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Closure (psychology)

Closure or need for closure (NFC), used interchangeably with need for cognitive closure (NFCC), are social psychological terms that describe an individual's desire for a clear, firm answer or peaceful resolution to a question or problem to avert ambiguity.

The term "need" denotes a motivated tendency to seek out information. The need for closure is the motivation to find an answer to an ambiguous situation. This motivation is enhanced by the perceived benefits of obtaining closure, such as the increased ability to predict the world and a stronger basis for action. This motivation is also enhanced by the perceived costs of lacking closure, such as dealing with uncertainty. A sense of closure is not usually possible with ambiguous loss, such as a missing person, and the hoped-for benefits, such as a sense of relief after the death of a person who inflicted harm, are not necessarily obtained. Because of this mismatch between what individuals hope will happen if they achieve closure and what they actually experience, the idea of getting closure has been described as a myth.

The level of the need for cognitive closure is a fairly stable individual characteristic. It can affect what information individuals seek out and how they process it. This need can be affected by situational factors. For example, in the presence of circumstances that increase the need for closure, individuals are more likely to use simple cognitive structures to process information.

According to Kruglanski et al., need for closure exerts its effects via two general tendencies: the urgency tendency (the inclination to attain closure as quickly as possible) and the permanence tendency (the tendency to maintain it for as long as possible). Together, these tendencies may produce the inclinations to seize and then freeze on early judgmental cues, reducing the extent of information processing and hypothesis generation and introducing biases in thinking.

Need for Closure Scale
The need for closure in social psychology is thought to be a fairly stable dispositional characteristic that can, nonetheless, be affected by situational factors. The Need for Closure Scale (NFCS) was developed by Arie Kruglanski, Donna Webster, and Adena Klem in 1993 and is designed to operationalize this construct and is presented as a unidimensional instrument possessing strong discriminant and predictive validity.

People who score high on the need for closure scale are more likely to exhibit impression primacy effects to correspondence bias, make stereotypical judgments, assimilate new information to existing, active beliefs, and, in the presence of prior information, resist persuasion. Someone rating low on need for closure will express more ideational fluidity and creative acts. Items on the scale include statements such as "I think that having clear rules and order at work is essential to success," and "I do not like situations that are uncertain." Items such as "Even after I've made up my mind about something, I am always eager to consider a different opinion," and "I like to have friends who are unpredictable" are reverse scored.

Composed of 42 items, the scale has been used in numerous research studies and has been translated into multiple languages. Although Webster and Kruglanski (1994) treated the Need for Closure Scale as unidimensional (i.e., as measuring a single factor), the scale actually contains two orthogonal factors, decisiveness and need for structure. Thus, using a total scale score can overlook effects for each factor and complicate interpretations. In 2007, Roets and Van Hiel tried to resolve this issue by revising the scale so it would measure only one thing. They came up with a set of new decisiveness items that provided a viable alternative for the old Decisiveness subscale of the NFCS, which was poorly related to the other NFCS facet scales and had questionable validity. The new items were developed with explicit reference to decisiveness but formulated in such a way that they relate to the need rather than to the ability to decide. In 2011, Roets and Van Hiel created an abridged and empirically validated NFC scale consisting of only 15 items from the original NFC.

NFCS items correlate positively with authoritarianism, intolerance of ambiguity, dogmatism, need for order and structure and negatively with cognitive complexity and impulsivity, among several other cognitive tools and personality traits.

High NFC scores consistently correlate with items on the C-Scale (conservatism) as well as other measures of political and social conservatism.

Need to avoid closure
Functionally opposite to the need for closure is the need to avoid closure. Need to avoid closure reflects the desire to suspend judgmental commitment. It also contains the subcategories specific and non-specific need to avoid closure. Avoidance of specific closure reflects the desire to avoid specific answers to one's questions. The non-specific need to avoid closure is much like the need for closure irrespective of whether or not this new knowledge points to a conclusion having positive or negative implications for them.

The need to avoid closure may stem from the perceived costs of possessing closure (e.g., envisioned penalties for an erroneous closure or perceived drawbacks of actions implied by closure) and the perceived benefits of lacking closure (e.g., immunity from possible criticism of any given closure). The need to avoid closure is controlled by the desire to avoid negative consequences of achieving closure of a situation or to continue the benefits of not closing but elongating a situation.

The need and avoidance of closure are conceptualized as ends of a continuum ranging from strong strivings for closure to strong resistance of closure. This is applied in the NFC Scale.

Lack of closure
The lack of closure leaves a situation in ambiguity. People high in need for closure seek to avoid this ambiguity at all costs where people high in need to avoid closure strive to make situations more ambiguous. Some perceived benefits of cognitive closure may relate to predictability, the basis for action, or social status accorded the possessors of knowledge (i.e., "experts"). Similarly, some perceived costs of lacking closure may relate to the additional time and effort required to attain closure, or the unpleasantness of process whereby closure must be reached. Occasionally, however, lack of closure may be perceived to offer various advantages such as freedom from a constraining commitment, neutrality in an acrimonious dispute, the maintenance of a romantic mystery and so on. Though lack of closure is generally thought of as being negative, it is clear that closure and lack of closure have positive or negative implications depending on the person and situation surrounding them.

Implications
A need for cognitive closure may occur while engaged in goal-driven or goal-motivated cognitive functions (e.g., attention control, memory recall, information selection and processing, cognitive inhibition, etc.). Ideally, people should attempt to acquire new knowledge to satisfy questions regarding particular issues (specific cognitive closure) irrespective of whether that knowledge points to a conclusion having positive or negative implications for them (non-specific cognitive closure). But because urgency and permanence are central to the motivational core of this overall process, individuals (or groups) may be compelled, consciously or unconsciously, to obtain information prematurely and irrespective of content.

A high need for cognitive closure might then invite bias in:
 * 1) selecting the most relevant information one should attend to for increasing chances of adaptation
 * 2) initiating and sustaining cognitive manipulations that are required to achieve particular outcomes
 * 3) making judgments and assessments of input information
 * 4) weighing information during the course of decision-making

For example, the level of NFCC can influence decision-making strategies used by an individual. In a study by Choi et al. that manipulated NFCC, the authors found that a higher NFCC was associated with a preference for using the faster "attribute-based search" which involves examining all available alternatives on one attribute and then moving on to the next attribute. Individuals with a lower NFCC, in contrast, used the "alternative-based search", such that they examine all attributes of one alternative, then move on to the next alternative. Thus, studying NFCC has huge implications for consumer buying behavior.

Need for closure has also been found to have a role in race- and gender-based prejudice. Roets describes a conceptual fit between Allport's "motivated cognitive style" of individuals who exhibit prejudice and Kruglanksi and Webster's concept of high-NFCC individuals, such that both display urgency tendency i.e. the desire for quick, definite answers and permanence tendency i.e., the perseverance of the obtained answer in spite of contradictory information. Thus, NFC provides a strong empirical base for Allport's hypothesized underlying cognitive style of prejudiced individuals. A high need also induces the tendency to form knowledge more quickly, tying into other concepts, such as a tendency to prefer autocracy i.e. "hard" forms of influence that motivate the targets to comply with the agents' demands quickly via the promise of positive consequences or the threat of negative consequences, rather than "soft" forms of influence that might use extended argumentation or persuasion.

Additionally, and especially in those with strong needs for certainty (as measured on NFC Scale), the impulse to achieve cognitive closure may sometimes produce or evoke a mood instability, and/or truncated perceptions of one's available behavioral choices, should some newly acquired information challenge preconceptions that they had long considered to be certain, permanent and inviolate e.g. certain religious or ethical views and values.

Thus it is apparent that the need for cognitive closure may have important implications for both personal and inter-personal thoughts and actions, including some related to educational processes and school learning.

In education
Formal education environments, such as elementary and secondary schools, present opportunities for learners to acquire new knowledge and skills, and to achieve deep, domain-specific conceptual mastery which, through well-designed pedagogical guidance and academic study, may enhance future career readiness, civic engagement, and general well-being. However, although it is understood that the basic principles of learning assert the importance of attending to students' prior knowledge, fostering conceptual understanding, and cultivating metacognitive awareness, students must also become engaged and be willing to tolerate and cognitively work through the intellectual ambiguity often associated with exposure to novel information and tasks.

Yet for students who have high need for cognitive closure, this phenomenon may inadvertently lead to the inhibition of cognitive functions and processes essential to the learning process, so that they can maintain their prior certainty and/or perceived permanence of personally or socially important ideas, even if those ideas or knowledge are distinctly unrelated to any specific content or information being presented in the classroom. In instances such as these, an individual's desire for cognitive closure in another area may outweigh her/his motivation to expend cognitive resources toward learning new information. As a result, the student may appear uninterested and susceptible to under-achieving e.g. poor grades or not performing to expected levels.

In the absence of understanding and consideration of how need for cognitive closure may influence academic and/or achievement motivation, educators may erroneously conclude that a student does not have a desire to learn or that she/he has a cognitive, psychological, intellectual, or behavioral deficiency that is impeding the learning process. This is not to suggest that need for cognitive closure is a suitable explanation for all learning problems; however, in working with students who appear to be experiencing learning challenges manifested through amotivation or low motivation, it would not be unreasonable to explore need for cognitive closure as a potential factor.

Research
Individuals scoring high on the NFCS are more likely to attempt to draw closure by relying on incipient cues, and the first-encountered apparent fit. The need for closure is also said to predispose a very narrow or shallow information search, along with a higher tendency to use cognitive heuristics, when seeking solutions. (Van Hiel and Mervielde, 2003)

In studies on creativity, individuals with high need-for-closure ratings had low creativity scores. Those low in need-for-closure more frequently produced novel solutions that motivated and inspired others in their groups, and the outcomes of the projects in which they participated were rated as correspondingly more productive.

Most research on the need for closure has investigated its relation to social stimuli. However, recent research suggests that it may also predict responses to non-social stimuli. In particular, the need for closure predicts an evaluative bias against deviant non-social stimuli (e.g., the letter "A" presented in a category of letter "B"s)

"Closure" has also been used more loosely to refer to the outcome of an experience which, by virtue of its completion, demonstrates a therapeutic value. Legal scholars have linked "closure" to "catharsis" and "satisfaction" and at times the legal system may be enlisted into an individual's desire for the cessation of uncertainty. In the case of the death penalty, for example, victims seeking "closure" may adopt effective strategies as diverse as retribution, on one hand, and forgiveness on the other.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

authors: Θεμιστοκλής Χατζής

title: Closure (psychology)


text:
Talk:Desinicization campaign

Edit wars on this article
The continued reverting from IP addresses on this article really should be brought to this talk page, for discussion, rather than continued bickering via edit summaries. Also, to the above editor, you cannot forbid someone from contributing just because they do not know the Chinese language. The purpose of English Wikipedia is to give information of an encyclopedic nature, and this topic can be understood by anyone, not just someone who speaks Chinese. I'd request you have some tolerance, and patience for non-native Chinese editors. Thank you. Additionally, this article needs to be cited with proper, third-party reliable sources and written from a neutral, fact-based viewpoint. There is currently only one reference, and it is not in English. For the English Wikipedia, this is not considered something that the majority of editors would be able to review for verifiability. I'd encourage those editors working on this article to step back, go find some good English language sources, and write this article up in a neutral voice, without any commentary or opinion, or original research. But the biggest issue right now is this continued reverting by three IP addresses. It is not constructive, and I urge all of you to bring your concerns here in a civil manner, discuss them, and then write the article together. Thanks, Ariel ♥ Gold 06:11, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Hear hear. If nothing can be resolved, page protection might come into play, and that really isn't going to help any edit wars continue. Jmlk  1  7  06:21, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I can tell you that these people who always put wrong information understand Chinese. The reason why I questioning them is that I know they can read Chinese easily, but they always write the examples that are listed as bias in Chinese page. -- 06:53, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * As I'm sure most people know, but I'll just remind everyone: neutrality is a core policy. There is no arguing that, but this article is frankly, in some serious need of help. It needs references, and the removal of opinion, commentary, and original research. The point I'm making, and Jmlk is making, is that this edit warring needs to stop, it is not constructive, nor helpful. I would encourage everyone who is familiar with the subject, regardless of nation of origin, to come here, discuss things nicely, find references, come to agreements, and then work together as a team to create an article that someone who is completely unfamiliar with this topic, could read, understand, and learn from. This is my hope, and I would truly like to see that happen, I'd like to see this article become something helpful, rather than a battleground for differing points of view. Remember, just because a similar article may exist on the Chinese Wikipedia, this article should not simply be a copy of that article, it should be original, an article that is aimed towards those who may be unfamiliar with the subject, and also those who may know about it, but would learn more from reading this. Cheers, Ariel ♥ Gold 07:02, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * 218.166 is a chinese, but he refuses to admit that he is a chinese. with that kind of mentality, can we actually trust him? he just deleted a lot of desicization examples that he doesn't like. someone should revert what he deleted. --Soa308d 22:06, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It does not matter where someone is from, or what nationality they are. Wikipedia is a global project, and everyone is welcome to contribute, providing they follow the core policies and the guidelines. If editors cannot come to agreements here, about the issues, then further action may be required to protect this article from these constant edit wars. I encourage everyone to bring specific, detailed concerns here, discuss them in a civil manner, and reach an agreement, based on reliable sources that should be properly cited. Any non-bias should be shelved at the door, and items that can be verifiable should be included, with no commentary, opinion, or original research. I sincerely hope this can be accomplished with respect to each other, and to the project. Thanks, Ariel ♥ Gold 02:47, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

 * Deletion of unfootnoted material is different than deletion of footnoted material. Deletion of footnoted material usually requires a discussion on the article's talk page. In regards to motivation, Assume good faith and the requirement that reliable sources be used in the article on Wikipedia English largely have wiped out a need in Wikipedia English to figure out someone's motives. It is not a matter of good motives, bad motives, trust, or lack of trust; it only matters if the article is improved based on reliable source material. Instead of spending time worrying about someone's back ground and wasting significant time in discussing such matters (and generating hurt feelings), Wikipedia English keep's its eye on the prize - the improvement of the encyclopedia. Adhering to this approach helps us be civil towards one another and lessens a chance for an edit war. Cheers. --  Jreferee  (Talk) 16:04, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Actions taken on the article
I move the article to desinicization campaign because "desinicization" is more of a dictionary term and "desinicization campaign" is how the reliable sources labeled the desinicization actions. You may disagree that a desinicization campaign exists or that a particular action is not part of the desinicization campaign even though it was so identified by a reliable source, but such personal beliefs may be better addressed in the Taiwanese localization movement article (through reliable sources) or elsewhere. --  Jreferee  (Talk) 22:45, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd just like to say that this article is much improved now, thanks to your help, Jreferee. You have added multiple, reliable sources, cited with footnotes, and that makes it much easier to read, and I'd just like to say, well done! Ariel ♥ Gold 02:52, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

A wrong article name
How long will a campaign last? second, other than Taiwan, there are other countries that are doing desinicization, so this article should change a better name. and how can anyone improve it if you locked it? 07:34, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You could create an account and get a registered username, which has many beneficial aspects, take a look at the link to learn more. Also, would you please read the administrator Jreferee's reasons and explanations above? Thanks! Ariel ♥ Gold 09:08, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * That is his own reason, no one agrees with him. he should look up the defintion of "campaign" before he vandalized that page.--Adka92 09:15, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia English is based on reliable sources. "Desinicization" is more of a dictionary term and "desinicization campaign" is how the reliable sources labeled the desinicization efforts. --  Jreferee  (Talk) 15:26, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Been recreated again as Desinicize -- ÐeadΣyeДrrow (Talk|Contribs) 10:56, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Who hijacked this article and forced everyone to accept his version?
Before you force everyone to accept your article, tell us what does the following have anything to do with Taiwan government? this is simply too ridiculous. Examples elsewhere: Some commentators also take the recent Seoul city mayor's move to change Seoul city's Chinese official name from Hancheng (漢城; Hànchéng) to Shou'er (首爾; Shǒuěr) in 2005 as a model of desinicization. The previous name, pronounced Hànchéng in Chinese and Hanseong in Korean, is an old name for Seoul, literally meaning Han River City, but can be misinterpreted as Han Chinese City. The new name Shou'er carried no such connotation, and was close in both sound and meaning to Seoul, which, uniquely among Korean place names, does not have a Sino-Korean name. See also Seoul - Chinese name. The Dungans of Kyrgyzstan represent a less conscious process of desinicization, during which, over the course of a little more than a century (since the Hui Minorities' War), a Hui Chinese population became alienated from the literary tradition and local culture of Shaanxi and Gansu.-- 09:17, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * All 90+ references I reviewed mentioned "desinicization" and all limited their desinicization to Taiwan. The Korea example provided appears to be original research. --  Jreferee  (Talk) 15:31, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Then you obviously don't know what desinicization means, do some research on why vietnam invented their own written language, and on why Chinese as a language was banned in south korea not so long ago, etc. all those things are desinicization, you are just hijacking this article. and if you want to write about taiwan, you should change the name to "taiwan's desinicization campaign," and "campaign" doesn't last long, but desicinization has been long before you were born, you need to revert the original article back --Adka92 22:30, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia English does not use original research. As I posted elsewhere in this talk page, desinicization is a perspective and many thing can be characterized as desinicization through original research. The only way we can keep this article from becoming prohibited original research is to use reliable source material. A reliable source would need to refer to Chinese as a language being banned in South Korea as being "desinicization" for such information to be included in this article. Same goes for Vietnam inventing their own written language. I have not found any reliable sources making such claims. Also, I have found several reliable sources that use the phrase "Desinicization campaign". For us to change the name of the article from desinicization campaign, we would need reliable sources that sufficiently counters other reliable sources use of the term "desinicization campaign". I have not found any. Wikipedia is nothing more than a neutral and unbiased compilation of previously written, verifiable information. It is merely the ladle that helps us drink from the fountain of knowledge. Wikipedia's policies keep it from being anything more than that. --  Jreferee  (Talk) 06:44, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Really different from the Chinese page
This article is really different from the Chinese page(去中國化). The quality of this article is really lower than the Chinese page. Some critical informations are listed in the Chinese page. If you understand Chinese, you can read the Chinese page and understand how important these informations are. These information are about removing or renaming the symbols of Chiang Kai-shek. Many people are trying to remove symbols about Chiang because they viewed him as a tyrant, not because they think they are Taiwanese or Chinese. In any democratic country, it is really common to deny any cult of tyrants! Seeing denying Chiang as Desinicizaton really means that democratization is Desinicization or China means autocracy! I tried to listed some of them. However some people always delete these critical information! They only questioned if you are Chinese or not! Also, there is another bigger issue. Is this article important? The reason why it is usually used as another name of Taiwan independent movement or Taiwan localization movement is that the word "Desinicization" can imply that this is damaging Chinese culture. -- 15:00 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The topic appears to fall into an article whose subject is a POV. China, etc. looks at Taiwan's actions and says "Hey, you're getting rid of Chinese culture and that is desinicization." Taiwan, etc. looks at the same action and says, "No, we're just emphasizing the importance of Taiwan's culture so it is not desinicization." Neither is really wrong (or right for that matter), it is just different perspectives. The Chinese, etc. perspective now is in the Desinicization campaign article and the Taiwan, etc. perspective is in the Taiwanese localization movement article. There are endless amount of actions, anyone of which could be characterized one way or another through original research. Such a path usually leads to edit wars, particularly in contentious topics such as this one. One of Wikipedia English's solutions is to limit information in the article to reliable source material. The present article was composed from reliable source material. Rather than use personal understanding of the situation to determine what gets into the article, I let the reliable source material dictate what gets into the article. The article now reflects what reliable sources say about the topic. --  Jreferee  (Talk) 15:43, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * 61.224, you are a chinese, and you deny that you are a chinese. it is the same thing for those desinicization acts, they are indeed desinicization things, but you refuse it. and that is why they are called desinicization.--Adka92 22:33, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

 * Adka92 says nothing about this article. What he/she said is always full of racism. I think it is helpless to answer these racism questions. I should response what Jreferee talked: In the Chinese Wikipedia, there are 3 articles:Taiwan independent movement, Taiwan localization movement and desinicization. In the Chinese Wikipedia, it is list "the movements that called as desinicizaton in Taiwan actually do not harm the Chinese culture; also it almost never try to remove Chinese culture in Taiwan" in the desinicization article. De-Chianglization(removing/renaming symbols about Chiang) is listed in the Controversial part of desinicization in the Chinese page. It is also list with "Many people think that removing Chiang's symbols can not be called as desinicization." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.166.73.25 (talk) 02:13, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Harm to culture is merely a perspective. I have found no reliable sources saying something like "desinicizaton in Taiwan actually do not harm the Chinese culture; also it almost never try to remove Chinese culture in Taiwan." Thus, such an opinion does not belong in the Wikipedia English article. I tried to write the article using examples of what reliable sources say is desinicizaton to give the reader an understanding of the topic. Some examples seem legit and others seem to be going overboard. There's no basis to hit the reader over the head to tell them what to think. The examples themselves are enought to allow them to draw the conclusions that original reserach policy prevents us from adding to the article. --  Jreferee  (Talk) 07:00, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Almost all Chinese articles in the Chinese Version of Wikipedia with regarding of issues Taiwan, Taiwan - Mainland relations and its independence movement are heavily bias. They are full of Pan – Green POVs. For example, you can tell by reading the Chinese section on the KMT candidate --- Ma Ying-jeou, there has been an “edit war” going on for months, as it was vandalized many times. The issues surround Taiwan & its independence movement are not as "clean cut" as others might think. There is a huge split even within the island itself. I personally don't read those articles and believe most of them are just "Pan - Green Propaganda". Maybe I will start reading them again when the Mainland Chinese are allowed back to Wiki after they are done with the whole "Internet censorship" thing (which I don't think it will happen anytime soon...). TheAsianGURU 22:32, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

desinicization campaign is an invented phrase
there is no need to "merge," that guy simply created a new article, and delete the entire content from "desinicization", and wants to force others to accept his own creation. if you search on google, you can only find ONE PAGE with his creation "desinicization campaign." you can find more than 10 pages if you search for the word "desinicization." so clearly, that was invented by him only. Everyone else around the world don't agree with that phrase. he should change his own article to "Taiwan's d campaign," And revert the original "desinicization" back to its original content. it is just that simple. --Qpiuqwe 05:04, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Please review Naming conventions. English speakers recognize "desinicization" as a dictionary entry heading, which makes that an inappropriate name for this article. When you read through the reliable sources I posted in the article reference section, you will see a good number of them use "Desinicization campaign". Also, if you have reliable sources to support your statements, please post them here as they would help move the discussion forward. --  Jreferee  (Talk) 07:14, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

 * This entire article is pro-China political hokum. "De-sinicization" does not refer to the removal of "chinese" from Taiwan -- how could that be? We eat Chinese food, we drink Chinese drinks, we go to Chinese temples and celebrate Chinese New Year while reading with Chinese characters. It is merely political code for the removal of markers of the Chiang regime's attempt to impose an idealized and false view of China on Taiwan. This whole entry is POV and nothing can possibly save it, since the term "de-sinicization" is used only by those who want to annex Taiwan to China. The entry should be deleted. 163.17.7.193 (talk) 06:11, 10 January 2008 (UTC) Michael Turton

title: Talk:Desinicization campaign


text:
Human skeleton

The human skeleton is the internal framework of the human body. It is composed of around 270 bones at birth – this total decreases to around 206 bones by adulthood after some bones get fused together. The bone mass in the skeleton makes up about 14% of the total body weight (ca. 10–11 kg for an average person) and reaches maximum mass between the ages of 25 and 30. The human skeleton can be divided into the axial skeleton and the appendicular skeleton. The axial skeleton is formed by the vertebral column, the rib cage, the skull and other associated bones. The appendicular skeleton, which is attached to the axial skeleton, is formed by the shoulder girdle, the pelvic girdle and the bones of the upper and lower limbs.

The human skeleton performs six major functions: support, movement, protection, production of blood cells, storage of minerals, and endocrine regulation.

The human skeleton is not as sexually dimorphic as that of many other primate species, but subtle differences between sexes in the morphology of the skull, dentition, long bones, and pelvis exist. In general, female skeletal elements tend to be smaller and less robust than corresponding male elements within a given population. The human female pelvis is also different from that of males in order to facilitate childbirth. Unlike most primates, human males do not have penile bones.

Axial
The axial skeleton (80 bones) is formed by the vertebral column (32–34 bones; the number of the vertebrae differs from human to human as the lower 2 parts, sacral and coccygeal bone may vary in length), a part of the rib cage (12 pairs of ribs and the sternum), and the skull (22 bones and 7 associated bones).

The upright posture of humans is maintained by the axial skeleton, which transmits the weight from the head, the trunk, and the upper extremities down to the lower extremities at the hip joints. The bones of the spine are supported by many ligaments. The erector spinae muscles are also supporting and are useful for balance.

Appendicular
The appendicular skeleton (126 bones) is formed by the pectoral girdles, the upper limbs, the pelvic girdle or pelvis, and the lower limbs. Their functions are to make locomotion possible and to protect the major organs of digestion, excretion and reproduction.

Functions
The skeleton serves six major functions: support, movement, protection, production of blood cells, storage of minerals and endocrine regulation.

Support
The skeleton provides the framework which supports the body and maintains its shape. The pelvis, associated ligaments and muscles provide a floor for the pelvic structures. Without the rib cages, costal cartilages, and intercostal muscles, the lungs would collapse.

Movement
The joints between bones allow movement, some allowing a wider range of movement than others, e.g. the ball and socket joint allows a greater range of movement than the pivot joint at the neck. Movement is powered by skeletal muscles, which are attached to the skeleton at various sites on bones. Muscles, bones, and joints provide the principal mechanics for movement, all coordinated by the nervous system.

It is believed that the reduction of human bone density in prehistoric times reduced the agility and dexterity of human movement. Shifting from hunting to agriculture has caused human bone density to reduce significantly.

Protection
The skeleton helps to protect many vital internal organs from being damaged.
 * The skull protects the brain
 * The vertebrae protect the spinal cord.
 * The rib cage, spine, and sternum protect the lungs, heart and major blood vessels.

Blood cell production
The skeleton is the site of haematopoiesis, the development of blood cells that takes place in the bone marrow. In children, haematopoiesis occurs primarily in the marrow of the long bones such as the femur and tibia. In adults, it occurs mainly in the pelvis, cranium, vertebrae, and sternum.

Storage
The bone matrix can store calcium and is involved in calcium metabolism, and bone marrow can store iron in ferritin and is involved in iron metabolism. However, bones are not entirely made of calcium, but a mixture of chondroitin sulfate and hydroxyapatite, the latter making up 70% of a bone. Hydroxyapatite is in turn composed of 39.8% of calcium, 41.4% of oxygen, 18.5% of phosphorus, and 0.2% of hydrogen by mass. Chondroitin sulfate is a sugar made up primarily of oxygen and carbon.

Endocrine regulation
Bone cells release a hormone called osteocalcin, which contributes to the regulation of blood sugar (glucose) and fat deposition. Osteocalcin increases both insulin secretion and sensitivity, in addition to boosting the number of insulin-producing cells and reducing stores of fat.

Sex differences

Anatomical differences between human males and females are highly pronounced in some soft tissue areas, but tend to be limited in the skeleton. The human skeleton is not as sexually dimorphic as that of many other primate species, but subtle differences between sexes in the morphology of the skull, dentition, long bones, and pelvis are exhibited across human populations. In general, female skeletal elements tend to be smaller and less robust than corresponding male elements within a given population. It is not known whether or to what extent those differences are genetic or environmental.

Skull
A variety of gross morphological traits of the human skull demonstrate sexual dimorphism, such as the median nuchal line, mastoid processes, supraorbital margin, supraorbital ridge, and the chin.

Dentition
Human inter-sex dental dimorphism centers on the canine teeth, but it is not nearly as pronounced as in the other great apes.

Long bones
Long bones are generally larger in males than in females within a given population. Muscle attachment sites on long bones are often more robust in males than in females, reflecting a difference in overall muscle mass and development between sexes. Sexual dimorphism in the long bones is commonly characterized by morphometric or gross morphological analyses.

Pelvis
The human pelvis exhibits greater sexual dimorphism than other bones, specifically in the size and shape of the pelvic cavity, ilia, greater sciatic notches, and the sub-pubic angle. The Phenice method is commonly used to determine the sex of an unidentified human skeleton by anthropologists with 96% to 100% accuracy in some populations.

Women's pelvises are wider in the pelvic inlet and are wider throughout the pelvis to allow for child birth. The sacrum in the women's pelvis is curved inwards to allow the child to have a "funnel" to assist in the child's pathway from the uterus to the birth canal.

Clinical significance
There are many classified skeletal disorders. One of the most common is osteoporosis. Also common is scoliosis, a side-to-side curve in the back or spine, often creating a pronounced "C" or "S" shape when viewed on an x-ray of the spine. This condition is most apparent during adolescence, and is most common with females.

Arthritis
Arthritis is a disorder of the joints. It involves inflammation of one or more joints. When affected by arthritis, the joint or joints affected may be painful to move, may move in unusual directions or may be immobile completely. The symptoms of arthritis will vary differently between types of arthritis. The most common form of arthritis, osteoarthritis, can affect both the larger and smaller joints of the human skeleton. The cartilage in the affected joints will degrade, soften and wear away. This decreases the mobility of the joints and decreases the space between bones where cartilage should be.

Osteoporosis
Osteoporosis is a disease of bone where there is reduced bone mineral density, increasing the likelihood of fractures. Osteoporosis is defined by the World Health Organization in women as a bone mineral density 2.5 standard deviations below peak bone mass, relative to the age and sex-matched average, as measured by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry, with the term "established osteoporosis" including the presence of a fragility fracture. Osteoporosis is most common in women after menopause, when it is called "postmenopausal osteoporosis", but may develop in men and premenopausal women in the presence of particular hormonal disorders and other chronic diseases or as a result of smoking and medications, specifically glucocorticoids. Osteoporosis usually has no symptoms until a fracture occurs. For this reason, DEXA scans are often done in people with one or more risk factors, who have developed osteoporosis and be at risk of fracture.

Osteoporosis treatment includes advice to stop smoking, decrease alcohol consumption, exercise regularly, and have a healthy diet. Calcium supplements may also be advised, as may vitamin D. When medication is used, it may include bisphosphonates, strontium ranelate, and osteoporosis may be one factor considered when commencing hormone replacement therapy.

India
Suśruta-saṃhitā, composed between 6th century BCE and 5th century CE speaks of 360 bones. Books on Salya-Shastra (surgical science) know of only 300. The text then lists the total of 300 as follows: 120 in the extremities (e.g. hands, legs), 117 in the pelvic area, sides, back, abdomen and breast, and 63 in the neck and upwards. The text then explains how these subtotals were empirically verified. The discussion shows that the Indian tradition nurtured diversity of thought, with Sushruta school reaching its own conclusions and differing from the Atreya-Caraka tradition. The differences in the count of bones in the two schools is partly because Charaka Samhita includes thirty two teeth sockets in its count, and their difference of opinions on how and when to count a cartilage as bone (both count cartilages as bones, unlike current medical practice).

Hellenistic world
The study of bones in ancient Greece started under Ptolemaic kings due to their link to Egypt. Herophilos, through his work by studying dissected human corpses in Alexandria, is credited to be the pioneer of the field. His works are lost but are often cited by notable persons in the field such as Galen and Rufus of Ephesus. Galen himself did little dissection though and relied on the work of others like Marinus of Alexandria, as well as his own observations of gladiator cadavers and animals. According to Katherine Park, in medieval Europe dissection continued to be practiced, contrary to the popular understanding that such practices were taboo and thus completely banned. The practice of holy autopsy, such as in the case of Clare of Montefalco further supports the claim. Alexandria continued as a center of anatomy under Islamic rule, with Ibn Zuhr a notable figure. Chinese understandings are divergent, as the closest corresponding concept in the medicinal system seems to be the meridians, although given that Hua Tuo regularly performed surgery, there may be some distance between medical theory and actual understanding.

Renaissance
Leonardo da Vinci made studies of the skeleton, albeit unpublished in his time. Many artists, Antonio del Pollaiuolo being the first, performed dissections for better understanding of the body, although they concentrated mostly on the muscles. Vesalius, regarded as the founder of modern anatomy, authored the book De humani corporis fabrica, which contained many illustrations of the skeleton and other body parts, correcting some theories dating from Galen, such as the lower jaw being a single bone instead of two. Various other figures like Alessandro Achillini also contributed to the further understanding of the skeleton.

18th century
As early as 1797, the death goddess or folk saint known as Santa Muerte has been represented as a skeleton.

title: Human skeleton


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Stephen Breyer

Stephen Gerald Breyer (born August 15, 1938) is an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1994 until his retirement in 2022. He was nominated by President Bill Clinton, and replaced retiring justice Harry Blackmun. Breyer was generally associated with the liberal wing of the Court. He is now the Byrne Professor of Administrative Law and Process at Harvard Law School.

Born in San Francisco, Breyer attended Stanford University, and the University of Oxford as a Marshall Scholar, and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1964. After a clerkship with Associate Justice Arthur Goldberg in 1964–65, Breyer was a law professor and lecturer at Harvard Law School from 1967 until 1980. He specialized in administrative law, writing textbooks that remain in use today. He held other prominent positions before being nominated to the Supreme Court, including special assistant to the United States Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust and assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force in 1973. Breyer became a federal judge in 1980, when he was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. In his 2005 book Active Liberty, Breyer made his first attempt to systematically communicate his views on legal theory, arguing that the judiciary should seek to resolve issues in a manner that encourages popular participation in governmental decisions.

On January 27, 2022, Breyer and President Joe Biden announced Breyer's intention to retire from the Supreme Court. On February 25, 2022, Biden nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and one of Breyer's former law clerks, to succeed him. Breyer remained on the Supreme Court until June 30, 2022, when Jackson succeeded him. Breyer wrote majority opinions in landmark Supreme Court cases such as Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., United States v. Lara, and Google v. Oracle and notable dissents questioning the constitutionality of the death penalty in cases such as Glossip v. Gross.

Early life and education
Breyer was born on August 15, 1938, in San Francisco, California, to Anne A. (née Roberts) and Irving Gerald Breyer. Breyer's paternal great-grandfather emigrated from Romania to the United States, settling in Cleveland, Ohio, where Breyer's grandfather was born. Breyer was raised in a middle-class Jewish family. His father was a lawyer who served as legal counsel to the San Francisco Board of Education. Breyer and his younger brother Charles R. Breyer, who later became a federal district judge, were active in the Boy Scouts of America and achieved the Eagle Scout rank. Breyer attended Lowell High School, where he was a member of the Lowell Forensic Society and debated regularly in high school tournaments, including against future California governor Jerry Brown and future Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe.

After graduating from high school in 1955, Breyer studied philosophy at Stanford University. He graduated in 1959 with a Bachelor of Arts degree with highest honors and membership in Phi Beta Kappa. Breyer was awarded a Marshall Scholarship, which he used to study philosophy, politics, and economics at Magdalen College, Oxford, receiving a first-class honors B.A. in 1961. He then returned to the United States to attend Harvard Law School, where he was an articles editor of the Harvard Law Review and graduated in 1964 with a Bachelor of Laws degree, magna cum laude.

Breyer spent eight years in the United States Army Reserve including six months on active duty in the Army Strategic Intelligence. He reached the rank of corporal and was honorably discharged in 1965.

In 1967, Breyer married The Honourable Joanna Freda Hare, a psychologist and member of the British aristocracy, younger daughter of John Hare, 1st Viscount Blakenham and granddaughter of Richard Hare, 4th Earl of Listowel. They have three adult children: Chloe, an Episcopal priest; Nell; and Michael.

Legal career
After law school, Breyer served as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court justice Arthur Goldberg from 1964 to 1965. He served briefly as a fact-checker for the Warren Commission, then spent two years in the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division as a special assistant to its Assistant Attorney General.

In 1967, Breyer returned to Harvard Law School as an assistant professor. He taught at Harvard Law until 1980, and held a joint appointment at Harvard Kennedy School from 1977 to 1980. At Harvard, Breyer was known as a leading expert on administrative law. While there, he wrote two highly influential books on deregulation: Breaking the Vicious Circle: Toward Effective Risk Regulation and Regulation and Its Reform. In 1970, Breyer wrote "The Uneasy Case for Copyright", one of the most widely cited skeptical examinations of copyright. Breyer was a visiting professor at the College of Law in Sydney, Australia, the University of Rome, and the Tulane University Law School.

While teaching at Harvard, Breyer took several leaves of absence to serve in the U.S. government. He served as an assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force in 1973. Breyer was a special counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary from 1974 to 1975 and served as chief counsel of the committee from 1979 to 1980. He worked closely with the chairman of the committee, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, to pass the Airline Deregulation Act that closed the Civil Aeronautics Board.

U.S. Court of Appeals (1980–1994)
In the last days of President Jimmy Carter's administration, on November 13, 1980, after he had been defeated for reelection, Carter nominated Breyer to the First Circuit, to a new seat established by, and the United States Senate confirmed him on December 9, 1980, by an 80–10 vote. He received his commission on December 10, 1980. From 1980 to 1994, Breyer was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit; he was the court's Chief Judge from 1990 to 1994. One of his duties as chief judge was to oversee the design and construction of a new federal courthouse for Boston, beginning an avocational interest in architecture and the Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Breyer served as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States between 1990 and 1994 and the United States Sentencing Commission between 1985 and 1989. On the sentencing commission he played a key role in reforming federal criminal sentencing procedures, producing the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which were formulated to increase uniformity in sentencing.

Supreme Court (1994–2022)
In 1993, on the recommendation of Orrin Hatch, President Bill Clinton considered both Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg for the seat vacated by Byron White. Clinton ultimately appointed Ginsburg.

After Harry Blackmun retired in 1994, Clinton initially offered the nomination to George Mitchell, the Senate Majority Leader, who was retiring. Mitchell declined. Former Governor of Arizona Bruce Babbitt, who ran for president in 1988 and was serving as Secretary of the Interior, was then offered the nomination, but also declined, saying he was looking forward to spending more time with his wife, Harriet C. Babbitt. She was serving as the 12th United States Ambassador to the Organization of American States. Babbitt later said that had he been confirmed to the court, she would have been compelled to resign and that he did not want to cause that. Both served in their positions to the end of Clinton's presidency in January 2001. Clinton next offered the nomination to Harriett Woods, a former lieutenant governor of Missouri and two-time Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate. Woods was serving as president of the National Women's Political Caucus. She also declined, and recommended Breyer and U.S. Representative Barbara Jordan.

Clinton then turned to Richard S. Arnold, a former Arkansas state representative and chief of staff to Arkansas Governor Dale Bumpers. President Jimmy Carter had nominated Arnold to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and the Senate confirmed him on February 20, 1980. He served till 1990. After that, he was serving as chief judge and a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States. Clinton had almost nominated Arnold before; he was the runner-up to Ginsburg. Arnold told Clinton the day before the planned announcement of his nomination that due to serious "health concerns", he had to "defer this honorable nomination".

Initially, Clinton had felt Breyer lacked "soul and passion". But after heavy lobbying by Senators Ted Kennedy and Tom Harkin, Clinton met with Breyer again and proceeded to nominate him as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court on May 17, 1994. Breyer was confirmed by the Senate on July 29, 1994, by an 87 to 9 vote, and received his commission on August 3.

In 2015, Breyer broke a federal law that bans judges from hearing cases when they or their spouses or minor children have a financial interest in a company involved. His wife sold about $33,000 worth of stock in Johnson Controls a day after Breyer participated in the oral argument. This brought him back into compliance and he joined the majority in ruling in favor of the interests of a Johnson Controls subsidiary which was party to FERC v. Electric Power Supply Ass'n.

Breyer wrote 551 opinions during his 28-year career, not counting those relating to orders or in the "shadow docket".

Abortion
In 2000, Breyer wrote the majority opinion in Stenberg v. Carhart, which struck down a Nebraska law banning partial-birth abortion. On June 29, 2020, he wrote the plurality opinion in June Medical Services v. Russo. The ruling struck down Louisiana's abortion law requiring any doctor who performed abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles. Breyer reaffirmed the "benefits and burdens" test he had created in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, which struck down a nearly identical abortion law in Texas. In 2022, he dissented in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade.

Census
In Department of Commerce v. New York (2019), Breyer was in the 5–4 majority that ruled that the Census Bureau had not followed proper procedure in its implementation of a citizenship question. He was also one of four justices who would have held the citizenship question unconstitutional in itself. In a mostly concurring opinion, he wrote: "Yet the decision was ill considered in a number of critically important respects. The Secretary did not give adequate consideration to issues that should have been central to his judgment, such as the high likelihood of an undercount, the low likelihood that a question would yield more accurate citizenship data, and the apparent lack of any need for more accurate citizenship data to begin with. The Secretary's failures in considering those critical issues make his decision unreasonable".

On December 18, 2020, Breyer was one of three dissenters in Trump v. New York. In a 20-page dissent, he argued that the Court should not have sidestepped the case and should have ruled in favor of the challengers, who wanted the Court to block the Trump administration's last-minute attempts to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census. The census ultimately did not exclude undocumented immigrants, due to a lack of time and the subsequent issuance of Executive Order 13986.

Copyright
In Eldred v. Ashcroft, decided on January 15, 2003, Breyer and Justice John Paul Stevens filed separate dissenting opinions. In his 28-page dissent, Breyer argued that the 20-year retroactive extension of existing copyright granted by the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) amounted effectively to a grant of perpetual copyright that violated the Copyright Clause of the Constitution, read in light of the First Amendment. He argued that the extension would produce a period of protection worth more than 99.8% of protection in perpetuity and that few artists would be more inclined to produce work knowing that their great-grandchildren would receive royalties. He also wrote that the fair use defense came to no avail either, as it could not help "those who wish to obtain from electronic databases material that is not there", e.g. teachers who can find from online no ideal material to be used in the class as it has been deleted. In 2012, he expressed a similar idea in his dissent in Golan v. Holder, which affirmed the constitutionality of the application of Section 514 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act of 1994.

In 2005, while joining a unanimous Court in MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. against peer-to-peer file sharing companies Grokster and Streamcast on the ground of inducement liability, Breyer wrote a concurrence that the companies would be protected under the Sony doctrine without evidence of inducement.

On March 20, 2012, Breyer wrote for a unanimous court in Mayo v. Prometheus that patent claims relating to new diagnostic methods of natural phenomena were not patentable as they did not add an "inventive concept to application of the natural laws". The patent, which was related to a patient's metabolization of a drug resulting from a determination of effective dosage, was analyzed to determine whether it was of an applied "law of nature" or merely an instruction on applying a natural law. In Breyer's analysis, a doctor's administration of an already known drug related only to an identification of an "intended audience" to carry out the practice rather than a transformation of the subject. Breyer added, "If a law of nature is not patentable, then neither is a process reciting a law of nature, unless that process has additional features that provide practical assurance that the process is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the law of nature itself."

In American Broadcasting Cos., Inc. v. Aereo, Inc., decided on June 25, 2014, Breyer delivered the majority opinion, ruling that Aereo, allowing subscribers to view near-live streams of over-the-air television on Internet-connected devices, operated so overwhelmingly similar to the cable companies that it violated the right of public performance of the networks' copyrighted work.

In Google v. Oracle, decided on April 5, 2021, Breyer wrote the 38-page majority opinion, holding that Google's copying of 11,500 lines of Java declaring code (0.4% of all Java code) constituted fair use because "three of these packages were ... fundamental to being able to use the Java language at all". Breyer explained, "By using the same declaring code for those packages, programmers using the Android platform can rely on the method calls that they are already familiar with to call up particular tasks (e.g., determining which of two integers is the greater); but Google's own implementing programs carry out those tasks. Without that copying, programmers would need to learn an entirely new system to call up the same tasks."

Death penalty
In 2015, Breyer dissented in Glossip v. Gross, which held by a 5–4 vote that prisoners challenging their executions must provide a "known and available" execution method before challenging their method of execution. In a dissent joined by Ginsburg, Breyer questioned the constitutionality of the death penalty itself. He wrote, "For the reasons I have set forth in this opinion, I believe it highly likely that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment. At the very least, the Court should call for full briefing on the basic question." In July 2020, Breyer reiterated this position, writing, "As I have previously written, the solution may be for this Court to directly examine the question whether the death penalty violates the Constitution."

Free speech
On June 18, 2015, Breyer wrote the majority opinion in Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans. He wrote that license plates are considered governmental speech and are more subject to regulation than private speech. In doing so, he noted that States have historically used license plates to convey governmental messages and that speech appearing on "what is essentially a government-issued ID" could reasonably assumed to be associated with the State. Breyer also commented on the differences between the government and private citizens, saying that government speech "is not barred by the Free Speech Clause from determining the content of what it says. […] Were the Free Speech Clause interpreted otherwise, government would not work".

On June 23, 2021, Breyer authored the majority opinion in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., relating to the role of school regulation of off-campus student speech. In his opinion he noted the importance of potential regulation of such speech by school authorities but acknowledged that such regulation was diminished due to the potential implication of a 24-hour restriction on student speech if fully realized, its traditional role under parental supervision, and the interest of schools in safeguarding the marketplace of ideas. Despite this, Breyer stipulated that the utterance of profanity on social media did not constitute "substantial disruptance" of a school activity or threaten harm to others, writing, "the justifications offered for punishing Levy's speech were simply insufficient […] were she an adult, the First Amendment would provide strong protection".

Defendant protections
On June 21, 2011, Breyer wrote for the majority in Turner v. Rogers on the requirement of counsel or some other safeguard in civil contempt cases. In his opinion, he acknowledged that a right to counsel does not exist in all matters relating to incarceration, as in civil contempt cases the defendant's opponent is also often unrepresented, the arguments typically center on straightforward questions, and substitute safeguards are available. These safeguards, such as soliciting financial information or informing the defendant of the legal significance of payment, were required to have been provided by the state on pain of an erroneous deprivation of liberty.

On June 22, 2015, Breyer wrote for the majority in Kingsley v. Hendrickson that a pretrial detainee must prove that excessive police force was excessive only by an objective standard, not a subjective standard. In his opinion, he wrote that the Due Process Clause protects pretrial detainees from "objectively unreasonable" force by a state actor. He concluded, "in the absence of an expressed intent to punish, a pretrial detainee can nevertheless prevail by showing that the actions are not 'rationally related to a legitimate non-punitive governmental purpose' or that the actions 'appear excessive in relation to that purpose.'"

On February 21, 2018, Breyer wrote for the majority in Class v. United States on whether some who has already pleaded guilty may challenge a federal law's constitutionality. In his opinion, he distinguished Class from past cases where appeal was denied, such as United States v. Broce and Menna v. New York, as Class's admission of guilt resulted in his ability to appeal the questioned indictments that his record would otherwise have contradicted. He concluded, "the claims at issue here do not fall within any of the categories of claims that Class's plea agreement forbids him to raise on direct appeal. They challenge the Government's power to criminalize Class's (admitted) conduct. They thereby call into question the Government's power to 'constitutionally prosecute' him. A guilty plea does not bar a direct appeal in these circumstances.”

Native American law
On November 27, 2001, Breyer wrote the majority opinion in Chickasaw Nation v. United States, relating to whether tribes are liable for taxes on gambling operations. In his opinion, he stipulated that IRC chapter 35, which affords state governmental lotteries an exemption from federal excise taxes, does not provide the same tax exemption to tribal pull-tab operations that act as lotteries under the IRC. Breyer wrote that a straightforward reading of the code, which stipulated that the "reporting and withholding of taxes" on gambling operations applied equally to both the states and tribes, was "included inadvertently. The presence of a bad example in a statute does not warrant rewriting the remainder of the statute's language. Nor does it necessarily mean that the statute is ambiguous." Chapter 35, according to Breyer, "simply imposes taxes […] from which it exempts certain state-controlled gambling activities". On April 19, 2004, Breyer wrote the majority opinion in United States v. Lara, holding that both tribal governments and the federal government may prosecute non-member Native Americans for the same charges without violating the Double Jeopardy Clause, as Native Nations are separate sovereigns. He reiterated this question in the context of the tribe's sovereignty as "Whether Congress has the constitutional power to relax restrictions that the political branches have, over time, placed on the exercise of a tribe's inherent legal authority". Breyer concluded that the Indian Commerce Clause gives Congress the authority to legislate with respect to tribes and that Congress's amendments to the Indian Civil Rights Act constitute a deference to tribal sovereignty ensuring double jeopardy does not apply.

Environment
In Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, Inc. (2000), Breyer was in the 7–2 majority that held that people who use the North Tyger River for recreational purposes but could not do so due to pollution had standing to sue industrial polluters.

On April 23, 2020, Breyer wrote the majority opinion in County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund. The Court ruled that the County of Maui must have a permit under the Clean Water Act in order to release groundwater pollution into the ocean. Although the ruling was less broad than the 9th Circuit's ruling, environmentalist groups saw the ruling as a win and an affirmation of the Clean Water Act.

On July 31, 2020, Breyer dissented when the Supreme Court, in a 5–4 decision, refused to lift a stay on the 9th Circuit ruling that halted construction of the wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. The Sierra Club argued that the wall would harm the environment unduly, including threatening wildlife and changing the flow of water in the Sonoran Desert. Breyer wrote, "The Court's decision to let construction continue nevertheless, I fear, may 'operat[e], in effect, as a final judgment.'" Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan joined his dissent.

On March 4, 2021, Breyer dissented in United States Fish and Wildlife Serv. v. Sierra Club, Inc., joined only by Sotomayor. The case concerned the Sierra Club's request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for "draft opinions" concerning rules governing underwater structures that are used to cool industrial equipment. The Sierra Club argued that it had the right to access the documents. The majority opinion limits environmental groups' ability to obtain government documents under FOIA. Breyer wrote in his dissent, "Agency practice shows that the Draft Biological Opinion, not the Final Biological Opinion, is the document that informs the EPA of the Services' conclusions about jeopardy and alternatives and triggers within the EPA the process of deciding what to do about those conclusions. If a Final Biological Opinion is discoverable under FOIA, as all seem to agree it is, why would a Draft Biological Opinion, embodying the same Service conclusions (and leaving the EPA with the same four choices), not be?"

In Hollyfrontier Cheyenne Refining v. Renewable Fuels Association, Breyer ruled for oil refineries, joining the majority opinion, which held that oil refineries struggling financially did not need a continuous exemption every year since 2011 in order to be granted an exemption from federal renewable fuels policy.

Health care
Breyer generally voted to uphold the Affordable Care Act since its passage in 2010. He wrote the 7-2 majority opinion in California v. Texas, a decision on June 17, 2021, holding that Texas and other states lacked standing to sue against the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate. Breyer wrote, "It is consequently not surprising that the plaintiffs cannot point to cases that support them. To the contrary, our cases have consistently spoken of the need to assert an injury that is the result of a statute's actual or threatened enforcement, whether today or in the future."

Partisan gerrymandering
On April 28, 2004, Breyer dissented in Vieth v. Jubelirer, in which the Court held that partisan gerrymandering is a non-justiciable claim. Breyer wrote in his dissent, "Sometimes purely political 'gerrymandering' will fail to advance any plausible democratic objective while simultaneously threatening serious democratic harm. And sometimes when that is so, courts can identify an equal protection violation and provide a remedy." In 2006, Breyer was in a 5–4 majority holding that District 23 of the 2003 Texas redistricting violated the Voting Rights Act due to vote dilution. Along with Justice John Paul Stevens, Breyer would also have ruled in favor of plaintiffs' claims that Texas's statewide plan was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. In June 2019, Breyer dissented in Rucho v. Common Cause, in which the Supreme Court decided 5–4 that gerrymandering is a non-justiciable claim.

Voting rights
Breyer wrote the majority opinion in Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama, which ruled that racial gerrymandering claims must be looked at district by district, and struck down four of Alabama's state Senate districts as unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.

Breyer joined Ginsburg's dissent in Shelby County v. Holder. A 5–4 majority ruled that Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional. Breyer joined another dissent by Ginsburg in RNC v. DNC, which overturned a lower court's extension of a voting deadline in the Wisconsin primary elections. The lower court had extended the deadline so that people who had not yet received mail-in ballots by April 7 could vote by mail in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Breyer dissented in a similar Wisconsin case in October; the petitioners had asked the court to require Wisconsin to count mail-in ballots received up to six days after Election Day, and the Court, with Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan dissenting, refused the petitioners' request to extend the deadline. Breyer joined Kagan's dissent in Brnovich v. DNC (2021), a case that upheld Arizona's ban on ballot harvesting and refusal to count out-of-precinct ballots. As the most senior dissenter, Breyer likely assigned the dissenting opinion to Kagan.

Retirement

After Democratic victories in the 2020 presidential and Senate elections, progressive activists and Democratic members of Congress called on Breyer to retire so that President Biden could nominate a younger liberal justice. In an August 2021 New York Times interview, Breyer said he wished to retire before his death, and recounted a conversation he had with Justice Antonin Scalia in which Scalia mentioned that he did not want his successor to "reverse everything I've done for the last 25 years". Breyer said that Scalia's point will "inevitably be in the psychology" of his decision to retire. In a September 2021 interview with Fox News's Chris Wallace, Breyer said activists calling for his retirement are "entitled to their opinion" and "I didn't retire because I had decided on balance I wouldn't retire". He said he took several factors into account when deciding his retirement plans, and reiterated that he did not plan to "die on the court".

On January 26, 2022, news outlets reported Breyer's intention to retire from the court at the end of the 2021–22 term. Breyer confirmed his pending retirement in a White House announcement alongside Biden on January 27. On February 25, Biden announced his nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson, a former clerk of Breyer and judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to succeed Breyer on the Supreme Court. The U.S. Senate confirmed Jackson by a vote of 53–47 on April 7, 2022. The last opinion Breyer wrote before his retirement was the majority opinion in Torres v. Texas Department of Public Safety. He retired on June 30, 2022, at 12:00 noon EDT, following the court's final opinions and orders for the term. Breyer's retirement left only one military veteran, Samuel Alito, on the Supreme Court.

In general
Breyer's pragmatic approach to the law "will tend to make the law more sensible", according to Cass Sunstein, who added that Breyer's "attack on originalism is powerful and convincing".

Breyer consistently voted in favor of abortion rights, one of the most controversial areas of the Supreme Court's docket. He also defended the Court's use of foreign law and international law as persuasive (but not binding) authority in its decisions. Breyer is also recognized as deferential to the interests of law enforcement and to legislative judgments in the Court's First Amendment rulings. He demonstrated a consistent pattern of deference to Congress, voting to overturn congressional legislation at a lower rate than any other Justice since 1994.

Breyer's extensive experience in administrative law is accompanied by his staunch defense of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. He rejects the strict interpretation of the Sixth Amendment espoused by Justice Scalia that all facts necessary to criminal punishment must be submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt. In many other areas on the Court, too, Breyer's pragmatism was considered the intellectual counterweight to Scalia's textualist philosophy.

In describing his interpretive philosophy, Breyer has sometimes noted his use of six interpretive tools: text, history, tradition, precedent, the purpose of a statute, and the consequences of competing interpretations. He has noted that only the last two differentiate him from textualists such as Scalia. Breyer argues that these sources are necessary, however, and in the former case (purpose), can in fact provide greater objectivity in legal interpretation than looking merely at what is often ambiguous statutory text. With the latter (consequences), Breyer argues that considering the impact of legal interpretations is a further way of ensuring consistency with a law's intended purpose.

Active Liberty

Breyer expounded his judicial philosophy in 2005 in Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution. In it, Breyer urges judges to interpret legal provisions (of the Constitution or of statutes) in light of the purpose of the text and how well the consequences of specific rulings fit those purposes. The book is considered a response to the 1997 book A Matter of Interpretation, in which Antonin Scalia emphasized adherence to the original meaning of the text alone.

In Active Liberty, Breyer argues that the Framers of the Constitution sought to establish a democratic government involving the maximum liberty for its citizens. Breyer refers to Isaiah Berlin's Two Concepts of Liberty. The first Berlinian concept, being what most people understand by liberty, is "freedom from government coercion". Berlin termed this "negative liberty" and warned against its diminution; Breyer calls this "modern liberty". The second Berlinian concept—"positive liberty"—is the "freedom to participate in the government". In Breyer's terminology, this is the "active liberty" the judge should champion. Having established what "active liberty" is, and positing the primary importance (to the Framers) of this concept over the competing idea of "negative liberty", Breyer makes a predominantly utilitarian case for rulings that give effect to the democratic intentions of the Constitution.

The book's historical premises and practical prescriptions have been challenged. For example, according to Peter Berkowitz, the reason that "[t]he primarily democratic nature of the Constitution's governmental structure has not always seemed obvious", as Breyer puts it, is "because it's not true, at least in Breyer's sense, that the Constitution elevates active liberty above modern [negative] liberty". Breyer's position "demonstrates not fidelity to the Constitution", Berkowitz argues, "but rather a determination to rewrite the Constitution's priorities". Berkowitz suggests that Breyer is also inconsistent in failing to apply this standard to the issue of abortion, instead preferring decisions "that protect women's modern liberty, which remove controversial issues from democratic discourse". Failing to answer the textualist charge that the Living Documentarian judge is a law unto himself, Berkowitz argues that Active Liberty "suggests that when necessary, instead of choosing the consequence that serves what he regards as the Constitution's leading purpose, Breyer will determine the Constitution's leading purpose on the basis of the consequence that he prefers to vindicate".

Against the last charge, Cass Sunstein has defended Breyer, noting that of the nine justices on the Rehnquist Court, Breyer had the highest percentage of votes to uphold acts of Congress and also to defer to the decision of the executive branch. However, according to Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker, "Breyer concedes that a judicial approach based on 'active liberty' will not yield solutions to every constitutional debate", and that, in Breyer's words, "respecting the democratic process does not mean you abdicate your role of enforcing the limits in the Constitution, whether in the Bill of Rights or in separation of powers."

To this point, and from a discussion at the New York Historical Society in March 2006, Breyer has noted that "democratic means" did not bring about an end to slavery, or the concept of "one man, one vote", and it is the concept of universal suffrage that allowed corrupt and discriminatory (but democratically inspired) state laws to be overturned in favor of civil rights.

Other books
In 2010, Breyer published a second book, Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge's View. In it, he argues that judges have six tools they can use to determine a legal provision's proper meaning: (1) its text; (2) its historical context; (3) precedent; (4) tradition; (5) its purpose; and (6) the consequences of potential interpretations. Textualists, like Scalia, only feel comfortable using the first four of these tools; while pragmatists, like Breyer, believe that "purpose" and "consequences" are particularly important interpretative tools.

Breyer cites several watershed moments in Supreme Court history to show why the consequences of a particular ruling should always be in a judge's mind. He notes that President Jackson ignored the Court's ruling in Worcester v. Georgia, which led to the Trail of Tears and severely weakened the Court's authority. He also cites the Dred Scott decision, an important precursor to the American Civil War. When the Court ignores the consequences of its decisions, Breyer argues, it can lead to devastating and destabilizing outcomes.

In 2015, Breyer released a third book, The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities, examining the interplay between U.S. and international law and how the realities of a globalized world need to be considered in U.S. cases.

On March 26, 2024, Breyer released a fourth book, Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism. In an interview about the book, he said that textualism, a judicial philosophy conservative justices favor, "will not help achieve the goals of those who write statutes or those who wrote and adopted the Constitution" and is doomed to fail.

Other views
In an interview on Fox News Sunday on December 12, 2010, Breyer said that based on the values and the historical record, the Founding Fathers of the United States never intended guns to go unregulated and that history supports his and the other dissenters' views in District of Columbia v. Heller. He summarized:

"We're acting as judges. If we're going to decide everything on the basis of history—by the way, what is the scope of the right to keep and bear arms? Machine guns? Torpedoes? Handguns? Are you a sportsman? Do you like to shoot pistols at targets? Well, get on the subway and go to Maryland. There is no problem, I don't think, for anyone who really wants to have a gun."

In the wake of the controversy over Justice Samuel Alito's reaction to President Barack Obama's criticism of the Court's Citizens United v. FEC ruling in his 2010 State of the Union Address, Breyer said he would continue to attend the address:

"I think it's very, very, very important—very important—for us to show up at that State of the Union, because people today are more and more visual. What [people] see in front of them at the State of the Union is that federal government. And I would like them to see the judges too, because federal judges are also a part of that government."

Honors
Breyer was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2004. In 2007, Breyer was honored with the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award by the Boy Scouts of America. In 2018, he was named to chair of the Pritzker Architecture Prize jury, succeeding previous chair Glenn Murcutt.

In popular culture
Breyer has appeared as a guest on Stephen Colbert's TV show. On the Late Show in September 2021, he discussed the Texas Heartbeat Act and his reluctance to retire.

Breyer appeared on Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN in September 2021 where he was questioned on when he planned to retire. He promoted his book The Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics.

title: Stephen Breyer


text:
Common year starting on Sunday

A common year starting on Sunday is any non-leap year (i.e. a year with 365 days) that begins on Sunday, 1 January, and ends on Sunday, 31 December. Its dominical letter hence is A. The most recent year of such kind was 2023 and the next one will be 2034 in the Gregorian calendar, or, likewise, 2018 and 2029 in the obsolete Julian calendar, see below for more.

Any common year that starts on a Sunday has two Friday the 13ths: those two in this common year occur in January and October.

This year has the longest period that occurs without a Lucky Monday, in other words the 3rd day of the month being on a Monday (14 months), from July of this year to September of the following year, unless the following year is a Leap year starting on Monday, then the gap is reduced to 11 months.

Gregorian Calendar
In the (currently used) Gregorian calendar, alongside Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Saturday, the fourteen types of year (seven common, seven leap) repeat in a 400-year cycle (20871 weeks). Forty-three common years per cycle or exactly 10.75% start on a Sunday. The 28-year sub-cycle only spans across century years divisible by 400, e.g. 1600, 2000, and 2400.

Julian Calendar
In the now-obsolete Julian calendar, the fourteen types of year (seven common, seven leap) repeat in a 28-year cycle (1461 weeks). A leap year has two adjoining dominical letters (one for January and February and the other for March to December, as 29 February has no letter). This sequence occurs exactly once within a cycle, and every common letter thrice.

As the Julian calendar repeats after 28 years that means it will also repeat after 700 years, i.e. 25 cycles. The year's position in the cycle is given by the formula ((year + 8) mod 28) + 1). Years 11, 22 and 28 of the cycle are common years beginning on Sunday. 2017 is year 10 of the cycle. Approximately 10.71% of all years are common years beginning on Sunday.

International

 * Valentine's Day falls on a Tuesday
 * World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly falls on July 23
 * Halloween falls on a Tuesday
 * Christmas Day falls on a Monday

Roman Catholic Solemnities

 * Epiphany falls on a Friday
 * Candlemas falls on a Thursday
 * Saint Joseph's Day falls on a Sunday
 * The Annunciation of Jesus falls on a Saturday
 * The Nativity of John the Baptist falls on a Saturday
 * The Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul falls on a Thursday
 * The Transfiguration of Jesus falls on a Sunday
 * The Assumption of Mary falls on a Tuesday
 * The Exaltation of the Holy Cross falls on a Thursday
 * All Saints' Day falls on a Wednesday
 * All Souls' Day falls on a Thursday
 * The Feast of Christ the King falls on its latest possible date, November 26 (or on October 29 in versions of the calendar between 1925 and 1962)
 * The First Sunday of Advent falls on its latest possible date, December 3
 * The Immaculate Conception falls on a Friday
 * Gaudete Sunday falls on its latest possible date, December 17
 * Rorate Sunday falls on its latest possible date, December 24

Australia and New Zealand

 * Australia Day falls on a Thursday
 * Waitangi Day falls on a Monday
 * Daylight saving ends on April 2
 * ANZAC Day falls on a Tuesday
 * Mother's Day falls on its latest possible date, May 14
 * Father's Day falls on September 3
 * Daylight saving begins on its earliest possible date, September 24 in New Zealand and October 1 in Australia

British Isles

 * Saint David's Day falls on a Wednesday
 * Mother's Day falls on March 5, March 12, March 19, March 26 or April 2
 * Daylight saving begins on March 26
 * Saint Patrick's Day falls on a Friday
 * Saint George's Day falls on a Sunday
 * Father's Day falls on June 18
 * Orangeman's Day falls on a Wednesday
 * Daylight saving ends on October 29
 * Guy Fawkes Night falls on a Sunday
 * Saint Andrew's Day falls on a Thursday

Canada

 * Daylight saving begins on March 12
 * Mother's Day falls on its latest possible date, May 14
 * Victoria Day falls on May 22
 * Father's Day falls on June 18
 * Canada Day falls on a Saturday
 * Labour Day falls on September 4
 * Thanksgiving Day falls on October 9
 * Daylight saving ends on November 5

United States

 * Martin Luther King Jr. Day falls on January 16
 * President's Day falls on February 20
 * Daylight saving begins on March 12
 * Mother's Day falls on its latest possible date, May 14
 * Memorial Day falls on May 29
 * Father's Day falls on June 18
 * Juneteenth falls on a Monday
 * Independence Day falls on a Tuesday
 * Labor Day falls on September 4
 * Grandparents' Day falls on September 10
 * Columbus Day falls on October 9
 * Daylight saving ends on November 5
 * Thanksgiving Day falls on November 23

title: Common year starting on Sunday


text:
Common year starting on Friday

A common year starting on Friday is any non-leap year (i.e. a year with 365 days) that begins on Friday, 1 January, and ends on Friday, 31 December. Its dominical letter hence is C. The most recent year of such kind was 2021 and the next one will be 2027 in the Gregorian calendar, or, likewise, 2022 and 2033 in the obsolete Julian calendar, see below for more. This common year is one of the three possible common years in which a century year can begin on, and occurs in century years that yield a remainder of 100 when divided by 400. The most recent such year was 1700 and the next one will be 2100.

Any common year that starts on Wednesday, Friday or Saturday has only one Friday the 13th: the only one in this common year occurs in August. Leap years starting on Thursday share this characteristic, but also have another one in February.

From July of the year that precedes this type of year until September in this type of year is the longest period (14 months) that occurs without a Friday the 17th. Leap years starting on Tuesday share this characteristic, from August of the common year that precedes it to October in that type of year, (e.g. 2007-08 and 2035-36). This type of year also has the longest period (also 14 months) without a Tuesday the 13th, from July of this year until September of the next common year (that being on Saturday), unless the next year is a leap year (which is also a Saturday), then the period is reduced to only 11 months (e.g. 1999-2000 and 2027-28).

This is the one of two types of years overall where a rectangular February is possible, in places where Monday is considered to be the first day of the week. Common years starting on Thursday share this characteristic, but only in places where Sunday is considered to be the first day of the week.

Additionally, this type of year has three months (February, March and November) beginning exactly on the first day of the week, in areas which Monday is considered the first day of the week. Leap years starting on Monday share this characteristic on the months of January, April and July.

Calendars
This is the only year type where the nth "Doomsday" (this year Sunday) is not in ISO week n; it is in ISO week n-1.

Gregorian calendar
In the (currently used) Gregorian calendar, alongside Sunday, Monday, Wednesday or Saturday, the fourteen types of year (seven common, seven leap) repeat in a 400-year cycle (20871 weeks). Forty-three common years per cycle or exactly 10.75% start on a Friday. The 28-year sub-cycle only spans across century years divisible by 400, e.g. 1600, 2000, and 2400.

For this kind of year, the ISO week 10 (which begins March 8) and all subsequent ISO weeks occur later than in all other years, and exactly one week later than Leap years starting on Thursday. Also, the ISO weeks in January and February occur later than all other common years, but leap years starting on Friday share this characteristic in January and February, until ISO week 8.

Julian calendar
In the now-obsolete Julian calendar, the fourteen types of year (seven common, seven leap) repeat in a 28-year cycle (1461 weeks). This sequence occurs exactly once within a cycle, and every common letter thrice.

As the Julian calendar repeats after 28 years that means it will also repeat after 700 years, i.e. 25 cycles. The year's position in the cycle is given by the formula ((year + 8) mod 28) + 1). Years 4, 15 and 26 of the cycle are common years beginning on Friday. 2017 is year 10 of the cycle. Approximately 10.71% of all years are common years beginning on Friday.

International

 * Valentine's Day falls on a Sunday
 * World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly falls on July 25
 * Halloween falls on a Sunday. This is the only year when Halloween falls in ISO week 43. They fall in ISO week 44 in all other years.
 * Christmas Day falls on a Saturday

Roman Catholic Solemnities

 * Epiphany falls on a Wednesday
 * Candlemas falls on a Tuesday
 * Saint Joseph's Day falls on a Friday
 * The Annunciation of Jesus falls on a Thursday
 * The Nativity of John the Baptist falls on a Thursday
 * The Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul falls on a Tuesday
 * The Transfiguration of Jesus falls on a Friday
 * The Assumption of Mary falls on a Sunday
 * The Exaltation of the Holy Cross falls on a Tuesday
 * All Saints' Day falls on a Monday
 * All Souls' Day falls on a Tuesday
 * The Feast of Christ the King falls on November 21 (or on its latest possible date of October 31 in versions of the calendar between 1925 and 1962)
 * The First Sunday of Advent falls on November 28
 * The Immaculate Conception falls on a Wednesday
 * Gaudete Sunday falls on December 12
 * Rorate Sunday falls on December 19

Australia and New Zealand

 * Australia Day falls on a Tuesday
 * Waitangi Day falls on a Saturday
 * Daylight saving ends on April 4
 * ANZAC Day falls on a Sunday, and in some years coincides with Easter Sunday falling on its latest possible date
 * Mother's Day falls on May 9
 * Father's Day falls on September 5
 * Daylight saving begins on September 26 in New Zealand and October 3 in Australia

British Isles

 * Saint David's Day falls on a Monday
 * Mother's Day falls on March 7, March 14, March 21, March 28 or on its latest possible date of April 4
 * Daylight saving begins on March 28
 * Saint Patrick's Day falls on a Wednesday
 * Saint George's Day falls on a Friday, and in some years coincides with Good Friday falling on its latest possible date
 * Father's Day falls on June 20
 * Orangeman's Day falls on a Monday
 * Daylight saving ends on its latest possible date, October 31
 * Guy Fawkes Night falls on a Friday
 * Saint Andrew's Day falls on a Tuesday

Canada

 * Daylight saving begins on its latest possible date, March 14
 * Mother's Day falls on May 9
 * Victoria Day falls on its latest possible date, May 24
 * Father's Day falls on June 20
 * Canada Day falls on a Thursday
 * Labour Day falls on September 6
 * Thanksgiving Day falls on October 11
 * Daylight saving ends on its latest possible date, November 7

United States

 * Martin Luther King Jr. Day falls on January 18
 * President's Day falls on its earliest possible date, February 15
 * Daylight saving begins on its latest possible date, March 14
 * Mother's Day falls on May 9
 * Memorial Day falls on its latest possible date, May 31
 * Juneteenth falls on a Saturday
 * Father's Day falls on June 20
 * Independence Day falls on a Sunday
 * Labor Day falls on September 6
 * Grandparents' Day falls on September 12
 * Columbus Day falls on October 11
 * Daylight saving ends on its latest possible date, November 7
 * Thanksgiving Day falls on November 25

title: Common year starting on Friday


text:
Talk:Human skeleton

Clavicle
Is the clavicle part of the axial or appendicular skeleton? It's mentioned under 'shoulder girdle' and under 'chest'. I'm confused.

its part of the appendicular skeleton Willing student (talk) 07:45, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Weight of a human skeleton?
There seems to be absolutely no mention of the average weight or weight range of human skeletons, nor the ratio of bone weight to body weight. I'm sure readers would be interested in knowing this. Could someone please add this information? Thanks.

--Profound Anarch (talk) 09:16, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

 * The current mentioned weight in the article of 10-11kg is way too high. The cited source (#2) does not even mention anything about bone weight at all. Article should be amended. 87.208.166.165 (talk) 10:19, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 January 2022
There Should be 300 Bones in Humans at Birth and not 270 (in the introduction page) 115.96.7.55 (talk) 07:00, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Claims in List of bones of the human skeleton of 300 were remnants of vandalism that I'm addressing now, so don't quote that page. hemantha (brief) 08:36, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 March 2023
For addition to the history section Mishnah Oholot 1:8 There are two hundred and forty-eight limbs in a human body: Thirty in the foot, six for every toe, Ten in the ankle, Two in the shin, Five in the knee, One in the thigh, Three in the hip, Eleven ribs, Thirty in the hand, [that is] six to every finger, Two in the fore-arm, Two in the elbow, One in the upper arm and Four in the shoulder, [For a total of] one hundred and one on the one side [of the body] and one hundred and one on the other. Eighteen vertebrae in the spine, Nine in the head, Eight in the neck, Six in the key of the heart, And five around the genitals. 98.113.233.220 (talk) 00:11, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Actualcpscm (talk) 09:59, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Human skeleton