I couldn’t understand why a disease like schizophrenia persists in humans. People who have these diseases don’t reproduce very well, either because they’re sick, or they’ve been locked up, or because they were killed.

—Robert H. Yolken, director of developmental neurobiology at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, quoted in the Baltimore Sun, 07.31.10. Yolken is investigating a possible link between Toxoplasma gondii, a common parasite spread by cats, and schizophrenia.

Now President Obama has found himself in a position where the military wields far too much influence on Capitol Hill; controls too much of the depleted U.S. Treasury; and has the leading policy voice on both security and diplomatic issues. He would do well to take heed of the philosophy and advice of Eisenhower, who had a far better understanding of America’s infatuation with military power.

—Melvin A. Goodman, adjunct professor of government at the School of Advanced International Studies, quoted in the 07.6.10 issue of Middle East Online.

As much as we owe the nature of our current existence to the evolutionary forces Darwin first discovered, or the cultures we grow up in, or to the chemical states affecting our brain processes at any given moment, none of this impacts on our freedom. I am free because neither science nor religion can ever tell me, with certainty, what my future will be and what I should do about it. The dictum from Sartre gets it exactly right: I am condemned to freedom. I am not free because I can make choices, but because I must make them, all the time, even when I think I have no choice to make.

—William Egginton, professor in the humanities at the Krieger School, quoted in The New York Times’ Opinionator blog, 07.25.10.