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December 5, 2018
It is one of the most iconic Christmas songs of all time. Written by Bob Wells and Mel Torme in the summer of 1945, “The Christmas Song” (subtitled “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire”) was crafted in less than an hour. As the story goes, Wells and Torme were trying to stay cool during the blistering summer heat by thinking cool thoughts and then jotting them down on paper. And, in the process, “The Christmas Song” was born.
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Image of God
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Human Origins
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Hominids
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Neanderthals/Hominids
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Human Uniqueness
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November 28, 2018
On December 14th (2018), Columbia Pictures—in collaboration with Sony Pictures Animation—will release a full-length animated feature: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The story features Miles Morales, an Afro-Latino teenager, as Spider-Man.
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November 21, 2018
Before Thanksgiving each year, those of us who work at Reasons to Believe (RTB) headquarters take part in an annual custom. We put our work on pause and use that time to call donors, thanking them for supporting RTB’s mission. (It’s a tradition we have all come to love, by the way.)
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Image of God
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Human Uniqueness
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November 14, 2018
When I was a kid, I enjoyed reading Ripley’s Believe It or Not! I couldn’t get enough of the bizarre facts described in the pages of this comic. I was especially drawn to the panels depicting people who had oddly shaped heads. I found it fascinating to learn about people whose skulls were purposely forced into unnatural shapes by a practice known as intentional cranial deformation.
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Human Uniqueness
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Human Origins
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Neanderthals/Hominids
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November 7, 2018
With his typical flair for provocation, on more than one occasion Richard Dawkins has asserted that indoctrinating children in religion is a form of child abuse. In fact, he argues that the mental torment inflicted by religion on children is worse than sexual abuse carried out by priests—or by any other adult, for that matter. By way of support, he cites a conversation he had with someone who was molested by a Catholic priest. According to Dawkins, a woman told him “that while being abused by a priest was a ‘yucky’ experience, being told as a child that a Protestant friend who died would ‘roast in Hell’ was more distressing.”
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Controversies
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Christian Life
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October 24, 2018
Like many Americans, I receive a yearly physical. Even though I find these exams to be a bit of a nuisance, I recognize their importance. These annual checkups allow my doctor to get a read on my overall health.
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October 17, 2018
As I write this blog post, the 2018–19 NFL season is just underway. During the course of any NFL season, several key games are decided by a controversial call made by the officials. Nobody wants the officials to determine the outcome of a game, so the NFL has instituted a way for coaches to challenge calls on the field. When a call is challenged, part of the officiating crew looks at a computer tablet on the sidelines—reviewing the game footage from a number of different angles in an attempt to get the call right. After two minutes of reviewing the replays, the senior official makes his way to the middle of the field and announces, “Upon further review, the call on the field . . .”
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Image of God
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Neanderthals/Hominids
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Human Uniqueness
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Human Origins
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Archaeology
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October 10, 2018
He was called the “Master of the Telecaster.” He was also known as the “Iceman,” because his guitar playing was so hot, he was cold. Albert Collins (1932–93) was an electric blues guitarist and singer whose distinct style of play influenced the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughn and Robert Cray.
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Image of God
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Human Uniqueness
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October 3, 2018
In his classic work, Natural Theology, William Paley surveyed a range of biological systems, highlighting their similarities to human-made designs. Paley noticed that human designs typically consist of various components that interact in a precise way to accomplish a purpose. According to Paley, human designs are contrivances—things produced with skill and cleverness—and they come about via the work of human agents. They come about by the work of intelligent designers. And because biological systems are contrivances, they, too, must come about via the work of a Creator.
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Intelligent Design
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Optimization
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Biochemistry
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Design
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September 26, 2018
Scientists from UCLA recently conducted some rather bizarre experiments. For me, it’s these types of things that make it so much fun to be a scientist.
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September 19, 2018
When I was a little kid, my mom went through an Agatha Christie phase. She was a huge fan of the murder mystery writer and she read all of Christie’s books.
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Neanderthals/Hominids
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Image of God
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Human Uniqueness
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Archaeology
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Anthropology
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September 12, 2018
As a biochemist and a skeptic of the evolutionary paradigm, people often ask me two interrelated questions:
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Humans vs. Chimps
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Human Origins
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August 29, 2018
Sometimes, things just aren’t what they seem to be. For example, when it comes to the world of biology.
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August 22, 2018
In 1910, Major General George Owen Squier developed a technique to increase the efficiency of data transmission along telephone lines that is still used today in telecommunications and computer networks. This technique, called multiplexing, allows multiple signals to be combined and transmitted along a single cable, making it possible to share a scarce resource (available phone lines, in Squier’s day).
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August 15, 2018
It’s one of the classic episodes of I Love Lucy. Originally aired on September 15, 1952, the episode entitled “Job Switching” finds Lucy and Ethel working at a candy factory. They have been assigned to an assembly line, where they are supposed to pick up pieces of candy from a moving conveyor belt, wrap them, and place the candy back on the assembly line. But the conveyor belt moves too fast for Lucy and Ethel to keep up. Eventually, they both start stuffing pieces of candy into their mouths, under their hats, and in their blouses, as fast as they can as pieces of candy on the assembly line quickly move beyond their reach—a scene of comedic brilliance.
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August 8, 2018
One of the things I find most troubling about the evolutionary paradigm is the view it fosters about the nature of biological systems—including human beings.
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Design
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Philosophy of Science
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Evolution
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