty Fund, Moorfield Storey Institute, Proposition 8, Reason Foundation, Sarah Skwire, SCOTUSblog, Steven Horwitz, Tom G. Palmer, Windsor
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December 17, 2012 – 6:16 am
Making sense of the world requires–nay, demands–that we find patterns in events. And, as part of modernity, we’ve become used to the clear-headed, formalised pattern-finding of law and science. There are ways to look for explanations, and things that ought properly to be discarded along the way. That’s why we have ‘legal method’ and ‘scientific [...]
By skepticlawyer
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Also posted in Law, Science, Tort
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Tagged 2DayFM, Bolam Test, Cardozo J, Charlie Brooker, Dom Joly, Jacintha Saldhana, legal method, Matt Rubinstein, Palsgraf v Long Island Railway Co, Sandy Hook Elementary, scientific method, The Fisher King, Westboro Baptist Church
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October 16, 2012 – 9:38 am
In Skeptical circles, Poe’s Law is an axiom suggesting that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between parodists of religious or other fundamentalism and genuine proponents, since they both seem equally insane. ‘Poe’ as a noun has become almost as ubiquitous as Poe’s Law itself. In this context, a Poe refers to either a person, post or news story that [...]
August 16, 2012 – 4:47 am
As many of you know, I won the 2012 Law Society of Scotland Essay Award for a piece entitled ‘A Plea in Law for Equal Marriage’. The question to which my paper was a response was this: An MSP would like to bring forward a member’s bill in the Scottish Parliament. She would like it [...]
By skepticlawyer
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Also posted in Human/Civil rights, Law, Marriage, Personal liberty, Science, scotland, Sexuality
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Tagged #equalmarriage, Amanda Spalding, John Deighan, Law Society of Scotland, Parliamentary Officer for the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, Robert Gordon University, Scots law, Scots Law Commission, The Journal, The Journal Online, university of edinburgh
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August 16, 2012 – 4:47 am
As many of you know, I won the 2012 Law Society of Scotland Essay Award for a piece entitled ‘A Plea in Law for Equal Marriage’. The question to which my paper was a response was this: An MSP would like to bring forward a member’s bill in the Scottish Parliament. She would like it [...]
By skepticlawyer
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Also posted in Human/Civil rights, Law, Marriage, Personal liberty, Science, scotland, Sexuality
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Tagged #equalmarriage, Amanda Spalding, John Deighan, Law Society of Scotland, Parliamentary Officer for the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, Robert Gordon University, Scots law, Scots Law Commission, The Journal, The Journal Online, university of edinburgh
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Very good interviewers are few and far between: most interviewers manage to alienate someone. For my part, I find Jeremy Paxman’s self-aggrandisement as irritating as Chris Moyles’s faux idiocy — and that’s just as a watcher and listener. I’ve also lost count of the number of interviews I’ve gone through where the interviewer wants to [...]
By skepticlawyer
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Also posted in Blogging, Books, Media
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Tagged Bristol University, Bruce M Hood, Caroline Watt, Daniel Loxton, Hayley Stevens, Hoyden About Town, Joey Haban, Julian Morrow, kylie sturgess, Lyz Liddell, placebo effect, Project Barnum, Secular Student Alliance, Stephen Fry, Taslima Nasrin, the chaser, The Chaser's War on Everything, The Scope of Skepticism, Tim Minchin, token skeptic, university of edinburgh
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We are going to have to get better at managing difference, people. I learn via Catallaxy that one of the anti-gay signatories to the ‘Doctors for the Family’ senate submission has resigned from his position on Victoria’s Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission. I carry no brief for ‘Doctors for the Family’; fellow Skeptic Chrys Stevenson [...]
… Marie Curie: the only person ever to win two Nobel prizes in two sciences. I am currently in examination hell, hence my diminished substantive contributions to the blog. I will be out of gaol on May 24 (last exam) and will then take a week or so off, but I’m afraid not much more than [...]
