Not so weekly links roundup… Dec. 28

I am all caught up on my Blog Reader and happy to share some of the best posts.  As with my most “recent” (ugh, forever ago) links roundup, this isn’t from just the past week.  More like the last month.  In addition to working harder than I ever have before during my first semester at Gordon, my awesome wife and I welcomed our new just as awesome baby girl, Aimee, into the world in November. The pictures are of her the day after she was born and then last week (at 6 weeks) with her sister, Ashleigh who’s 2 and a half.

I’m a blessed man, indeed.

Indeed.

On to the links.

For musical accompaniment? Only the best Christmas song ever. Oh you can have your Silent Night and your Little Drummer Boy, I’ll take this. But that’s just me, I guess. (Hap tip to friend Jason Jackson on the link.)

• To sum up the grading season… Grading, if only you cared a little less.
• What a good if slightly weird boy wants for Christmas… I’ll take #2, #3, and #5, please.
• This is just odd. Follow Steve Silberman on Twitter for links like that one and this one. And many, many others.
• Let’s go Hawks. Let’s go Hawks. Related… Oklahoma by 30.
• The ten best black and white movies of the color era.
• Heh. Social media meets Darwinism.

Science:

• Crowdfunding science? Sign me up! Anyone heard of a not-so-little protein called Alsin?
• How much does the internet “weigh?”
• Perhaps scientists like lab mice too much? Zebrafish, baby. Zebrafish.
• Researchers create Living ‘Neon Signs’ Composed of Millions of Glowing Bacteria.
• Have we learned how to find a fact instead of the fact itself? I wonder if this not only a good thing, but a great thing.
• Worms can pass a trait down for 100 generations…without using DNA.
• Scientists are tough and bugs are cool. In that order.
• Love the noncoding RNA. Love it.
• Ed Yong wrote an amazing piece for Nature on the study of out-of-body experiences.

Religion:

• This was very interesting: atheist aesthetics. (Hat tip to Stuart James.)
• Rachel Held Evans wrote an Open Letter to Scot McKnight. It’s not what you think, unless you know Scot, and then it is exactly what you think. She also absolutely nailed it with this post. Amen, my daughters need to hear that from people other than me and their mom.
• Gordon’s president, Michael Lindsay, wrote an article for the NY Times on CEOs and morality that was excellent.

The space between:

• Heh.
• Top 10 peacemakers in the science and religion “wars.” Guess I was # 17,823? I’ve never been so offended in my life… 🙂
• “As Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, once pointed out, science takes things apart to see how they work. But religion puts them back together again to see what they mean.” Now that’s a great quote (from a post on science and religion by Alister McGrath).
• I’m intrigued by this book. But then again I’m intrigued by a lot of books. Like this one, this one, this one…
• Do animals commit suicide?
• You don’t *really* exist, do you? Glad I recently found Massimo Pigliucci’s blog. Another post I thoroughly enjoyed by him was free will roundtable.
• Speaking of another blog that is new to me, Thinking Christian with “Intellectual Dishonesty or…” This was in response to a horrible post by Jerry Coyne. Not this one, in which he declares that science is the only way of knowing. Only, of course, it requires redefining “science” & saying “non-facts” aren’t knowledge.  No, it was in response to a different one that was also horrible. There’s been a number of choices for bad Jerry Coyne posts lately…
• Pete Enns wrote a great series on recurring mistakes in the Adam/Evolution discussion. Here’s the 1st post. I also have a copy of his upcoming book that I hope to review in the next couple of weeks for the blog.
• The neurobiology of right and wrong. Read until the end!
• What is really astonishing about this supposedly astonishing hypothesis is how astonishing it is not.  (Hap tip to Massimo Pigliucci.)
• Is the internet humans’ greatest adaptation? (Hat tip to Barbara King.)
• John Wilkins wrote a great post called “Prescriptions for Atheists“, that came out of a blog debate on atheism and agnosticism. Highly recommended.
• John Polkinghorne in a nutshell. Last paragraph is gold. Speaking of my hero, RJS at the Jesus Creed is in the middle of a series on one of his latest books.
• This movie looks quite powerful. So does this one.
• How abuse changes a child’s brain… there’s a correlation with soldiers in combat. Scary, scary stuff.
• Speaking of scary, but on a very different level, there’s this and this. Awesome, but scary nevertheless.
• John Walton finished his newest book on Genesis 1 and Ancient Cosmology, which I’m sure will be a great book.  James McGrath reviewed it and gave it a thumbs-up here.
• Consciousness as conversation rather than revelation (preview).
• How cyborgs will change the fabric of society. I say embrace it.

I leave you with two wonderful quotes…

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” 
― Albert Einstein

Remember the gift.

“I am indeed amazed when I consider how weak my mind is and how prone to error.” ~ Descartes

Remember the gift. With humility.