Reading Time: 7 minutes Last year, I wrote about the crisis in Alzheimer’s research: a cruel affair involving a research direction and course of treatment built in part on papers with doctored data, and the heated venture-capitalist backstory that complicated the virtuosity of whistle-blowers. More recently, authors attempted to defend the original data, but the defenses were often just […]
research
Posted inThe Secular
The few, the loud: How ‘very online atheists’ differ from other atheists
Reading Time: 18 minutes Most atheists hold far less polarized views than do the most visible atheists online. But online atheists fuel the negative stereotype of atheists overall.
Posted inReligious News
State of the Bible 2022: Yes, of course Gen Z evangelizes more
Reading Time: 12 minutes In trying to find some kind of good news, any kind at all, the study’s creators have hit upon one of the lowest-hanging bits of fruit imaginable. And here it is: Gen Z Christians evangelize way more often than older Christians do
Posted inTechnology
Finally! Federally-funded research will be open to all… by Jan 1, 2026
Reading Time: 3 minutes On August 25, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) updated its 2013 memo on research materials to eliminate a loophole used by scholarly publications to protect their business model. New policy guidance calls on agencies to ensure that “publications and their supporting data resulting from federally funded research [are] publicly accessible […]
Posted inHealth
Researchers to parents of vegetarian kids: Relax
Reading Time: 2 minutes I was a teenage vegan, and as unbearable as you might imagine. There were household bans on meat, impassioned arguments with childhood friends, and very, very extensive background checks on potential restaurant choices. That is not to say I was the sole combatant. Many omnivorous adults tried to pick fights with me, claiming they had […]
Posted inScience
Curious science
Reading Time: 8 minutes OnlySky · Curious science | Dale McGowan Science is one of the first things that nonreligious parents want to share with their kids. I have multiple friends with kids whose first or middle name is Darwin or Sagan or Tesla. There are now board books introducing babies to quantum physics, relativity, and organic chemistry, I […]
Posted inReligious News
Pastoral burnout on the rise (again)
Reading Time: 9 minutes There might not be a Big Quit as such, but what there is instead might be way worse. It’s not so much about empty pulpits, but more about ’empty preachers.’
Posted inResearch
A bridge too far: The failure to capture ‘spiritual fitness’ in the US military
Reading Time: 3 minutes After massive resources have been spent trying to assess spiritual fitness in the military, scholars now admit it is not a meaningful concept.
Posted inDeep Dive
Why we need to decolonize our thinking on archaeology
Reading Time: 13 minutes In a world of significant scientific illiteracy, it’s easy to point fingers at “the other side”. Religious extremists, and the politicians who leverage them for power, are a serious problem. But what habits have we formed, and what narrative structures exist in our media, that only make things worse? Today I interrogate my own weaknesses, […]
Posted inCritical thinking
Discipling: Yes yes, but what does it look like?
Reading Time: 6 minutes A recent Lifeway survey reveals that many evangelical leaders don’t know what discipling actually looks like in practice, much less how to disciple. Here, we have another active case of yes yes, but what does it look like? And I am here for it because it reveals so much of what’s wrong with Christianity as a whole.