Surfing the web

At First Things, R. R. Reno concludes that Francis’s papacy is failing .  Cardinal Gerhard Müller issues a “manifesto of faith” to address the current theological crisis.  Meanwhile, Robert Fastiggi buries his head deeper into the sand.  (And wastes his time.  I already refuted Fastiggi’s position months ago.)
Jeremy Butterfield reviewsSabine Hossenfelder’s Lost in Math and Hossenfelder responds.  A review by Donald Devine at The Imaginative Conservative. 

Magician and actor Ricky Jay has died.  Reminiscences at The Federalist , Vulture , and NPR .  A personal remembrance by Jay’s friend David Mamet.

In the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Ryan Proctor argues that Catholic judges are not obligated to recuse themselves in capital cases .
Stanley Corngold discusses his new book Walter Kaufmann: Philosopher, Humanist, Heretic at the Princeton University Press blog.

Campus follies: Catholic Herald on the attempt to get John Finnis sacked.  The Weekly Standard on the grievance studies hoax.  The Guardian and the British Educational Research Association on the transgender activist threat to academic freedom.

At Quillette, Spencer Case on how certain academics have inflated the meaning of terms like “violence.”

Theologian Matthew Levering is interviewed on Cars, Coffee, Theology.
Alec Nevala-Lee’s Astounding , a history of science fiction’s golden age, is reviewed by Gary K. Wolfe at the Chicago Tribune and by Scott Bradfield at the Los Angeles Times.  Big Think recommends ten golden age science fiction novels.

Jacob Hamburger, at The Point, asks: What was the New Atheism?  The Guardian notes its passing.  But Jerry Coyne and some other New Atheists beg to differ.

At Medium, Ellie Murray offers a review in cartoon form of Stephen Mumford and Rani Lill Anjum’s book Causation .  

They don’t make Democrats like they used to.  City Journal on Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan and on Pat Caddell.

Geoff Dench on the decline of men, also at Quillette.

The Atlantic on the increase in cases of alleged demonic possession. 

At Politics/Letters, Peter Ludlow notes that fascism doesn’t actually work the way Jason Stanley says it does.

Toto’s classic song “Africa” will play forever via an art exhibition in the Namibian desert, reports CNN.

Einstein, Hume, and relativity, at the Telegraph.

James Matthew Wilson on James Chappel’s book Catholic Modern, at The Catholic Thing.

At the Institute of Art and Ideas, physicist George Ellis and philosophers Nancy Cartwright and Hilary Lawson discuss the relationship between mathematics and physical reality.  Wiredon mathematics and causality.

Anthony McCarthy on protecting sex from liberalism, at Public Discourse.

Was it Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, or both?  John Morrow’s new book on the debate over who created the Marvel Universe.

At The Wanderer, philosopher Jude Dougherty looks back at F. A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. Alan Wolfe looks back at Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History, at The New Republic.

Dennis Bonnette on free will and the principle of sufficient reason, at Strange Notions.

Walter Ott and Lydia Patton’s edited volume Laws of Nature is reviewed by Heather Demarest at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

At Law and Liberty, Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl remember the Aristotelian radical Henry Veatch.

At 3:AM Magazine, Alex Rosenberg suggests that neuroscience might be a bigger threat than artificial intelligence.

Amazon’s Man in the High Castle will get a fourth – and final – season.  Netflix has cancelled the last of its Marvel shows, Jessica Jones and The Punisher – though any or all of them could return in some form on Disney’s forthcoming streaming service, which will feature other new Marvel shows.

Thomas Pink on John Finnis, religious liberty, and the Council of Trent.

Anthony Kenny’s Brief Encounters: Notes From A Philosopher’s Diary is reviewed at The Church of England Newspaper.

At Scientific American, philosopher of physics Tim Maudlin on progress in philosophy.