Super-eruptions, asteroid impacts and cosmic winters—such cataclysmic events, known as gee-gees, are no longer science fiction. The tsunami has helped focus minds on the potential dangers. We must act now

A theologian and an atheist philosopher clash over the great theme of suffering

The disaster relief profession, like its development cousin, has grown wiser and humbler

Why did Médecins Sans Frontières refuse to accept public donations?

Should we be afraid of tampering with human nature?

All that's left of the great Leavis-Snow debate are echoes of both men's foolishness - but at least the gap between science and the humanities has narrowed

Isaiah Berlin was a brilliant performer-but does he produce decent philosophy?

Creationists are not merely fools who take Genesis literally

A government report recommended that we spend a great deal of money ensuring that a rogue asteroid or comet does not hit the Earth. An example of rocks in the head, rather than rocks in space, say some. Yet the…

The patents and priorities of the western drugs industry are stacked against the sick of the developing world. But philanthropy, the impact of Aids, and new faces in global institutions have reinvigorated the battle against poor people's diseases.

Christian democracy has driven European politics for two generations. In Italy, Belgium and Germany, it is now in disarray-accused of rule by patronage rather than by policy. But does Austria point to the post-Christian democrat future?

The end of history has come to the big screen. After the cold war, disaster movies are less anxious but more nihilistic