As Britain’s death toll from Covid-19 passes 100,000, there is one burning question: why did so many have to die? Tom Clark, Gaby Hinsliff and Philip Ball chart the persistent failures—from both the chief scientists and the politicians. Former head of the Supreme Court Brenda Hale takes on the human rights sceptics and Rana Mitter asks whether China's grip on Hong Kong means the end of the historic freedoms in the city.
Interest in promoting happiness has grown to the point where there are calls for it to be taught in schools. But there is no formula for happiness, and attempts to teach it may conflict with other things schools want to…
Steven Pinker has a good stab at explaining metaphor, but his belief that brains work like computers proves a big limitation. We still need poets to understand the imagination
Albert Ellis, the foul-mouthed father of cognitive therapy, is a modern Diogenes. Now severely ill, and at odds with the institute he founded, he remains convinced of the value of Stoic wisdom
The BBC series "Child of Our Time" assumes that studying children with their parents will help us understand how their personalities develop. But this is a mistake: parents influence their children mainly by passing on their genes. The biggest environmental…
Nicholas Humphrey's latest book on the mystery of consciousness travelled with me to Crete, Latvia and America. And the intellectual journey it took me on has half-persuaded me that his evolutionary approach will one day provide an answer
With governments struggling to deliver on existing commitments is it sensible to make them responsible for something as complex as personal happiness? Moreover, much of the happiness data is faulty and where it isn't it points to conservative measures
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