MARCH & APRIL 2011

REGULARS 5 Editorial Creation confusion 6 Parish news 8 Witness Mona Eltahawy,

Philip Pullman, Paul Sims 10 Yours sceptically Readers’

letters 17 Chown’s Cosmos The cosmic supercollider 49 Chris Maslanka’s Quiz 50 Endgame Laurie Taylor talks dirty

FEATURES 12 Count yourself out The religion question in this year’s census is designed to distort, warns Winston Fletcher 14 The god confusion In trying to make religion sound more logical and scientific, are educated Indians actually having a crisis of faith? asks Angela Saini 18 Things that go bump in the night Why do people think they can see ghosts? Richard Wiseman explains 20 Mortal fear Do we have to die? Biologist Lewis Wolpert tells Laurie Taylor how science is tackling the process of ageing 24 Rhyme and reason

Jonathan Rée reassesses the romantic rationalism of Percy Bysshe Shelley 27 Free for all? How will the new free schools deal with creationism and evolution? James Gray reports 30 Kitchen sink drama Is it a coincidence that women are being driven back into the home? Sally Feldman spots a new coalition 34 Natural history of the soul

Nicholas Humphrey thinks consciousness is magic. Caspar Melville meets him

[20]

Facing up to ageing

[36]Nigeria’sdeadly faultline

36 Faultline Eliza Griswold reports on the conflict between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria 40 Blood & guts Owen

Hatherley pays a visit to Dublin Science Gallery’s new exhibition Visceral

[40]Science infects art in Dublin

BOOK REVIEWS

44 Conor Gearty admires

Ronald Dworkin’s mind 46 Andrew Mueller has fun with a history of protest songs 47 Marcus Chown enters Brian

Greene’s Multiverse 48 Owen Hatherley tires of John

Gray’s schtick 49 Jake Wallis Simons isn’t blown away by a debut novelist

[18]

Why do we see things that aren’t there?