I am one of several Butler University faculty who were interviewed and featured on the university web site in connection with interesting or innovative things we are doing with technology. Read more

Thanks to Nijay Gupta for his reminder that the call for papers for the 2011 SBL Annual Meeting is now open. Read more

Via the Biblioblog Top 50 I learned of several new blogs, including Larry Tanner’s blog Textuality. And so I’m sharing a post on creationism’s gaps from several months ago that I just encountered for the first time. The key point he makes is this: “When we compare evolution to creationism, then, we can fairly conclude that Whatever the gaps in evolution, the gaps in creationism are substantially bigger and badder. Indeed, this conclusion seems to me so obviously sensible and accurate... Read more

Newcomers to the blog have asked about my views on or engagement with a variety of topics, arguments, and individuals. And so I thought a collection of links to my posts on mythicism thus far might be in order. Why I Find Mythicism Disturbing in a NutshellScholars Assembling Puzzles: Illustrating Differences Between Scholarly Research and Mythicist Blog Conversations Mythicism and Mainstream Historical MethodBorn of a Woman (Merry Mythmas)Defining Mythicism Mythicist Misunderstanding Jesus Probably Existed: The Argument from Mythicism David Fitzgerald... Read more

So many posts related to doubt, uncertainty and crises of faith popped up in my feed over the past day or so that it seemed worth gathering them and sharing them in a blog post. Like a Child talks about Agnostic Christianity.Diglotting talks about Doubt and Faith.Joel Watts recommends embracing your crisis of faith.Jason Boyette shares a letter from a reader.Religion at the Margins has a guest post in which a gay Christian shares his story.The Progressive Christian Network of... Read more

The National Center for Science Education shared this abridged documentary, “Evolution, Education and Ecology,” focusing on recent debates in Kansas: Also from the NCSE is a response by Dr. Steven Newton to a creationist talk show that he appeared on. In related news, P. Z. Myers explains why petitioning Google Scholar to remove young-earth creationist or other pseudoscientific materials will not work, Michael Zimmerman asks whether lack of hostility between religion and science can make news the way conflict can,... Read more

One popular quote found on mythicist web sites and in comments, mined from the second edition of Eric Hobsbawm’s Bandits, says “In no case can we infer the reality of any specific ’social bandit’ merely from the ‘myth’ that has grown up around him. In all cases we need independent evidence of his actions” (revised edition p.142). As is typical of pseudoscholarship, here we have a quote removed from its context and which, taken on its own, might sound like... Read more

Thanks to Mark Goodacre for sharing the good news that Religion Online is back! Read more

Terri at Wheat Among Tares offers some thoughtful reflection on and interaction with Francis Collins’ book The Language of God. BioLogos continues to address concerns some Christians have regarding their stance on science. The Dispersal of Darwin shares a number of articles on Darwin and evolution. (Image on the right HT Jerry Coyne) Read more

Two items related to peer review and electronic means of communication showed up on blogs today. First, via Inside Higher Ed, a piece in Nature entitled “Trial by Twitter” on how electronic publication, blogging and Twitter are leading to scholarly publications getting discussed much more quickly and intensely than was previously typical in some disciplines. And at Pharyngula, P. Z. Myers points out that young-earth creationist materials are being included in Google Scholar results. Obviously unless that changes, Google Scholar will... Read more