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February 6, 2019
As a little kid, I spent many a Saturday afternoon “helping” my dad work on our family car. What a clunker. We didn’t have a garage, so we parked our car on the street in front of the house. Our home was built into a hillside and the only way to get to our house was to climb a long flight of stairs from the street.
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Intelligent Design
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Design
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Proteins
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Biochemistry
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January 30, 2019
This masterpiece depicts the Rue Mosnier (an urban street) as seen from the window of Manet’s art studio on June 30, 1878, a national holiday in France. Flags line both sides of the Rue Mosnier, decorations that are part of the day’s celebration.
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Image of God
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Human Uniqueness
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Human Origins
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January 23, 2019
A few years ago, we had an all-white English Bulldog named Archie. He would lumber toward even complete strangers, eager to befriend them and earn their affections. And people happily obliged this playful pup.
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Human Uniqueness
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Image of God
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Artificial Intelligence
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Animals
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January 16, 2019
If you could time travel, would you? Would you travel to the past or the future? If asked this question, I bet many origin-of-life researchers would want to travel to the time in Earth’s history when life originated. Given the many scientifically impenetrable mysteries surrounding life’s genesis, I am certain many of the scientists working on these problems would love to see firsthand how life got its start.
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Prebiotic Chemistry
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Origin of Life
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January 9, 2019
I don’t like to think of myself as technology-challenged, but I am beginning to wonder if I just might be. As a case in point, I have no clue about all the things my iPhone can do. It isn’t uncommon for someone (usually much younger than me) to point out features of my iPhone that I didn’t even know existed. (And, of course, there is the TV remote—but that will have to serve as material for another lead.)
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December 19, 2018
One of the highlights of the year at Reasons to Believe (well, it’s a highlight for some of us, anyway) is the white elephant gift exchange at our staff Christmas party. It is great fun to laugh together as a staff as we take turns unwrapping gifts—some cheesy, some useless, and others highly prized—and then “stealing” from one another those two or three gifts that everyone seems to want.
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Fossil Record
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Dinosaurs
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Age of the Earth
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December 12, 2018
People often use irony in humor, rhetoric, and literature, but few would think it has a place in science. But wryly, this has become the case. Recent work in synthetic biology has created a real sense of irony among the scientific community—particularly for those who view life’s origin and design from an evolutionary framework.
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Life in the Lab
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Evolution
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Intelligent Design
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Design
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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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