Philip Jenkins forecasts that the abuse scandal is going to change the Catholic Church — by turning it upside down, demographically. Excerpt: Some media commentators are even asking if the Church can survive the crisis. But most evidence suggests that the Church will endure and even enjoy a historic boom–just not in places it has…

Last night I was reading a chapter of a book on mysticism and physics, and in this chapter the author described Chinese religious and philosophical thought as taking place between the poles of Taoism and Confucianism. This point was actually summed up ably by Stephen Prothero in that column of his I linked to yesterday.…

Via Jonah Lehrer, here’s a Vanity Fair excerpt from Michael Lewis’s new book, in which a one-eyed California man who always thought his social awkwardness was due to his partial blindness, and who stumbled into becoming a very rich investor. Turns out that his undiagnosed Asperger Syndrome is what accounted for his extraordinary investing skills.…

Tired of the epistemic closure discussion? Me neither. A Texas reader sends along this post from the excellent science writer/blogger Jonah Lehrer, who discusses how becoming enculturated within a particular group involves epistemic closure. Excerpt: The process of enculturation doesn’t just afflict middle-aged scientists, struggling to appreciate a new anomaly. It’s a problem for any…

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