It's snowing again. Cycling seems like a childhood memory. You'd think this would give me more opportunities to work on blog posts. Gah. My friends and colleagues, Debbie and Loren Haarsma, were the subject of a nice local news story, focusing on their work as scientists and Christians. They have a superb new book out, which I've promised to review here sometime soon. Is evolution too difficult or complicated for secondary students to grasp?

I still owe you a summary of Howard Van Till's address at the Grand Dialogue and something about Richard Colling's talk at Calvin. Plus I'm barely halfway through the "junk DNA" series, and I haven't gotten to the part where I show you just how irresponsible Hugh Ross and Reasons to Believe really are. Sorry about that;

Hide your valuables: my good friend and colleague Kevin Corcoran has invaded the blogosphere. His new blog is Holy Skin and Bone, and he's already out of the closet on evolution. Check out this post on the idiotic Darwin fish wars, and read his profile.

Well, the Pats lost, and I was a little disappointed (I'm a huge fan of Tedy Bruschi, Arizona '95), although I've always loved upsets and underdogs. More importantly, I enjoyed seeing my hometown in the spotlight. (I grew up in west Phoenix, just a mile from Glendale, and 8.5 miles from the stadium.) That's all the football you'll get on this blog, though. Pitchers and catchers report in 6 days...now that's blogworthy.

Junk DNA is still a-happening. Ryan Gregory's blog Genomicron is the place to learn about it. He's especially adept at driving trucks through the gaps in ID claims about non-coding DNA. My gestating posts on the subject [sigh] will focus more on Reasons To Believe. Watch for a quote from Obi-Wan! So here are some things I've been munching on this week.

A long and fascinating piece in Sunday's Chicago Tribune Magazine ("The New Theology" by Jeremy Manier) explores some interesting results of the collision of faith and evolution in the lives of some famous people.

Well, I still haven't gotten to my "junk DNA" posts, which is a shame since the topic has been pretty hot in the blogosphere lately. The term ("junk DNA") is confusing in itself, which creates cover for propagandists, but there are some actual disagreements among the real scientists. The discussion among various bloggers is largely technical in nature, but the rancor is oh-so-bloggy.

I've explained before that I'm busy as an experimental scientist (on sabbatical) who does marriage and parenting as well, so I just can't get to all the blog posts I want to write. (Not to mention the ones I want to read.) And some tidbits and links wouldn't warrant an opus in any case.

Watching lay Christians discuss evolution in the public arena is very frustrating for me. As I've stressed repeatedly here, evolutionary biology is some of the most fascinating and dynamic science to be found.

There are some really superb blogs over at Science Blogs, and some of the best ones are required reading here. It's hard to stomach PZ's religious blatherings, but he's a gifted science writer and a skilled commentator on developmental issues in evolution. Laelaps is a treasure trove, and Shelley Batts should have won that scholarship; her neuroscience blog, Retrospectacle, is varied and always sharp.