Free Republic

On a gray day in mid-January, Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard University, suggested that innate differences in the build of the male and female brain might be one factor underlying the relative scarcity of women in science. His remarks reignited a debate that has been smoldering for a century, ever since some scientists sizing up the brains of both sexes began using their main finding--that female brains tend to be smaller--to bolster the view that women are intellectually inferior to men. To date, no one has uncovered any evidence that anatomical disparities might render women incapable of achieving academic...

The new dean of the Rev. Jerry Falwell's Liberty University theological seminary is a former Sunni Muslim who plans to turn out a hipper generation of graduates by relating to them with lyrics from rapper 50 Cent, TV's "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and the latest movies and film stars. Ergun Mehmet Caner cracks one-liners as easily as he quotes a Bible verse. Lecturing to a packed auditorium of 450 students, Mr. Caner mixed religion with jokes to keep his students on their toes in a late afternoon theology class. He asked his students which popular actors they would...

Catholic University hosts sacrilegious display against the Blessed Mother, offending students, faculty and Catholics nationwide Something extremely alarming and shameful occurred at the University of Dayton, where Our Blessed Mother was depicted in an exhibit amid pictures of prostitutes and pornography.1 The sacrilegious display, "Heartlands," by Derek A. Cracco, an assistant professor of art at the University of Alabama, was on public display in the Rike Center Gallery of the University of Dayton from February 22 to March 11. Ranking among the ten largest Catholic universities in the country, the University of Dayton, founded by the Society of Mary in...

W. and his associates are out and about this week, merrily gabbing about the White House’s second-term agenda: social security reform at home — plus a little tort reform on the side — and a continuation of freedom-spreading efforts abroad. The talk is warranted. After all, what else is inauguration week for? We defeated Michael Moore, George Moneybags Soros, Sen. Hairspray, and Teresa’s Husband in one fell swoop. We should be celebrating. But I’m still a crusty neocon, wholly in opposition to fun, so I’ll be gloomy and rant about the next four years. It is of the utmost significance...

Nobel facts The following are true facts and verified statistics: The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000, or 20% of the world population. They received the following Nobel Prizes: Literature 1988 - Najib Mahfooz. Peace: 1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat 1994 - Yasser Arafat Physics: 1990 - Elias James Corey 1999 - Ahmed Zewail Medicine: 1960 - Peter Brian Medawar 1998 - Ferid Mourad The Global Jewish population is aproximately 14,000,000 or about 0.02% of the world population. They received the following Nobel Prizes: Literature: 1910 - Paul Heyse 1927 - Henri Bergson 1958 - Boris Pasternak 1966 - Shmuel...

What can cellular neuroscientists learn about the human brain from studying a marine snail? Much more than one might suspect. "On a cell biological level, the mechanisms of learning and memory are identical, as far as we can tell," said David Glanzman, a UCLA professor of physiological science and neurobiology, whose research has strengthened the view that the human brain and that of a snail named Aplysia are surprisingly similar. "Human brains have many more neurons than the Aplysia's, but it doesn't look like there is any difference on a molecular or synaptic level. "When this animal learns," Glanzman said,...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Freedom and Attention Span By Dr. Oliver DeMille I. Attention SpanOn October 16, 1854, in Peoria, Illinois, Stephan Douglas finished his 3-hour address and sat down. Abraham Lincoln stood. He "reminded the audience that it was already 5 pm," and then told them that it would take him at least as long as Mr. Douglas to refute his speech point by point, and that Mr. Douglas would require at least an hour of rebuttal.i He recommended that everyone take a one-hour dinner break, and then return for the four additional hours of lecture.ii "The audience amiably agreed, and matters proceeded...

Can America's schools teach history? The question ought to be ridiculous -- of course they can. What do we pay them for? History is as essential as reading and writing to a republic of free citizens. America's schools have always taught America's history. Unfortunately, there's a lot of evidence that our schools are doing a poor job of it. Results of the 2001 National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that 57 percent of high school seniors scored below the "basic" level of history achievement. And "basic" isn't impressive. The test-makers believe that students should achieve the "proficient" level, but only...

Hi Folks. Can anyone give me some pointers on how to use HTML to post pictures and quotes from other sites? I have been trying to post some of the articles from FR to FreeDominion ( Canada's sister site) but am having no luck. Also, I would like to post some stuff on FR from FD, and from some of the Canadian newspapers. Any sites you can suggest that could help me learn? Many thanks to my fellow Conservatives.

It may seem innocent enough to President George W. Bush, the notion of training 100,000 teachers across the Middle East to improve the quality of education and perhaps also cut down on possible extremism. Yet Arabs and Europeans at the Group of Eight summit here are bristling over this and other aspects of Bush's proposed Middle East democracy initiative. They consider it a heavy-handed effort to foist American ideas on the region. Both Arab and European leaders say Bush must deal first with what many consider the Middle East's most pressing problem, the ongoing violence between Israelis and Palestinians. King...

TIME TO JUNK THE NEW APOLOGETICS? Dear Friend of Catholic Answers: In the 1960s, after South Vietnam had been undergoing a less-than-peaceful change of government every week or so, there came a period of stability. One magazine took notice and ran this headline: "No Coups Is Good Noups." You know the feeling. It's nice to take a breather from the fuss and fury. It's nice to have no one saying silly things that need to be responded to. It's nice to relax, kick back, and think that, even if only for a moment, all's well with the world. And then...

<p>African-American studies programs are intended to give students an unbiased opportunity to learn and celebrate the history and culture of blacks in America, but critics say courses too often are filled with a leftist political slant that taints the teachings.</p>

The typical Internet user -- far from being a geek -- shuns television and actively socialises with friends, a study on surfing habits says. The findings of the first World Internet Project report present an image of the average Netizen that contrasts with the stereotype of the loner "geek" who spends hours of his free time on the Internet and rarely engages with the real world. Instead, the typical Internet user is an avid reader of books and spends more time engaged in social activities than the non-user, it says. And, television viewing is down among some Internet users by...

I’ve been thinking about everything I’ve learned on FR. Now I know the meaning of:1.BUMP2.ROTFLOL3.I know what Prayer Warriors do4.I know that Canada is a place where we store our extra trees5.I know How Many Freepers it takes to change a light bulb6.I know a vanity when I see one ;)What did you learn on FR that you needed to know in life?

You'd think a bunch of people who stole their name from an established, millennia-old group, who are despised and forbidden to own property in the lands of their own brethren, who are so abysmally ignorant that they think killing off their future generations is a good thing, would have nothing to teach. But they do. And Israel, world Jewry, and all the non-Muslim world would be wise to learn the lessons. The first lesson is really one taught by Aldous Huxley is his book Brave New World. In it, he states that "...A thousand repetitions equal one truth." The Arab...

This is my first vanity post, I wasn't going to post this until I realized there is a "vanity" option under topics. Anyone care to help out a freeper? I'm about to begin the three part calculus sequence followed by differential equqations and I'm starting to get nervous. I would like advice from those who are there or have been there. I am an adult student who has decided to return to school, I have re-taken trig and precalculus (both A's)as a refresher. I'm looking for any kind of advice, general or specific. What things are inportant for the study...

For Immediate ReleaseOffice of the Press SecretaryOctober 18, 2003 President's Radio Address      Audio THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. During the decades of Saddam Hussein's oppression and misrule, all Iraqis suffered, including children. While Saddam built palaces and monuments to himself, Iraqi schools crumbled. While Saddam supported a massive war machine, Iraqi schoolchildren went without text books, and sometimes teachers went unpaid. Saddam used schools for his own purposes: to indoctrinate the youth of Iraq and to teach hatred. Under Saddam, adult illiteracy was 61 percent, and for women it was a staggering 77 percent. Iraq is a nation with a proud...

In the New York Times September 15, 2003 issue addressing the topic of: "City to Track Why Students Leave School" Children are being pushed out of school because they are not able to learn. I have addressed this problem in many articles that I wrote. I believe there should be accountability in the educational system, which would require laws and policies to implement safeguards to protect our children. According to policy, children are supposed to have a proper education until age 21, but who knows about this? Surely not parents and their children. Now the educational system is trying to...

I’m thinking about the dinner table and what kind of meals my mom made for the family when I was a kid. Sometimes we had TV dinners, if it was just the kids eating. Most often, my mother tried to put a meal on the table…at least up until she and my father separated. She provided for 6 people. We usually had some kind of meat and a green vegetable and a starch. Sometimes there was salad and dessert. She didn’t do too badly meeting our nutritional needs. She was no expert on food science but we all grew up...