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REGULARS

5 Editorial On a piffling planet 6 Godless globe 9 Witness Padraic Rohan, Anna Vesterinen,

Myra Zepf 12 Yours sceptically Letters 47 Chris Maslanka’s Quiz 50 Endgame Laurie Taylor tries a bit of brain training

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Clear thinking on the burqa

JULY & AUGUST 2013

FEATURES

14 Iain Banks’ universe The late Scottish novelist was one of our greatest writers of science fiction, says Francis Spufford 18 Thinking machine Caspar

Melville logs on to the mind of philosopher Daniel Dennett 22 Five things you should know about poo David Waltner-Toews on why faecal matters 24 Seeing reason

[13]

Iain Banks’ universe

Kenan Malik talks to Jonathan Israel about his magisterial threevolume history of the Enlightenment 29 The Prophet Rationalism needs stories and someone to tell them. A work of fiction by Michael Bywater 32 Beyond black It’s time for some clear thinking on the burqa question, says Terri Murray 34 Life on fire The people of

Jharia in India live on top of a toxic opencast mine that is permanently ablaze. Photo essay by Isabell Zipfell 38 Your cousin the scientist JP O’Malley has a family reunion with geneticist Steve Jones 41 The turncoats Dale

DeBakcsy on the strange sub-genre of atheist deconversion lit

[24]

Kenan Malik meets

Jonathan

Israel

COLUMNS

13 Saints march in Aaron

Rosen praises Michael Landy at the National Gallery 17 Chown’s Cosmos We are all born of stars 45 Poem Setting Out by CP

Nield

BOOK REVIEWS

44 Toby Saul on WG

Sebald’s posthumous collection 46 Andrew Mueller on a history of swearing 46 Sarah Ditum on a crime against Jane Austen 48 Craig Purshouse on a dubious connection between evolution and faith 49 Philip Womack on Sam

Lipsyte’s invention

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Everything you’ve always wanted to know about poo poo poo

JULY AUGUST 2013 New Humanist 3