Andrew Brown



Profile:
Full name: Andrew Brown

Area of interest: Biology, Religion, Technology (especially where they overlap)

Journals/Organisation: The Guardian

Email: [mailto:authordespammed@darwinwars.com authordespammed@darwinwars.com]

Personal website: http://www.darwinwars.com

Website: http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/andrewbrown

Blogs: Helmintholog | Cif/Andrew Brown's blog (about) | Cif/belief

Representation: Capel and Land

Networks:



Biography:
About:

Education:

Career: The Spectator: Scandinavian correspondent and chief reporter, early 1980's; The Independent: Religious Affairs Correspondent, also wrote parliamentary sketches, leaders, and assorted think pieces, 1986/1996; full-time freelance journalist, 1996-present, having written for The Guardian, The Independent, The Times, The Sunday Telegraph, Daily Mail, Daily Express, Church Times

Current position/role: Freelance journalist, author. Editor of Comment is free / Belief


 * also writes/has written for:

Other roles/Main role:

Other activities:

Disclosures:

Viewpoints/Insight: Who am I? (darwinwars.com)

Broadcast media:

Video: Wrote and presented BBC Radio 4's Analysis programme, see also BBC Radio 4 'Analysis' Database kept by (The Arts and Humanities Data Service)

Controversy/Criticism:

Awards/Honours: While at The Independent, won the inaugural John Templeton European Religion Writer of the Year Award, 1994 - given for religious writing in the secular press; shortlisted for the Aventis science book prize for 'In the beginning was the worm'

Scoops:

Other: 

Books & Debate:

 * Watching the detectives OCLC 18869864, 1988
 * The Darwin wars: the scientific battle for the soul of man OCLC 42699842, 2000
 * In the beginning was the worm: finding the secrets of life in a tiny hermaphrodite OCLC 52251313, 2003

Latest work: Sweden: The Future that Disappeared OCLC 243938747, 2008

Speaking/Appearances:

Debate: 

The Guardian
Column name:

Remit/Info: religious issues

Section: Guardian.co articles and print articles

Role:

Pen-name:

Email:

Website: Comment is free / Andrew Brown

Commissioning editor:

Day published:

Regularity:

Column format:

Average length:


 * see also: Cif/Andrew Brown's blog | Comment is free/belief



Articles: 2014

 * If religion doesn't start wars, it's clear it can make some conflicts harder to solve - Justin Welby's video about South Sudan is at the very least a determined effort to end the horror - 15th May
 * Is the internet really killing religion in the US? - The number of Americans saying they have no religion has risen alongside internet usage – but there is a simple explanation - 9th April
 * Science has nothing to tell us about the soul? I disagree - To completely separate science from philosophy is to neglect the fact that they are reliant on each other, like two sides of an arch - 3rd April
 * At 96, my mother is one of the last surviving Bletchley Park codebreakers - She never subscribed to the myth that her work was the heart of the war effort, and has spent 40 years trying to forget it - 27th March
 * Praying for former Westboro Baptist pastor Fred Phelps is no easy task - This is a man who not only preached hatred but spread it, more among his enemies than among those he thought his friends - 18th March
 * The Conservatives as the Workers' party? It's an idea taken from Sweden - David Cameron is aping the rightwing Moderates across the North Sea, who share the view that workers subsidise shirkers - 26th February
 * Speed cameras are an affront to our inner six-year-old - Motorists have come to terms with yellow speed cameras but see grey ones as a monstrous threat to liberty - 5th February
 * Bishops must reject these wicked homophobic views - The gay rights debate has opened up a profound moral divide in the Church of England. It is time for the bishops to take a stand - 27th January
 * When it comes to church growth, it's not the theology, stupid - Evangelicals like to think their beliefs boost numbers. But really it's because they take growth seriously – a lesson liberals could learn - 18th January
 * Pope Francis's new cardinals mark a rebalancing in the church - The pope's choices better reflect the makeup of the church as a whole. But will it be enough to close the gap between ordinary worshippers and the Vatican on issues such as birth control? - 14th January
 * I want to see the Michael Schumacher film – but I'm glad I won't be able to - The skier who has done the right thing and handed in his video of the F1 driver's accident rather than sell it is my first hero of the year - 5th January



Articles: 2013

 * What is it about priests and sex? - As the 'hot priests' calendar suggests, many people find male priests sexy – perhaps because spirituality has a charge even for those who reject belief - 18th December
 * The Church of England: a church that's sick of itself - If the CofE is doomed, as former archbishop of Canterbury George Carey insists, it's down to the damage he did in office - 20th November
 * Judges can sidestep religion, but they can't avoid morality - A speech by Sir James Munby suggests judges should no longer privilege Christian values. But that doesn't mean they're in the business of enforcing morality - 5th November
 * Evangelical sex activists are no better than religious moralists - Eco-sex campaigners Fuck for Forest and atheists who look down on 'the religious' will not save us any more than the C of E - 28th June
 * This vicar's disco dance gives hope to the Church of England - An exuberant and joyful dance routine at a church wedding is a celebration of ordinary people and connects with them - 23rd June
 * Divine interventions: lottery cash needs to be kept from homophobic groups - Better scrutiny will ensure religious organisations with links to homophobia are not awarded public funds - 10th May
 * Richard Dawkins' latest anti-Muslim Twitter spat lays bare his hypocrisy - The celebrity atheist's Twitter rant against journalist Mehdi Hasan shows he's a believer too – in his own mythology - 22nd April
 * Justin Welby's ascension shines light on powerful evangelical church - Two people associated with Holy Trinity Brompton are now in Church of England's most important posts - 22nd March
 * Choice of Jorge Bergoglio as pope shows a decisive shift from Europe - Pope Francis represents an extraordinary leap away from the conservative and cautious nature of the last two papacies - 14th March
 * Cardinal O'Brien and the church's sexual confusion - As O'Brien is accused of misdemeanours the Catholic church must review its damaging strictures on celibacy - 25th February
 * The BA Christian case was judged rightly, and a true test of tolerance - Nadia Eweida's religious reasons for wearing a cross at work should not have been trampled on by BA's uniform policy - 16th January
 * Gay bishops ruling makes Church of England's position more coherent - Church's announcement on civil partnerships will upset conservatives, but strengthen position on gay marriage - 5th January



Articles: 2012

 * Royal pranksters have gone from hunter to hunted - The Australian DJs are just the latest sacrifice to the public appetite for humiliation and scorn - 10th December
 * Need a secular Scouts' oath? Try the Woodcraft Folk - There are no atheist children freezing to death in the woods because they don't know how to navigate by moss on tree trunks - 5th December
 * Why the church's house of laity is vulnerable to capture by interest groups - The group that defeated female bishops is intended to represent ordinary churchgoers, but the problem lies in choosing them - 22nd November
 * Women bishops debate was a long and boring suicide note - The debate that ended with the church voting against women bishops was a ghastly mix of tedium and bad faith - 21st November
 * Why it's unlikely we are more stupid than our hunter-gatherer ancestors - Gerald Crabtree's claim that we are less intelligent than our ancestors assumes evolution always selects for intelligence. It doesn't - 14th November
 * Justin Welby went to Eton – of course he understands misery - The new archbishop of Canterbury's public school background has been criticised, but it does have its uses - 9th November
 * The gospel of Jesus's wife: a very modern fake - A typo shows the Jesus's wife text can only be as old as the online document from which it seems to have been copied - 16th October
 * Richard Dawkins and the Dalai Lama are both wrong about religion - The new individualistic ideology justifies itself as more rational – but is as concerned with power relations as Christendom was - 14th September
 * Religion in Human Evolution, part 8: the invention of reason - Religion must always deal with the conflict between nurture and dominance. Robert Bellah tells how the great religions added a conflict between reason and myth - 3rd September
 * Religion in Human Evolution, part 7: Moses and monotheism - Moses should be seen not as a historical figure, but a charter for a new regime in which people live under God, not king - 26th August
 * Religion in Human Evolution, part 6: justice and the afterlife - In Egypt, the idea of judgment after death emerges: a first step to conceiving of justice that stands above the visible world - 20th August
 * Religion in Human Evolution, part 5: group cohesion and identity - The first societies were organised around religious ideas, but religion is more than just an adaptation to 'groupishness' - 13th August
 * The Church of England's stand on Murdoch makes the world a little better - The C of E's pension fund does not easily mix with its principles. But disinvesting in News Corp sends an ethical signal - 7th August
 * Religion in Human Evolution, part 4: the role of worship - The emergence of gods, who require worship, dates from a particular set of economic and social changes - 6th August
 * Religion in Human Evolution, part 3: the primacy of ritual over language - When rites are enacted, rather than preached, they have the power to transform those who enact them - 30th July
 * Religion in Human Evolution, part 2: faith, language, music and play - Nothing is ever lost: belief systems are built on previous ones, but the earliest were not religions in our sense of the term - 23rd July
 * Religion in Human Evolution, part 1: the co-evolution of gods and humanity - Robert Bellah's important book is an account of ways in which human beings have made religions and religions have made us - 16th July
 * What made the creationist footprints in the Giant's Causeway visitor centre? - The National Trust isn't endorsing the nonsense of the young Earthers – it just knows the value of the crank pound - 6th July
 * What happened when I had a heart attack - Cycling to a routine appointment, the first sign of my impending heart attack was a shiny soreness on the inside of my spine - 11th June
 * A suicide note for the Church of England over female priests - Giving parishes the power to choose their bishops is actually a break with tradition – and would mean it is no longer one church - 25th May
 * The female priests issue threatens to envenom parish politics - A conservative crew wants an independent enclave within the Church of England, with its own money, ministers and discipline - 23rd May


 * General Synod: the perfect forum for Anglicans who want to avoid decisions - Women bishops, collapsing church attendances – it's issues like these that synod won't be dealing with this week - 7th February



Articles: 2011

 * Photography is my other fishing - On winter evenings I go down to the back room of a local pub and indulge in a passion that demands patient, watchful attention - 15th December
 * Antibiotics can't cure colds – but a placebo may - The overprescribing of antibiotics by under-pressure GPs to a public convinced they cure colds could prove fatal in the long run - 19th November
 * Anders Breivik's spider web of hate - An analysis of the Norwegian killer's manifesto reveals the online network that features in his paranoid universe - 8th September
 * The law that listens to Catholic nurses on abortion - The law takes no account of some religious views. Why did it heed two nurses who refused to work in an abortion clinic? - 17th August
 * UK riots: You can't have the broom army without the 'feral animals' brigade - An uprush of decency has been accompanied, confusingly, by people calling for live ammunition to be used on rioters - 15th August
 * Libya's front-page casualties have not suffered the most tragic fate - Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros, the two photojournalists killed in Libya, deserve admiration – but pity is more complex - 22nd April
 * The News of the World's dinners with the Met are part of the gossip game - There is an elaborate professional code governing interactions at which information is exchanged over food - 23rd February
 * Lady Warsi and the concept of extremism - Warsi says that 'extremely Muslim' does not mean 'extremist Muslim'. This is true, but won't get her what she wants - 20th January



Articles: 2010

 * visit: Moral absolutes and crumbling empires'' - Rebellion against the pope was the foundational act of English power yet now the pope stands in Westminster Hall - 18th September
 * and the archbishop'' - Installing the openly gay Jeffrey John as bishop would be a decisive victory for Rowan Williams. But if he's beaten, he's finished - 6th July
 * multicultural Christian right'' - The launch of a Christian programme for the general election and beyond is a significant political development, not a good one - 6th April
 * pontiff is not so potent'' - The shape of the world's oldest living bureaucracy, the Catholic church, is very much misunderstood - 31st March
 * feeling for snow'' - There is a distinct shortage of romance and excitement about snow in countries, such as Sweden, where it's common - 6th January



Articles: 2009

 * church not so gay-friendly'' - Church of Sweden members have voted to allow gay weddings, but it's not quite the liberal breakthrough it seems - 26th October
 * prosperity'' - At a charismatic meeting in north London, Pastor Dollar spread the word that poverty was a demon whose back could be broken - 22nd August
 * of creationism may be hindering science teachers'' - A US judge's ruling is a warning to those who want to teach real science in schools that they need to change their tactics - 12th May
 * last consolation'' - For heaven's sake, let the dying have their hospital chaplains - 8th April
 * fish called Colin'' - Clever of Sainsbury's to reel in the media with its rebrand of pollack, but supermarket white fish all tastes the same anyway - 7th April
 * King Google'' - Newspapers are peasants in the digital kingdom - at least its ruler appears to be fairly benevolent - 11th March
 * The secret of Twitter's success - The most social of social networking sites offers gossip without distractions – which turns out to be surprisingly valuable - 18th February 2009
 * You can't teach the Bible as literature - The Bible can't be taught as culture: either it is a living store of myth or it will shrivel, to be replaced by other myths - 17th February 2009



Articles: 2008

 * Greed is not good, says God - Bishops denouncing the government are nothing new. But people are now listening to sermons on the evil of debt - 29th December 2008
 * Goodbye herons, hello celebrity - The new version of the Oxford Junior Dictionary, which favours creeps over chapels, makes depressing reading - 10th December 2008
 * the resurrection'' - Not long ago, organised faith seemed to be on its last legs. Now it is again a force to be reckoned with - 28th October 2008
 * A comment policy for Cif belief - 27th October 2008
 * Welcome to the belief blog - Hello, and welcome to the wonderful wacky world of God. This is a blog about believers and the workings of belief in the world - 1st October 2008
 * red archbishop?'' - Rowan Williams takes a different stand to Marx, but they share one unshakeable conviction: that capitalism tends towards evil - 25th September 2008
 * schools: is there really a better option?'' - Not unless we want to see some children achieve less than they otherwise might for the sake of social cohesion - 1st September 20008
 * debts do us part?'' - Modern weddings are more expensive than ever. Why? Because nothing says I love you like a dress that costs as much as a car - 23rd August 2008
 * empathy'' - It is ridiculous to demand that we feel the pain of people of whom we know nothing - and to blame religion for human 'selfishness' - 16th August 2008
 * religion of politics'' - For some, the notion of an amoral world is not in conflict with hope. But what happens when politics appropriates faith and morality? - 12th August 2008
 * Williams' contortions'' - The Archbishop of Canterbury can argue with simplicity and force, but his approach to homosexuality is hopelessly tangled - 7th August 2008
 * Super-bishops fly in - I don't agree with opponents of female bishops. But their anger is understandable, given the promises they were made - 7th July 2008
 * Pennies for heaven - The Church of England relies heavily on its collection plate to fund each diocese – but a threat to solvency is threatening tolerance - 5th July 2008
 * Meet the Focas - They want you to like them. But are they the kind of people liberal Anglicans will be able to have a nice cup of tea with? - 30th June 2008
 * The Anglican culture wars - Gafcon's bishops have chosen to shout about homosexuality yet again. But are they also gearing up for a clash with Islam? - 24th June 2008
 * uses of unreason'' - I disagree with Robert Skidelsky: we will need more than rationality to manage our future resources. A quasi-religious common purpose is vital - 21st May 2008
 * Literacy before laptops -Technology alone cannot lift people out of poverty, as the collapse of a well-meaning computer scheme shows - 18th May 2008
 * Faithless Einstein - The physicist did not believe in God - but nor did he really believe in atheism - 13th May 2008
 * Prayers for the fearful - It's not necessarily faith that makes people attend church. In the past, a sense of threat has also kept the numbers up - 8th May 2008
 * A misunderstood urinal - Duchamps made people reconsider art - but as a recent court case underlines, not in the way he hoped - 5th May 2008
 * Science for citizens - We talk of the need for informed debate, but debates about science can't be informed if we don't know what a photon is - 11th April 2008
 * Particulaly divine? - Physicists are on the verge of discovering a particle that may unlock the secrets of the universe. But it won't bring us closer to God - 9th April 2008
 * Va va vroom - The sex scandal that has engulfed formula one's boss isn't going to require his departure because the sport is already morally hollow - 4th April 2008
 * Religious standards - Of course teaching creationism as fact is wrong, but multifaith schools could take the best from many moral compasses - 25th March 2008
 * Can the Dalai Lama resign? - How can someone recognised as the reincarnation of the Buddha of compassion "resign"? - 20th March 2008
 * Who should civilise children? - If children are lacking basic moral guidance, how can parents or schools, provided with little themselves by government, show by example? - 11th March 2008
 * Faith, hope and human rights - Those who say the teaching of religious belief to the young is a form of child abuse are blinded to human rights - 26th February 2008
 * We need the Church of England - Only an established church, with a duty to everyone in this country, can truly dampen conflicts and division - (series: The Islamic law debate) - 21st February 2008
 * A very Anglican resurrection - After three days of being buried in opprobrium for his remarks about sharia, Rowan Willams has risen again to fight another day - (series: The Islamic law debate) - 11th February 2008
 * Misjudgment that made martyrs of others - 9th February 2008
 * Laws of the land - Dr Rowan Williams is interested in what sharia actually says. The rest of the country is more interested in whether and how it might be enforced - (series: The Islamic law debate) - 7th February 2008
 * The naked truth - In Liberia, a former general has found God and admitted the error of his previous, murderous ways. Is it really that simple? - 29th January 2008
 * Cif and the end of civilisation - Does the breakdown of manners in Britain, especially on the internet, really mean we are a more selfish society? - 28th January 2008
 * Living on a prayer - Divine providence riles me, but I must accept my friend's belief in God's purpose because the evidence is woven into his life - 20th January 2008
 * A narrow church - The Church of England has lost its traditional social framework. It may yet come to stand for an England that is, above all, not a Muslim country - 7th January 2008
 * Dither on, Williams - The Archbishop of Canterbury was never one for diktats. Now his inaction has let those who would split the church get into a fine mess - 3rd January 2008



The Guardian:
Column name: Read me first

Remit/Info: Technology and the internet and arising issues for users (columns from Nick Carr, Seth Finkelstein and Andrew Brown) - for recent articles goto: Read me first

Section: Technology news and features section

Role: Columnist

Pen-name:

Email: [mailto:tech@guardian.co.uk tech@guardian.co.uk]

Website: Read me first

Commissioning editor:

Day published: Thursday

Regularity: Weekly, with Andrew Brown contributions every third week

Column format:

Average length: 650/700 words



Articles: 2009

 * isn't making us dumb – or smart. That's the problem'' - Far from dumbing us down, the constant ebb and flow of information on the internet is forcing us to change our habits - 2nd July
 * buying secondhand should become part of the PC process'' - Buying a secondhand PC shouldn't leave you searching for the processing power you want - 11th June
 * a puzzle: why don't more of us burst the bubble of online ads?'' - Users will install software to do something fun and worthwhile, but they won't change software just to make computers less annoying - 21st May
 * Sun ain't gonna shine on OpenOffice any more'' - The takeover of Sun by Oracle should concentrate our minds on what open-source software means - 30th April
 * only way to protect our privacy online is to conceal our true selves'' - Everything we do is going up into the cloud, and once it's there, it no longer belongs to us - 9th April
 * is still an adventure game, but now it's really worth playing'' - 19th March
 * Pirate Bay trial is the collision of 'can I?' and 'should I?' cultures'' - The Pirate Bay trial is part of a global problem in which we all are implicated - 26th February



Articles: 2007/2008

 * worried that my phonebook is going to end up on Facebook'' - All that my phone won't do is ... keep a phonebook - 11th December 2008
 * online FT should be pink with embarrassment over its redesign'' - 20th November 2008
 * love-hate relationship with working in offices'' - 30th October 2008
 * last, technology is making photography better, not worse'' - 9th October 2008
 * way for scientific knowledge to be decentralised yet trustworthy'' - 11th September 2008
 * discussion of religious differences online is not a game'' - 14th August 2008
 * Sod the advanced encryption, I'll just scribble it down instead - 24th July 2008
 * Can low-cost 'laptots' stand up to their more pricey competitors? - 12th June 2008
 * Programming is destroying my capacity for reflective thought - 22nd May 2008
 * Drugs and Adblock Plus shouldn't be in the hands of everyone else - 1st May 2008
 * Why do people become so stingy once they're online? - 8th November 2007
 * Sue the libraries - they're letting people get content on the cheap - 18th October 2007
 * A childlike pleasure can be derived from a computing catastrophe - 6th September 2007
 * A death penalty for spammers? No, the solution is social change - 16th August 2007
 * Bad ideas spread like wildfire, so why didn't a good one catch on? - 26th July 2007
 * Irony is too serious a business for most of the internet - 5th July 2007
 * No amount of collaboration will make the sun orbit the Earth - 14th June 2007
 * It only takes one weak link to unleash a chain of trouble online - 24th May 2007
 * We all helped to speed the demise of professional photographers - 3rd May 2007
 * Why Linux is the perfect system for people who hate computers - 12th April 2007
 * The fat lady is clearing her throat and getting ready to sing for Opera - 22nd March 2007
 * Beware the backwards-looking patents that can stifle innovation - 1st March 2007
 * Don't be held to ransom by antivirus mafia tactics - 8th February 2007
 * We are too busy with computers to be organised by computers - 18th January 2007



News & updates:


References:
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Links:

 * Welcome to the belief blog The Guardian, 1st October 2008