My regular Deseret News column has appeared:   “Appreciating eyes that see, fingers that feel and ears that hear”   ***   Chris Impey, University Distinguished Professor and Deputy Head of the Department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona, in his book How It Began: A Time-Traveler’s Guide to the Universe (New York and London: W. W. Norton and Company, 2012), 218-219, on the Hubble Ultra Deep Field:   Let’s try and get a sense of this incredible image.  Hold a... Read more

    Every year, in connection with the annual Sundance Film Festival, the Sundance Institute — joined by Zions Bank and the World Trade Center Utah — sponsors a “Thought Leader Symposium.”  This year the focus of the symposium was on “Israel and Palestine,” and it took the form of a three-person panel discussion that was held this morning at the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City.   I participated as one of the three panelists, along with Tarek... Read more

    A preliminary partial draft of one of my manuscripts-in-progress:   In 1848, the year before he died, Oliver Cowdery received rebaptism into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at Kanesville, Iowa.  “I feel that I can honorably return,” he told the high council there.  “I have sustained an honorable character before the world during my absence from you.  This though a small matter with you, is of vast importance.”[1] Before an audience of approximately two thousand,... Read more

    An amusing thought-experiment from Chris Impey’s How It Began: A Time-Traveler’s Guide to the Universe, pp. 190-191:   Imagine the inconvenience if light were sluggish.  Suppose it moved at 1 meter per second, a fast walking clip, as opposed to its measured speed, which is a blistering 300,000 kilometers per second.  Everything in this hypothetical world is the same except the speed of light. You enter a darkened house and switch on the overhead light.  You patiently wait a... Read more

    Pressing forward with the manuscript of my introduction to Islam for Latter-day Saints:   Similarly, the Qur’an apparently recognizes the futility of trying to limit the words of God merely to what can be contained in one book. At a certain point, Muhammad is commanded to say: “If the sea were ink for the Words of my Lord, the sea would be spent before the Words of my Lord are spent, though We brought replen­ishment the like of... Read more

    Continuing with my note-taking from Chris Impey, University Distinguished Professor and Deputy Head of the Department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona, in his book How It Began: A Time-Traveler’s Guide to the Universe (New York and London: W. W. Norton and Company, 2012):   The Milky Way is surrounded and pervaded by a trillion solar masses of mystery “stuff”!  As Vera Rubin has said, “In a spiral galaxy, the ratio of dark-to-light matter is about a factor of 10.  That’s... Read more

    I continue with the manuscript of a book that I’m preparing as an introduction to Islam for a Latter-day Saint audience:   There are some parallels that are still closer. “Those that cry lies to Our signs,” declares the Qur’an, “and wax proud against them—the gates of heaven shall not be opened to them, nor shall they enter Paradise until the camel passes through the eye of the needle.”[1] Of the unrighteous, who refuse to listen to the... Read more

    Latter-day Saints have never been especially fond of President James Buchanan.  And that’s not because we don’t remember him.  On the contrary, we remember him more than most Americans do, because of his role in the so-called “Utah War” (1857-1858), which is sometimes termed “Buchanan’s Blunder.”   But guess what?  It appears that there are others, including serious non-LDS historians, who hold him in extremely low esteem — even without reference to his treatment of Utah and the Mormons:... Read more

    In an earlier post, “The supposed war between science and religion,” I cited Sir John Polkinghorne as among other things, declaring that, to the extent that there’s a scientistic hostility to religion among scientists today, he perceives it to be more pronounced among writers on biology — he expressly mentions Richard Dawkins — than among those who write about the physical sciences.   Polkinghorne, who is both a Knight of the British Empire (KBE) and a Fellow of the prestigious Royal... Read more

    Despite their titles, articles like the one to which I link below from the online British publication The Independent — it seems odd to call it an “online newspaper,” since it’s paperless — almost never delve below a superficial and rather sensationalized account of Mormon doctrine.  Apparently, the chief principles of our faith, beyond the Book of Mormon, are polygamy, racism, disapproval of homosexual relations, and success on Wall Street.  There’s seldom if ever any mention of our belief... Read more