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A Norwegian neuroscientist spent 20 years proving that the act of writing by hand changes the human brain in ways typing physically cannot, and almost nobody outside her field has read the paper. Her name is Audrey van der Meer. She runs a brain research lab in Trondheim, and the paper that closed the argument was published in 2024 in a journal called Frontiers in Psychology. The finding is brutal enough that it should have changed every classroom on Earth. The experiment was simple. She recruited 36 university students and put each one in a cap with 256 sensors pressed against their scalp to record brain activity. Words flashed on a screen one at a time. Sometimes the students wrote the word by hand on a touchscreen using a digital pen, and sometimes they typed the same word on a keyboard. Every neural response was recorded for the full five seconds the word stayed on screen. Then her team looked at the part of the data most researchers had ignored for years, which is how different parts of the brain were communicating with each other during the task. When the students wrote by hand, the brain lit up everywhere at once. The regions responsible for memory, sensory integration, and the encoding of new information were all firing together in a coordinated pattern that spread across the entire cortex. The whole network was awake and connected. When the same students typed the same word, that pattern collapsed almost completely. Most of the brain went quiet, and the connections between regions that had been alive seconds earlier were nowhere to be found on the EEG. Same word, same brain, same person, and two completely different neurological events. The reason turned out to be something nobody had really paid attention to before her work. Writing by hand is not one motion but a sequence of thousands of tiny micro-movements coordinated with your eyes in real time, where each letter is a different shape that requires the brain to solve a slightly different spatial problem. Your fingers, wrist, vision, and the parts of your brain that track position in space are all working together to produce one letter, then the next, then the next. Typing throws all of that away. Every key on a keyboard requires the exact same finger motion regardless of which letter you are pressing, which means the brain has almost nothing to integrate and almost no problem to solve. Van der Meer said it plainly in her interviews. Pressing the same key with the same finger over and over does not stimulate the brain in any meaningful way, and she pointed out something that should scare every parent who handed their kid an iPad. Children who learn to read and write on tablets often cannot tell letters like b and d apart, because they have never physically felt with their bodies what it takes to actually produce those letters on a page. A decade before her, two researchers at Princeton ran the same fight using a completely different method and ended up at the same answer. Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer tested 327 students across three experiments, where half took notes on laptops with the internet disabled and half took notes by hand, before testing everyone on what they actually understood from the lectures they had watched. The handwriting group won by a wide margin on every question that required real understanding rather than surface recall. The reason was hiding in the transcripts of what the two groups had actually written down. The laptop students typed almost word for word, capturing more total content but processing almost none of it as they went, while the handwriting students physically could not write fast enough to transcribe a lecture in real time, which forced them to listen carefully, decide what actually mattered, and put it in their own words on the page. That single act of choosing what to keep was the learning itself, and the keyboard had quietly skipped the choosing and skipped the learning along with it. Two studies. Two countries. Same answer. Handwriting makes the brain work. Typing lets it coast. Every note you have ever typed instead of written went into your brain through a thinner pipe. Every meeting, every book highlight, every idea you captured on your phone instead of on paper was processed at half depth. You did not forget those things because your memory is bad. You forgot them because typing never woke the part of the brain that would have made them stick. The fix is the thing your grandmother already knew. Pick up a pen. Write the thing down. The slower road is the faster one.

I'm listening to Huberman talk about the neuroscience of fear, and I am thinking of Jay Adams talking about how scientific research and even psychological studies can be catalytic—motivating us to return to God’s Word with new questions to find new insights. I think of Adams reading Harvard sleep studies and going back to his Bible because those studies were a catalyst for him—and then Adams using the results of those sleep studies as part of his physiological counsel. I am listening to Huberman and thinking of Adams talking to 100s of physicians about embodied-care and physiological interventions as “preparatory” for progressive sanctification. I am listening to Huberman and thinking of Adams linking the nervous system studies of his day to his understanding of the connection between emotions and actions. I am listening to this and thinking of Adams reading Mowrer's teaching on "dehabituation" and "rehabituation" and that being a catalyst for Adams to study further the Bible's teaching on putting off and putting on. Could this Huberman video likewise be catalytic for us in any way? I am listening to Huberman discuss the neuroscience of diminishing the fear reflex. I am listening to him discuss the neuroscience of replacing the old fear reflex with new truth—a new narrative. He talks about embedding those new truths back into the old suffering, and I am thinking of the put off and put on process that Paul talks about constantly. Huberman, in essence, is describing the physiological, neurological deactivation and reactivation that occurs in the brain as we put off old lies in our mind and put on new truths in the "spirit of our mind" (Eph. 4:23). Our embodied-soul is calmed as our physical brain and metaphysical mind soothe the soul in the Savior. It is possible that Huberman’s neuroscience understandings (as imperfect as they may be) could be a catalyst for us to think through Scripture more robustly, a la, Adams and Mowrer? I am listening to Huberman talk about how the brain can slowly be rewired by retelling the old story of suffering. And I am thinking of how Paul does this in 2 Cor. 1, in the safety of the body of Christ. On his first telling in 2 Cor. 1 of his horrific suffering, Paul talks about feeling despair. However, by the time he has told his story several more times, things change. In 2 Cor. 4, Paul is still perplexed, but now he says he is not in despair. His retelling his story has begun to extinguish the old fear-based responses. I am listening to Huberman and pondering how Paul does not simply retell his old suffering story. Instead, Paul also adds new truth, new narrative to his suffering story, such as: 1. This helps me to comfort others. 2. This motivates me to be less self-reliant. 3. This motivates me to be more God reliant. 4. This enlightens me to see God as the One who resurrects the dead. 5. This enlightens me to see God as the Father of compassion and God of all comfort. 6. This reminds me that God did deliver me. 7. It reminds me that God will deliver me. 8. It reminds me that God will continue to deliver me. 9. It encourages me toward mutual healthy inter-dependence with the Body of Christ. So, by the time Paul gets to 2 Cor. 4, he admits that his suffering still perplexes him, but he is no longer in despair. He has not sought to forget his past traumatic suffering. Instead, he has sought to embed new truths into his old suffering: and it changes Paul—body and soul, brain and mind. Did I "need" Huberman? Well, did Adams “need” Harvard sleep studies? Did Adams “need” the nervous system understanding of the 1960s? Did Adams need Mowrer's teachings on dehabituation and rehabituation (Mowrer used those terms long before Adams did)? No, Adams did not "need" that. However, God clearly used "secular" research and even "secular" behavioral psychology as a "catalyst" to drive Adams back to Scripture and come to a more rich and robust understanding and application. Adams “redeemed” Mowrer’s secular behavioral approach of dehabituation and rehabituation—but Adams did not totally toss it out. He reshaped it biblically. I am listening to Huberman and pondering how I could more effectively apply the biblical put off and put on process to care for embodied-souls whose brain and mind both need God’s healing. I do not “need” Huberman. However, God is using Huberman’s thinking to stretch my thinking—just like He used Mowrer’s thinking to stretch Adams’s thinking…

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Ephesians 4:29, 32

So here’s an idea... In another X thread, @jasonkovacs and @TDaleJohnson talked about connecting to discuss these issues. On their recent YouTube podcast, Dale and Keith said they wanted to characterize CIBC accurately and have non-combative, irenic conversations. Dale, would you consider having Jason on your ACBC Truth and Love podcast? Between your ACBC podcasts, blog posts, journal articles, and YouTube videos, you have had dozens of conversations about CIBC, but none with CIBC leaders. I’m not suggesting a debate like Brad and Marshall had. I’m suggesting a series of mutual, iron-sharpening-iron public conversations—with the intent to listen to and learn from each other. Dale, if you prefer not to have a CIBC leader on your ACBC podcast, then perhaps other neutral parties could host a series of non-combative, non-debate, public conversations. I don’t want to speak for others, but maybe a @timallchin could host a podcast. Or perhaps the new podcast by @jared_poulton and @lucasabatier and @joehussung could be a possible place to host this series of conversations. Or, perhaps the @biblicalcc and @KevinCarson could be a potential podcast host? There could be further discussion about the wisest venue that both Jason and Dale might agree upon. There are other leaders who could join the conversation—other CIBC leaders, other ACBC-affiliated leaders. However, perhaps a first step might be to see if Jason and Dale are open to a series of mutually-respectful, humble, iron-sharpening public conversations. Perhaps some of the ten clarifying questions listed in the opening tweet in this thread could be potential conversations starters? Or, the two of you could agree upon points of interaction… Jason, would you be open to a series of public conversations with Dale about CIBC and what is being called historic biblical counseling? Dale, would you be open to a series of public conversations with Jason about CIBC and what is being called historic biblical counseling?

Free Webinar: After Church Hurt, Angry with God Thursday May 7th at 2pm EST 170 people already RSVP'ed! Join us. event.webinarjam.com/7wrzn/r… When places that should be safe, like church, become places of pain, we (rightly) bring that pain to God and that pain is often hot.