More than Voles: Humans, Creativity, and Overpopulation
By Eric Metaxas | For decades, even centuries, we’ve been warned that overpopulation will lead to mass starvation. But the cataclysm has yet to come….If there is ever a Hall of Fame for Pernicious Ideas, Thomas Malthus’s “An Essay on the Principle of Population” would be in the so-called charter class….
New FTU Course: What is Libertarianism?
When does government intervention hurt more than it helps? Wall Street Journal columnist Stephen Moore makes the case for less government and for Libertarian ideals. Join us for this second course in the Conservatism 101 series. Sign in to www.freethinku.com to learn more about these course experiences,…
Watching the Population Change…
By Mark J. Perry | Bill McBride at Calculated Risk provides the interesting animated chart above of America’s population distribution by age from 1900 through 2060 (updates every few seconds in five-year intervals), based on population data from the Census Bureau (actual data through 2010 and projections through
Current Debate: Arts Practical/Arts Liberal
By James Tonkowich | A dear friend’s daughter just graduated from a small, highly respected liberal arts college with her Bachelor of Arts in psychology “with all the honors, rights, and privileges to that degree appertaining.” What precisely those honors, rights and privileges are and whether they’re worth the price are…
Class is in Session: Announcing Conservatism 101
Activism alone is dangerous. Education alone is feeble. Whether you are a liberal or a conservative (or something else), here’s an opportunity to understand an increasingly under-represented point of view on America’s college campuses. Conservatism 101, a rigorous examination of the American conservative…
New FTU Course: What is My Life Philosophy?
Social commentator John Stonestreet surveys how people make sense of the world and our place in it, so you can choose a path. AVERAGE TIME: 2 HOURS. 1,000 IMPACT POINTS. Sign in to www.freethinku.com to learn more about these course experiences, which are free for students and qualify them to…
Who Came Along and Ruined the Humanities?
By Lee Siegel | Fewer and fewer undergraduates are majoring in the humanities, and critic Lee Siegel couldn’t be happier. As he tells WSJ’s Gary Rosen, great poetry and novels are meant to be experienced in private and alone, away from the competitive pressures of the classroom. You’ve probably heard…
New FTU Course: How Do I Do the Right Thing?
Listen in to a panel discussion at Princeton University moderated by Brit Hume on the issue of ethics and ethical decision-making. Can you know right from wrong? 2 HOURS, 1,000 POINTS.
High School Reading Becoming Simpler: Surprised?
By Samuel Klee | We’ve all heard it—life is far easier now than “back in the day” when our grandparents were young. I admit, those words may contain some degree of truth; at school, research no longer requires laborious pilgrimages to musty library crypts, and I shall never relinquish my laptop for a Remington typewriter. Rejoice! Life is improving with time, and we are the fortunate beneficiaries. However, this trend toward ease is apparently not confined to the technological realm. A recent study by Renaissance Learning has compared high school required readings from 1907 to 2012, claiming that…