Paul Whelan

In the years following WWII, Adolf Hitler was explained - and explained away, pegged and dismissed - simply as 'mad'. A parody of hi...

  It's become the Question of the Day because Trump may be considered, and is certainly called, a neo-fascist - that is, a fascist for o...

There's little doubt President Donald Trump won his first essential objective, that being to destroy what is called 'the truth'....

  i woke up at 4.30 last night. I wasn't particularly tired, but for once I thought I won't start the day this time or I'll be t...

We must avoid the error of defining fascism by reference to historical figures labelled fascist. If we don't, it's not difficult to ...

If there are waves and fields, if there is the electromagnetic spectrum, as Einstein reminded colleagues there is, and nuclear forces and gr...

There are a great many things to say about human nature, but one feature stands out at all times: we enjoy nothing more than a mystery: if t...

How can people best show their disapproval of their government? Get something done? Get change? No secret. Under democracy, it's by voti...

  Isn't "the truth" - if "truth" has any meaning whatever in political life - that Mr Starmer (and No 10) wanted Mr ...

  Trump's ambition is perfectly clear by now: to cajole and coerce into the hard right not just the US but the world, to put an end to t...

The outline (I note the new buzzword is "contour(s)") of Trump's strategy in his second term is perfectly clear by now: to con...

My internet comment: 'Flat Earthing' is about what most of us do a great deal of the time about a great many things - trust gossip,...

Magic is the way humans, from the start, explained agency. It was there eons before Science came along, the go-to explanation for events muc...

Look up a dictionary. Oh dear.   It says it's  Conformity to fact or actuality .  Reality .  But today we're told there is no 'R...

  GB News is no more a news channel than Mrs Browns Boys   is a comedy show   ( Social media comment) Politicians of all parties are a...

(Once or twice recently I've used this blog like a journal, an aide memoire, to note something that I'd realised, concluded or decid...

If the Universe is infinite, which can never be ruled out, it must contain infinite possibilities, in which case the emergence of oceans or ...

Dear Paul, Yesterday, I told the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester that we must not abandon the shared laws of Europe. We cann...

  I can see myself still, 17 or 18, walking on to the school playground from 'the field' - the boys' football pitch alongside th...

  There’s even a famous song about it existing, from the movie Casablanca , and everyone knows the movie Casablanca. We humans know that ...

  Around 1620, a genius called Rene Descartes reasoned, 'I think, therefore I am'. He may have said it in French, 'Je pense, don...

It's our call. There it is. If Heaven isn't the answer, we've got to find it on Earth. What have we got? Three things are clear....

"God doesn't exist." "Yes, He does. He created everything." "Watch your pronouns!  No, she didn't. Evolutio...

  The law can 'decide' the question of whether POTUS has the 'power' to impose tariffs but cannot settle the issue.  That ...

As you'll remember (I wrote to a friend who'd asked if I knew Richard Strauss's Ein Heldenleben ), I first heard the usual pairi...

  Why do humans have morals, a sense of right and wrong? Humans have at least three explanations. Leave out the one that says there is no ri...

Just so everyone's clear, science is talking probabilities, not preaching the 'truth'. That's why you always hear about the ...

Although I thought I'd been clear  in the first part of this , someone who read it suggested I wanted to 'sit on the fence' ... ...

  Some suggest it's a low IQ. But what's a high IQ? Ability to do IQ tests, or to have doubts about IQ tests and skip them to do som...

The question does not require a discussion of particle physics or materiality. And let us not start by saying God does not exist because sci...

"You're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone...

It's not just about policy, is it - about tariffs, about insisting the Gulf of Mexico is the Gulf of America and annexing Canada? That...

They never did. People want certainty, which is why we have habits and rituals, why there are schedules and insurance companies and more con...

. It was a challenge to me on an internet site. One answer is that if a reality 'out there' is only speculation, then that there is ...

A proper understanding of history must begin with human psychology, mustn't it, with understanding the minds of those involved in it? So...

Some years ago I wrote an article  suggesting the answer lay with you – and with all of us – personally. Was that reasonable, is it now? Sin...

                     Newspaper headline after Trump's combative Inaugural Address Friend and foe know Donald Trump can talk alright. He ...