Weekly Fellows Report
By Deanna Cantrell
SPI Fellow John McWhorter has two new articles centered on linguistics.┬á The first, Why ÔÇ£RedskinsÔÇØ Is a Bad Word, not only delves into the controversy surrounding the football team; it also explores the origin of other ethnic slurs, other than the namesake of the team.┬á Words are powerful, some should have been left behind as society evolved, yet they still remain.┬á In his second article, McWhorter explores a curious fact about language.┬á Why ÔÇ£MomÔÇØ and ÔÇ£DadÔÇØ Sound So Similar in So Many Languages, explores this and many other curiosities behind language.┬á For example, it has been shown that humans associate the ÔÇ£eeÔÇØ sound with smallness and fleetness, for example, hummingbird.
SPI Fellow Taslima Nasrin received the Emperor Has No Clothes Award at the Freedom From Religion FoundationÔÇÖs 38th annual convention.┬á The convention took place October 9-11 in Madison, Wisconsin.┬á This award is given to chosen public figures who ÔÇ£tell it like it is about religion.ÔÇØ┬á ┬áVideo from the conference will be available on FFRFÔÇÖs website in the near future.
Is the concept of DarwinÔÇÖs natural selection an excuse for ruthless competition?┬á SPI Fellow David Sloan Wilson 
replies to an article from the New York Times with this very thesis.  The article, Jeff Bezos got Darwinism all Wrong!  Ruthless competition is a prescription for disaster, is a solid rebuttal.  Wilson manages to take an inflammatory title and not pull any punches, instead he offers fact and reason.
 Why I Speak Out Against Islamism, an article by SPI Advocate Maryam Namazie has been gaining attention in the secular community.  In the wake of being banned from speaking at Warwick University, Namazie has also caught the attention of Islamists and their apologists.  Find out what drives her and what is going on in this article.