From our Trust the Science desk, respected scientific researchers have had their work called into question by evidence of data manipulation. Last month, the president of Stanford stepped down because the student newspaper asked an expert to review his published neurobiological papers to clear up allegations that had been raised years before. Pete Judo explains in this video.
Silvia Bulfone-Paus, a prominent German researcher, was forced to step down as the director of the Borstel Institute in 2011 after image manipulation was found in several of her papers (Bulfone-Paus blamed two of her post-doc researchers).Carlo Croce, an Ohio State University professor, was beset with similar allegations in 2017 — an official review conducted by the university found earlier this year that he had not manipulated imagery himself, but the professor was disciplined over “management problems,” and two of his researchers, who were determined to have made the falsifications, were dismissed. And Gregg Semenza, a Nobel-prize-winning scientist, retracted 17 papers afterallegationsweremade on PubPeer.
. . .
Scientific journals and institutions have historically been reluctant to investigate alleged misconduct, particularly by powerful scientists,experts say.
“Redeemed, How I Love to Proclaim It” performed by student in the Fountainview Academy
Fanny Crosby (1820-1915), a great Methodist hymn composer, gave us today’s song in 1882. She wrote poems before her conversion in 1950 and afterward about 8,000 hymns, many of which have not been set to music.
“The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. . . . The LORD redeems the life of his servants; none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.” (Psalm 34:18,22 ESV)
1 Redeemed how I love to proclaim it, Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb; Redeemed through his infinite mercy His child and forever I am.
Refrain: Redeemed, redeeemed, Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, Redeemed, redeemed, His child and forever I am.
2 Redeemed, and so happy in Jesus, No language my rapture can tell, I know that the light of his presence With me doth continually dwell. [Refrain]
3 I think of my blessed Redeemer, I think of him all the day long, I sing, for I cannot be silent, His love is the theme of my song. [Refrain]
4 I know I shall see in his beauty The King in whose law I delight, Who lovingly guardeth my footsteps, And giveth me songs in the night. [Refrain]
5 I know there’s a crown that is waiting In yonder bright mansion for me, And soon, with the spirits made perfect, At home with the Lord I shall be. [Refrain]
Recently, a TV adaptation of a popular Marvel comics storyline ended its run by tripping over its feet and kissing the synthetic rubber track. Many superhero fans didn’t even watch, and many others hated their experience (not everyone, just many). The director said he was told not to read the source material and that he didn’t want to make a story that leaned into its own genre, so the show introduced story elements and tone only to set them on the shelf. I don’t know what the producers were expecting. It’s the latest installment of high value entertainment prospects that failed.
If you’d like to watch a fantasy series that is actually well-written and different to most Americans, look up Tale of the Nine-Tailed, a 16-episode Korean series starring Lee Dong Wook and Jo Bo Ah and directed by Kang Shin Hyo. The story focuses on mythological foxes (gumiho), who are traditionally wily and mischievous. The old stories say the nine-tailed fox is seeking to become human by some trial over a thousand years. The main fox of this story was once a mountain god who fell in love with a young woman. When that woman was murdered, he gave up his divine position in hopes of finding her reincarnation one day.
At the beginning of Tale of the Nine-Tailed, Lee Yeon, the fox, is hunting down lesser foxes who are posing as humans and killing them. I forget why he is hunting them, if it’s more than just defending humanity. TV producer Nam Ji Ah is building evidence for her version of X files when she notices Yeon’s distinctive umbrella. Somehow, she ropes him into accompanying her to a remote island village where she hopes to find a clue to her parents’ disappearance (her motive for researching paranormal accounts). In these 3-4 episodes, the show has a horror tone. Traditional Korean shamanism is displayed throughout the series, and you see some of the ugly practices in these episodes. It lightens up after this, leaning first into a romantic storyline and plunging into fantasy for the rest of it. Yeon is plagued by many things, primarily his murderous half-brother Rang, who resembles Loki in attitude and miscreant behavior. The tension between the brothers is compelling to watch.
I mention it here because the writing is strong throughout. Wikipedia credits Han Woo-ri for this. Bravo. Yeon is presented as crafty with great, but not unlimited, knowledge. Many mythological foes come after him, and they never lay a hand on him because he’s an idiot. He works the situation, turning the tables when he can. None of his victories feels forced or as if he has read the script. Once, the irritating trope of loving her so much he can’t tell the truth is used to bridge two episodes, but it’s short lived and nothing else stands out as clichéd.
A second season was released this summer on Amazon. I hope I can find a way to see it.
In other news —
Reviews: Bad reviews can be helpful. “Instead of specialties, we were known by our critical styles: We were the Shredder, the Beheader and the Fredder.”
“If you peel away the layer of ideas and conceptions that are particular to your own time period,” Undset once said, “then you can step right into the Middle Ages and see life from the medieval point of view—and it will coincide with your own view.”
In Sigrid Undset’s skillful hands, it’s impossible to imagine any other outcome.
For the next several weeks, I want to take up the theme of faith in our hymn selections. Many hymns speak of our response to God, the comfort we receive, our gratitude, or our confession, so I want to break our pattern of monthly themes for this continuing topic of our life sustained by faith.
Today’s hymn is originally by Irish Pastor Wade Robinson (1838-1876). The words in the video above may reflect his original. The words I’ve copied below are the ones revised by Edmund Clowney of Westminster Seminary.
1 Loved with everlasting love, drawn by grace that love to know, Spirit sent from Christ above, thou dost witness it is so. O this full and precious peace from his presence all divine; in a love that cannot cease, I am his and he is mine.
2 Heav’n above is deeper blue, earth around is sweeter green, that which glows in ev’ry hue Christless eyes have never seen. Birds in song his glories show, flow’rs with richer beauties shine since I know, as now I know, I am his and he is mine.
3 Taste the goodness of the Lord: welcomed home to his embrace, all his love, as blood outpoured, seals the pardon of his grace. Can I doubt his love for me, when I trace that love’s design? By the cross of Calvary I am his and he is mine.
4 His forever, only his– who the Lord and me shall part? Ah, with what a rest of bliss Christ can fill the loving heart. Heav’n and earth may fade and flee, firstborn light in gloom decline, but while God and I shall be, I am his and he is mine.
When I read on Twitter (X) that novelist and editor Walter Kirn, along with David Samuels, had created “a magazine about America in the form of a 19th century newspaper,” I looked up the website, and when I saw it would be for sale at one of my town’s cute local stores, I decided to check it out.
County Highway is meant to represent the heart of America, a place with natural rhythms, relationships, and grassroots sense. It’s written by “actual human beings,” which is more than some websites can say. “We hope to advance the same relationship to America that Bob Dylan had when he wrote his versions of folk songs” or when Neil Young, Gram Parsons, Mark Twain, and Ralph Ellison wrote of their country.
I enjoy the feel of reading this paper, which cheekily touts itself as “America’s only newspaper” and plans to publish six issues a year for a $50 subscription. Kirn’s front page piece is on his visit to The Miracle of America Museum in Polson, Montana, a place where memorabilia, props, and junk attempt to preserve a moral history. Duncan Moench has a report on artificial intelligence and the imminent threat of corporate technocracy.
I was pulled in by a review of Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead (2023 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction), which says Kingsolver’s skill is clear and subject matter well chosen, but this “protest novel” in the form of Dicken’s David Copperfield is heavy on ranting, light on humanity. Other articles in this first issue include a lengthy piece that circles around Joshua Tree National Park, a front story on an American con man from last century, four pages on music, feature on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s falconry hobby, and a full page of legit classifieds: Wyoming cabins, bookstores, alpacas for breeding, and ‘shrooms.
I’ve enjoyed reading some of these, and there are a few more I’d like to get to. There’s a little poetry, a few wisecracks tucked in a small column, and attractive illustrations of a vintage sheen. The articles feel like those I’ve seen online and hoped to get back to, but often don’t. The Internet is ethereal; newspapers sit on the desk.
I may buy the next issue to try to balance what I read in the first, but I’m put off by the feel of the whole. Is it cynical? Maybe too secular? There’s a column about fugitives from someone who speaks positively about the Weather Underground. I believe he says he helped a couple of them back in the day. That’s like longing for time when your granddad would tell stories of fighting alongside Che Guevara. And then there’s this in a joke section: “Drag queen story hour — it’s what my pops used to call church on Sundays.” I don’t know what to do with that. Maybe I should untie my laces. (I wrote about the second issue also.)
Alt Culture: To balance the earthiness of America’s newspaper, let me point you to the new season of Doubletake from World News Group. This is a podcast of long features that can get complicated. Today’s episode is on what some people are doing in the Metaverse and a church trying to reach them.
Charlotte Higgins, writing for The Guardian, put together as much of the story as can be known, working with another Ukranian author, Victoria Amelina.
“I never thought that my home village would become the epicentre of the rashist occupation,” wrote Vakulenko in the opening paragraphs of his diary. The word “rashist” is a now widespread Ukrainian portmanteau, a combination of “Russian” and “fascist”, not to be given the dignity of an initial capital. “For me, with my patriotic, pro-Ukrainian views, it was extremely dangerous to find myself surrounded by the enemy.” But, he wrote, he had little choice: moving his son seemed impossible. He added: “You can get used to anything; what matters is what sort of person you are left at the end of it.”
“The manuscript is now in the Kharkiv Literary Museum, and the text of the diary has been recently published in Ukraine, with a foreword by Amelina.”
An arrangement of the shape-note tune for “Oh, Glorious Hope” performed by Timothy Seaman on hammered dulcimer
Today’s hymn is by the great Charles Wesley (1707-1788). It speaks of the life to come in terms of the promised land. I don’t think it’s a popular hymn, and the tune performed in the video above is unfamiliar to me. If you know this one, please tell us of your experience with it.
“The reason why the world does not know us is that bit did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:1b-3 ESV).
1 Oh, glorious hope of perfect love! It lifts me up to things above; It bears on eagles’ wings. It gives my ravished soul a taste, And makes me for some moments feast With Jesus’ priests and kings.
2 Rejoicing now in earnest hope, I stand, and from the mountaintop See all the land below. Rivers of milk and honey rise, And all the fruits of paradise In endless plenty grow.
3 A land of corn, and wine, and oil; Favored with God’s peculiar smile, With ev’ry blessing blest; There dwells the Lord our Righteousness, And deeps His own in perfect peace, And everlasting rest.
4 Oh, that I might at once go up; No more on this side Jordan stop, But now the land possess; This moment end my legal years, Sorrows and sins, and doubts and fears, A howling wilderness!
I read one time that Hitchcock wasn’t going to end the movie Psycho the way he did, but his producer insisted he provide an explanation. The story couldn’t end with a wrap-up of the crime. It needed a psychiatrist to give the audience a reason for it. This is because Americans want to know why an evil thing occurred and how could it be prevented in the future.
I felt this need while listening to a couple crime stories this week. In one story, four boys in rural Vermont decided to break and enter a remote home. Two of them said they would murder anyone who happened to be home, and they all carried knives to help, if the need arose. It did, but only the original two attacked the mother and daughter they found. The story was mostly told by one of the two in police interviews. He was an emotionally distant Mormon kid who lacked friends and was beginning to explore gang activity.
In the other story, an elderly couple was kidnapped in an effort to rob them. He said he would kill them after he’d obtained all the money. The wife was able to tip off the cops, who located the man through his car. This culprit was a family man, described by a church member as a Christian who had it all. He had been even a church elder at some point. But along with all of this, he was also a constant manipulator.
If evil like this can come from both social outcasts and respected members, what can be done to foresee or prevent it? We need a healthy understanding of our common depravity, and that out of the heart these and other great sins come. We are not good people. Only the Lord can make us so.
What other things can we say today?
Great Musician: Tony Bennett died this week. Ted Gioia writes, “I probably own 30 or 40 of his albums, and his singing has been part of my life since childhood—when my Sicilian father played Tony Bennett records at our family home. At times, it almost felt like Bennett was a member of my extended family.
… “I could fill up an entire article just with stories of his acts of kindness. He radiated decency and generosity of heart. That showed up in his life and his music.”
New York City: “As for libraries, the sad truth is that, precisely because of the abandonment of broken-windows policing, those sheltered spaces are havens for the homeless and drug-addicted more than they are resources for the scholarly and intellectually curious.”
Found Music: The Kiffness takes internet videos and makes music with them. The one from July 15 seems appropriate to add here.
Photo: Christie’s Restaurant sign, Houston, Texas. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Writing for Christianity Today, Adam Graber suggests problems with artificial-intelligence-driven Bible reading software.
“As a digital theology expert, I believe these kinds of ‘BibleGPTs’ will continue to advance, proliferate, and eventually become proprietary systems. And as this happens, the church and its leaders will be prompted to make some momentous decisions about the Christian canon. This will, in turn, influence how we interpret the Bible and impact the future of our faith and practice.”
He goes to describe how AI-driven research tools could become like the knowledgeable friend who always has a ready answer for any question but who isn’t grounded enough in the Word to answer wisely every time. It may become another easy way to quickly survey the Bible, thinking we understand more than we do.
If you read the whole article, it doesn’t end as sensationally as it begins. He concludes saying we need to understand the Bible for ourselves, but the tone of the whole leans too much on people’s laziness. That isn’t new. We’ve always been lazy. I doubt AI will usher in more lethargy than we already indulge with the Internet.
Websites store cookies to enhance functionality and personalise your experience. You can manage your preferences, but blocking some cookies may impact site performance and services.
Essential cookies enable basic functions and are necessary for the proper function of the website.
Name
Description
Duration
Cookie Preferences
This cookie is used to store the user's cookie consent preferences.
30 days
These cookies are needed for adding comments on this website.
Name
Description
Duration
comment_author
Used to track the user across multiple sessions.
Session
comment_author_email
Used to track the user across multiple sessions.
Session
comment_author_url
Used to track the user across multiple sessions.
Session
These cookies are used for managing login functionality on this website.
Name
Description
Duration
wordpress_logged_in
Used to store logged-in users.
Persistent
wordpress_sec
Used to track the user across multiple sessions.
15 days
wordpress_test_cookie
Used to determine if cookies are enabled.
Session
Statistics cookies collect information anonymously. This information helps us understand how visitors use our website.
Google Analytics is a powerful tool that tracks and analyzes website traffic for informed marketing decisions.
Used to monitor number of Google Analytics server requests
10 minutes
__utmb
Used to distinguish new sessions and visits. This cookie is set when the GA.js javascript library is loaded and there is no existing __utmb cookie. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to the Google Analytics server.
30 minutes after last activity
__utmc
Used only with old Urchin versions of Google Analytics and not with GA.js. Was used to distinguish between new sessions and visits at the end of a session.
End of session (browser)
__utmz
Contains information about the traffic source or campaign that directed user to the website. The cookie is set when the GA.js javascript is loaded and updated when data is sent to the Google Anaytics server
6 months after last activity
__utmv
Contains custom information set by the web developer via the _setCustomVar method in Google Analytics. This cookie is updated every time new data is sent to the Google Analytics server.
2 years after last activity
__utmx
Used to determine whether a user is included in an A / B or Multivariate test.
18 months
_ga
ID used to identify users
2 years
_gali
Used by Google Analytics to determine which links on a page are being clicked
30 seconds
_ga_
ID used to identify users
2 years
_gid
ID used to identify users for 24 hours after last activity
24 hours
_gat
Used to monitor number of Google Analytics server requests when using Google Tag Manager
1 minute
_gac_
Contains information related to marketing campaigns of the user. These are shared with Google AdWords / Google Ads when the Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts are linked together.
90 days
Marketing cookies are used to follow visitors to websites. The intention is to show ads that are relevant and engaging to the individual user.
A video-sharing platform for users to upload, view, and share videos across various genres and topics.
Registers a unique ID on mobile devices to enable tracking based on geographical GPS location.
1 day
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
Tries to estimate the users' bandwidth on pages with integrated YouTube videos. Also used for marketing
179 days
PREF
This cookie stores your preferences and other information, in particular preferred language, how many search results you wish to be shown on your page, and whether or not you wish to have Google’s SafeSearch filter turned on.
10 years from set/ update
YSC
Registers a unique ID to keep statistics of what videos from YouTube the user has seen.
Session
DEVICE_INFO
Used to detect if the visitor has accepted the marketing category in the cookie banner. This cookie is necessary for GDPR-compliance of the website.
179 days
LOGIN_INFO
This cookie is used to play YouTube videos embedded on the website.
