Meaning And Mechanism

TEC's presiding bishop (and presiding oceanographer) Katharine Jefferts Schori is featured on the Huffington Post talking about science and religion. Science is about mechanism, while faith is about ultimate meaning, she says; using both views at once gives us "better depth perception."

We Fall Back In June And October

Discover explains why:

We have two systems to measure time: our everyday one which is based on the rotation of the Earth, and a fancy-schmancy scientific and precise one based on vibrations of atoms. The two systems aren’t quite in synch, though, since the Earth counts a day as a tiny bit longer than the atomic clocks say it is. So every now and again, to get them back together, we add a leap second on to the atomic clocks. That holds them back for one second, and then things are lined up once again.

Looky-Cues

Ever noticed, when you're talking to someone and happen to look away for a moment, the person looks in that direction, too? Those with an eye on the data think they're seeing clues about political vision:

Liberals responded strongly to the prompts, consistently moving their attention in the direction suggested to them by a face on a computer screen. Conservatives, on the other hand, did not.

Why? Researchers suggested that conservatives' value on personal autonomy might make them less likely to be influenced by others, and therefore less responsive to the visual prompts....

Liberals may have followed the "gaze cues," meanwhile, because they tend to be more responsive to others, the study suggests.

Hat tip to Mark Shier

Reasonable Faith

Turns out 51% of scientists believe in God.

St. Rom

Rom Houben, a Belgian man who was injured in an auto accident in 1983, was thought to be in a vegetative state for 23 years, until a brain scan in 2006 revealed that he wasn't missing a trick. He's now communicating with the help of a special keyboard. The expression "patience of a saint" comes to mind, as do troubling memories of the case of Terri Schiavo, whose husband, Michael, had her taken off life support in 2005 on the assumption that she had no cognition. According to the doctor who revealed Houben's case in a scientific paper, 40% of those thought to be in a vegetative state really aren't.

As for Houben:

[He] said that at first he felt angry at his powerlessness, but eventually learned to live with it.

"Other people had an opinion of me," Mr Houben, now 46, told the BBC.

"I knew what I could do and what I was capable of but other people had a rather pathetic image of me. I had to learn to be patient and now finally we are on an equal footing."

Equal footing? I'd say he's selling himself short.

A Mere Ghost Of A Finding

Creating a laboratory for ghostly phenomena, researchers in London conclude that people either see what's actually there or think they do.

A Call To Dissrespect Christians

Atheists such as Richard Dawkins are renowned for debating straw-man Christians who believe in a 6,000-year-old earth where Adam and Eve once roamed Eden with pet brontosauruses named Bert and Ernie. A whole bunch of us Christians actually got over that in the 18th and 19th centuries and are able to reconcile science and reason with our belief in the God who made, sustains, and redeems us.

In comparison to the doltish fundamentalists who plague them so relentlessly, atheists such as Landon Ross brag about their own brain pans:

[A]llow me to make some blunt observations that might not be politically correct, but are nevertheless obvious:

-Non-believers tend to be well-educated, scientifically minded, and smarter than average: 93% of the National Academy of Sciences do not believe in a personal God, yet roughly 80-90% of the general public do.

-In countries where there is a high standard of living and education...roughly 80% of the population are non-believers (Sweden, Norway, Denmark etc.).

Ross thinks zealots are responsible for the decline in the study of math and science in the U.S. and wants to hire teams of lobbyists to get religion out of policy and politics. He also evidently wants to confront your local youth group:

It has become trendy to be completely irrational, and 'cool' for teens to be "down with Jesus;" therefore, secularists should do everything in our power to make it un-cool. We must get past this ill-advised notion that we should "respect" other peoples beliefs.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/landon-ross/the-god-crisis_b_316606.html

Odd that a smart guy like Ross overlooks a whole category of well-educated, progressive, politically influential Christians who would probably agree with 99% of his scientific perspective (except the part that insists that the whole mighty engine of all that is creative and magnificent and beautiful started up all by itself one fine day -- and also that human beings are doing a fine job as peaceful, loving stewards of creation all by themselves).

If atheists are concerned about achieving policy outcomes in education and scientific research, they might consider making common cause with mainline Protestants and even U.S. Roman Catholics. But if it's all about affirming and validating that their own theological faith in faithlessness, they should continue as as they are. Either way, God delights in them.

Don't Walk Away, Ardi

Fascinating speculations about food, sex, and walking upright, 4.4 million years ago in Ethiopia.

Hale And Ardi

Bones of a 4.4 million-year-old Ethiopian for the young earthers to pick.

I Have One Word For You: Plastics

-- to explain why we're such a chubby people.

Stan Leezard

Hat tip to Telegraph.co.uk

Energizer Mummy

A 2000-year-old battery, found near Baghdad.

Middle Was Set On Medium

New studies of Arctic temperatures confirm that there was a Medieval Warm Period a millennium ago but that it was cooler than the region is today.

Pillow Talk About Lincoln

Scientists want samples from Lincoln's deathbed pillowcase to try to find out if he may have been near death from cancer by the time of his assassination -- hence, they speculate, his premonitions of death.