Here’s the best five minutes you’re likely to spend today: Jon Stewart’s interview with novelist Marilynne Robinson, discussing science and religion and her new book “Absence of Mind.” Robinson’s basic view is that scientistic reductionists claim too much for science, and offer a cartoonish, straw-man version of religion for the sake of dismissing it. “At this point in time, we need the best insights from science and the best insights from religion,” she says in this interview, and argues that the “gladiators” from both partisan camps are “inferior representatives” of their sides.

(Via Andrew Sullivan)