• Thinking can undermine religious faith, study finds (tip to Pedantsareus)

Those who think more analytically are less inclined to be religious believers than are those who tend to follow a gut instinct, researchers conclude.

• Teach the Books, Touch the Heart

FRANZ KAFKA wrote that “a book must be the ax for the frozen sea inside us.” I once shared this quotation with a class of seventh graders, and it didn’t seem to require any explanation.

• Wasting Our Minds

• Study Points to Roles for Industry and Organics in Agriculture

• Andrew Sullivan gets all militant about religion and creationism!

• The Paradox Paradox

• An owl is 70% feathers

• eZine for Democrats

• The hummingbird, the devil, and I

• Why Bill Gates Is A Hero And Donald Trump Is A Zero

• THE STORY OF LUCRETIUS’ “ON THE NATURE OF THINGS"

• GMO Labeling And “The China Scenario”

• American Chestnut Returns to New York City

• Indian skeptic charged with "blasphemy" for revealing secret behind "miracle" of weeping cross

• Wallaby tool use?

• Can Drinking Make You Conservative? (and Other Questions About the Political Brain)

• Yet more evidence that "natural" doesn't necessarily mean safer

• Modern Agricultural Production Continues to Increase Yields

Paarlberg said conventional farming today is “dramatically different” from conventional farming in the 1960s. One big factor affecting higher yields was the commercial introduction in 1996 of disease- and insect-resistant seeds improved through biotechnology, also known as genetically modified seeds.

Biotech-modified maize, for instance, protects against infections from the corn borer insect without requiring the use of chemical spreads, he said. Resistant soybeans have replaced multiple sprayings of toxic herbicides and pesticides. And because biotech crops resist insects and weeds, less mechanical tillage is needed, reducing the amount of diesel fuel exhaust going into the air and conserving soil.

• HBO Buys TV Rights To ‘The Central Park Effect’: SXSW

I'm looking forward to this.

• Should the U.S. legalize hard drugs?

• Ezine for Democrats

• Metaphors

Posts will be more sporadic than usual while I take advantage of some early spring and do a little more birding than usual. Perhaps my cohorts here will fill some of the gaps.

• Red-tailed Hawk Nest

• Who would rally against reason?

• Overeating and Obesity: Should we really call it food addiction

• Replication Rumble

In other non-replication news lately: There's been a pretty kerfuffle this month in social psychology and science blogging corners over a recent failure to replicate a classic 1996 study of automatic priming by John Bargh, Mark Chen, and Lara Burrows. The non-replication drew the attention of science writer Ed Yong who blogged about it over at Discover, and naturally, of John Bargh, who elected to write a detailed and distinctly piqued rebuttal at Psychology Today.

• Your Brain on Fiction

AMID the squawks and pings of our digital devices, the old-fashioned virtues of reading novels can seem faded, even futile. But new support for the value of fiction is arriving from an unexpected quarter: neuroscience.

• Galileo Syndrome and the Principle of Exclusion

The other night I was looking through a telescope at Jupiter and Venus with my daughters (they are next to each other and in good view – the planets, not my daughters). These are the very two planets that Galileo viewed with a telescope that ultimately led him to conclude that not everything in the universe revolves about the earth. Venus goes through phases, like the moon, and Galileo concluded that it must go around the Sun. Around Jupiter he discovered four moons that clearly were revolving about Jupiter. It was exciting to show my daughters the very thing that led to such a profound change in our view of the universe and our place in it.

This led to a discussion of Galileo. I believe I am one of the many scientists and skeptics who independently observed that cranks of various kinds have a tendency to compare themselves to the great Italian astronomer. Galileo Galilei was persecuted and his claims were dismissed out of hand, the logic goes, and so when the crank’s claims are likewise dismissed they feel that means they must be analogous to Galileo in other ways. There are multiple problems with the line of reasoning, however. . .

• Defending science

This is perhaps the best description I have seen about what is wrong with Kony2012.

Invisible Children have been linked to "The Family" and those allied with the Uganda Govt as they pass laws making Homosexuality illegal. It seems to me that Kony2012 is a combination of things. The conservative military folks trying to justify military intervention. They seem to be doing that by funding some evangelistic youth mission folks, at the same time there appears there is a U.S. message intended to make a play for the youth vote by "saving" African children after manufacturing the concern about their plight. I think the left would be smart to proceed with caution as they counter this campaign. There is lots of talk about politics, cultural sensitivity, alterior motives, and over simplification. IC seems to already have a large youth following who are primarily concerned with the children at this point, and it would be smart to address that concern in some way.

It seems there have also some oil discoveries in Uganda recently.

boing boing has had better and better coverage.

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• What is God?

• Albert Einstein: 15 great quotes on his birthday

• Don’t tease the frog

• Weight Loss Supplements Don’t Work

• Stenger on science vs. religion

I swear, physicist and atheist Victor Stenger gets more “militant” with each new post in his HuffPo column, and I love it. The man speaks the unvarnished truth.

Everything should now be working on the blog, if you are still have problems with comments or any other issue please let me know?

• Obama asks Romney to explain the origins of Mormonism again

AS Mitt Romney took another decisive step towards the Republican nomination, President Obama asked if he could tell him again how Mormonism got started.

• Yes, you are a bad person