Free Republic

Medieval sea chart was in line with current thinking (Filed: 04/05/2004) The 16th-century Carta Marina, complete with sea monsters, gives an accurate location for dangerous eddies. Roger Highfield reports A satellite image of the north-east Atlantic has revealed that medieval cartographers knew much more about ocean currents than was thought. The ornate Carta Marina, published in 1539, appears crude by today's standards, depicting sea monsters off the coast of Scotland, sinking galleons, sea snakes, and wolves urinating against trees. But when oceanographers examined a large group of swirls and whorls drawn off the south-east of Iceland, complete with ships, a...

Shell Beads From South African Cave Show Modern Human Behavior 75,000 Years Ago ARLINGTON, Va.- Perforated shells found at South Africa's Blombos Cave appear to have been strung as beads about 75,000 years ago-making them 30,000 years older than any previously identified personal ornaments. Archaeologists excavating the site on the on the coast of the Indian Ocean discovered 41 shells, all with holes and wear marks in similar positions, in a layer of sediment deposited during the Middle Stone Age (MSA). "The Blombos Cave beads present absolute evidence for perhaps the earliest storage of information outside the human brain,"...

<p>To fulfill his promise to balance the budget without raising taxes, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger needs all the help he can get. Through its newsletter and in interviews we conducted with its scholars, the Reason Public Policy Institute has raised a number of promising ideas for reform.</p>

Preaching abundant living The Rev. Della Reese Lett teaches lessons of material success and personal empowerment in her own church. Della Reese, who played a down-to-earth heavenly being on "Touched by an Angel" isn't acting as she stands in front of a congregation on Sundays in West Hollywood. She's preaching — in her own church. And her message has no mention of sin, no mention of good and evil and no endorsement of sacrifice if it means doing without. She talks about abundant living, not in the hereafter but in the here and now.

What should a political party do to minimize debate on the part of their constituents over real issues and simply pre-program voters to think and act a certain way? Well, first thing, control education at the national level where you can teach kids WHAT to think instead of HOW to think. Secondarily, feed your constituents a series of one-line bumper sticker slogans which sound great but have about as much real meat as your average soy-burger. Can there be any doubt that liberals are the masters of this art? Personally, I have, for a long time now, been very wary...

At the risk of enraging the gods of political correctness, it is time that someone asks the NAACP why it wants to derail a movement that appears to improve the educational performance of black students. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People wants federal money withheld from Florida schools because high-school graduation requires passing an exam on which blacks fare poorly. The NAACP effort has national implications because Florida's system of standards, accountability and what it calls "high-stakes testing" conforms to what is going on in most other states and the direction of federal education policy. The Florida...

Common mental tasks can cut a driver's ability to see signs, cars and traffic lights by as much as 30 per cent, accoding to a new study. The findings underline how what is going on in a driver's head can be as important - and distracting - as a crying child in the back seat, or driving past the scene of an accident. Some mental tasks can be so complex and distracting that they result in those all-too-familar accidents in which drivers claim they "didn't expect it" or "saw it too late," according to an article published recently in the...

The Absurdity of 'Thinking in Language' This paper has been read to the University of Southern California philosophy group and the Boston 1972 meeting of the American Philosophical Association, as well as to the Houston meeting of the Southwestern Philosophical Society. Appeared in The Southwestern Journal of Philosophy, IV(1973), pp. 125-132. Numbers in "<>" refer to this journal. Among the principal assumptions of major portions of philosophy in recent decades have been: (1) That philosophy somehow consists of (some sort of) logic, and (2) that logic is a study of and theory about (some sort of) language. There, of...

Australian "Thinking Cap" Stimulates Creativity April 19, 2002 8:30 CDT Autistic savants have long fascinated the medical profession. The rest of their lives profoundly impaired by autism, these amazingly resilient individuals have found a skill they excel at to such a degree that to call them "gifted" does them an injustice. Savant Syndrome is a disorder in which individuals with neurological developmental delays in socialization and communication possess astonishing islands of brilliance that stand in stark, markedly incongruous contrast to the over-all handicap. All forms of Savant Syndrome are associated with a phenomenal memory, which aids in the recognition of...