{"id":4052,"date":"2016-06-03T17:32:24","date_gmt":"2016-06-04T01:32:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/?p=4052"},"modified":"2016-06-03T17:32:24","modified_gmt":"2016-06-04T01:32:24","slug":"things-glen-found-interesting-volume-52","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2016\/06\/03\/things-glen-found-interesting-volume-52","title":{"rendered":"Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 52"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Fridays I share articles\/resources about cultural, societal and theological issues, with a preference for content from academics and influential voices. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. <\/span><\/p>\n

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  1. Nicole Cliffe: How God Messed Up My Happy Atheist Life<\/span><\/a> (Nicole Cliffe, Christianity Today): \u201cI emailed a friend who is a Christian, and I asked if we could talk about Jesus. I instantly regretted sending that email and if humanly possible would have clawed it back through the Internet.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. The Sun Is Always Shining In Modern Christian Pop<\/span><\/a> (Leah Libresco, FiveThirtyEight): interesting, although the author is comparing contemporary performance songs to older worship songs, and I suspect the genre difference accounts for some of her findings. Doing some research on the author I discovered that she wrote a fascinating article at First Things called <\/span>Statting While Catholic<\/span><\/a> \u2014 you should read it if you\u2019re a social scientist.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Why Americans Don\u2019t Trust Government<\/span><\/a> (Larry Summers, Washington Post): \u201cI\u2019m a progressive, but it seems plausible to wonder if government can build a nation abroad, fight social decay, run schools, mandate the design of cars, run health insurance exchanges, or set proper sexual harassment policies on college campuses, if it can\u2019t even fix a 232-foot bridge competently.\u201c Summers is, of course, the former president of Harvard.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Could a neuroscientist understand a microprocessor?<\/span><\/a> (Alex Tabarrok, Marginal Revolution): \u201cCould the tools of neuroscience be used to understand the much simpler Atari brain? The answer is mostly no. The authors, for example, looked at three \u2018behaviors\u2019, Donkey Kong, Space Invaders and Pitfall (!) and they are able to find transistors which uniquely crash one of the games but not the others. \u2018We might thus conclude they are uniquely responsible for the game \u2013 perhaps there is a Donkey Kong transistor or a Space Invaders transistor.\u2019 Of course, this conclusion would be very misleading but what are we then to make of similar brain lesion studies?\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. Study: Same-sex experiences are on the rise, and Americans are increasingly chill about it<\/span><\/a> (Rachel Feltman, Washington Post): nothing to see here, folks. Everything is 100% genetic. There are no moral choices involved at any point on the journey. Move along, please.<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. The Return of Bernard Lewis<\/span><\/a> (Martin Kramer, Mosaic): \u201cForty years ago, nobody foresaw the rise of radical Islam\u2014except for the preeminent historian who both predicted and explained it, and much else besides.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n
  7. Under Attack<\/a> (editorial, The Economist): \u201c\u2026when progressive thinkers agree that offensive words should be censored, it helps authoritarian regimes to justify their own much harsher restrictions\u2026\u201c<\/li>\n
  8. Like A Prayer: Is Social Justice The New Campus Religion?<\/span><\/a> (Ana Marie Cox, MTV News): Cox <\/span>came out as a Christian<\/span><\/a> (her words) last year. She has a much more enthusiastic take on campus activism than many of the articles I share (such as the ones above and below).<\/span><\/li>\n
  9. The amazing 1969 prophecy that racial preferences would cause the exact grievances of protesters today<\/span><\/a> (Jonathan Haidt, Heterodox Academy): the disclaimers at the bottom apply to this one most of all. I at first wondered if it was based upon a hoax, but it <\/span>seems legitimate<\/span><\/a>. If you have a strong negative reaction to this piece, you\u2019re welcome. <\/span>Thinking through why will help you be more persuasive<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n
  10. Amusing:<\/span>\n