40 percent that of any professor on the faculty-got word that the trustees had secretly decided to abolish the sport. Reid and four allies hatched a plan to save their game-openly condemning its brutality and recommending that it be "radi- cally changed." Harvard's president, Charles W. Eliot, was skeptical.
But Reid persisted, trying to persuade other college coaches to agree to Harvard-proposed rules changes. He predicted that without reforms, Harvard would abolish the sport and that...
Henry S. Lufler, Jr., in Educa-tion and Urban Society (Feb. 1982), Sagethe-Sqeme. Court Publications, 275 South Beverly Dr., Bev-
erly Hills, Calif. 90212.
During the 1970s, the Supreme Court considered fewer than 10 cases involving the rights of public school students. Its rulings, which gen- erally expanded student rights, are having an impact on the schools- often in indirect and unintended ways, according to Lufler, assistant dean at the University of Wisconsin's School of Education.
In 1969,...
Tina Rosenberg, in The Washing-ton Monthly (May 1982), 2712 Ontario Rd. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20009.
As depicted much of the press, Jerry Falwell commands the loyalties of two million members of the Moral Majority and reaches 25 million more people through his TV program, Old Time Gospel Hour. His fol- lowers are on the move in a "political holy war without precedent."
Such media alarms have been sounded often since Falwell's meteoric rise to fame in the election-year summer of 1980. T...
Big Media. But the question again is: Is bigger better?
RELIGION & P
"The Politics of American Theology Fac-
America's Liberal ulty" Everett Carl1 Ladd and G. Donald Ferree, Jr., in This World (Sum-
Theologians mer 1982), Institute for Educational Af- fairs, 210 E. 86th St., Sixth Floor, N.Y.,
N.Y. 10028.
How do Americans' religious values affect their political views? Scholars debate whether deep religious faith tends to make a person politically conservative (e.g., anti-abortion) or...
American Baptists (63 percent) and Methodists (54 percent). The strongest opponents of current U.S. military spending were Episcopalians (92 percent) and Catholics (89 percent).
On a few issues, the theologians were almost unanimous. Ninety-five percent believed that church property used for nonreligious purposes should be taxable. And 99 percent said they would oppose a constitu- tional amendment declaring Christianity the official national religion.
Churchgoing "Church Adherence in the...
160 percent between 1740 and 1776.
Ordinary colonists simply had less narrow views of Christian doctrine than their pastors had, the authors~conclude. Thus, the "in- differency" clergymen decried was simply a lack of concern for de- nominational differences. When Charles Woodmason, an Anglican priest in rural South Carolina in the 1760s, denounced the region's "infidels and Atheists," he meant that they were not Anglicans. Thriv- ing Presbyterian, Baptist, and independent churches...
Diane Johnson,
in Mosaic (Jan.-Feb. 1982), Superintend-
ent of Documents, U.S. GovernmentShrinking? Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402.
Scientists have agreed in recent years that the sun is not a placid place. It pulsates, erupts in storms, and is developing holes in its outer atmos- phere. The sun, writes Johnson, a Colorado science writer, is an "un- predictable, middle-aged star." Some astronomers now think that it may also be a shrinking star, and that contention has sparked...
a small amount. Even slight changes in the future, they argue, could affect the Earth's cli- mate. Meanwhile, astrophysicists and astronomers continue to delve into dusty archives in an attempt to resolve the question.
'Darwin and His Finches: The Evolution of a Legend" Frank J. Sulloway, in Journal of the History of Biology (Spring 1982), D. Reidel Publishing Company, P.O.
Box 17, 3300aa Dordrecht, The Nether- lands.
Newton is struck by an apple, Galileo drops weights from the Tower of...
the middle of the 20th century, it was clear to scientists that the finches presented a "textbook example" of Darwin's theories. Darwin's elaborate reconstructions of specimen locations- which later scholars took to be field notes-falsely implied that Darwin himself had recognized this from the start.
-a
"Do Diets Really Work?" William ~/hyI&?f@ Bennett and Joel Gurrin, in Science 82 Doesn't Work (Mar. 1982), P.0. Box 10790, Des Moines,
Iowa 50340.
It often seems as if...