Word of the week: the foreign secretary’s attempted slur on the EU backfires The British public has been gratefully exposed to almost every conceivable way of insulting the EU, but Boris Johnson has ...

Ask a 3-year-old why she thinks it's raining, and she might say "because the flowers are thirsty." Her brother might also tell you that trees have leaves to provide shade for people and animals. These ...

Teleology (pronounced tee-lee-ology or teh-lee-ology) is a philosophical term that refers to purpose in the natural world. The teleological stance asks you to look at the big picture and to think ...

Could complex beliefs like paranoia have roots in something as basic as vision? A new Yale study finds evidence that they might. When completing a visual perception task, in which participants had to ...

New research suggests that paranoia and excessive teleological thinking—two forms of distorted beliefs about intention—are associated with specific errors in visual perception. The findings, published ...

University of Bristol provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation UK. Ask a three-year-old why they think it’s raining, and she may say “because the flowers are thirsty”. Her brother ...