{"id":7978,"date":"2026-05-29T22:37:58","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T05:37:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/?p=7978"},"modified":"2026-05-29T22:37:58","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T05:37:58","slug":"tgfi-volume-557-peer-reviewed-miracles-and-ai-informed-voting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2026\/05\/29\/tgfi-volume-557-peer-reviewed-miracles-and-ai-informed-voting","title":{"rendered":"TGFI, Volume 557: peer-reviewed miracles and AI-informed voting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-4396\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=300%2C300&#038;ssl=1\" alt width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=768%2C768&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=1024%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=1200%2C1200&amp;ssl=1 1200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?w=2048&amp;ssl=1 2048w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?w=1680&amp;ssl=1 1680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\"><\/a>\n<\/p><p>You\u2019ve heard of TGIF? This is TGFI: Things Glen Found Interesting<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Fridays I share articles\/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues likely to be of interest to Christians in college. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions, so if you read something fascinating please pass it my&nbsp;way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Things Glen Found Interesting<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list simple-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/theblondetheist.substack.com\/p\/peer-reviewed-miracles-are-miraculous\">Peer-Reviewed Miracles: Are Miraculous Cures Published in Scientific Journals?<\/a> (Caleb Jackson, Substack): \u201cIt is often suggested that, if the evidence for miracle cures were truly compelling, it would be expected that such cases would be published in mainstream scientific journals. If these instances cannot stand the scrutiny of peer review, then they ought to be dismissed as nothing more than uncorroborated anecdotes. I am not persuaded. Indeed, this argument remains toothless for a myriad of reasons. As we shall see below, there are no less than several dozen instances of \u2018miracle cures\u2019 published in scientific journals, both mainstream and fringe, over the last century. To claim otherwise is to plead ignorance of the publicly available data.\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Includes <a href=\"https:\/\/theblondetheist.substack.com\/api\/v1\/file\/06fd6023-f1c0-4279-9ff6-be2625e65112.pdf\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/theblondetheist.substack.com\/api\/v1\/file\/06fd6023-f1c0-4279-9ff6-be2625e65112.pdf\">a bibliography of miraculous stories published in academic literature<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.astralcodexten.com\/p\/use-ai-this-election\">Use AI This Election<\/a> (Scott Alexander, Astral Codex Ten): \u201cI\u2019m not saying AI is superintelligent or can decide better than you can. I\u2019m saying that if you \u2014 like me \u2014 spend an hour or so doing research before voting on local seats, AI can aid that research very effectively. And if you don\u2019t do that research \u2014 because you weren\u2019t willing to waste an hour on it before \u2014 AI makes it so much faster that you might want to&nbsp;start.\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>He gives a version of the prompt he used to generate a custom voter\u2019s guide, so I tried it with a customized version and was pleased with the results. I tried it on both Claude and ChatGPT, only Claude was willing to do it. ChatGPT seemed to think it was unethical to help me. I recommend giving it a try. For a start, just go through his prompt sentence by sentence and change it to what you believe.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/open.substack.com\/pub\/samueldjames\/p\/the-twin-fallacies-of-christian-nationalism\">The Twin Fallacies of Christian Nationalism and AI Maximalism<\/a> (Samuel D. James, Substack): \u201cHere are two questions I think about a lot: How does Christianity restrict someone\u2019s use of technology? How does Christianity restrict someone\u2019s stratagems in politics? These questions come from a conviction that the claims of Christ in Scripture are such a nature that one cannot believe and obey them without experiencing some kind of limiting principle on their technology and on their politics. In other words, if you really take Christ seriously, your tech use and your politics will bear a conspicuous mark.&nbsp;\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Recommended by a student.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aaronrenn.com\/p\/nihilism-with-a-business-model\">Nihilism With a Business Model<\/a> (John Seel, Substack): \u201cAt one level, the gig economy reflects an understandable economic adaptation to a rapidly changing technological environment. But <strong>every economic system eventually shapes not merely how people make money, but how they imagine reality itself<\/strong>. The gig economy does not simply create gig work. It creates a gig mindset. And that mindset is increasingly reshaping the moral imagination among younger generations in deeply consequential ways. At the center of the gig mindset is the assumption that nearly everything can become monetized, optimized, and converted into market value. Everything and every experience are now for sale. The self itself becomes a platform. Consider two rapidly expanding phenomena among young adults: men are increasingly addicted to online sports betting, and women are increasingly posting on platforms such as OnlyFans. These two are deeply connected manifestations of the same cultural logic.\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Emphasis in original.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.graphsaboutreligion.com\/p\/are-real-catholics-as-conservative\">Are \u201cReal\u201d Catholics as Conservative as Evangelicals?<\/a> (Ryan Burge, Substack): \u201cI think this is the best test I can devise to really compare devout, conservative Catholics to evangelicals in the same segment of the population.&nbsp;<strong>I just can\u2019t look at these results and say that \u2018real\u2019 Catholics are just as socially conservative as \u2018real\u2019 evangelicals. They aren\u2019t \u2014 empirically speaking \u2014 as conservative on these three core issues<\/strong> [abortion, gay marriage, and premarital sex]\u2026 What I take away from all of this is that evangelical identity carries something that can\u2019t be fully explained by how often you show up or how conservative you vote. <strong>There\u2019s a theological and cultural foundation to evangelicalism that shapes how adherents think about the body, sexuality, and the family in ways that Catholic identity simply doesn\u2019t replicate<\/strong> \u2014 even among the most devout and politically conservative Catholics. The Church may teach the same things on paper, but the people in the pews aren\u2019t internalizing them the same way. And that gap between official teaching and lived belief is, frankly, one of the most interesting stories in American religion right&nbsp;now.\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Emphasis in original.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefp.com\/p\/silicon-valley-faith-finding-god\">Searching for God in Silicon Valley<\/a> (Avital Balwit, The Free Press): \u201cAI workers tend to be less religious than the rest of the U.S. population. They are mostly lapsed in their faith, or were never religious to begin with. Perhaps they were circumcised or baptized; now they may occasionally meditate. This is, for the most part, a materialist lot\u2014by which I mean people for whom the world is atoms and physical laws with nothing supernatural left over, and for whom morality is something worked out from intuition or from philosophy, rather than received from outside the world.\u2026 Not all of them would say they are missing something, and I take the ones who say so at their word. But enough are visibly _searching_ that it is worth asking what they are searching for.\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The author is chief of staff to Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2026-05-randomness.html\">Perfect randomness realized for the first time<\/a> (Gaby Clark, Phys.org): \u201c\u2026Wallraff\u2019s and Renner\u2019s teams have found a way to take imperfect randomness and still extract perfectly random numbers from it. They call their method randomness amplification.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><b>Why Do You Send This&nbsp;Email?<\/b><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar produced shrewd warriors \u201cwho understood the times and knew what Israel should do\u201d (1 Chron 12:32). In a similar way, we need to become wise people whose faith interacts with the world. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may continue the tradition of Issachar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><b>Disclaimer<\/b><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Chi Alpha is not a partisan organization. To paraphrase another minister: we are not about the donkey\u2019s agenda and we are not about the elephant\u2019s agenda \u2014 we are about the Lamb\u2019s agenda. Having said that, I read widely (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass <a href=\"http:\/\/econlog.econlib.org\/archives\/2011\/06\/the_ideological.html\">the ideological Turing test<\/a> and in part because I do not believe I can fairly say \u201cI agree\u201d or \u201cI disagree\u201d until I can say \u201cI understand\u201d) and may at times share articles that have a strong partisan bias simply because I find the article stimulating. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with everything an author says in an article I mention, much less things the author has said in other articles (although if I strongly disagree with something in the article I\u2019ll usually mention it). And to the extent you can discern my opinions, please understand that they are my own and not necessarily those of Chi Alpha or any other organization I may be perceived to represent.\n\nAlso, remember that I\u2019m not reporting news \u2014 I\u2019m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There\u2019s a lot happening in the world that\u2019s not making an appearance here because I haven\u2019t found stimulating articles written about it.\n\nIf this was forwarded to you and you want to receive future emails, sign up <a href=\"https:\/\/theglendavis.substack.com\/\">here<\/a>. You can also <a href=\"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/category\/links\">view the archives<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You\u2019ve heard of TGIF? This is TGFI: Things Glen Found Interesting On Fridays I share articles\/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues likely to be of interest to Christians in college. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions, so if you read something fascinating please pass \u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2026\/05\/29\/tgfi-volume-557-peer-reviewed-miracles-and-ai-informed-voting\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> \u201cTGFI, Volume 557: peer-reviewed miracles and AI-informed voting\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"0","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,348,124,219,153,128,179,117,203,247],"class_list":["post-7978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links","tag-america","tag-american-christianity","tag-apologetically-interesting","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-catholicism","tag-economics","tag-holy-spirit","tag-politics","tag-silicon-valley","tag-wisdom"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-24G","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7978"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7980,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7978\/revisions\/7980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}