title: Freedom of religion

text: Most of the early colonies were generally not tolerant of dissident forms of worship, with Maryland being one of the exceptions. For example, Roger Williams found it necessary to found a new colony in Rhode Island to escape persecution in the theocratically dominated colony of Massachusetts. The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony were the most active of the New England persecutors of Quakers, and the persecuting spirit was shared by Plymouth Colony and the colonies along the Connecticut river. In 1660, one of the most notable victims of the religious intolerance was English Quaker Mary Dyer, who was hanged in Boston, Massachusetts for repeatedly defying a Puritan law banning Quakers from the colony. As one of the four executed Quakers known as the Boston martyrs, the hanging of Dyer on the Boston gallows marked the beginning of the end of the Puritan theocracy and New England independence from English rule, and in 1661 King Charles II explicitly forbade Massachusetts from executing anyone for professing Quakerism. Anti-Catholic sentiment appeared in New England with the first Pilgrim and Puritan settlers. In 1647, Massachusetts passed a law prohibiting any Jesuit Roman Catholic priests from entering territory under Puritan jurisdiction. Any suspected person who could not clear himself was to be banished from the colony; a second offense carried a death penalty. The Pilgrims of New England held radical Protestant disapproval of Christmas. Christmas observance was outlawed in Boston in 1659. The ban by the Puritans was revoked in 1681 by an English appointed governor, however it was not until the mid-19th century that celebrating Christmas became common in the Boston region.


title: Freedom of religion

text: Freedom of religion was first applied as a principle of government in the founding of the colony of Maryland, founded by the Catholic Lord Baltimore, in 1634. Fifteen years later (1649), the Maryland Toleration Act, drafted by Lord Baltimore, provided: "No person or persons...shall from henceforth be any waies troubled, molested or discountenanced for or in respect of his or her religion nor in the free exercise thereof." The Act allowed freedom of worship for all Trinitarian Christians in Maryland, but sentenced to death anyone who denied the divinity of Jesus. The Maryland Toleration Act was repealed during the Cromwellian Era with the assistance of Protestant assemblymen and a new law barring Catholics from openly practicing their religion was passed. In 1657, the Catholic Lord Baltimore regained control after making a deal with the colony's Protestants, and in 1658 the Act was again passed by the colonial assembly. This time, it would last more than thirty years, until 1692 when, after Maryland's Protestant Revolution of 1689, freedom of religion was again rescinded. In addition, in 1704, an Act was passed "to prevent the growth of Popery in this Province", preventing Catholics from holding political office. Full religious toleration would not be restored in Maryland until the American Revolution, when Maryland's Charles Carroll of Carrollton signed the American Declaration of Independence.


title: Freedom of religion

text: Rhode Island (1636), Connecticut (1636), New Jersey, and Pennsylvania (1682) founded by Protestants Roger Williams, Thomas Hooker, and William Penn, respectively combined the democratic form of government which had been developed by the Puritans and the Separatist Congregationalists in Massachusetts with religious freedom. These colonies became sanctuaries for persecuted religious minorities. Catholics and later on Jews also had full citizenship and free exercise of their religions. Williams, Hooker, Penn, and their friends were firmly convinced that freedom of conscience was the will of God. Williams gave the most profound argument: As faith is the free work of the Holy Spirit, it cannot be forced on a person. Therefore, strict separation of church and state has to be kept. Pennsylvania was the only colony that retained unlimited religious freedom until the foundation of the United States in 1776. It was the inseparable connection between democracy, religious freedom, and the other forms of freedom which became the political and legal basis of the new nation. In particular, Baptists and Presbyterians demanded the disestablishment of state churches Anglican and Congregationalist and the protection of religious freedom.


title: Freedom of religion

text: Reiterating Maryland's and the other colonies' earlier colonial legislation, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, written in 1779 by Thomas Jefferson, proclaimed:


title: Freedom of religion

text: [N]o man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.


title: Freedom of religion

text: Those sentiments also found expression in the First Amendment of the national constitution, part of the United States' Bill of Rights: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...". The acknowledgement of religious freedom as the first right protected in the Bill of Rights points toward the American founders' understanding of the importance of religion to human, social, and political flourishing. The First Amendment makes clear that it sought to protect "the free exercise" of religion, or what might be called ""free exercise equality.""


title: Freedom of religion

text: The United States formally considers religious freedom in its foreign relations. The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 established the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom which investigates the records of over 200 other nations with respect to religious freedom, and makes recommendations to submit nations with egregious records to ongoing scrutiny and possible economic sanctions. Many human rights organizations have urged the United States to be still more vigorous in imposing sanctions on countries that do not permit or tolerate religious freedom.


title: Freedom of religion

text: Freedom of religion in Canada is a constitutionally protected right, allowing believers the freedom to assemble and worship without limitation or interference. Canadian law goes further, requiring that private citizens and companies provide reasonable accommodation to those, for example, with strong religious beliefs. The Canadian Human Rights Act allows an exception to reasonable accommodation with respect to religious dress, such as a Sikh turban, when there is a "bona fide" occupational requirement, such as a workplace requiring a hard hat. In 2017 the Santo Daime Church Céu do Montréal received religious exemption to use Ayahuasca as a sacrament in their rituals.


title: Freedom of religion

text: On 25 November 1981, the United Nations General Assembly passed the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief. This declaration recognizes freedom of religion as a fundamental human right in accordance with several other instruments of international law.


title: Freedom of religion

text: However, the most substantial binding legal instruments that guarantee the right to freedom of religion that was passed by the international community is the Convention on the Rights of the Child which states in its Article 14: ""States Parties shall respect the right of the child to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. States Parties shall respect the rights and duties of the parents and, when applicable, legal guardians, to provide direction to the child in the exercise of his or her right in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child. Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health or morals, or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.""


title: Freedom of religion

text: In 1993, the UN's human rights committee declared that article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights "protects theistic, non-theistic and atheistic beliefs, as well as the right not to profess any religion or belief." The committee further stated that "the freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief necessarily entails the freedom to choose a religion or belief, including the right to replace one's current religion or belief with another or to adopt atheistic views." Signatories to the convention are barred from "the use of threat of physical force or penal sanctions to compel believers or non-believers" to recant their beliefs or convert. Despite this, minority religions still are persecuted in many parts of the world.


title: Freedom of religion

text: The French philosopher Voltaire noted in his book on English society, "Letters on the English", that freedom of religion in a diverse society was deeply important to maintaining peace in that country. That it was also important in understanding why England at that time was more prosperous in comparison to the country's less religiously tolerant European neighbours. If one religion only were allowed in England, the Government would very possibly become arbitrary; if there were but two, the people would cut one another’s throats; but as there are such a multitude, they all live happy and in peace.Adam Smith, in his book "The Wealth of Nations" (using an argument first put forward by his friend and contemporary David Hume), states that in the long run it is in the best interests of society as a whole and the civil magistrate (government) in particular to allow people to freely choose their own religion, as it helps prevent civil unrest and reduces intolerance. So long as there are enough religions and/or religious sects operating freely in a society then they are all compelled to moderate their more controversial and violent teachings, so as to be more appealing to more people and so have an easier time attracting new converts. It is this free competition amongst religious sects for converts that ensures stability and tranquillity in the long run.


title: Freedom of religion

text: Smith also points out that laws that prevent religious freedom and seek to preserve the power and belief in a particular religion will, in the long run, only serve to weaken and corrupt that religion, as its leaders and preachers become complacent, disconnected and unpractised in their ability to seek and win over new converts:


title: Freedom of religion

text: Hinduism is one of the more broad-minded religions when it comes to religious freedom. It respects the right of everyone to reach God in their own way. Hindus believe in different ways to preach attainment of God and religion as a philosophy and hence respect all religions as equal. One of the famous Hindu sayings about religion is: "Truth is one; sages call it by different names."


title: Freedom of religion

text: Judaism includes multiple streams, such as Orthodox, Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Reconstructionist Judaism, Jewish Renewal and Humanistic Judaism. However, Judaism also exists in many forms as a civilization, possessing characteristics known as peoplehood, rather than strictly as a religion. In the Torah, Jews are forbidden to practice idolatry and are commanded to root out pagan and idolatrous practices within their midst, including killing idolaters who sacrifice children to their gods, or engage in immoral activities. However, these laws are not adhered to anymore as Jews have usually lived among a multi-religious community.


title: Freedom of religion

text: After the conquest of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea by the Roman Empire, a Jewish state did not exist until 1948 with the establishment of the State of Israel. For over 1500 years Jewish people lived under pagan, Christian, Muslim, etc. rule. As such Jewish people in some of these states faced persecution. From the pogroms in Europe during the Middle Ages to the establishment of segregated Jewish ghettos during World War II. In the Middle East, Jews were categorised as dhimmi, non- Muslims permitted to live within a Muslim state. Even though given rights within a Muslim state, a dhimmi is still not equal to a Muslim within Muslim society.


title: Freedom of religion

text: Possibly because of this history of long term persecution, Jews in modernity have been among the most active proponents of religious freedom in the US and abroad and have founded and supported anti-hate institutions, including the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union. Jews are very active in supporting Muslim and other religious groups in the US against discrimination and hate crimes and most Jewish congregations throughout the US and many individual Jews participate in interfaith community projects and programs.


title: Freedom of religion

text: The State of Israel was established for the Jewish diaspora after World War II. While the Israel Declaration of Independence stresses religious freedom as a fundamental principle, in practice the current government, dominated by the ultra-Orthodox segment of the population has instituted legal barriers for those who do not practice Orthodox Judaism as Jews. However, as a nation state, Israel is very open towards other religions and religious practices, including public Muslim call to prayer chants and Christian prayer bells ringing in Jerusalem. Israel has been evaluated in research by the Pew organization as having "high" government restrictions on religion. The government recognizes only Orthodox Judaism in certain matters of personal status, and marriages can only be performed by religious authorities. The government provides the greatest funding to Orthodox Judaism, even though adherents represent a minority of citizens. Jewish women, including Anat Hoffman, have been arrested at the Western Wall for praying and singing while wearing religious garments the Orthodox feel should be reserved for men. Women of the Wall have organized to promote religious freedom at the Wall. In November 2014, a group of 60 non-Orthodox rabbinical students were told they would not be allowed to pray in the Knesset synagogue because it is reserved for Orthodox. Rabbi Joel Levy, director of the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem, said that he had submitted the request on behalf of the students and saw their shock when the request was denied. He noted: "paradoxically, this decision served as an appropriate end to our conversation about religion and state in Israel." MK Dov Lipman expressed the concern that many Knesset workers are unfamiliar with non-Orthodox and American practices and would view "an egalitarian service in the synagogue as an affront." The non-Orthodox forms of Jewish practice function independently in Israel, except for these issues of praying at the Western Wall.


title: Freedom of religion

text: A January 2022 report by IMPACT-se, an Israeli non-profit, detailed the amount of religious tolerance impressed on students through the education system in the United Arab Emirates. The “Jews as a Religious Community” section of the report starts with the UAE curriculum being cited as a tolerant one and one instilling a “generally positive attitude toward other non-Muslims”. However, besides the positive examples aimed at maintaining peace between the two nations, the report also highlights the negative portrayal of Jews in the UAE, citing a hadith passage that preaches believers to not be like the Jews, as they may be unclean or dirty. An Islamic educational text further described punishing the Bani Qurayza Jews for purportedly abusing the commitment of supporting Muhammad. The textbooks also seem to have missed mentioning Israel in their maps or educating the children and about the Jewish state history, i.e. the event of Holocaust despite normalizing ties with the Jewish state.


title: Freedom of religion

text: According to the Catholic Church in the Vatican II document on religious freedom, "Dignitatis Humanae", "the human person has a right to religious freedom", which is described as "immunity from coercion in civil society". This principle of religious freedom "leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion." In addition, this right "is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right."


title: Freedom of religion

text: Prior to this, Pope Pius IX had written a document called the "Syllabus of Errors. "The Syllabus was made up of phrases and paraphrases from earlier papal documents, along with index references to them, and presented as a list of "condemned propositions". It does not explain why each particular proposition is wrong, but it cites earlier documents to which the reader can refer for the Pope's reasons for saying each proposition is false. Among the statements included in the Syllabus are: "[It is an error to say that] Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true" (15); "[It is an error to say that] In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship"; "[It is an error to say that] Hence it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship".


title: Freedom of religion

text: Some Orthodox Christians, especially those living in democratic countries, support religious freedom for all, as evidenced by the position of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Many Protestant Christian churches, including some Baptists, Churches of Christ, Seventh-day Adventist Church and main line churches have a commitment to religious freedoms. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also affirms religious freedom.


title: Freedom of religion

text: However others, such as African scholar Makau Mutua, have argued that Christian insistence on the propagation of their faith to native cultures as an element of religious freedom has resulted in a corresponding denial of religious freedom to native traditions and led to their destruction. As he states in the book produced by the Oslo Coalition on Freedom of Religion or Belief, "Imperial religions have necessarily violated individual conscience and the communal expressions of Africans and their communities by subverting African religions."


title: Freedom of religion

text: In their book "Breaking India", Hindutva ideologue Rajiv Malhotra and Aravindan Neelakandan discussed the "US Protestant Church" funding activities in India, with the book arguing that the funds collected were being used not so much for the purposes indicated to sponsors, but for indoctrination and conversion activities. They suggest that India is the prime target of a huge enterprise a "network" of organizations, individuals, and churches that, they argue, seem intensely devoted to the task of creating a separatist identity, history, and even religion for the vulnerable sections of India. They suggest that this nexus of players includes not only church groups, government bodies, and related organizations, but also private think tanks and academics.


title: Freedom of religion

text: Christianity added new impetus to the expansion of empire. Increasing the arrogance of the imperial project, Christians insisted that the Gospels and the Church were the only valid sources of religious beliefs. Imperialists could claim that they were both civilizing the world and spreading the true religion. By the 5th century, Christianity was thought of as co-extensive with the "Imperium romanum". This meant that to be human, as opposed to being a natural slave, was to be "civilized" and Christian. Historian Anthony Pagden argues, "just as the "civitas"; had now become coterminous with Christianity, so to be human to be, that is, one who was 'civil', and who was able to interpret correctly the law of nature one had now also to be Christian." After the fifteenth century, most Western colonialists rationalized the spread of empire with the belief that they were saving a barbaric and pagan world by spreading Christian civilization.


title: Freedom of religion

text: Conversion to Islam is simple, but Muslims are forbidden to convert from Islam to another religion. Certain Muslim-majority countries are known for their restrictions on religious freedom, highly favoring Muslim citizens over non-Muslim citizens. Other countries having the same restrictive laws tend to be more liberal when imposing them. Even other Muslim-majority countries are secular and thus do not regulate religious belief.


title: Freedom of religion

text: In Iran, the constitution recognizes four religions whose status is formally protected: Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.


title: Freedom of religion

text: who have been subjected to arrests, beatings, executions, confiscation and destruction of property, and the denial of civil rights and liberties, and the denial of access to higher education. There is no freedom of conscience in Iran, as converting from Islam to any other religion is forbidden.


title: Freedom of religion

text: In Egypt, a 16 December 2006 judgment of the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt created a clear demarcation between recognized religions Islam, Christianity and Judaism and all other religious beliefs; no other religious affiliation is officially admissible. The ruling leaves members of other religious communities, including Baháʼís, without the ability to obtain the necessary government documents to have rights in their country, essentially denying them of all rights of citizenship. They cannot obtain ID cards, birth certificates, death certificates, marriage or divorce certificates, and passports; they also cannot be employed, educated, treated in public hospitals or vote, among other things. See Egyptian identification card controversy.


title: Freedom of religion

text: Among the most contentious areas of religious freedom is the right of an individual to change or abandon his or her own religion (apostasy), and the right to evangelize individuals seeking to convince others to make such a change.


title: Freedom of religion

text: Other debates have centered around restricting certain kinds of missionary activity by religions. Many Islamic states, and others such as China, severely restrict missionary activities of other religions. Greece, among European countries, has generally looked unfavorably on missionary activities of denominations others than the majority church and proselytizing is constitutionally prohibited.


title: Freedom of religion

text: A different kind of critique of the freedom to propagate religion has come from non-Abrahamic traditions such as the African and Indian. African scholar Makau Mutua criticizes religious evangelism on the ground of cultural annihilation by what he calls "proselytizing universalist faiths" (Chapter 28: Proselytism and Cultural Integrity, p. 652):


title: Freedom of religion

text: Some Indian scholars have similarly argued that the right to propagate religion is not culturally or religiously neutral.


title: Freedom of religion

text: In Sri Lanka, there have been debates regarding a bill on religious freedom that seeks to protect indigenous religious traditions from certain kinds of missionary activities. Debates have also occurred in various states of India regarding similar laws, particularly those that restrict conversions using force, fraud or allurement.


title: Freedom of religion

text: In 2008, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a Christian human rights non-governmental organisation which specializes in religious freedom, launched an in-depth report on the human rights abuses faced by individuals who leave Islam for another religion. The report is the product of a year long research project in six countries. It calls on Muslim nations, the international community, the UN and the international media to resolutely address the serious violations of human rights suffered by apostates.


title: Freedom of religion

text: In Islam, apostasy is called ""ridda"" ("turning back") and is considered to be a profound insult to God. A person born of Muslim parents that rejects Islam is called a ""murtadd fitri"" (natural apostate), and a person that converted to Islam and later rejects the religion is called a ""murtadd milli"" (apostate from the community).


title: Freedom of religion

text: In Islamic law (Sharia), the consensus view is that a male apostate must be put to death unless he suffers from a mental disorder or converted under duress, for example due to an imminent danger of being killed. A female apostate must be either executed, according to Shafi'i, Maliki, and Hanbali schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), or imprisoned until she reverts to Islam as advocated by the Sunni Hanafi school and by Shi'a scholars.


title: Freedom of religion

text: Ideally, the one performing the execution of an apostate must be an imam. At the same time, all schools of Islamic jurisprudence agree that any Muslim can kill an apostate without punishment.


title: Freedom of religion

text: However, while almost all scholars agree about the punishment, many disagree on the allowable time to retract the apostasy. S. A. Rahman, a former Chief Justice of Pakistan, argues that there is no indication of the death penalty for apostasy in the Qur'an.


title: Freedom of religion

text: The law in Germany includes the concept of "religious maturity" ("Religiöse Mündigkeit") with a minimum age for minors to follow their own religious beliefs even if their parents don't share those or don't approve. Children 14 and older have the unrestricted right to enter or exit any religious community. Children 12 and older cannot be compelled to change to a different belief. Children 10 and older have to be heard before their parents change their religious upbringing to a different belief. There are similar laws in Austria and in Switzerland.


title: Freedom of religion

text: Religious practice may also conflict with secular law, creating debates on religious freedom. For instance, even though polygamy is permitted in Islam, it is prohibited in secular law in many countries. This raises the question of whether prohibiting the practice infringes on the beliefs of certain Muslims. The US and India, both constitutionally secular nations, have taken two views of this. In India, polygamy is permitted, but only for Muslims, under Muslim Personal Law. In the US, polygamy is prohibited for all. This was a major source of conflict between the early LDS Church and the United States until the Church amended its position on practicing polygamy.


title: Freedom of religion

text: Similar issues have also arisen in the context of the religious use of psychedelic substances by Native American tribes in the United States, such as by the Native American Church.


title: Freedom of religion

text: In 1955, Chief Justice of California Roger J. Traynor neatly summarized the American position on how freedom of religion cannot imply freedom from law: "Although freedom of conscience and the freedom to believe are absolute, the freedom to act is not." But with respect to the religious use of animals within secular law and those acts, the US Supreme Court decision in the case of the "Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah" in 1993 upheld the right of Santeria adherents to practice ritual animal sacrifice, with Justice Anthony Kennedy stating in the decision: "religious beliefs need not be acceptable, logical, consistent or comprehensible to others in order to merit First Amendment protection" (quoted by Justice Kennedy from the opinion by Justice Burger in "Thomas v. Review Board of the Indiana Employment Security Division" ).


title: Freedom of religion

text: In 1962, the case of "Engel v. Vitale" went to court over the violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment resulting from a mandatory nondenominational prayer in New York public schools. The Supreme Court ruled in opposition to the state.


title: Freedom of religion

text: In 1963, the Supreme Court ruled on the case of "Abington School District v. Schempp". Edward Schempp sued the school district in Abington over the Pennsylvania law which required students to hear and sometimes read portions of the bible for their daily education. The court ruled in favor of Schempp and the Pennsylvania law was overturned.


title: Freedom of religion

text: In 1968, the Supreme Court ruled on the case of "Epperson v. Arkansas". Susan Epperson, a high school teacher in Arkansas sued over a violation of religious freedom. The state had a law banning the teaching of evolution and the school Epperson worked for had provided curriculum which contained evolutionary theory. Epperson had to choose between violating the law or losing her job. The Supreme Court ruled to overturn the Arkansas law because it was unconstitutional.


title: Freedom of religion

text: Leaders of the Christian right in the United States, United Kingdom, and other nations frame their opposition to LGBT rights and reproductive freedom as a defence of religious liberty.


title: Freedom of religion

text: In court cases, religious adherents have argued that they need exemptions from laws requiring equal treatment of LGBT people to avoid being complicit in "the sinful behaviour" of LGBT people. Moreover, other Christians argue that LGBT rights must be entirely removed from law to preserve the religious liberty of conservative Christians.


title: Freedom of religion

text: In 2015, Kim Davis, a Kentucky county clerk, refused to abide by the Supreme Court decision in "Obergefell v. Hodges" legalising same-sex marriage in the United States. When she refused to issue marriage licences, she became embroiled in the "Miller v. Davis" lawsuit. Her actions caused attorney and author Roberta Kaplan to claim that "Kim Davis is the clearest example of someone who wants to use a religious liberty argument to discriminate."


title: Freedom of religion

text: 27 October is International Religious Freedom Day, in commemoration of the execution of the Boston martyrs, a group of Quakers executed by the Puritans on Boston Common for their religious beliefs under the legislature of the Massachusetts Bay Colony between 1659–1661. The US proclaimed 16 January Religious Freedom Day.


title: Freedom of religion

text: In its 2011 annual report, the "United States Commission on International Religious Freedom" designated fourteen nations as "countries of particular concern". The commission chairman commented that these are nations whose conduct marks them as the world's worst religious freedom violators and human rights abusers. The fourteen nations designated were Burma, China, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. Other nations on the commission's watchlist include Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Laos, Russia, Somalia, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Venezuela.


title: Freedom of religion

text: There are concerns about the restrictions on public religious dress in some European countries (including the Hijab, Kippah, and Christian cross). Article 18 of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights limits restrictions on freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs to those necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others. Freedom of religion as a legal concept is related to, but not identical with, religious toleration, separation of church and state, or secular state ("laïcité").


title: Freedom of religion

text: The Pew Research Center has performed studies on international religious freedom between 2009 and 2015, compiling global data from 16 governmental and non-governmental organizationsincluding the United Nations, the United States State Department, and Human Rights Watchand representing over 99.5 percent of the world's population. In 2009, nearly 70 percent of the world's population lived in countries classified as having heavy restrictions on freedom of religion. This concerns restrictions on religion originating from government prohibitions on free speech and religious expression as well as social hostilities undertaken by private individuals, organisations and social groups. Social hostilities were classified by the level of communal violence and religion-related terrorism.


title: Freedom of religion

text: While most countries provided for the protection of religious freedom in their constitutions or laws, only a quarter of those countries were found to fully respect these legal rights in practice. In 75 countries governments limit the efforts of religious groups to proselytise and in 178 countries religious groups must register with the government. In 2013, Pew classified 30% of countries as having restrictions that tend to target religious minorities, and 61% of countries have social hostilities that tend to target religious minorities.


title: Freedom of religion

text: The countries in North and South America reportedly had some of the lowest levels of "government" and "social" restrictions on religion, while The Middle East and North Africa were the regions with the highest. Saudi Arabia and Iran were the countries that top the list of countries with the "overall" highest levels of restriction on religion. Topping the Pew government restrictions index were Saudi Arabia, Iran, Uzbekistan, China, Egypt, Burma, Maldives, Eritrea, Malaysia and Brunei.


title: Freedom of religion

text: Of the world's 25 most populous countries, Iran, Egypt, Indonesia and Pakistan had the most restrictions, while Brazil, Japan, Italy, South Africa, the UK, and the US had some of the lowest levels, as measured by Pew.


title: Freedom of religion

text: Vietnam and China were classified as having high "government" restrictions on religion but were in the moderate or low range when it came to "social" hostilities. Nigeria, Bangladesh and India were high in "social" hostilities but moderate in terms of "government" actions.


title: Freedom of religion

text: Restrictions on religion across the world increased between mid-2009 and mid-2010, according to a 2012 study by the Pew Research Center. Restrictions in each of the five major regions of the world increasedincluding in the Americas and sub-Saharan Africa, the two regions where overall restrictions previously had been declining. In 2010, Egypt, Nigeria, the Palestinian territories, Russia, and Yemen were added to the "very high" category of social hostilities. The five highest social hostility scores were for Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Iraq, and Bangladesh. In 2015, Pew published that social hostilities declined in 2013, but the harassment of Jews increased.


title: Freedom of religion

text: In the Palestinian territories, Palestinians face tight restrictions on practicing the freedom of religion due to the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In a report published by the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, eyewitnesses reported systematic practices aiming at preventing young men and women from performing their prayers at Masjid Al-Aqsa. These practices include military orders issued by the Israeli Defense Army commander against specific Palestinians who have an effective role in Jerusalem, interrogating young men, and creating a secret blacklist of people who are prevented from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque.


title: Freedom of religion

text: The lack of religious freedom in China has led to Uyghur Muslims fleeing the country to take refuge in other parts of the world. However, the diplomatic relations of Beijing have resulted in the abuse and detention of Uyghur Muslims even in abroad. The government of UAE was reportedly one of the three Arab nations to have detained and deported Uyghur Muslims living in asylum in Dubai, back to China. The decision received a lot of criticism due to China’s poor human rights records and no extradition agreement shared between the two countries.


title: Freedom of religion

text: Raif Badawi, the Saudi blogger who was detained for 10 years and received 1,000 lashes in public in 2014, was released on 11 March 2022. The information of Raif’s release was shared by his Quebec-based wife, Ensaf Haidar after she received a call from him. The Saudi blogger was fined, jailed, and flogged for criticizing his country’s clerics through his writings. However, besides the said punishment, a 10-year passport ban was also imposed on Raif, restricting him from traveling outside Saudi Arabia. Reporters Without Borders claimed that they would work in order to get the travel ban removed to help Raif join his family in Canada.


title: Thief in law

text: A “thief in law” (<nowiki>Russian</nowiki>: вор в зако́не, Georgian: კანონიერი ქურდი), in the Soviet Union, the post-Soviet states, and respective diasporas abroad is a specifically granted formal and special status of "criminal authority" (), a professional criminal who enjoys an elite position among other notified mobsters within the organized crime and correctional facility environments and employs informal authority over its lower-status members.


title: Thief in law

text: The phrase, "Thieves in Law" or otherwise known as 'Vory'; a calque of the Russian slang phrase "вор в зако́не", literally translated as "a Thief in [a position of] the law"; that can have separate meanings in Russian: "A legalized thief" and/or "A thief who is the Law". Note that 'Vor' came to mean 'thief' no earlier then in the 18th century, before it simply meant "criminal" (and it still has this meaning in the professional criminal argot). Each new 'Vor' (thief) is a madede and vetted (literally "crowned" male; with respective rituals and tattoos) by the consensus of several 'Vory'. Vor culture is inseparable from prison organized crime: only incessant jailed convicts are eligible for Vor status. Thieves in law are drawn from many nationalities from a number of post-Soviet states, but the absolute majority are ethnic Georgians and ethnic minorities from Georgia.


title: Thief in law

text: Although Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have long had criminals and bandits, during the disorder of the Russian Revolution of 1917, armed gangs proliferated until they became a very significant factor which controlled society. The criminal culture with its own slang, culture and laws became known as "vorovskoy mir" () or "Criminal/Thieves' World".


title: Thief in law

text: As the police and court system were re-established in the Soviet Union shortly after the 1917 revolution, the NKVD secret police nearly exterminated the criminal underworld completely. Under Stalin, the forced labor camps (Gulag) overflowed with political prisoners and criminals, and a new organized group of top criminals arose, the "vory v zakone", or "thieves in law."


title: Thief in law

text: The "thieves in law" formed as a society for ruling the criminal underworld within the prison camps, "who govern the dark gaps in Soviet life beyond the reach of the KGB". They adopted a system of collective responsibility, and swore to a code of "complete submission to the laws of criminal life, including obligations to support the criminal ideal, and rejection of labor and political activities."


title: Thief in law

text: As an example, while incarcerated, a Vor (вор) must refuse all work, and is not allowed to assist the warden/correction officers in any way, as the thieves' code states: "Your own prison you shall not make." For example, if an inmate walks past a guard, and the guard asks him to ring the dinner bell, the convict must refuse or he will be judged by his fellow inmates and found guilty of assisting his jailers. The Vory organized their own courts and held trials governed by the code of 'thieves' honor and tradition'. Acceptance into the group is often marked by specific tattoos, allowing all members of the criminal world to instantly recognize a "thief in law". Most prison inmates are tattooed (by other inmates) to indicate their rank within the criminal world, noteworthy criminal accomplishments and places of former incarceration. For example, a tattoo of one cat indicates that the criminal robs alone while multiple cats indicate that he has partners during robberies. Reportedly, "while the Communist Party had a steadfast grip on government and society, the Vory had something of a monopoly on crime."


title: Thief in law

text: After World War II, the "vory" in the Gulag system were weakened by the so-called Bitch Wars – a prison gang war between pure "vory" and the so-called "suki" ("bitches"). The 'suki' were former members of the criminal underworld who had broken the thieves' code by agreeing to cooperate with administration of prisons and labor camps. The "Bitch Wars" lasted for decades. Due to a large number of 'suki', most gulags were divided into two separate zones: one for 'suki' and one for 'vory'.


title: Thief in law

text: After the breakup of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, the "vory" assumed a leading role within the Russian criminal hierarchy (see Russian mafia). The group was able to "infiltrate the top political and economic strata while taking command of the burgeoning crime network that spread murderously through the post-Soviet countries." Thieves In Law are given the title by other "vory" and in order to be accepted they must demonstrate considerable leadership skills, personal ability, intellect, charisma, along with a well-documented criminal record. Once accepted they must live according to the thieves' code. The penalty for violation of this code is often mutilation or death. Reportedly, "today the Vory have spread around the world, to Madrid, Berlin, and New York" and are "involved in everything from petty theft to billion-dollar money-laundering while also acting as arbiters among conflicting Russian criminal factions."


title: Thief in law

text: Reportedly, as capitalism began to take hold in Russia, an increasing number of college-educated criminals began to take over more lucrative ventures. While these new criminal elements first worked with the Vory in the 1990s, in the 2000s (decade), ties to big business and government grew in importance. Consequently, while the "Vory are still strong in gambling and retail trade," their importance in Russian economy and society has decreased. However, since the majority of criminals eventually are arrested and incarcerated, at some point they will come in contact with the Vory who are at the top of the hierarchy of the criminal world within the penal system in Russia.


title: Thief in law

text: In 2011, the Obama administration implemented sanctions against an organisation known as the Brothers' Circle, several members of which are thieves-in-law.


title: Thief in law

text: "Ponyatiya" (literally "the definitions") is the rules of conduct (or even the customary law or code of honor) among prison inmates, with Vory being respectful leaders and judges according to these rules.


title: Thief in law

text: Vory consider prisons their true home and have a saying, "The home for angels is heaven, and the home for a Vor is prison." According to Aleksandr Gurov, an expert on the Vory who headed the organized crime units of the Soviet Interior Ministry and the GRU, "unlike the Cosa Nostra the Vory have 'less rules, but more severe rules' [and the] members must have no ties to the government, meaning they cannot serve in the army or cooperate with officials while in prison. They must also have served several jail sentences before they can be considered. They also are not allowed to get married."


title: Thief in law

text: Furthermore, according to Michael Schwirtz, "ethnicity has rarely determined whether someone can join the club, and today many members, even those active inside Russia, are from other post-Soviet countries such as Armenia, Georgia, and are not ethnic Russians."


title: Thief in law

text: While there still are many ethnic Russian vory, many also are drawn from other ethnic groups from the former Soviet Union.


title: Thief in law

text: The above code is no longer in use besides the standard prison code of ethics of not cooperating with prison authorities or informing on your fellow inmates. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, author of "The Gulag Archipelago", claimed never to have seen any thief honor the code if it conflicted with his personal criminal wants.


title: Thief in law

text: The Vory subculture (more exactly: the prison inmate subculture where Vory are the leaders) is well known for having symbolic tattoos. The tattoos are usually done in the prison with primitive tools.


title: PuTTY

text: PuTTY () is a free and open-source terminal emulator, serial console and network file transfer application. It supports several network protocols, including SCP, SSH, Telnet, rlogin, and raw socket connection. It can also connect to a serial port. The name "PuTTY" has no official meaning.


title: PuTTY

text: PuTTY was originally written for Microsoft Windows, but it has been ported to various other operating systems. Official ports are available for some Unix-like platforms, with work-in-progress ports to and , and unofficial ports have been contributed to platforms such as Symbian, Windows Mobile and Windows Phone.


title: PuTTY

text: PuTTY supports many variations on the secure remote terminal, and provides user control over the SSH encryption key and protocol version, alternate ciphers such as AES, 3DES, RC4, Blowfish, DES, and Public-key authentication. PuTTY uses its own format of key files – PPK (protected by "Message Authentication Code"). PuTTY supports SSO through GSSAPI, including user provided GSSAPI DLLs. It also can emulate control sequences from xterm, VT220, VT102 or ECMA-48 terminal emulation, and allows local, remote, or dynamic port forwarding with SSH (including X11 forwarding). The network communication layer supports IPv6, and the SSH protocol supports the zlib@openssh.com delayed compression scheme. It can also be used with local serial port connections.


title: PuTTY

text: PuTTY comes bundled with command-line SCP and SFTP clients, called "pscp" and "psftp" respectively, and plink, a command-line connection tool, used for non-interactive sessions.


This is a list of winners and nominees of the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. Beginning with the 18th Primetime Emmy Awards, leading actors in drama have competed alone. However, these dramatic performances included actors from miniseries, telefilms, and guest performers competing against main cast competitors. Such instances are marked below:


title: Dallas Jenkins

text: Dallas Jenkins (born July 25, 1975) is an American film and television director, writer and film producer. He is best known as the creator, director and co-writer of "The Chosen", the first multi-season series about the life of Jesus of Nazareth, and the most successful media crowd-fund of all time.


title: Dallas Jenkins

text: Jenkins's career is focused on faith-based media. In an interview with the "Chicago Sun Times", Jenkins said, "We feel like if people can binge watch and have watch parties all over the world for shows like "Game of Thrones" and "Stranger Things", there's no reason not to binge watch a show about Jesus. The term binge means to, you know, kind of have an obsession with something, and if we figure out how to have an obsession with Jesus, we might as well encourage that."


title: Dallas Jenkins

text: Jenkins’ father is Jerry B. Jenkins, a Christian novelist best known for the "Left Behind" series, one of the highest selling book series of all time, selling over 60 million copies. In 1997, Jenkins graduated from University of Northwestern-St. Paul, where he met his wife, Amanda.


title: Dallas Jenkins

text: At the age of 25, Jenkins and his mother started a production company, Jenkins Entertainment, together. Their first film was "Hometown Legend", a faith-based film which was distributed by Warner Brothers in 2000.


title: Dallas Jenkins

text: Jenkins is a former member of the Executive Leadership Team at Harvest Bible Chapel where he served as the Executive Director of Vertical Church Media. Vertical Church Films, a branch of Harvest Bible Chapel, partnered with Blumhouse Productions and WWE Films to produce the Jenkins’ directed "The Resurrection of Gavin Stone", a 2017 faith-based film with a reported $2 million budget.


title: Dallas Jenkins

text: After producing "Hometown Legend" and directing two short films, Jenkins's feature-length directorial debut was "Midnight Clear" in 2006. The film, which starred Stephen Baldwin and was distributed by Lionsgate, was based on a short story written by his father, Jerry Jenkins.


title: Dallas Jenkins

text: In 2010, Jenkins directed "What If…", a film about a businessman who is shown by an angel what his life could have become if he had followed God's calling for his life. It starred Kevin Sorbo, Kristy Swanson, John Ratzenberger, and Disney star Debby Ryan. "Box Office Mojo" reports the film made $814,906 domestically. It was successful internationally and continues to be successful via DVD and streaming.


title: Dallas Jenkins

text: In 2017, Jenkins directed "The Resurrection of Gavin Stone", a 2017 American Christian comedy-drama. The movie featured Brett Dalton ("Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."), comedian Anjelah Johnson, D.B. Sweeney ("The Cutting Edge"), Neil Flynn ("The Middle"), and wrestling legend Shawn Michaels. The "Hollywood Reporter" said of the film "This genial religious-themed dramedy is refreshingly lacking in preachiness." However, it was not considered a box office success. "Box Office Mojo" reports the film made $2,308,355 gross worldwide.


title: Dallas Jenkins

text: In an interview with "CBN News", Jenkins described it as his "biggest career failure". After this, Jenkins made a short film for his church in Elgin, Illinois, U.S., "The Shepherd"; filmed on a friend's farm in Marengo. The short film is about the birth of Christ from the point of view of the shepherds.


title: Dallas Jenkins

text: The film got the attention of the filtering and streaming service VidAngel, which was embroiled in a copyright infringement lawsuit with major Hollywood studios and thus seeking original content to distribute. VidAngel suggested putting the short film on Facebook as a concept pilot to generate interest for Jenkins' idea of a multi-season series. The short film received over 15 million views around the world.


title: Dallas Jenkins

text: Vertical Church Films was launched in 2012 to produce Christian feature films. The ministry has produced four films, "The Ride" in 2012, "Once We Were Slaves" (retitled "The Two Thieves") in 2014, "The Resurrection of Gavin Stone in 2017", and "The Shepherd" in 2017. "The Shepherd" later became the pilot episode for Jenkins’ new tv show "The Chosen".


title: Dallas Jenkins

text: "The Chosen" is a 2018 television drama based on the life of Jesus Christ, created, directed and co-written by Jenkins.


title: Dallas Jenkins

text: It is the first multi-season series about the life of Christ, and season one was the highest crowd-funded media project of all time. Season 2 and Season 3 have a budget of $12 million and $18 million respectively, each crowdfunded. The other co-founder of "The Chosen", Derral Eves, was introduced to Jenkins and the two partnered to create and own "The Chosen", with Eves as executive producer, primarily responsible for building the audience through their social media channels.


title: Dallas Jenkins

text: Jenkins owns a stake in the company but won’t share profits until the startup investors earn back their initial investment plus 20 percent.


title: Dallas Jenkins

text: In 2021, Jenkins directed a Christmas special episode of "The Chosen", which was released in 1,700 cinemas for ten days.


title: Dallas Jenkins

text: In April 2022, Jenkins apologized for a marketing campaign that deliberately defaced 48 of the 70 national billboards promoting "The Chosen".


title: Academic tenure

text: Tenure is a category of academic appointment existing in some countries. A tenured post is an indefinite academic appointment that can be terminated only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances, such as financial exigency or program discontinuation. Tenure is a means of defending the principle of academic freedom, which holds that it is beneficial for society in the long run if scholars are free to hold and examine a variety of views.


title: Academic tenure

text: Under the tenure systems adopted by many universities and colleges in the United States and Canada, some faculty positions have tenure and some do not. Typical systems (such as the widely adopted "1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure" of the American Association of University Professors) allow only a limited period to establish a record of published research, ability to attract grant funding, academic visibility, teaching excellence, and administrative or community service. They limit the number of years that any employee can remain employed as a non-tenured instructor or professor, compelling the institution to grant tenure to or terminate an individual, with significant advance notice, at the end of a specified time period. Some institutions require promotion to Associate Professor as a condition of tenure. A university may also offer research positions or professional track and clinical track academic positions which are said to be "non-tenure track". Positions with titles such as Instructor, Lecturer, Adjunct Professor, Research Professor etc. do not carry the possibility of tenure, have higher teaching loads (other than maybe the research positions), have less influence within the institution, lower compensation with few or no benefits (see Adjunct professor), and little protection of academic freedom.


title: Academic tenure

text: In response to Nazi manipulations of university faculty in Germany and Poland, the modern conception of tenure in US higher education originated with the American Association of University Professors' (AAUP) 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure. Jointly formulated and endorsed by the AAUP and the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), the 1940 Statement is endorsed by over 250 scholarly and higher education organizations and is widely adopted into faculty handbooks and collective bargaining agreements at institutions of higher education throughout the United States. This statement holds that, "The common good depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition" and stresses that academic freedom is essential in teaching and research in this regard.


title: Academic tenure

text: In the United States, tenure rights for teachers serving in (K-12) public schools also have been in existence for more than a hundred years.


title: Academic tenure

text: The original form of academic tenure was removed in the United Kingdom in 1988. In its place there is the distinction between permanent and temporary contracts for academics. A permanent lecturer in UK universities usually holds an open-ended position that covers teaching, research, and administrative responsibilities.


title: Academic tenure

text: Academics are divided into two classes: On the one hand, professors (W2/W3&C3/C4 positions in the new&old systems of pay grades) are employed as state civil servants and hold tenure as highly safeguarded lifetime employment; On the other hand, there is a much larger group of "junior staff" on fixed-term contracts, research grants, fellowships and part-time jobs. In 2010, 9% of academic staff were professors, 66% were "junior staff" (including doctoral candidates on contracts), and 25% were other academic staff in secondary employment. Permanent research, teaching and management positions below professorship as an "Akademischer Rat" (a civil service position salaried like high school teachers) have become relatively rare compared to the 1970s and 1980s and are often no longer refilled after a retirement. In order to attain the position of Professor, in some fields, an academic must usually complete a "Habilitation" (a kind of broader second PhD thesis; the very highest degree available within the university, entitling the holder to be a "full professor"), after which she or he is eligible for tenureship. This means that, compared to other countries, academics in Germany obtain tenure at a relatively late age, as on average one becomes an Academic Assistant at the age of 42. In 2002 the "Juniorprofessur" position (comparable to an assistant professor in the US, but not always endowed with a tenure track) was introduced as an alternative to "Habilitation". However, the degree of formal equivalence between a "Habilitation" and a successfully completed "Juniorprofessur" varies across the different states ("Bundesländer"), and the informal recognition of having served as a "Juniorprofessur" as a replacement for the "Habilitation" in the appointment procedures for professorships varies greatly between disciplines.


title: Academic tenure

text: Due to a university system that guarantees universities relative academic freedom, the position of professor in Germany is relatively strong and independent. As civil servants, professors have a series of attendant rights and benefits, yet this status is subject to discussion. In the W pay scale the professorial pay is related to performance rather than merely to age, as it was in C.


title: Academic tenure

text: Danish universities in advertisements for faculty positions usually state that professor positions are tenured. However, the interpretation of tenure at Danish universities has been a matter of controversy.


title: Academic tenure

text: Denmark adopted a more hierarchical management approach for universities in the early 2000s. This new system was introduced by parliament on proposal by the Minister of Science, Technology and Development, Helge Sander, based on his vision that Danish universities in the future should compete about funding in analogy to football clubs in order to increase their attention to marketing and industry.


title: Academic tenure

text: The controversial understanding of tenure in Denmark was demonstrated by University of Copenhagen in 2016, when the university fired the internationally renowned professor, Hans Thybo, after 37 years of employment in academic positions. A later court decision ruled the dismissal illegal after a court hearing demonstrated that the university's reasons for the dismissal were false accusations by managers, but the university did not reinstall Thybo in his position. The university maintained the dismissal after having received written statement from the postdoc that the accusation was false, and that Thybo never put pressure on him to do anything. This particular university carried out other similar dismissals after Thybo's case.


title: Academic tenure

text: Defenders of tenure, like Ellen Schrecker and Aeon J. Skoble, generally acknowledge flaws in how tenure approvals are currently run and problems in how tenured professors might use their time, security, and power; however, as Skoble puts it, the "downsides are either not as bad as claimed, or [are] costs outweighed by the benefits"—and he points out that the very debate about tenure in which he is engaging is made possible by the academic freedom which tenure makes possible. "Tenure remains scholars' best defense of free inquiry and heterodoxy," writes Skoble, "especially in these times of heightened polarization and internet outrage. Let us focus on fixing it, not scrapping it."


title: Academic tenure

text: The job security granted by tenure is necessary to recruit talented individuals into university professorships, because in many fields private industry jobs pay significantly more; as Schrecker puts it, providing professors "the kind of job security that most other workers can only dream of" counterbalances universities' inability to compete with the private sector: "Universities, after all, are not corporations and cannot provide the kinds of financial remuneration that similarly educated individuals in other fields expect." Furthermore, Schrecker continues, because research positions require extreme specialization, they must consolidate the frequency and intensity of performance evaluations across a given career, and they cannot have the same flexibility or turnover rates as other jobs, making the tenure process a practical necessity: "A mathematician cannot teach a class on medieval Islam, nor can an art historian run an organic chemistry lab. Moreover, there is no way that the employing institution can provide the kind of retraining that would facilitate such a transformation... even the largest and most well-endowed institution lacks the resources to reevaluate and replace its medieval Islamicists and algebraic topologists every year. Tenure thus lets the academic community avoid excessive turnover while still ensuring the quality of the institution's faculty. It is structured around two assessments -- one at hiring, the other some six years later -- that are far more rigorous than those elsewhere in society and give the institution enough confidence in the ability of the successful candidates to retain them on a permanent basis."


title: Academic tenure

text: Above all, however, tenure is essential because it protects academic freedom: not only in cases in which a scholar's politics may run counter to those of their department, institution, or funding bodies, but also and most often in cases when a scholar's work innovates in ways that challenge received wisdom in the field. As much Ellen Schrecker identifies its flaws, she asserts tenure's crucial role in preserving academic freedom:


title: Academic tenure

text: In elementary and secondary schools, tenure also protects teachers from being fired for personal, political, or other non-work related reasons: tenure prohibits school districts from firing experienced teachers to hire less experienced, less expensive teachers as well as protects teachers from being fired for teaching unpopular, controversial, or otherwise challenged curricula such as evolutionary biology, theology, and controversial literature.


title: Academic tenure

text: If the "social justice" element of Schrecker's defense makes it seem like present-day assurances of academic freedom create a politically left echo chamber in academic departments, Skoble observes that tenure thus becomes all the more necessary to preserve a diversity of ideas: "There is an orthodoxy in the academy, a well-documented leftward slant in political affiliation. To Bruce, this is an argument against tenure, but my point is that the more I am persuaded that there is groupthink orthodoxy afoot, the more I want assurances that I would not get fired if I write an essay on free trade or the Second Amendment or a book on anarchism. I take it the counterargument is that the more entrenched the orthodoxy becomes, the less likely a heterodox scholar will be tenured, or even hired, in the first place... I can see that this poses a problem but fail to see how abolishing tenure would help. As things stand, some heterodox scholars do get hired and tenured.. If only the heterodox need formal protection, and we have a problem with growing orthodoxy, then eliminating the formal protection will exacerbate the problem."


title: Academic tenure

text: Skoble argues categorically and plainly against critics that say "tenure protects incompetent professors": "My argument is that when this happens, it is a malfunction of the system, not an intrinsic feature of its proper use. The way it is supposed to work is that incompetent professors do not get tenure in the first place. The rebuttal is 'but they do, therefore tenure is a bad idea.' But that is like arguing that because you ran a red light and caused a train wreck, driving is a bad idea."


title: Academic tenure

text: Some have argued that modern tenure systems diminish academic freedom, forcing those seeking tenured positions to profess conformance to the level of mediocrity as those awarding the tenured professorships. For example, according to physicist Lee Smolin, "...it is practically career suicide for a young theoretical physicist not to join the field of string theory."


title: Academic tenure

text: Economist Steven Levitt, who recommends the elimination of tenure (for economics professors) in order to incentivize higher performance among professors, also points out that a pay increase may be required to compensate faculty members for the lost job security.


title: Academic tenure

text: A further criticism of tenure is that it rewards complacency. Once professors are awarded tenure, they may begin putting reduced effort into their job, knowing that their removal is difficult or expensive to the institution. Another criticism is that it may cause the institution to tolerate incompetent professors if they are tenured. Gilbert Lycan, a history professor at Stetson University, writing in respect of a fellow professor he deemed unacceptable, stated that "the dean ... would not tolerate ineffective teaching by a non-tenured teacher who was making no effort to improve," thereby tacitly admitting, or at least leaving open the fair inference, that ineffective teaching is tolerated if the professor is tenured.


title: Bias

text: Bias is a disproportionate weight "in favor of" or "against" an idea or thing, usually in a way that is closed-minded, prejudicial, or unfair. Biases can be innate or learned. People may develop biases for or against an individual, a group, or a belief. In science and engineering, a bias is a systematic error. Statistical bias results from an unfair sampling of a population, or from an estimation process that does not give accurate results on average.


title: Bias

text: The word appears to derive from Old Provençal into Old French "biais", "sideways, askance, against the grain". Whence comes French "biais", "a slant, a slope, an oblique".


title: Bias

text: It seems to have entered English via the game of bowls, where it referred to balls made with a greater weight on one side. Which expanded to the figurative use, "a one-sided tendency of the mind", and, at first especially in law, "undue propensity or prejudice".


title: Bias

text: A cognitive bias is a repeating or basic misstep in thinking, assessing, recollecting, or other cognitive processes. That is, a pattern of deviation from standards in judgment, whereby inferences may be created unreasonably. People create their own "subjective social reality" from their own perceptions, their view of the world may dictate their behaviour. Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality. However some cognitive biases are taken to be adaptive, and thus may lead to success in the appropriate situation. Furthermore, cognitive biases may allow speedier choices when speed is more valuable than precision. Other cognitive biases are a "by-product" of human processing limitations, coming about because of an absence of appropriate mental mechanisms, or just from human limitations in information processing.


title: Bias

text: Anchoring is a psychological heuristic that describes the propensity to rely on the first piece of information encountered when making decisions. According to this heuristic, individuals begin with an implicitly suggested reference point (the "anchor") and make adjustments to it to reach their estimate. For example, the initial price offered for a used car sets the standard for the rest of the negotiations, so that prices lower than the initial price seem more reasonable even if they are still higher than what the car is worth.


title: Bias

text: Apophenia, also known as patternicity, or agenticity, is the human tendency to perceive meaningful patterns within random data. Apophenia is well documented as a rationalization for gambling. Gamblers may imagine that they see patterns in the numbers which appear in lotteries, card games, or roulette wheels. One manifestation of this is known as the "gambler's fallacy".


title: Bias

text: Pareidolia is the visual or auditory form of apophenia. It has been suggested that pareidolia combined with hierophany may have helped ancient societies organize chaos and make the world intelligible.


title: Bias

text: An attribution bias can happen when individuals assess or attempt to discover explanations behind their own and others' behaviors. People make attributions about the causes of their own and others' behaviors; but these attributions do not necessarily precisely reflect reality. Rather than operating as objective perceivers, individuals are inclined to perceptual slips that prompt biased understandings of their social world. When judging others we tend to assume their actions are the result of internal factors such as personality, whereas we tend to assume our own actions arise because of the necessity of external circumstances. There are a wide range of sorts of attribution biases, such as the ultimate attribution error, fundamental attribution error, actor-observer bias, and self-serving bias.


title: Bias

text: Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's beliefs or hypotheses while giving disproportionately less attention to information that contradicts it. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. People also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position. Biased search, interpretation and memory have been invoked to explain attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence), belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false), the irrational primacy effect (a greater reliance on information encountered early in a series) and illusory correlation (when people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations). Confirmation biases contribute to overconfidence in personal beliefs and can maintain or strengthen beliefs in the face of contrary evidence. Poor decisions due to these biases have been found in political and organizational contexts.


title: Bias

text: Framing involves the social construction of social phenomena by mass media sources, political or social movements, political leaders, and so on. It is an influence over how people organize, perceive, and communicate about reality. It can be positive or negative, depending on the audience and what kind of information is being presented. For political purposes, framing often presents facts in such a way that implicates a problem that is in need of a solution. Members of political parties attempt to frame issues in a way that makes a solution favoring their own political leaning appear as the most appropriate course of action for the situation at hand. As understood in social theory, framing is a schema of interpretation, a collection of anecdotes and stereotypes, that individuals rely on to understand and respond to events. People use filters to make sense of the world, the choices they then make are influenced by their creation of a frame.


title: Bias

text: Cultural bias is the related phenomenon of interpreting and judging phenomena by standards inherent to one's own culture. Numerous such biases exist, concerning cultural norms for color, location of body parts, mate selection, concepts of justice, linguistic and logical validity, acceptability of evidence, and taboos. Ordinary people may tend to imagine other people as basically the same, not significantly more or less valuable, probably attached emotionally to different groups and different land.


title: Bias

text: The halo effect and the horn effect are when an observer's overall impression of a person, organization, brand, or product influences their feelings about specifics of that entity's character or properties.


title: Bias

text: The name halo effect is based on the concept of the saint's halo, and is a specific type of confirmation bias, wherein positive sentiments in one area cause questionable or unknown characteristics to be seen positively. If the observer likes one aspect of something, they will have a positive predisposition toward everything about it. A person's appearance has been found to produce a halo effect. The halo effect is also present in the field of brand marketing, affecting perception of companies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).


title: Bias

text: The opposite of the halo is the horn effect, when "individuals believe (that negative) traits are inter-connected." The term horn effect refers to Devil's horns. It works in a negative direction: if the observer dislikes one aspect of something, they will have a negative predisposition towards other aspects.


title: Bias

text: Both of these bias effects often clash with phrases such as "words mean something" and "Your words have a history."


title: Bias

text: Self-serving bias is the tendency for cognitive or perceptual processes to be distorted by the individual's need to maintain and enhance self-esteem. It is the propensity to credit accomplishment to our own capacities and endeavors, yet attribute failure to outside factors, to dismiss the legitimacy of negative criticism, concentrate on positive qualities and accomplishments yet disregard flaws and failures. Studies have demonstrated that this bias can affect behavior in the workplace, in interpersonal relationships, playing sports, and in consumer decisions.


title: Bias

text: Status quo bias is an emotional bias; a preference for the current state of affairs. The current baseline (or status quo) is taken as a reference point, and any change from that baseline is perceived as a loss.


title: Bias

text: Status quo bias should be distinguished from a rational preference for the status quo ante, as when the current state of affairs is objectively superior to the available alternatives, or when imperfect information is a significant problem. A large body of evidence, however, shows that status quo bias frequently affects human decision-making.


title: Bias

text: A conflict of interest is when a person or association has intersecting interests (financial, personal, etc.) which could potentially corrupt. The potential conflict is autonomous of actual improper actions, it can be found and intentionally defused before corruption, or the appearance of corruption, happens. "A conflict of interest is a set of circumstances that creates a risk that professional judgement or actions regarding a primary interest will be unduly influenced by a secondary interest." It exists if the circumstances are sensibly accepted to present a hazard that choices made may be unduly affected by auxiliary interests.


title: Bias

text: Bribery is giving of money, goods or other forms of recompense to in order to influence the recipient's behavior. Bribes can include money (including tips), goods, rights in action, property, privilege, emolument, gifts, perks, skimming, return favors, discounts, sweetheart deals, kickbacks, funding, donations, campaign contributions, sponsorships, stock options, secret commissions, or promotions. Expectations of when a monetary transaction is appropriate can differ from place to place. Political campaign contributions in the form of cash are considered criminal acts of bribery in some countries, while in the United States they are legal provided they adhere to election law. Tipping is considered bribery in some societies, but not others.


title: Bias

text: Favoritism, sometimes known as in-group favoritism, or in-group bias, refers to a pattern of favoring members of one's in-group over out-group members. This can be expressed in evaluation of others, in allocation of resources, and in many other ways. This has been researched by psychologists, especially social psychologists, and linked to group conflict and prejudice. Cronyism is favoritism of long-standing friends, especially by appointing them to positions of authority, regardless of their qualifications. Nepotism is favoritism granted to relatives.


title: Bias

text: Lobbying is the attempt to influence choices made by administrators, frequently lawmakers or individuals from administrative agencies. Lobbyists may be among a legislator's constituencies, or not; they may engage in lobbying as a business, or not. Lobbying is often spoken of with contempt, the implication is that people with inordinate socioeconomic power are corrupting the law in order to serve their own interests. When people who have a duty to act on behalf of others, such as elected officials with a duty to serve their constituents' interests or more broadly the common good, stand to benefit by shaping the law to serve the interests of some private parties, there is a conflict of interest. This can lead to all sides in a debate looking to sway the issue by means of lobbyists.


title: Bias

text: Self-regulation is the process whereby an organization monitors its own adherence to legal, ethical, or safety standards, rather than have an outside, independent agency such as a third party entity monitor and enforce those standards. Self-regulation of any group can create a conflict of interest. If any organization, such as a corporation or government bureaucracy, is asked to eliminate unethical behavior within their own group, it may be in their interest in the short run to eliminate the appearance of unethical behavior, rather than the behavior itself.


title: Bias

text: Regulatory capture is a form of political corruption that can occur when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. Regulatory capture occurs because groups or individuals with a high-stakes interest in the outcome of policy or regulatory decisions can be expected to focus their resources and energies in attempting to gain the policy outcomes they prefer, while members of the public, each with only a tiny individual stake in the outcome, will ignore it altogether. Regulatory capture is a risk to which a regulatory agency is exposed by its very nature.


title: Bias

text: Shilling is deliberately giving spectators the feeling that one is an energetic autonomous client of a vendor for whom one is working. The effectiveness of shilling relies on crowd psychology to encourage other onlookers or audience members to purchase the goods or services (or accept the ideas being marketed). Shilling is illegal in some places, but legal in others. An example of shilling is paid reviews that give the impression of being autonomous opinions.


title: Bias

text: Statistical bias is a systematic tendency in the process of data collection, which results in lopsided, misleading results. This can occur in any of a number of ways, in the way the sample is selected, or in the way data are collected. It is a property of a statistical technique or of its results whereby the expected value of the results differs from the true underlying quantitative parameter being estimated.


title: Bias

text: A forecast bias is when there are consistent differences between results and the forecasts of those quantities; that is: forecasts may have an overall tendency to be too high or too low.


title: Bias

text: The observer-expectancy effect is when a researcher's expectations cause them to subconsciously influence the people participating in an experiment. It is usually controlled using a double-blind system, and was an important reason for the development of double-blind experiments.


title: Bias

text: In epidemiology and empirical research, reporting bias is defined as "selective revealing or suppression of information" of undesirable behavior by subjects or researchers.


title: Bias

text: It refers to a tendency to under-report unexpected or undesirable experimental results, while being more trusting of expected or desirable results. This can propagate, as each instance reinforces the status quo, and later experimenters justify their own reporting bias by observing that previous experimenters reported different results.


title: Bias

text: Social desirability bias is a bias within social science research where survey respondents can tend to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed positively by others. It can take the form of over-reporting laudable behavior, or under-reporting undesirable behavior. This bias interferes with the interpretation of average tendencies as well as individual differences. The inclination represents a major issue with self-report questionnaires; of special concern are self-reports of abilities, personalities, sexual behavior, and drug use.


title: Bias

text: Selection bias is the conscious or unconscious bias introduced into a study by the way individuals, groups or data are selected for analysis, if such a way means that true randomization is not achieved, thereby ensuring that the sample obtained is not representative of the population intended to be analyzed. This results in a sample that may be significantly different from the overall population.


title: Bias

text: Bias and prejudice are usually considered to be closely related. Prejudice is prejudgment, or forming an opinion before becoming aware of the relevant facts of a case. The word is often used to refer to preconceived, usually unfavorable, judgments toward people or a person because of gender, political opinion, social class, age, disability, religion, sexuality, race/ethnicity, language, nationality, or other personal characteristics. Prejudice can also refer to unfounded beliefs and may include "any unreasonable attitude that is unusually resistant to rational influence".


title: Bias

text: Ageism is the stereotyping and/or discrimination against individuals or groups on the basis of their age. It can be used in reference to prejudicial attitudes towards older people, or towards younger people.


title: Bias

text: Classism is discrimination on the basis of social class. It includes attitudes that benefit the upper class at the expense of the lower class, or vice versa.


title: Bias

text: Lookism is stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination on the basis of physical attractiveness, or more generally to people whose appearance matches cultural preferences. Many people make automatic judgments of others based on their physical appearance that influence how they respond to those people.


title: Bias

text: Racism consists of ideologies based on a desire to dominate or a belief in the inferiority of another race. It may also hold that members of different races should be treated differently.


title: Bias

text: Sexism is discrimination based on a person's sex or gender. Sexism can affect any gender, but it is particularly documented as affecting women and girls. It has been linked to stereotypes and gender roles, and may include the belief that one sex or gender is intrinsically superior to another.


title: Bias

text: Academic bias is the bias or perceived bias of scholars allowing their beliefs to shape their research and the scientific community. Claims of bias are often linked to claims by conservatives of pervasive bias against political conservatives and religious Christians. Some have argued that these claims are based upon anecdotal evidence which would not reliably indicate systematic bias, and have suggested that this divide is due to self-selection of conservatives choosing not to pursue academic careers.


title: Bias

text: There is some evidence that perception of classroom bias may be rooted in issues of sexuality, race, class and sex as much or more than in religion.


title: Bias

text: In science research, experimenter bias occurs when experimenter expectancies regarding study results bias the research outcome. Examples of experimenter bias include conscious or unconscious influences on subject behavior including creation of demand characteristics that influence subjects, and altered or selective recording of experimental results themselves.


title: Bias

text: Funding bias refers to the tendency of a scientific study to support the interests of the study's financial sponsor. This phenomenon is recognized sufficiently that researchers undertake studies to examine bias in past published studies. It can be caused by any or all of: a conscious or subconscious sense of obligation of researchers towards their employers, misconduct or malpractice, publication bias, or reporting bias.


title: Bias

text: Full text on net (or FUTON) bias is a tendency of scholars to cite academic journals with open access—that is, journals that make their full text available on the internet without charge—in their own writing as compared with toll access publications. Scholars can more easily discover and access articles that have their full text on the internet, which increases authors' likelihood of reading, quoting, and citing these articles, this may increase the impact factor of open access journals relative to journals without open access.


title: Bias

text: The related bias, no abstract available bias (NAA bias) is scholars' tendency to cite journal articles that have an abstract available online more readily than articles that do not.


title: Bias

text: Publication bias is a type of bias with regard to what academic research is likely to be published because of a tendency of researchers, and journal editors, to prefer some outcomes rather than others e.g. results showing a significant finding, leads to a problematic bias in the published literature. This can propagate further as literature reviews of claims about support for a hypothesis will themselves be biased if the original literature is contaminated by publication bias. Studies with significant results often do not appear to be superior to studies with a null result with respect to quality of design. However, statistically significant results have been shown to be three times more likely to be published compared to papers with null results.


title: Bias

text: Driving while black refers to the racial profiling of African American drivers. The phrase implies that a motorist might be pulled over by a police officer, questioned, and searched, because of a racial bias.


title: Bias

text: Racial profiling, or ethnic profiling, is the act of suspecting or targeting a person of a certain race on the basis of racially observed characteristics or behavior, rather than on individual suspicion. Racial profiling is commonly referred to regarding its use by law enforcement, and its leading to discrimination against minorities.


title: Bias

text: Victim blaming occurs when the victim of a wrongful act is held at fault for the harm that befell them. The study of victimology seeks to mitigate the perception of victims as responsible.


title: Bias

text: Media bias is the bias or perceived bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media in the selection of events, the stories that are reported, and how they are covered. The term generally implies a pervasive or widespread bias violating the standards of journalism, rather than the perspective of an individual journalist or article. The level of media bias in different nations is debated. There are also watchdog groups that report on media bias.


title: Bias

text: Practical limitations to media neutrality include the inability of journalists to report all available stories and facts, the requirement that selected facts be linked into a coherent narrative, government influence including overt and covert censorship, the influence of the owners of the news source, concentration of media ownership, the selection of staff, the preferences of an intended audience, and pressure from advertisers.


title: Bias

text: Bias has been a feature of the mass media since its birth with the invention of the printing press. The expense of early printing equipment restricted media production to a limited number of people. Historians have found that publishers often served the interests of powerful social groups.


title: Bias

text: Agenda setting describes the capacity of the media to focus on particular stories, if a news item is covered frequently and prominently, the audience will regard the issue as more important. That is, its salience will increase.


title: Bias

text: Gatekeeping is the way in which information and news are filtered to the public, by each person or corporation along the way. It is the "process of culling and crafting countless bits of information into the limited number of messages that reach people every day, and it is the center of the media's role in modern public life. [...] This process determines not only which information is selected, but also what the content and nature of the messages, such as news, will be."


title: Bias

text: Sensationalism is when events and topics in news stories and pieces are overhyped to present skewed impressions of events, which may cause a misrepresentation of the truth of a story. Sensationalism may involve reporting about insignificant matters and events, or the presentation of newsworthy topics in a trivial or tabloid manner contrary to the standards of professional journalism.


title: Bias

text: Bias in education refers to real or perceived bias in the educational system. The content of school textbooks is often the issue of debate, as their target audience is young people, and the term "whitewashing" is used to refer to selective removal of critical or damaging evidence or comment. Religious bias in textbooks is observed in countries where religion plays a dominant role. There can be many forms of educational bias. Some overlooked aspects, occurring especially with the pedagogical circles of public and private schools—sources that are unrelated to fiduciary or mercantile impoverishment which may be unduly magnified—include teacher bias as well as a general bias against women who are going into STEM research.


title: Bias

text: Inductive bias occurs within the field of machine learning. In machine learning one seeks to develop algorithms that are able to "learn" to anticipate a particular output. To accomplish this, the learning algorithm is given training cases that show the expected connection. Then the learner is tested with new examples. Without further assumptions, this problem cannot be solved exactly as unknown situations may not be predictable. The inductive bias of the learning algorithm is the set of assumptions that the learner uses to predict outputs given inputs that it has not encountered. It may bias the learner towards the correct solution, the incorrect, or be correct some of the time. A classical example of an inductive bias is Occam's Razor, which assumes that the simplest consistent hypothesis is the best.


title: Bias

text: Insider trading is the trading of a public company's stock or other securities (such as bonds or stock options) by individuals with access to non-public information about the company. In various countries, trading based on insider information is illegal because it is seen as unfair to other investors who do not have access to the information as the investor with insider information could potentially make far larger profits that a typical investor could make.


title: Bias

text: In organized sports, match fixing occurs when a match is played to a completely or partially pre-determined result, violating the rules of the game and often the law. There is a variety of reasons for this, but the most common is in exchange for a payoff from gamblers. Players might also intentionally perform poorly to get an advantage in the future (such as a better draft pick, or an easier opponent in a playoff), or to rig a handicap system. Match-fixing generally refers to fixing the final result of the game. Another form of match-fixing, known as spot-fixing, involves fixing small events within a match which can be gambled upon, but which are unlikely to prove decisive in determining the final result of the game.


title: Bias

text: An implicit bias, or implicit stereotype, is the unconscious attribution of particular qualities to a member of a certain social group.


title: Bias

text: Implicit stereotypes are shaped by experience and based on learned associations between particular qualities and social categories, including race and/or gender. Individuals' perceptions and behaviors can be influenced by the implicit stereotypes they hold, even if they are unaware/unintentionally hold such stereotypes. Implicit bias is an aspect of implicit social cognition: the phenomenon that perceptions, attitudes, and stereotypes operate without conscious intention. The existence of implicit bias is supported by a variety of scientific articles in psychological literature. Implicit stereotype was first defined by psychologists Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald in 1995.


title: Bias

text: Machine Learning bias, also known as algorithm bias or Artificial Intelligence bias, refers to the tendency of algorithms to reflect human biases. The problem arises when an algorithm delivers systematically biased results due to erroneous assumptions of the Machine Learning process. In today’s world, this becomes even more problematic because more and more organizations are adopting AI models and systems.


title: Bias

text: For example, a facial recognition algorithm could be trained to recognize a white person more quickly than a black person because this data has been used more often in training. This can affect people from minority groups. This type of discrimination problem already happened in California during a video interview. The problem is that these biases are not intentional, and it’s difficult to know about them until they’ve been programmed into the software.


title: Vestibular system

text: The vestibular system, in vertebrates, is a sensory system that creates the sense of balance and spatial orientation for the purpose of coordinating movement with balance. Together with the cochlea, a part of the auditory system, it constitutes the labyrinth of the inner ear in most mammals.


title: Vestibular system

text: As movements consist of rotations and translations, the vestibular system comprises two components: the semicircular canals, which indicate rotational movements; and the otoliths, which indicate linear accelerations. The vestibular system sends signals primarily to the neural structures that control eye movement; these provide the anatomical basis of the vestibulo-ocular reflex, which is required for clear vision. Signals are also sent to the muscles that keep an animal upright and in general control posture; these provide the anatomical means required to enable an animal to maintain its desired position in space.


title: Vestibular system

text: The brain uses information from the vestibular system in the head and from proprioception throughout the body to enable the animal to understand its body's dynamics and kinematics (including its position and acceleration) from moment to moment. How these two perceptive sources are integrated to provide the underlying structure of the sensorium is unknown.


title: Vestibular system

text: The semicircular canal system detects rotational movements. The semicircular canals are its main tools to achieve this detection.


title: Vestibular system

text: Since the world is three-dimensional, the vestibular system contains three semicircular canals in each labyrinth. They are approximately orthogonal (at right angles) to each other, and are the "horizontal" (or "lateral"), the "anterior semicircular canal" (or "superior"), and the "posterior" (or "inferior") semicircular canal. Anterior and posterior canals may collectively be called "vertical semicircular canals".


title: Vestibular system

text: The movement of fluid pushes on a structure called the cupula which contains hair cells that transduce the mechanical movement to electrical signals.


title: Vestibular system

text: The canals are arranged in such a way that each canal on the left side has an almost parallel counterpart on the right side. Each of these three pairs works in a "push-pull" fashion: when one canal is stimulated, its corresponding partner on the other side is inhibited, and vice versa.


title: Vestibular system

text: This push-pull system makes it possible to sense all directions of rotation: while the "right horizontal canal" gets stimulated during head rotations to the right (Fig 2), the "left horizontal canal" gets stimulated (and thus predominantly signals) by head rotations to the left.


title: Vestibular system

text: Vertical canals are coupled in a crossed fashion, i.e. stimulations that are excitatory for an anterior canal are also inhibitory for the contralateral posterior, and vice versa.


title: Vestibular system

text: The vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) is a reflex eye movement that stabilizes images on the retina during head movement by producing an eye movement in the direction opposite to head movement, thus preserving the image on the center of the visual field. For example, when the head moves to the right, the eyes move to the left, and vice versa. Since slight head movements are present all the time, the VOR is very important for stabilizing vision: patients whose VOR is impaired find it difficult to read, because they cannot stabilize the eyes during small head tremors. The VOR reflex does not depend on visual input and works even in total darkness or when the eyes are closed.


title: Vestibular system

text: This reflex, combined with the push-pull principle described above, forms the physiological basis of the "Rapid head impulse test" or "Halmagyi-Curthoys-test", in which the head is rapidly and forcefully moved to the side while observing whether the eyes keep looking in the same direction.


title: Vestibular system

text: The mechanics of the semicircular canals can be described by a damped oscillator. If we designate the deflection of the cupula with formula_1, and the head velocity with formula_2, the cupula deflection is approximately