Free Republic

“GAYDAR” colloquially refers to the ability to accurately glean others’ sexual orientation from mere observation. But does gaydar really exist? If so, how does it work? Our research, published recently in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE, shows that gaydar is indeed real and that its accuracy is driven by sensitivity to individual facial features as well as the spatial relationships among facial features. We conducted experiments in which participants viewed facial photographs of men and women and then categorized each face as gay or straight. The photographs were seen very briefly, for 50 milliseconds, which was long enough for participants...

May 31, 2012 (HLIWorldWatch.org) - Anyone who is concerned about the influence of the homosexual agenda on reshaping traditional values must become intimately familiar with the major tactics that homophiles commonly employ in order to anticipate them and respond in charity and truth. Homophile strategists are very adept at manipulating public opinion with an arsenal of six tactics that are based upon deceptions and half‑truths: Exploit the “victim” status; Use the sympathetic media; Confuse and neutralize the churches; Slander and stereotype Christians; Bait and switch (hide their true nature); and Intimidation. One reason these tactics have worked so well is...

Serious question, greenies: is a nation justified in completely running its economy into the ground, with all of the hardship and heartache that ensues, if it’s all for the sake of instilling the populace with what the government deems necessary environmental virtue? Saddled with a budget deficit more than twice the European Union limit and a ballooning gap between income and costs in its power system, Spain halted subsidies for new renewable-energy projects in January. The surprise move by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy one month after taking office helped pierce investor confidence in stable aid for clean energy acrossEurope. “They destroyed the Spanish market...

The theme of the 7th International Conference on Climate Change was “Real Science, Real Choices.” We featured approximately 50 scientists and policy experts speaking at plenary sessions and panel discussions exploring what real climate science is telling us about the causes and consequences of climate change, and the real consequences of choices being made based on the current perceptions of the state of climate science.

Climategate, the 2009 exposure of misconduct at the University of East Anglia, was a terrible blow to the reputation of climatology, and indeed to that of British and American science. Although that story hasn’t been in the news in recent months, new evidence of similar scientific wrongdoing continues to emerge, with a new scandal hitting the climate blogosphere just a few days ago.And central to the newest story is one of the Climategate scientists: Keith Briffa, an expert in reconstructing historical temperature records from tree rings. More particularly, the recent scandal involves a tree-ring record Briffa prepared for a...

The Violence Policy Center released a report today that analyzed and compared firearm and motor vehicle related deaths for the year 2009 on a state-by-state basis. They found that in ten states firearm related deaths outnumbered deaths caused by motor vehicles. These states are Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Virginia, and Washington VPC Legislative Director Kristen Rand states, “Americans are reaping the benefits of smart safety regulation of motor vehicles. The idea that gun deaths exceed motor vehicle deaths in 10 states is stunning when one considers that 90 percent of American households own a car while...

Human trials vainly tried to prove air pollution is deadly Which do you find more shocking: that the Environmental Protection Agency conducts experiments on humans that its own risk assessments would deem potentially lethal, or that it hides the results of those experiments from Congress and the public because they debunk those very same risk assessments? JunkScience.com recently obtained through the Freedom of Information Act the results of tests conducted on 41 people who were exposed by EPA researchers to high levels of airborne fine particulate matter - soot and dust known as PM2.5. [snip] Just to clarify what Ms....

James Lovelock, the maverick scientist who became a guru to the environmental movement with his “Gaia” theory of the Earth as a single organism, has admitted to being “alarmist” about climate change and says other environmental commentators, such as Al Gore, were too. Lovelock, 92, is writing a new book in which he will say climate change is still happening, but not as quickly as he once feared. He previously painted some of the direst visions of the effects of climate change. In 2006, in an article in the U.K.’s Independent newspaper, he wrote that “before this century is over...

Do homophobic people actually fear their own unconscious feelings? A new study suggests that people who repress their own sexual attraction to the same sex are more likely to express hostility towards gays. "In many cases these are people who are at war with themselves and they are turning this internal conflict outward," study co-author Dr. Richard Ryan, professor of psychology at the University of Rochester, said in a university written statement. In four separate experiments conducted in the U.S. and in Germany, each involving an average of 160 college students, researchers attempted to measure any differences between what people...

<p>In a move that serves as a significant blow to "ex-gay" programs and anti-gay organizations, Dr. Robert Spitzer repudiated his much-criticized 2001 study that claimed some "highly motivated" homosexuals could go from gay to straight. His retraction occurred in an American Prospect magazine article that hit newsstands today. Spitzer's rejection of his own research, which was originally published in the prestigious Archives of Sexual Behavior, is a devastating blow to "ex-gay" organizations because it decisively eliminates their most potent claim that homosexuality can be reversed through therapy and prayer.</p>

United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-sponsored and funded "human health effects science" research is unreliable and makes irresponsible and outrageous claims about how air pollution causes thousands of deaths. Then the EPA claims that it can prevent those deaths with its latest set of regulations of emissions. This junk science can be challenged effectively, legally, and politically, as described below. The science misconduct is the result of the politicization of public health science, something Eisenhower warned about in his farewell speech in 1961. There are political, judicial, and administrative solutions to this perfidy. First, what is the junk science? Judging...

In 1517 Martin Luther set off the Protestant revolution against the Catholic Church that led to the spread of the then-new movement as a response to the corruption of the Church. It took time for it to establish itself as an alternative and was greatly aided by the invention of printing and spread of literacy, but mostly because ordinary people had grown weary of the Church’s extravagance, poor governance, and resistance to change. The selling of worthless “indulgences” as a means to wipe one’s sins clean was the final straw. Environmentalism has become a modern religion and its “cap and...

Joint letter from 49 former NASA scientists and astronauts to the current NASA Administrator blasts agency’s policy of ignoring empirical evidence about global warming.

Professor Kari Norgaard has followed the lead of all the other Liberals who can’t use data and facts to win their argument. Professor Norgaard, from the University of Oregon, says to deny Global Warming junk science is “racism.” But, it’s even more absurd than that. If you reject the junk data, corruption, and blatant grab for power that is the Green Movement she wants you diagnosed with a disease. And treated.

Global Warming Denialism ‘Just Foolishness,’ Scientist Peter Raven Says U.S. prestige falling as world has ‘pretty well given up’ on any American leadership facing climate change. ——- Nature’s Edge Notebook #23 Observation, Analysis, Reflection, New Questions One of the world’s most widely known and respected senior scientists tells ABC News that current denial about the basic daunting realities of manmade global warming is “just foolishness.” He also reports that the rest of the world has now “pretty well given up” on its hope for U.S. leadership in dealing with global climate change. His assessment reinforces our findings at the recent...

Scientists looked back in time – in the geologic record – to see the future Even if humankind manages to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit)–as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recommends–future generations will likely have to deal with a completely different world. One with sea levels 40 to 70 feet higher than at present, according to research results published this week in the journal Geology. The scientists, led by Kenneth Miller of Rutgers University, reached their conclusion by studying rock and soil cores taken in Virginia, New Zealand and the Eniwetok Atoll in...

WEDNESDAY, May 25 (HealthDay News) -- Older adults who say they've had a life-changing religious experience are more likely to have a greater decrease in size of the hippocampus, the part of the brain critical to learning and memory, new research finds. ...or conversely, those who had no religious affiliation, had more hippocampal shrinkage (or "atrophy") compared to people who identified themselves as Protestants, but not born-again. ...SOURCE: Duke University, news release, May 19, 2011

President Obama blasted his Republican critics Thursday for their resistance to investing in alternative energy sources, comparing their stance to the beliefs of those who thought that Columbus would sail off the edge of the world. In another in a series of speeches defending his energy policies, Obama touted his push for green energy growth — including wind and solar power, electric cars and biofuels — as a way to help wean the nation from a dependence on foreign oil. And he mocked his rivals for failing to embrace his ideas. “If some of these folks were around when Columbus...

The groups currently drafting new science standards for American classrooms have decided to include a section addressing the issue of climate change. The Congressionally chartered National Academies, including the National Research Council, plan to include a document drafted last year that says that human activities have at least a partial impact on climate.Although there’s a strong consensus in scientific literature on anthropogenic climate change, in America the issue is a source of significant controversy and debate. Just how strident the debate over climate change had become came as a surprise to one California middle school teacher: When Treena Joi, a...

Global warming/obesity crises unite! — New theory: CO2 making us fat By Caroline May - The Daily Caller 1:06 PM 03/14/2012 ADVERTISEMENT A Danish researcher claims he has discovered yet another reason to combat the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere: it is making us fat. According to the researcher, orexins, neuropeptide hormones in the brain that regulate energy, are negatively affected by CO2 — making us more tired and hungry, Science Nordic reports. Lars-Georg Hersoug of the Research Centre for Prevention and Health at Glostrup University Hospital tracked obesity over a 22-year span. He found that both thin and...