Archive for the ‘Science’ Category

This last weeks podcast on Point of Inquiry was concerning the brain and it’s development. Although the human brain is an amazing thing which separates us from other animals, it’s development is surprisingly haphazard and accidental. The more neuroscience understands about the brain the better we are able to deal with and overcome it’s problems and weaknesses. in fact, that is one of the amazing things about the brain, it’s capacity for self consciousness which allows us to explore self improvement. As always, Point of Inquiry delivers a very interesting and thought provocative program.

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The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.  by Francis Collins.

Francis Collins is a geneticist and the former director of the Human Genome project and every Christian should read his book.  But why would I suggest every Christian read a book about a man explaining his reasons for belief?  Christians already believe don’t they? Allow me to explain…

There are two aspects of this book that I one might find interesting and helpful.  Collins’ reasons for faith, and Collins’ explanation of genetics and evolution.  The reason that I recommend this book is because of the latter.  I didn’t find the arguments presented  by Collins to be particularly well reasoned and convincing for why one should believe in God or why they should become a Christian.  What i did find fascinating though was his very good explanation of how genetics work and what the genetic evidence is for common ancestry (evolution).  I hesitate to even state this for fear that many Christians will automatically rule Collins out as a “liberal” evolutionist who is opposed to the faith.  But Collins is not that.  He is an Evangelical Christian who believes that the Bible is the word of God, that Jesus is the second person of the holy Trinity, and that salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  But even though he believes these things, he is convinced because of his work that there is no doubt that all life on earth has a common ancestor.

I believe that he presents some very compelling reasons for why the belief in evolution is so wide spread among scientists today.  It is not as though there is a big conspiracy or that they are so committed in their stance against God that they try to force the facts to fit the evolutionary hypothesis.   Collins, like more and more believers, feels compelled by the evidence and believes that nature is a revelation from God that we are to understand to the best of our God given abilities. Read the rest of this entry »

Ok, I admit it, I like to argue.  I like to debate and discuss important issues and ideas.  But in my discussions with other people about important issues and ideas I have come upon an interesting psychological phenomenon.  Have you ever been talking to someone, debating maybe, and you had a realization that you weren’t truly as sure about what you were saying as you would like the other person to think?  Maybe it was over politics, religion, philosophy or why enchiladas ARE better than tacos.  You were steadfast in your position and felt that for some reason, you could not let on that you had doubts about your belief/position.  In your own mind you might have been thinking something like, “Hm, that is a good point and I really don’t have an answer for it but I am going to look into it more since I obviously and not as sure as i thought”.  But do you say this out loud?  No.  In the mean time, you argued and argued your position as if you were not swayed one bit. Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to Netflix.com, I was finally able to finally watch the documentary by Ben Stein called  Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed with their watch online feature(which is getting better each month by the way).  If you have not seen this movie you should see it if for no other reason than for the value of understanding what is being said by some “Intelligent Design” proponents.  I have heard many many religious people that I know ask me if I have seen Expelled and it was apparent that they thought the movie was great and so I wanted to take the time to watch it and interact with it.  Although my own personal religious views have changed dramatically over the years, I still try to remain as open as possible to differing positions and do not want to close myself off to the possibility that I am wrong. Read the rest of this entry »

I was watching some youtube videos today about the Ben Stein Expelled movie that came out this year which made me curious about some of the claims that are made in that movie. I did not watch the whole movie yet but I plan to. I just saw some clips from it and was reminded of some of the points that are brought about not only by that movie but by the whole Intelligent Design movement that has been debated so much in the last 5 years. Some of the points made by intelligent design theorists and by Ben Stein in his movie (from what I can tell) are the following:

- Life on earth is much too complex to be accounted for by the theory of Evolution. Darwin’s theory of evolution cannot account for the complexity of life as we know it and the only thing that can is the idea that a God much have created it.

- The scientific community is akin to a good ole’ boys club that protects it’s own and shuns those outside of it who disagree with their positions IN SPITE of the evidence that is contrary to evolution. They have a faith commitment to evolution and are not open to criticism and will not tolerate those who disagree.

- Teachers who want to “teach the controversy” and tell students that good people actually believe in both sides of creation and evolution, are getting fired from their jobs and pushed out of their fields of study.

Below I have listed a series of videos which are each very short (between 3 and 10 minutes each) which has a number of current reputable scientists talking about and explaining many of these issues. It is concise and very professionally made and I would recommend it to anyone interested in this subject. Even thought these videos were made a few years before the Ben Stein Movie, they deal with most of the points made in it and I think they do a find job of it.

This is the first video, the rest can be found at this page. I have included the titles and duration of each video below.

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Science Videos on Youtube.com

Here is a new addition to my Evolution and Intelligent Design page. These are short videos about 10 minutes in length each and are pretty good. If you don’t agree with them they will at least give a you a basic understanding of the arguments used in favor of an old earth and an evolutionary framework.

1 — History of the Universe Made Easy (Part 1)

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