Another sidebar comment  from John Gee on the Jenkins/Hamblin exchange:   http://fornspollfira.blogspot.com/2015/06/some-other-pseudo-sciences.html     Read more

    Three religious comments:   A Statement from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints   Here We Stand: An Evangelical Declaration on Marriage   Why Homosexuality is Not Like Other Sins   And a thoughtful piece from my friend and former student Ben Huff:   A Nation Divided     Read more

    Reading over at the valuable Ether’s Cave blog run by my friend and former Maxwell Institute colleague Matt Roper, along with my friend and former Maxwell Institute colleague John Gee, I saw this.  I like it so much that I’m altogether stealing it.  I hope that Matt won’t be too angry:   “Without anything wherewith to steer her” (Mormon 5:18)   George Q. Cannon, having witnessed more than fifty years of Church History, offered the following reflections:   Our... Read more

    On 27 June 1844, in Carthage, Illinois, the Prophet Joseph Smith was murdered by an anti-Mormon mob along with his brother, Hyrum Smith, patriarch to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  John Taylor, later to become third president of the Church, was grievously wounded in the same attack.   The official announcement of their martyrdom, based at least in part on the personal account of John Taylor, now appears in the Doctrine and Covenants:   https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/135?lang=eng  ... Read more

    Steve Smoot kindly sent me this note:   Thought you’d appreciate this.   http://www.vox.com/2015/5/13/8591837/how-science-is-broken   That science can fail, however, shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. It’s a human construct, after all. And if we simply accepted that science often works imperfectly, we’d be better off. We’d stop considering science a collection of immutable facts. We’d stop assuming every single study has definitive answers that should be trumpeted in over-the-top headlines. Instead, we’d start to appreciate science... Read more

    What is Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, reading this summer?  Why, he’s reading the Muqaddima, by the great fourteenth-century Arab social theorist Ibn Khaldun!   http://fortune.com/2015/06/27/non-business-summer-reading/?xid=soc_socialflow_facebook_FORTUNE   I thank Jabra Ghneim for bringing this to my notice.  I could scarcely be more pleased about a summer-reading recommendation than I am with this one.   The Muqaddima is one of the most remarkable books ever written.  When I thoroughly reinvented my Humanities 242 class (“Introduction to... Read more

    Luke 11:5-8   Following on his presentation of “The Lord’s Prayer,” and leading into a promise that God will respond to prayer, Jesus offers a very human portrait of a person who will grant another’s request, if not because he’s feeling benevolent at least because the petitioner has been insistent and he wants him to go away.   It’s actually pretty funny, and — despite our long-standing habit of reading the scriptures with grim solemnity — I suspect... Read more

    The latest installment in the biweekly Hamblin/Peterson column for the Deseret News:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865631534/Who-and-what-are-the-Yezidis.html     Read more

    http://thefederalist.com/2015/06/26/here-are-the-11-most-devastating-quotes-from-john-roberts-gay-marriage-dissent/     Read more

    The exchange between Dr. Phillip Jenkins and Dr. William Hamblin came to an end and then flared up again today.  Remember that everything marked “Jenkins Response” is a post from Professor Hamblin, while everything marked “Jenkins Rejoinder” is a post from Professor Jenkins:   Jenkins Response 13: Recap   Jenkins Response 14: The Real Problem   Jenkins Response 15: Pottery 2   Jenkins Rejoinder 8: Farewell   Jenkins Response 16: Refusing to Read   Jenkins Rejoinder 9: He’s... Read more