As a British academic schooled, from an early age, in the niceties of public debate, I’m struggling to understand the acceptability of a president behaving as Donald Trump did in his recently televised confrontation with former Vice President Joe Biden. I

Race only became a term that implied a radical difference in the nature of people in the 18th century (this illustration of the ‘types of mankind’ dates from the next century, in 1893). The impact of the Black Lives Matter

Is this an example of a government following the science? Some years ago, as a way of showing the impotence of social science, especially psychology, I asked, ‘Why has psychology not created any weapons of mass destruction?” After all, the

When the levee breaks … An example of Newton’s First Law of Motion as it applies to human behavior? (Image: Lt. Cmdr. Mark Moran, NOAA Corps, NMAO/AOC) It may be thought that the slow reaction in many countries to the

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy had it right Pictures of supermarket shoppers filling their .trolleys to overflowing with large packets of toilet paper is labelled ‘panic buying’. Brought on by the apparently imminent spread of COVID-19, these rabid consumers

A group of of young refugees known as Youth Aliyah head out to train within the framework of the Haganah in 1948 Israel. (Photo: Government Press Office (Israel), CC BY-SA 3.0) A couple of years ago I wrote a blog

Usman Khan had been let out of prison having served a sentence for plotting to blow up the London Stock Exchange. On his release he had declared he was not a terrorist. But in November last year he attacked and

McMafia : A Journey through the Criminal Underworld, is a remarkable piece of journalism by Misha Glenny. He follows corruption and organised crime around the word, drawing on interviews that reveal the global encircling of Mafia-like activity. His likening of

A question I can rely on being asked at any public talk I give is “Does your descriptions of how psychologists may help to solve crimes make criminals savvy and better able to avoid detection?” It is a fascinating question

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, from comic to president. Pepsi and Coke fight over their share of the market not by major changes in their products but by their advertising and marketing. Like most companies selling in a mass market, they reach