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  • Can You Pass This 8th Grade Spelling Test from 1904?

    Can You Pass This 8th Grade Spelling Test from 1904?1

    With the rise of spell check and auto correct, we’ve let instruction in spelling go to the wayside. But in 1904, proper spelling was an absolute must if one wanted to move on to high school. The following quiz is taken from a Boxwell-Patterson examination booklet. Are you smarter than an 8th grader in 1904?

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  • Why Death Today Has No Meaning

    Why Death Today Has No Meaning0

    The most famous work of the German sociologist and philosopher Max Weber (1864-1920) is undoubtedly The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. But one of his most oft-quoted statements comes not from this book, but from an essay titled “Science as a Vocation,” in which he describes the modern world as “disenchanted”: “The fate

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  • Are Men Just Better at Math and Science Than Women?

    Are Men Just Better at Math and Science Than Women?0

    In early 2005, Harvard President Lawrence Summers suggested that innate differences between men and women might be responsible for under-representation of women in math and science departments at elite academic institutions. The comment set off a firestorm and led to Summers’ ouster the following year. A few months after Summers’ comments, a pair of Harvard

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  • Intellectual Takeout App 2.0 is out!

    Intellectual Takeout App 2.0 is out!0

    A few weeks ago we released an iPhone app for Intellectual Takeout. It was received really well and a number of folks recommended changes, such as sorting by categories and the ability to “favorite” or “bookmark”, to make it better. We listened and got to work on a new version. Download Intellectual Takeout’s App 2.0!  The

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  • Why Children are Unlikely to Understand these References in Peanut Cartoons

    Why Children are Unlikely to Understand these References in Peanut Cartoons2

    Writing on the ever popular Peanuts cartoon strip in The Atlantic, Jonathan Merritt makes an interesting observation about the prevalence with which Charles Schulz incorporated religion into his comics: “More than 560 of Schulz’s nearly 17,800 Peanuts newspaper strips contain a religious, spiritual, or theological reference. To put this into perspective, Schulz only produced 61

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  • Edmund Burke on Manners

    Edmund Burke on Manners0

    It took Edmund Burke a very little time to decide that French Revolutionary philosophy posed a massive threat to civilization and social stability throughout Europe. By the end of his life, eight years after the storming of the Bastille, his fears of Jacobin contagion had led him to ask for a secret grave, removed from

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