Posts by Jonathan Meddings

About Jonathan Meddings

Jonathan Meddings is former Vice President and board member of the Rationalist Society of Australia. He is now Chair of The Darbon Institute, a charity working to protect and promote everyone’s right to bodily integrity and autonomy in Australia and New Zealand. View all posts by Jonathan Meddings →

16 Oct

Philosophy & Psychology

Are our choices pre-determined?

As I write these words, could I be writing something else? It seems intuitive to think I could. If I wanted to I could delete these wor...

17 Jul

Law & Politics

Thomas Matthew Crooks was wrong to pull the trigger, but right to be afraid of Trump

This article is part of our ‘Mulling over America’ feature series, with contributors providing Rationalist perspectives on what ...

28 May

Business & Economics

We all suffer when harmful industries define progress

What you perceive as progress depends on your perspective. To the logger, progress is cleared land, but to the conservationist it is tr...

12 Feb

Feature series, Law & Politics

It’s a lose, lose, lose situation for Trump’s ‘Divided States of America’

This article is part of our ‘Mulling over America’ feature series, with contributors providing Rationalist perspectives on what ...

21 Aug

Feature series, Science & Health

Non-overlapping magisteria: Why Gould got it wrong

This article is part of our ‘Celebrate Science’ feature series to mark National Science Week. It was originally published in the...

29 May

Law & Politics

How democracies survive

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, democracy is the worst form of government — except for every other one we’ve tried. While democracy is...

06 May

Science & Health

Our female genital mutilation laws are broken

A nurse once told me many health professionals don’t report female genital mutilation (FGM) because it could result in children being t...

11 Apr

Law & Politics

In the face of extremism, liberals must snap out of their complacency

Several years ago I found a copy of Mein Kampf in a second-hand bookstore in country Victoria. Better my bookshelf than a neo-Nazi’s, I...

20 Feb

Science & Health

Why I wrote a book on circumcision

I’ve spent the last 10 years researching and writing a book on circumcision. The first question most people ask me is, quite simply, wh...

18 Jan

Feature series, Philosophy & Psychology

The antidote to arrogance: How to be wrong the right way

This article is part of our ‘From the vault’ series of summer reading. It was originally published in the June 2020 edition of Australi...