Free Republic

Charles Darwin’s discovery of evolution is common knowledge but Darwin the person is barely known. Even on his 200th birth anniversary this year — he was born in England on Feb. 12, 1809 — much has been said about his works but little about his inner life of contrasts. Darwin loved the natural world from childhood. He roamed the wilderness to study insects while neglecting Greek and Latin, the essential subjects. He said of his schooling, “I was considered by all my masters and by my Father as a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect.” Sent...

"Character is destiny." -- Heraclitus, pre-Socratic philosopher What tells you more about what kind of president a candidate would make: a. Her positions on the nursing shortage, Social Security and internet decency; or b. The way she responds under pressure? I'm guessing that, like me, the great majority of people would opt for "b." Ah, but the sensitive souls of the Boston Globe editoral board aren't the great majority of people. Their editorial of this morning, "A debate, not a prize fight," is one long vote for 'a.'

The “Cartesian Split” Is a Hallucination; Ergo, We Should Get Rid of It by Jean F. Drew The Ancient Heritage of Western Science The history of science goes back at least two and a half millennia, to the pre-Socratics of ancient Greece. Democritus and Leucippus were the fathers of atomic theory — at least they were the first thinkers ever to formulate one. Heraclitus was the first thinker to consider what in the modern age developed as the laws of thermodynamics. Likewise Plato’s Chora, in the myth of the Demiurge (see Timaeus), may have been the very first anticipation of...