Here's my list of resources for those interested in the history of religion and science, both pro and anti-religious.
For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery by Rodney Stark
Stark argues that faith in God encouraged Christians to invent science. Having read other books making the same claim, I think Stark's approach to this question is one of the best. Not only does he go over the development of technology in the so-called "Dark Ages," and show how the "Enlightenment" picture of Copernican era science is a myth, he studies 52 key early scientists, and shows that more than 60 % were "devout," while only 2 were skeptics. The critic below who asks why Christianity did not produce science in Russia did not read attentively: Stark argues that faith in God was a necessary, but not sufficient, cause of the rise of science. Other factors were also involved. ~ From this excellent review
Continue reading "GUIDE: Books on Christianity and Science" »
Here's my list of favorites. Feel free to comment, and bookmark this page, I will update regularly, I'm always testing. Thanks!
Last Updated: 02.26.10
Updates:
Continue reading "Guide: Best Android Apps for the Motorola Droid" »
Here's my review of the phone so far. For CONS that have a workaround, I inserted a *. I'll cover them in a future post on software for the DROID. Potential deal-breakers in red.
PROS:
This has nothing to do with the Bible or God, but I had to blog on it. I am nearing the end of my ATT wireless contract, and am a gadget geek looking for a new phone. There are so many phones either coming or just arrived that are so tempting, including the
But today I found out about the Motorola Droid, the first Verizon phone to use the Google Android operating system, coming November 6th!
But what really wins my heart over is that I can replace SIX electronic devices with this one device, and the last is just radical - besides being a
I am smitten! More gushing after the jump.
Continue reading "One device to rule them all? The Motorola Droid" »
I just finished listening to a really interesting hour long podcast of a lecture by Gary Habermas, author of Beyond Death: Exploring the Evidence for Immortality, a "Christian" look at Near Death Experiences (NDEs).
What was interesting about the lecture is that Habermas focuses on what events that patients report happened in the REAL world while they were dead - things that can be corroborated. In other words, while they are brain dead or heart dead for long periods of time, they report things that they could not have heard or seen, in the locale of their body or elsewhere.
This begs the question - if their physical body and memory are inactive, who or what is experiencing and seeing events in the physical world? This argues for the existence of mind, or spirit, apart from mere physicality - i.e. there is more to existence than materialists might claim. [Link to lecture after the jump]
Continue reading "What do NDEs tell us about the reality of mind, God, and the afterlife?" »
There
have been lots of blog posts across the inet comparing these two
industry leading phones. I had to compare them before I finally bit
the bullet and dove in. Here's my short version comparing the two.
ID the Future has a nice two part interview with Dr. James Le Fanu, author of Why Us?: How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves. Le Fanu, a scientist and science writer, discusses the inability of evolution to even come close to explaining the complexity of humanity. He doesn't reject evolution, he only explains that its explanatory power is vastly inferior to the problems presented.
This book appears as much science as philosophy of science, but another thoughtful book considering the limitations, perhaps even the fallibility of evolutionary origins.
Continue reading "Why Us?: How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves" »
What if we suddenly had a way to cheaply produce tons of hydrocarbons from a plant or bacterial product? Would the GWA (Global Warming Alarmists) fight it because it might not be in line with their desire to move to less carbon-polluting fuels? I would bet so, and now we have a chance to see.
This type of science is very exciting, but let's hope that the panicky anti-science GWAs don't inhibit the science with their insanity, the way evolution and scientific materialism hinder science.
National Geographic has announced its Best Science Images of 2008. One of them is the illustration shown here:
The Bible's 1,189 chapters are plotted along the horizontal axis at the bottom of the image, with each bar's length determined by the number of verses.
The arcs above the graph show the 63,779 cross-references between each chapter.
Neat. You can get a desktop sized version here.
Victor F. Hess (1883-1964), American professor of physics and Nobel Prize winner in 1936 for the discovery of cosmic rays:
I must confess that in all of my years of research in physics and geophysics, I have never found one instance in which scientific discovery was in conflict with religious Faith. It is sometimes said that the 'necessity' of the 'laws' of nature is incompatible with men's free will and, still more, with miracles. This is not so.
When scientists formulate the so-called 'laws' of physics, they are fully aware, for example, that they can no more predict the actual life history of an atom or radium than they can predict the moral conduct of this or that person.
Real Faith, for me as a scientist, as for anyone else, is often a matter of bitter struggle. The victory must be won - or the gift must be discovered - by each one in his own soul. It often takes the personal experience of grave danger or death to bring conviction and to prepare the way for Faith in Divine Providence. What is certain is that, when Faith comes, there follows a great serenity of soul and a deep peace in the human heart.
Intelligent Design The Future has a nice two part interview with Dr. Angus Menuge, former professor of computer programming, current professor of philosophy at Concordia University Wisconsin and author of Agents Under Fire, Materialism and the Rationality of Science (2004).
Design is more of a scientific research program [than a scientific theory], a very broad idea. Within that, you can propose lots of different scientific theories by generating more specific, testable models. Scientific materialism is not a scientific theory, but a research program [paradigm], and ID is a competing scientific program [paradigm]....
Continue reading "How scientific materialism undermines science and reason" »
Have you had your wisdom teeth removed? Millions of people have undergone the relatively simple procedure. Japanese scientists have developed a way to use those ordinarily discarded teeth to produce, apparently, pluripotent stem cells. (I say "apparently" because the article doesn't specifically say this, but gives every indication this is the case.)
The more science develops in this field, the more the obvious question becomes - why the need for embryo destroying research?
Here's the latest:
Harvard scientists say they have created stems cells for 10 genetic disorders, which will allow researchers to watch the diseases develop in a lab dish.
This early step, using a new technique, could help speed up efforts to find treatments for some of the most confounding ailments, the scientists said.
IDtheFuture.com has a nice interview with Cornelius Hunter, author of Science's Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism.
One of the important distinctions between the experimental and historic sciences is...when you have a problem in historical sciences, you can draw upon one-time contingencies (like a comet or ice age)...with experimental science...scientists don't make up contingencies to explain results.
Evolution has been problematic since Darwin proposed the theory...things have not gotten better since then. It is not the case that evolution does well in most areas, and there are a few problems around the edges - evolution has problems across the board (example follows).
The universal claim of evolution [being as sure as gravity]...should be a red flag that something [wrong] is going on here...but all of the reasons given in evolutionary literature are philosophical and metaphysical...as in Darwin's book...and evolutionists are quite honest with themselves on this.
Another interesting book to wait on my Amazon wishlist. Sigh.
On 7/28's NPR show Fresh Air, Terry Gross interviewed Michael Gazzaniga, author of the new book on the brain, Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique. The most interesting part of the interview (Mapping The Mysteries Of The Brain's Two Halves) was his discussion of religion and morality and the brain.
Casey Luskin has a nice 13 minute interview with Rebecca W. Keller, founder of Gravitas Publications, which publish a series of science books for homeschoolers called Real Science 4 Kids. By 'framework-agnostic', I mean that she presents science and scientific methods withOUT committing to any specific philosophy-of-science framework like evolution, creationism, or ID. Or in her words:
I believe that the best science is rigorous and objective about the facts, but open and tolerant of what those facts may mean both to science and outside of science. In other words, we should be diligent to practice science rigorously and carefully utilizing the scientific method and critical thinking. But we should allow everyone to interpret those facts through their own lens.
Intelligent design is an interpretative framework for evaluating scientific data as are evolutionary theory and creationism. Each are different lenses used to understand and interpret scientific information.
Continue reading "Gravitas publishes 'framework-agnostic' science textbooks" »
David Berlinkski, interviewed in the Intelligent Design movie Expelled, wrote a book on atheism and science entitled The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions.
Interestingly, though he agrees with the premise of Expelled, he found it 'lacking meat.'
He also advises young academics that, if they want tenure, keep their heads down on this issue until AFTER they gain tenure, because anyone who openly doubts evolution most certainly is black balled in academia, as alleged by Expelled.
He also mentions that the link between Darwinism and Nazism is so clear, that to deny it is to be academically self-deluded.
This is the second breakthrough announced in the past six months. In December, scientists were able to reprogram skin stem cells to to behave like embryonic stem cells and use them to treat mice with sickle-cell anemia.
Yesterday, MIT announced that a team of scientists has been able to reprogram skin cells and improve symptoms of Parkinson's in mice.
Continue reading "Adult stem cells treats Parkinson's symptoms" »
Over a year go, I wrote a flippant post about global warming and the lack of hurricanes. Too often my sarcasm hides my points instead of illuminating them. With that being said, trying not to be sarcastic or flippant, What do the supports of global warming do with this: Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling.
I know basically everything is attributed to global warming these days, but I'm waiting on how it explains snow in Baghdad for the first time in 100 years and giant glaciers forming during a warm period. I'm sure there's an explanation, though.
If a scientific breakthrough happened that would essentially eliminate a moral quandry and move mankind closer to cures for numerous diseases and no one really talked about it, would it be a scientific breakthrough?
Continue reading "The greatest discovery no one is talkiing about" »
Boing Boing has an interesting, if short book review of God's Mechanics: How Scientists and Engineers Make Sense of Religion, a new book from Vatican Astronomer Guy Consolmagno. The atheist reviewer liked the book, particularly because it's not just the author's opinion, but the results of interviews he did with engineers and scientists in Silicon Valley.
There's clearly some serious value that smart, ethical people derive from participation in spiritualism and even organized religion. Brother Guy's exegesis on faith as a systematic way of organizing and exploring the human experience of the numinous was fascinating to me. It is is a thoroughgoing, charming, quick-paced trip through a wide variety of personal experiences of spirituality and religion.
Imagine your a college professor with a website where you post information about your research. Should your website and information be protected only if the college agrees with it? Should controversial research be banned from the professor's webpage? If you're Robert Marks and you are working for Baylor and in the intelligent design related field of evolutionary informatics.
Continue reading "Free speech? Not for you because you're wrong." »
The much touted research that produced the "consensus" mantra of global warming adherents has been updated with somewhat surprising results.
In fact of all papers published in this period (2004 to February 2007), only a single one makes any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results.
One of the reasons why "science" no longer holds the same weight now in this postmodern age as it did 50 years ago is the influence politics play on scientific discussions. From global warming to intelligent design, any science theory that dares to challenge the prevailing view is attacked as dangerous and "not science." One Northwestern University professor learned that lesson the hard way.
Continue reading "The politicization of science and transgender women" »
Christians, if they ever had one before, should no longer have any excuse not to be involved technologically.
There are tons of cool clips on YouTube that you wish you could watch someplace other than on YouTube. Now there are dozens of ways to download and view those videos at your convenience.
Here's a bunch of interesting stuff I don't have time to write about.
1. Books: Creation and the Courts: Eighty Years of Conflict in the Classroom and the Courtroom
In Creation and the Courts, Norman Geisler traces the 80-year history of creation vs. evolution court cases, beginning with the famous Scopes “Monkey Trial” in 1925 and continuing to the Dover “Intelligent Design” (ID) case decided in 2005.
2. Books: Reformed Theology blog has a nice list of Top Ten Books on Piety, Sanctification, Spiritual Growth
3. Health: Who is sick? gives you an idea of how many people are sick in your area, and with what symptoms. Feel free to add your own sickness. Cool idea.
While the many obvious themes have been discussed at the annual SBC meeting, one that may not be so obvious has been mentioned in almost every session - blogging. Comments have ranged the gamut from Dr. Jerry Vines preaching about the opportunities for the Gospel presentation through the blogs to Dr. Jay Strack quoting Shrek to unnamed bloggers criticizing leaders - "That'll do donkey."
I'm sure he'll have his credentials questioned, but NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told NPR that he was not sure global warming is a problem. He also said that NASA was not "an agency chartered to quote 'battle climate change.'"
Continue reading "NASA Administrator: global warming heretic" »
This should be front page news. A team of scientists has been working for 10 years and has produced a heart valve from stem cells. Heart surgeon Magdi Yacoub, who led the team, said doctors could be using artificially grown heart components in transplants in three years.
The valve was grown from stem cells extracted from bone marrow. Oh wait, you mean they didn't use embryonic stem cells to do this? Nevermind.
Human Genome Project Director Francis Collins briefly explains why and how he moved from being an atheist to "a follower of Jesus."
Book Review - America Alone: Very nice review of Mark Steyn's book on how we are civilization's last hope to keep the world from Islamization - Europe is succumbing due to it's multicultural subjectivity. My favorite quote, which is on its way to becoming a classic:You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.
Satan and Rock and Roll
- CrossTV has posted a free version of their hour-long evangelistic
documentary linking rock and roll with artists who have sold their soul
to Satan for fame, or have admitted that they feel possessed when
playing. Common old timers are documented here, like Robert Johnson,
Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, and the Grateful Dead, but also
covers more modern groups like Oasis, Godsmack, as well as many modern
rap artists such as Ez-E, Snoop Dog, Method Man, Master P, DMX. It's
also interesting how they view Bill Haley's "Rock around the clock" the
"trojan horse of rock," which slipped rock by parents because of
Haley's "innocent, uncle-like look." I must admit, having seen the
similar Hell's Bells
videos by Eric Holmberg, I am a little skeptical of such scare-tactic
approaches, but on a purely intellectual level, these types of
evangelistic documentaries are fascinating for both their alarmism, their exposition of artist interviews and lyrics, and their tie-in with sexualizing our children through sexualized music by popular artists.Dr. Al Mohler has a fascinating post about research into gay animals, a possible prenatal "cure" for homosexuality and the insuing conflicts many in our society will be faced with when the age of designer babies becomes a complete reality.
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