“Like a Bach fugue, the Universe has a beautiful elegance about it, governed by laws whose mathematical precision is meted out to the metronome of time.  These equations of physics are finely balanced, with the constants of nature that underpin the equations tuned to values that allow our remarkable Universe to exist in a form where we, humanity, can study it.  A slight change to these constants, and poof, in a puff of gedanken experimentation, we have a... Read more

    Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture didn’t publish just one article today.  It published two.  Here’s the second:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/the-council-of-fifty-and-its-minutes-a-review/   Please remember that the Interpreter Foundation operates on the basis of volunteer labor and, where expenses are unavoidable, on the basis of donations.  Here’s an explanation of how you can donate:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/donations/   And please don’t overlook the explanation provided of AmazonSmile.   AmazonSmile is an easy way to give to charitable causes (including Interpreter), and it... Read more

    An article that’s just appeared in BYU’s student newspaper, the Universe:   http://universe.byu.edu/2016/12/02/social-media-useful-in-defeating-islamophobia-raising-awareness/   Just for the record:  At least as of office-closing time today, I was still a professor at BYU.  I’m unaware of having retired or been terminated.  And I said “MD,” not “MB.”     Read more

    Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture continues to publish interesting work that we hope you’ll find both profitable and enjoyable.  Here’s an article that appeared just today:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/improvisation-and-extemporaneous-change-in-the-book-of-mormon-part-1-evidence-of-an-imperfect-authentic-ancient-work-of-scripture/     Read more

    While I’m in the vein, here’s another prominent visitor to BYU for whom I helped to provide transportation:   I don’t remember how I became involved, nor why.  I had only begun to realize — much to my shock and, honestly, rather to my horror — that I liked grand opera.  I’d seen Verdi’s Aïda in the ruins of the Roman forum on my first trip to Europe (right out of high school), but hadn’t enjoyed it very... Read more

    This is a follow-up to my previous post about an experience that I had with the famed conservative writer William F. Buckley, Jr., in the latter half of the 1970s.  (Once in a while, this blog serves as something of a sketchbook for the life story that I’ll eventually write.)   I was a very serious fan of Buckley’s when I was growing up.  I began subscribing to National Review when I was thirteen, and, with the exception of (part... Read more

    I just feel the need to put that on public record.   I never eat at Sonic.  Their ad campaign ensures that, so long as it continues, I never will:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7HWsgj1WWE     Read more

    I have to admit that this thought has occurred to me more than once and that, as the public courtship goes by day after day after day without an announcement, it seems more and more possible to me that it’s true:   http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/01/opinions/trump-romney-romance-setup-cupp/index.html   I’ve been told several times over the past week or two how big and great-souled a man Mr. Trump’s apparent reconciliation with Mitt Romney shows him to be.  In this, I’m assured he’s a far more noble... Read more

    My Thursday Deseret News column for the week:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865668340/Light-the-world-with-his-light.html       Read more

    Back in the mid- to late seventies, when I was still an undergraduate at Brigham Young University, the conservative intellectual and writer William F.Buckley Jr. visited and spoke at BYU.     I was privileged, along with two others, to pick him up at the airport and to take him to visit for an hour or so with the First Presidency (Spencer W. Kimball, N. Eldon Tanner, and Marion G. Romney).  There were a lot of fun things... Read more