Came across this old saying that captures the essence of the conservative / fundamentalist position on the priority of God's two books.
"When evidence points out holes in evolution, evolution is wrong.
When evidence points out holes in the Bible, the evidence is wrong"
Mark Noll in his chapter "Thinking About Science" in the book "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" points this attitude out and comments on it rather harshly.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
National Geographic: The God Particle
I have always loved the National Geographic, it has a commitment to showing the "truth interpreted" by giving us photos of what "is". There is of course its' rabid anti Christian stance (in my opinion it shows a lot more respect to any other religion than Christianity). But it gets the photos that no one else can.
This month there is an article on the current search by physicists to find a fundamental particle (more energy but that is besides the point). Everyone calls it the "God Particle". It makes for interesting reading but remember the editorial bias of the source.
This month there is an article on the current search by physicists to find a fundamental particle (more energy but that is besides the point). Everyone calls it the "God Particle". It makes for interesting reading but remember the editorial bias of the source.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Rest In Peace: Robert Jastrow 1926 - 2008
There was a lot to like about this guy and I remember him on TV during the 60's and 70's space programs. His quotes are well circulated but the ones I like are:
"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."
"There is a strange ring of feeling and emotion in these reactions [of scientists to evidence that the universe had a sudden beginning]. They come from the heart whereas you would expect the judgements to come from the brain. Why? I think part of the answer is that scientists cannot bear the thought of a natural phenomenon which cannot be explained, even with unlimited time and money. There is a kind of religion in science, it is the religion of a person who believes there is order and harmony in the universe, and every effect must have its cause, there is no first cause...
This religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid, and as a product of forces or circumstances we cannot discover. When that happens, the scientist has lost control...
Consider the enormity of the problem. Science has proven that the universe exploded into being at a certain moment. It asks, what cause produced the effect? Who or what put the matter and energy in the universe? Was the universe created out of nothing, or was it gathered together out of pre existing materials? And science cannot answer these questions".
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Faith / Science Links
I do not know if anyone is bothering to monitor these inactive blogs but I will be dumping faith and science links here as I come across them. The link below is an interesting atheistic music video based on Carl Sagan's writing. It features an image made of the Earth from as far away as any of our exploratory satellites have been able to reach and send a picture of Earth back ... the photo was taken at Carl Sagan's insistence and was the source for his book "Pale Blue Dot".
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
A Time to Begin a Time to End
I started this blog to help me teach my courses. The experiment was not successful in any way that I had intended it. The stats indicate a fairly constant number of people monitoring the blog but the use of the blog as a means for students to comment, ask questions or offer supplementary material was, for the most part, an unused opportunity. I had mis-read why some students were silent or apathetic in my courses and it was not for lack of an anonymous opportunity to participate at their own time and in their own way.
I made a commitment to keep the blog going for the whole academic year and that is what I did. My sabbatical will take me away from teaching for a year and so I will leave this blog up for a while and then decide if I should delete the whole blog.
To those of you that dropped in ... thanks for looking (and in some cases commenting). The companion blog to this Professor Honeydew will also fall silent now. Again I will let it be for a while and then decide if it should be deleted. If I decide to continue to offer anything up for blogging over the next year or so it will be on the research blog "A Pale Blue Gas". We will see.
Take Care.
Professor Honeydew
Monday, April 23, 2007
RS3853 End of the Road
Class,
The class average for the journals (61%, C-) was lower than usual due to an unusually large number of late submissions and incomplete journals.
In general I do not give out subjective evaluation marks but will be happy to discuss the composition of the class mark after you get your final grade. In general terms the class subjective evaluation was 69 % (C+) which is about right for this course. Each week each student was marked on preparation, participation and quality of contribution.
The class average for the term papers was the highest ever for this course at 71 % (B-). With that high an average there can't be too much in the way of complaints but I did notice consistent problems with assertion and with language (grammar and punctuation).
With respect to assertion the problem was sometimes that what you said was true but you had not justified the statement so that it looked like simple assertion. In other cases it seemed clear that the student was reading meaning into sources that simply were not in the original source.
With respect to grammar and language:
A sentence consists of a subject, a verb and an object and it is generally good form to make sure that the number of each is in agreement (is vs are etc.)
It is bad form (though not illegal) to start a sentence with "However" because the subject and object of the sentence end up in separate sentences. So it may be OK to use a "However" once in a while for dramatic effect but several of you are addicted to the form. One student had four such howevers in one paragraph.
A sentence that cannot be read in one breath is too long.
A paragraph should have more than one sentence and deal with one topic. A paragraph should not be used to mark where you got tired and decided to go for coffee.
Written English is not the same a written speech (for the love of all that is sacred please learn this lesson before you graduate). Sometimes the voices in your head lie to you. You have to realize that your high school English teacher could not get a "real" job (or did not get their poetry or book published) because they could not write. That means that the "stream of consciousness creative writing" that got you high marks in high school just won't float in University.
Anyway, no one lost a lot of marks for grammar it was the assertion thing that made the difference usually. I privately suspect that the way all the papers twisted into papers on ecology and used the same core references that there was some significant double dipping going on but I am too lazy to make that dog hunt. As Calvin said "Shoot them all and let God sort them out".
So in a few short years your child will be reading a book in your lap and ask you about dinosaurs or your church will ask you to teach an adult or high school Sunday school class where science and religion will come up. I am not so conceited to think that you will remember anything directly from this course but the intention was that our students would go out into the Christian community with a core competence and a confidence when dealing with faith and science issues.
All truth is God's truth no matter where you come across it. Keep asking the question "Why?" and you will eventually find yourself face-to-face with God. Then what do you do?
Take care, have a good summer.
The class average for the journals (61%, C-) was lower than usual due to an unusually large number of late submissions and incomplete journals.
In general I do not give out subjective evaluation marks but will be happy to discuss the composition of the class mark after you get your final grade. In general terms the class subjective evaluation was 69 % (C+) which is about right for this course. Each week each student was marked on preparation, participation and quality of contribution.
The class average for the term papers was the highest ever for this course at 71 % (B-). With that high an average there can't be too much in the way of complaints but I did notice consistent problems with assertion and with language (grammar and punctuation).
With respect to assertion the problem was sometimes that what you said was true but you had not justified the statement so that it looked like simple assertion. In other cases it seemed clear that the student was reading meaning into sources that simply were not in the original source.
With respect to grammar and language:
A sentence consists of a subject, a verb and an object and it is generally good form to make sure that the number of each is in agreement (is vs are etc.)
It is bad form (though not illegal) to start a sentence with "However" because the subject and object of the sentence end up in separate sentences. So it may be OK to use a "However" once in a while for dramatic effect but several of you are addicted to the form. One student had four such howevers in one paragraph.
A sentence that cannot be read in one breath is too long.
A paragraph should have more than one sentence and deal with one topic. A paragraph should not be used to mark where you got tired and decided to go for coffee.
Written English is not the same a written speech (for the love of all that is sacred please learn this lesson before you graduate). Sometimes the voices in your head lie to you. You have to realize that your high school English teacher could not get a "real" job (or did not get their poetry or book published) because they could not write. That means that the "stream of consciousness creative writing" that got you high marks in high school just won't float in University.
Anyway, no one lost a lot of marks for grammar it was the assertion thing that made the difference usually. I privately suspect that the way all the papers twisted into papers on ecology and used the same core references that there was some significant double dipping going on but I am too lazy to make that dog hunt. As Calvin said "Shoot them all and let God sort them out".
So in a few short years your child will be reading a book in your lap and ask you about dinosaurs or your church will ask you to teach an adult or high school Sunday school class where science and religion will come up. I am not so conceited to think that you will remember anything directly from this course but the intention was that our students would go out into the Christian community with a core competence and a confidence when dealing with faith and science issues.
All truth is God's truth no matter where you come across it. Keep asking the question "Why?" and you will eventually find yourself face-to-face with God. Then what do you do?
Take care, have a good summer.
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