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Articles by Brad Roth
The Seizure of Maduro as a Repudiation of Legal Constraint
International lawyers are fond of the old La Rochefoucauld bromide that “Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue.” The point was made with greater particularity by Hedley Bull, in observing that when a state violates international law, “it usually goes out of its way to demonstrate that it considers itself (and other states) bound by the rule in question.” In lying about the material facts or in asserting some facially plausible extension of accepted normative criteria, violators...
These are the days of Ezekiel
It was a bad year for a vision, but God gave one to Ezekiel anyway. His prophetic vocation began “in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month” (Ezekiel 1:1). Becoming a prophet wasn’t his idea. Ezekiel was always supposed to be a priest, which by some accounts would have meant beginning his service at age 30 (Numbers 4:3; 1 Chronicles 23:3).
Bob Park’s What’s New: September 19, 2025
No, Bob Park — the physicist who wrote the What’s New newsletter for years — did not write this. Instead, I am imagining what Park would have said were he alive today. The opinions are mine and not necessarily those of Bob Park (but they should be). What’s New, by Bob Park Friday, September 19, 2025 1.
Why Are There So Few Aerial Plankton?
In his book Air and Water, Mark Denny asks an oddball question: Why are there so few aerial plankton? In my mind, this question transforms into: Why are there no flying blue whales, sucking in mouthfuls of air and filtering out tiny organisms for food? Here is what Denny says: A general characteristic of aquatic (especially marine) environments is the presence of planktonic life.
Bob Park’s What’s New: August 22, 2025
No, Bob Park — the physicist who wrote the What’s New newsletter for years — did not write this. Instead, I am imagining what Park would have said were he alive today. The opinions are mine and not necessarily those of Bob Park (but they should be). Friday, August 22, 2025 1.
Bob Park’s What’s New: August 15, 2025
No, Bob Park — the physicist who wrote the What’s New newsletter for years — did not write this. Instead, I am imagining what Park would have said were he alive today. The opinions are mine and not necessarily those of Bob Park (but they should be). What’s New, by Bob Park Friday, August 15, 2025 1. POLITICAL CONTROL OVER SCIENCE AND HEALTH GRANTS President Trump signed an executive order a week ago giving politicians control over billions of dollars in grants from federal agencies.
Bob Park’s What’s New: July 25, 2025
No, Bob Park — the physicist who wrote the What’s New newsletter for years — did not write this. Instead, I am imagining what Park would have said were he alive today. The opinions are mine and not necessarily those of Bob Park (but they should be). Friday, July 25, 2025 1.
Bob Park’s What’s New: July 18, 2025
No, Bob Park — the physicist who wrote the What’s New newsletter for years — did not write this. Instead, I am imagining what Park would have said were he alive today. The opinions are mine and not necessarily those of Bob Park (but they should be). What’s New, by Bob Park Friday, July 18, 2025 1. ALUMINUM IN VACCINES DOES NOT CAUSE AUTISM A paper published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine reports on a study of over a million children in Denmark between 1997 and 2018.
Bob Park’s What’s New: July 11, 2025
No, Bob Park — the physicist who wrote the What’s New newsletter for years — did not write this. Instead, I am imagining what Park would have said were he alive today. The opinions are mine and not necessarily those of Bob Park (but they should be). What’s New, by Bob Park Friday, July 11, 2025 1. THE BBB CUTS SUPPORT FOR GREEN ENERGY As climate change worsens, the world desperately needs to transition to clean energy.
Bob Park’s What’s New: June 27, 2025
No, Bob Park — the physicist who wrote the What’s New newsletter for years — did not write this. Instead, I am imagining what Park would have said were he alive today. The opinions are mine and not necessarily those of Bob Park (but they should be). What’s New, by Bob Park Friday, June 27, 2025 1.
Bob Park’s What’s New: June 20, 2025
No, Bob Park — the physicist who wrote the What’s New newsletter for years — did not write this. Instead, I am imagining what Park would have said were he alive today. The opinions are mine and not necessarily those of Bob Park (but they should be). What’s New, by Bob Park Friday, June 20, 2025 1. IS THE CORN BELT MOVING TO CANADA?
Bob Park’s What’s New: June 13, 2025
No, Bob Park — the physicist who wrote the What’s New newsletter for years — did not write this. Instead, I am imagining what Park would have said were he alive today. The opinions are mine and not necessarily those of Bob Park (but they should be). What’s New, by Bob Park Friday, June 13, 2025 1. CORRECTING SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION The White House has issued an executive order about Restoring Gold Standard Science.
Bob Park’s What’s New: June 6, 2025
No, Bob Park — the physicist who wrote the What’s New newsletter for years — did not write this. Instead, I am imaging what Park would have said were he alive today. The opinions are mine and not necessarily those of Bob Park (but they should be). What’s New, by Bob Park Friday, June 6, 2025 1. WHAT THE SKINNY BUDGET MEANS FOR SCIENCE New details about President Trump’s proposed cuts to science funding came out this week.
The Age of Reason Begins
The title of this week’s post is ironic, because with all the events of the last few months I often suspect that the Age of Reason is coming to a close. The title comes from volume seven of Will and Ariel Durant’s The Story of Civilization. After I retired from Oakland University, I set about reading the entire eleven-volume series. The subtitle of is: A History of European Civilization in the Period of Shakespeare, Bacon, Montaigne, Rembrandt, Galileo, and Descartes: 1558–1648.
IPMB100
I’m a regular reader of TIMEmagazine. Every year they publish an issue devoted to the TIME100: the hundred most influential people of that year. I thought I would do the same, except I’d focus on Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology. So, below is a list of the one hundred scientists, physicians, engineers, and mathematicians who most influenced IPMB. I list them by impact, with the most influential first. Like for the TIME100, selecting the list is not an exact science.
Where Have You Gone, Physicist Bob Park? Our Nation Turns Its Lonely Eyes to You. Woo, Woo, Woo.
Bob Park died five years ago this week. He had been in poor health since suffering a stroke in 2013. Park was a physicist and the director of public information at the Washington office of the American Physical Society. He was a leading voice against pseudoscience, both in his weekly column (which, when in graduate school, I used to look forward to seeing in my email every Friday) and in his books such as Voodoo Science. I wonder what Park would say if he were alive today?
Lab Leak
The White House recently revised the covid.gov website into propaganda supporting the “lab leak” hypothesis for the source of Covid-19. I addressed this topic in my review of David Quammen’s wonderful book Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus: “One of the most interesting questions addressed in Breathless is the source of covid. Was it a lab accident, a spillover from an animal host (called a zoonotic event), or a malevolent attempt at biological warfare?
Tomie De Paola
Brad Roth · Follow 2 min read · -- Children’s book author Tomie De Paola died five years ago last Sunday. I fondly recall reading De Paola’s books to my daughters Stephanie and Kathy when they were growing up. But how could Tomie De Paola possibly intersect with Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology? Well, you might be surprised! The first book that De Paola illustrated was , written by Lisa Miller. It was part of the “Science is What and Why” series published by Coward-McCann, Inc.
The Lysenko Affair
Brad Roth · Follow 3 min read · -- In The Eighth Day of Creation: The Makers of the Revolution in Biology, Horace Freeland Judson describes the Lysenko affair, when a crackpot scientist loyal to Stalin took over Russian biology. It is worth reading his description of the entire episode (pages 370–372). Judson tells the story in his chapter about Jacques Monod, the great French biochemist and communist sympathizer, who finally abandoned his support of Stalin over Lysenko. I’ll quote excerpts.
Einstein and Fauci
Brad Roth · Follow 1 min read · -- I subscribe to Timothy Snyder’s newsletter, and today there was a guest essay by Laurie Winer. Part of it discussed how Albert Einstein, the great physicist, was vilified by Germans after he came to the United States when Hitler came to power. Winer wrote The Nazis attacked [Albert Einstein] relentlessly in speeches and in news reports.
Transitioning to Environmentally Sustainable, Climate-Smart Radiation Oncology Care
Loyal readers of this blog may have noticed an increasing number of posts related to climate change, and the intersection of global warming with health care and medical physics. This is not an accident. I’m growing increasingly worried about the impact of climate change on our society. One way I act to oppose climate change is to write about it ( here, here, here).
Happy 100th Birthday Robert Adair
This Wednesday will be the 100th anniversary of Robert Adair’s birth. I wrote a blog post about Adair recently but he is an important enough figure in biological physics, and in Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology, that today I will write about him again. This time I will focus on a difference of opinion between Adair and Joseph Kirschvink about the possible effects of weak electric and magnetic fields in biology. In Are Electromagnetic Fields Making Me Ill?
If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?
I'm a big Alan Alda fan. As a teenager, I would watch him each week as Hawkeye Pierce on . Besides being an actor, Alda also had a second career as a science communicator, hosting the PBS series Scientific American Frontiers. After writing this science blog for seventeen years, I've decided I should try to figure out what I'm doing. So I read Alda's book If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? My Adventures in the Art and Science of Relating and Communicating.
Vote For Science
Yesterday I joined the "White Dudes for Harris" online event [1]. Although I am white and male, I don't look at politics primarily through the lens of race or gender. Nor is my political point of view based on my religion, age, political party, or home state. I'm a scientist, and I view politics through the lens of science. The two most pressing scientific issues impacting the upcoming presidential election are climate change and vaccine denial.
Reaching out (Mark 5:21-43)
To receive these posts by email each Monday, sign up. For more commentary on this week's readings, see the Reflections on the Lectionary page. For full-text access to all articles, subscribe to the Century. In the olden days of my youth, I was a hay-baling farmboy. It went like this: My brothers and I would balance on a heaving flat wagon hitched behind a hay baler pulled by an old green tractor.
Why a denomination is investigating late devotional writer Sarah Young
Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence, a book of daily devotions that combines Bible verses with friendly messages written as if Jesus were speaking, has been one of the bestselling Christian books of the past 20 years. Written by a former Presbyterian Church in America missionary, Jesus Calling and its ancillary products have sold more than 45 million copies since 2004. The book is currently fifth on the Evangelical Christian Publishers bestseller list.
Lectionary essay for June 30 Ordinary 13B 2 Samuel 1 1 17 27
Once I walked into a touristy store in a little town in the mountains. Something about the place spooked me in a crystals-and-crow-feathers sort of way, so I turned around. But before I got out the door, a navy T-shirt emblazoned with a golden bee caught my eye. When the owner invited me to try it on, I responded, “I don’t know what the bee means.” He looked me over and said, “It’s just a bee.” At the beginning of 2 Samuel, things have shifted decisively in David’s favor.
Episcopal Church grapples with 'transformative role' in Native American residential schools
Chiricahua Apache children pose outdoors at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, after their arrival from Fort Marion, Florida in November 1886. (Photo by J.N. Choate/Creative Commons) For most Native American children in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, education was neither a right nor a privilege.
What does it mean to be an inclusive church?
(Source image: cienpies / iStock / Getty) I’ve never felt comfortable with the label “progressive.” It buys into the narrative that “things are gradually getting better because of the activism of people like me”—a narrative that seems under-theologized, to say nothing of narcissistic.
Our very human pastors (2 Corinthians 6:1-13)
To receive these posts by email each Monday, sign up. For more commentary on this week's readings, see the Reflections on the Lectionary page. For full-text access to all articles, subscribe to the Century. In a tense conversation, someone once dropped what they must have figured was the ultimate smackdown for a pastor. They said, “You’re not warm and fuzzy!” Ain’t that the truth. I want to be Athanasius when I grow up.
Babes revives the adult comedy
When No Hard Feelings (directed by Gene Stupnitsky) hit theaters in June 2023, critics hailed the return of the adult comedy, which had reigned supreme in American movie making in the early 2000s but since then had atrophied almost out of existence. As an erstwhile connoisseur of the genre, I was ready for a hilarious, mildly inappropriate romp with Jennifer Lawrence to kick off my summer.
Leading and lamenting with Nehemiah
Listening to experienced leaders in the movement for justice is how we grow. People who have been in the struggle for a while have seen the kinds of problems we’re facing and, by God’s grace, have persevered. In her new book, Brenda Salter McNeil welcomes us into her wisdom and shares her lessons from a career in reconciliation work.
Historic all-sign-language movie 'Jesus: A Deaf Missions Film' comes to theaters
Joseph Josselyn remembers being fascinated by the 1977 drama Jesus of Nazareth—but as a Deaf child, he had to rely on closed captions to catch the dialogue. “I had this thought: I wonder what it would be like if this film was completely in sign language,” Josselyn said in a recent interview over Zoom facilitated by an American Sign Language interpreter. His career since could arguably be described as a journey to finding out.
Wildcat and the genius and virtue of Flannery O’Connor
“I don’t want your praise; I don’t want you to think I am clever,” Flannery O’Connor (Maya Hawke) says to the priest (Liam Neeson) who has come to offer her counsel and comfort. She is wracked with pain from lupus, forced to move from New York City back to her mother’s home in Georgia, and railing against the limitations of her new life. She and the priest have been discussing whether “scandalous writing” can serve God.
Lectionary essay for June 23 Ordinary 12B 1 Samuel 17 1a 4 11 19 23 32 49
When david steps out to challenge Goliath, he’s fighting for the people of God but also claiming his faith and vocation. Until that point in the narrative, David had been more the acted upon than the actor. He’s the kid brother that father Jesse forgets to call in from tending the sheep (1 Sam. 16:11). He’s at the front lines because his father sent him to take lunch to his brothers and deliver cheese for the soldiers (17:18).
Bernard Leonard Cohen (1924-2012)
Today is the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of American nuclear physicist Bernard Cohen. In Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology, Russ Hobbie and I discuss Cohen mainly in the context of his work on the risk of low levels of ionizing radiation and his opposition to the linear no threshold model. Today, I will examine another aspect of his work: his advocacy for nuclear power. In particular, I will review his 1990 book The Nuclear Energy Option: An Alternative for the 90s.
This particular soil (Mark 4:26-34)
To receive these posts by email each Monday, sign up. For more commentary on this week's readings, see the Reflections on the Lectionary page. For full-text access to all articles, subscribe to the Century. Scratch the soil in central Kansas and bindweed springs up. It’s been there all along, just biding its time, waiting for the hegemony of grass to be broken.
Consciousness all the way down
Do trees have minds? A friend posed this question during one of the high school afternoons we habitually spent—no doubt with too much time on our hands—engaging in amateur philosophical banter. It struck me immediately as absurd. Minds require physical brains, I replied, as well as observable behavior that demonstrates the existence of a mind behind it. He was not convinced and responded that trees might have a type of consciousness that is different from ours.
Southern Baptists don't get votes to add 'only men' pastors language to constitution
Southern Baptists failed to adopt a change in their constitution that would explicitly state that “only men” can be “any kind of pastor” in affiliated churches. The Wednesday vote, 61.45 percent in favor and 38.38 percent against, did not receive the two-thirds tally required during the second day of the two-day annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. A total of 8,284 messengers, or delegates, voted.
Vatican convenes astrophysicists to discuss black holes, quantum theory
Renowned physicists, including two Nobel Prize winners, will gather at the Vatican Observatory near Rome next week to ponder the unresolved mysteries of the cosmos and to honor the legacy of Georges Lemaître, the priest who first theorized the Big Bang and the expansion of the universe.
What is the rainbow in Genesis a reminder of?
June is the time to celebrate the festive Noahic Covenant Month–or so I’m told by legions of Christians on social media who want to “take back the rainbow” from LGBTQ people like me. “The rainbow belongs to God,” many of these posts say. “It’s not Pride month—it’s Promise month!” says another. One of the viral posts even includes a picture of Satan making a rainbow flag at a sewing machine, which is, to be quite honest, not a skill I expected him to have.
James Lawson, pastor and nonviolent activist, dies at 95
James M. Lawson Jr., who made it his life’s work to create a nonviolent nation, died June 9 at age 95. Lawson, the son and grandson of Methodist pastors, received his local preacher’s license in 1947 when he graduated from high school. He was introduced to the nonviolence teachings of Gandhi when he joined the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the United State’s oldest pacifist organization, during his college days. He spent three years in India as a missionary.
What does ‘Christian nationalism’ even mean?
Fear over Christian nationalism is running rampant, showing up everywhere from books and podcasts about the January 6 insurrection to Sunday sermons about idolatry. But the way we talk about Christian nationalism comes with all kinds of problems. Until we resolve these problems, all this fear about Christian nationalism might amount to so much fearmongering. First, what is Christian nationalism? Sometimes it’s presented as an ideology and sometimes as a conspiracy.
The Well-Tempered Clavichord
"Prelude №1," from the Well-Tempered Clavichord, by Johann Sebastian Bach. I played it (or tried to play it) back when I was 15 years old. Most of my blog posts are about physics applied to medicine and biology, but today I want to talk about music. This topic may not seem relevant to Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology, but I would argue that it is. Music is, after all, as much about the human perception of sound as about sound itself.
Brad Roth's 3 favorite reads in 2023
My favorite read in 2023… I believe that science is our best hope for the future. Yet, anti-science attitudes are on the rise. This book fights back against such harmful views. Peter Hotez shows that over 200,000 Americans have died because of COVID-19 vaccine resistance. This is not merely his opinion. He proves it using a few public health statistics and some arithmetic. This is a book everyone should read. The rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines is a human triumph.
It took a lifetime to write that sermon
I preached a great sermon once. Afterward, a visitor approached me and asked, “May I ask you a question? Did you get that sermon off the internet?” No ma’am. I mined my sermon honestly out of the bedrock. In his pastoral letter, the apostle Peter wrote: “Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God” (1 Peter 4:11). Peter’s is an awe-full charge and warning to those of us who dare to scale the sheer cliff face of the pulpit.
Behind the Ticker on Apple Podcasts
20 episodes Join Brad as he interviews entrepreneurs and experts in the wealth management industry, specifically around ETFs, on a weekly basis. Together, they go Behind the Ticker and delve into what drives these professionals on a daily basis. Discover how they achieved their success, learn about opportunities for disruption in the industry, and explore the challenges and obstacles they've faced along the way.
The Greatest Shortcoming of the Human Race is our Inability to Understand the Exponential Function
Ten years ago yesterday, on September 7, 2013, Physicist Albert Bartlett died at the age of 90. Russ Hobbie and I mentioned Bartlett in Chapter 2 of Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology. Exponential growth cannot go on forever. This fact is often ignored by economists and politicians. Albert Bartlett has written extensively on this subject. You can find several references in The American Journal of Physics and The Physics Teacher. See the summary in Bartlett (2004).
Sing a rights cleared song to the Lord: An interview by Steve Thorngate | The Christian Century
In 2004, I was the music director at a congregation with eclectic taste in music. This was exciting—but when it came to navigating copyright compliance, also a bit overwhelming. So I was relieved that year when GIA Publications introduced One License, a one-stop service for churches and others to secure reprint permissions from several key publishers of congregational music. Since then One LicensE has grown, adding many more songs, publishers, license types, and customers.
The book editor who inadvertently helped empty America’s pews
When an elderly woman asked religion scholar Stephen Prothero to visit her late father’s library of religion books, he wanted to ignore the invitation. But when he finally went, Prothero found the books, letters, and personal writings of a spectacularly influential but little-known editor who shaped a century of American religious thought and practice.
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