"A Conspiracy of Doves". It's a pretty cool name for... anything, really. It could be a film, a cerebral thriller where Meryl Streep's and Al Pacino's daughter is kidnapped by the Russian mafia, someone fires a gun in the distance, and everyone looks very tense. Or perhaps a breakthrough album by a british indie rock band, featuring a chart-topping single about the poignancy of catching the bus. In truth, it is neither of those things (yet).
The "conspiracy of doves" term was first coined by the renowned ethologist Richard Dawkins, and is explained in detail in his excellent first book "The Selfish Gene". Essentially, it refers to the phenomenon of completely peaceful or "dove-like" behaviour in a theoretical animal population - a state which is ultimately unstable, since the peaceful animals are prone to invasion and exploitation by aggressive ("hawkish") mutants.
That pretty neatly encapsulates the issues I plan to discuss here: Science, reason, morality, philosophy, ethics - you know, all the good shit.
That's all for now. Stay tuned until next time, when I tackle the question: "Should people eat moisturising cream?" The answer may surprise you.
