Sunspots 801

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else: 

Christianity: (and Politics) J. D. Greear, President of the Southern Baptist Convention, has strongly denounced white supremacy, and urged all Christians to do the same, according to Relevant.

Computing: NPR discusses claims that Facebook is biased against conservative content.

Environment: Tasmanian devils are being re-introduced to Australia.

Food: Gizmodo reports that the Irish Supreme Court has ruled that what Subway calls "bread" can't be called bread.

Listverse reports on 10 fruits that have changed a lot over the centuries.

Health: NPR on what temperature readings at the doors of various establishments do, and don't do.

Politics: FiveThirtyEight on why hatred came to dominate US politics.

Science: The Scientist reports that there may be a few bodies of water underneath the surface of Mars.

Gizmodo reports on a study that indicates that bird brain size is related to longevity.

Asian Giant hornets, aka murder hornets, are still a threat in Washington State and British Columbia, according to Gizmodo.

The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this.

Thanks for looking!

Sunspots 749

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Christianity: A Christianity Today article suggests ways of dealing with temptation to sexual sin.

Computing: (And Politics) A web page that lists the best fact-checking sites.

Education: Grammarphobia on why we say "zig-zag," not "zag-zig."

Environment: CBS News, and other outlets, report that Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is being severely harmed by border fence construction.
 
Finance: (and politics) Catherine Rampell says that the economy probably won't be enough to keep President Trump from being impeached.

Catherine Rampell also points out that  President Trump has brought back the much-criticized individual mandate.

Food: (and politics) NPR reports that most Himalayan pink salt is actually from Pakistan.

Politics: Catherine Rampell describes another whistleblower matter -- about the President's tax returns.

FiveThirtyEight examines the question of whether Democratic Presidential hopefuls Sanders, Warren or Harris are likely to move toward the center if they become the Democratic nominee.

FiveThirtyEight also reviews evidence that most of us (of whatever political persuasion) see things through serious bias.

Michael Gerson believes that President Trump is being driven by a bizarre conspiracy theory.

Science: The Scientist tells us that macaques are not able to hear patterns and frequency ratios in music.

Gizmodo reports on a study that indicates that human fetuses have limb muscles that disappear during embryonic development. These muscles are like those found in reptiles.

Gizmodo also reports on evidence that a large object struck the earth about 12,800 years ago.

The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this.
 
Thanks for looking!

Sunspots 561

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

The Arts: Gizmo's Freeware lets us know that the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra offers about 250 orchestral works for free streaming.

Christianity: Relevant tells us what the Bible says about dating. (Nothing direct, but there are some important principles.)

Computing: Gizmo's Freeware discusses an easy, and free, method of sharing information across computers. You can create, and/or share, code, sketches, lists, and other types of information.

Gizmo's also reviews free Windows firewall programs.

A Wired post argues that you should never delete a Facebook account upon the death of the owner of the account.

Humor: (or something) Listverse tells us the strange stories of the names of some candies, and also gives information on the "candy desk" in the U. S. Senate. Who knew?

Listverse also lists 10 common words, and gives their history -- they used to mean something quite different. The list includes "artificial," "nice," and "silly."

Politics: Sojourners discusses evidence that our political, and other, strongly held beliefs influence our perceptions of the facts. Surprise.

National Public Radio reports that the head of the government's interrogation program says that waterboarding, and similar strategies, do not work.

Listverse reports on 10 controversial statistics often used by advocates of one side or another in the culture wars -- on rape, suicide, and gun violence.

Science: Wired discusses some electric fish, some new to science. They can communicate electrically with each other.

NPR, and many other news outlets, report on the discovery of gravitational waves, predicted by Einstein, and giving more evidence that black holes really exist. Nature also has a report on this.


Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 413

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Christianity: ". . . if we think we have truly understood God, even if we think so because we can quote a bunch of Bible verses, we are most likely making a fool of ourselves without knowing it. We know what God is like.  We know how God has chosen to act in this universe. Anything more requires poetry and quotation marks." Ken Schenck, "Practical Theology 3: God as Other."

Computing: I don't have an iPhone, but, for those who do, and there are a lot of you, check out Gizmo's Freeware's list of the best free iPhone Apps.

Humor: (Not really, but I don't have a category for this!) Fox News has an article, with photos, on 7 record-breaking tunnels, all used for transportation. Interesting, indeed.

Science: A solid piece of writing, at the BioLogos Forum, on the question of whether scientists are biased by their worldviews. It can happen, of course.

Image source (public domain)

Epistemic closure

I learned a new phrase yesterday, "epistemic closure." See here for the Wikipedia article on the subject. The article says:

The term "epistemic closure" has been used in US political debate to refer to the claim that the belief systems of political conservatives are closed systems of deduction, which cannot be affected by empirical evidence.

In other words, political conservatives don't listen to facts that contradict their belief systems. They tend to listen to conservative talk radio, watch only Fox News news and commentary, follow right-wing web sites, and read conservative-leaning newspapers.

The article is actually mostly about the theory of knowledge, as a philosophical matter, and the sentence quoted above is almost all it says about politics.

There have been recent examples of epistemic closure in political discourse. One of these is the mis-prediction of right-wing political "experts" on how the recent Presidential election would turn out, most famously Fox's Karl Rove doubting that the Fox News experts had called Ohio correctly, and reports that Mr. Romney, himself, on election night, didn't believe that he could lose. Other news sources, and the Obama campaign, believed, in the days before the election, that Mr. Obama would be re-elected.

Another example relates to Hurricane Sandy. The Wikipedia can be edited by anyone. (I have edited it a little myself, but not on substantive political matters.) A report, based on analysis of who was doing the Wikipedia editing, says that a single individual deliberately kept references to global climate change out of the Wikipedia article on Hurricane Sandy for several days, because he didn't believe there was any such thing. (I credit The Foundry for much of the information referenced above.) The article on Hurricane Sandy does, now, refer to global climate change.

Epistemic closure by right-wingers is bad enough. However, I'm sure that the Left has its own epistemic closure, and that's bad, too. But, far more serious, is epistemic closure about eternal things. I am epistemically closed about salvation. I believe that I have a sin problem, which condemns me to eternal separation from God and the good. I believe that the only solution is to accept the sacrifice of the crucified and risen Christ, and go on to follow Him as Lord of my life. Can I prove this? No. I seldom even read or listen to sources that discredit these views, or think about them. I'm epistemically closed. There are those with other views, of course.

I recently had an on-line discussion with an atheist, who asked why an all-powerful god would be so concerned about sin, and why a blood sacrifice was necessary to pay for it. These are good questions. I attempted to answer them, and some others did, too, but I doubt that this person was much impressed -- he has his own epistemic closure about this subject.

I believe that there's a sin problem in the world, and Christ is the solution. I hope you do, too.

Thanks for reading.