Teaching fear and avoidance of technology may protect people from negative consequences. But it also prevents them from finding, and benefiting from, productive uses of new innovations.
Only one Australian suburb, Lakemba in Sydney, has a population that is more than half Muslim.
AAP/Jane Dempster
Locavore, freegan, kangatarian, flexitarian ... what we eat has become a moral minefield. Religions have long enforced food-related prohibitions, but in a secular context we could do with a little less moralising at the kitchen table.
Media reports would have us believing young people are using synthetic products in droves.
stuart anthony/Flickr
The hyperbole used to describe the dangers of new drugs can be counterproductive. Rather than containing their spread, the media can act as advertisers for emerging substances.