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August 1, 2012
This all-too-familiar slogan has become the rallying cry for insurance companies trying to convince consumers to purchase adequate coverage for their homes and automobiles. But in many ways, it also describes the scientific enterprise. The unexpected is very much a part of the process of scientific discovery and has become commonplace over the last decade.
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Scientific Evidence for a Young Earth
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August 1, 2012
Many readers of John Walton’s best-selling book, The Lost World of Genesis One, see it as a polemic against concordism and of Reasons To Believe’s concordist view in particular. In The Lost World of Genesis One’s first proposition, the Wheaton College professor of Old Testament defines concordism: “Concordists believe the Bible must agree—be in concord with—all the findings of contemporary science.”
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General Apologetics
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Biblical Inerrancy
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August 1, 2012
Surprisingly, some believers throughout church history have agreed with nonbelievers in proclaiming that Christianity is not compatible with reason. Nevertheless a powerful consensus within the history of the faith has argued that the historic Christian faith involves knowledge and is indeed compatible with reason. This historic agreement has often been expressed in the statement: “faith seeking understanding.” Its most articulate and persuasive spokespersons through the centuries have been such great Christian thinkers as Augustine, Anselm, and Thomas Aquinas.1
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Philosophy of Religion
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Logic
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August 1, 2012
Astronomical events can dramatically affect life on Earth. For instance, it is well-established that a large meteor impact emanating from the solar system wiped out the dinosaurs (and many other species) about 65 million years ago. Yet, even more-distant processes may play a larger role in explaining the history and diversity of life on Earth.
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August 1, 2012
The last decade witnessed a number of devastating earthquakes, with death tolls among the highest in recorded history.
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August 1, 2012
Abundant scientific evidence establishes that life originated on Earth in a geologic instant (no time).1 Additionally, life arose without benefit of any prebiotic building block molecules (no soup), and without any natural mechanism to produce amino acids and sugars with only one-handedness. However, rather than credit God, many origin-of-life researchers claim that life arrived on Earth from outer space.
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August 1, 2012
One of the things about myself that’s bothersome is a tendency to take things in life for granted. Instead of being consciously grateful and appreciative for the many good things I have been given, I too often simply come to expect them. And the more common and familiar these blessings are, the greater the tendency to just expect them. As a husband I too often neglect expressing my appreciation to my gracious and loving wife. As an American I too often take the precious freedom offered me by this great country for granted without recognizing how so many Americans have sacrificed so deeply to preserve that freedom.
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August 1, 2012
For hundreds of years, astronomy played a vital role in the foundation for a solid liberal arts education. While the trend has moved away from that standard, the modern classical education movement advocates a form of the traditional curriculum. Even so, astronomy often remains relegated to an optional high school elective or limited to a six-week unit at the end of a geology text.
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Educators/Homeschoolers
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Astronomy and the Bible
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August 1, 2012
The Dead Sea Scrolls are considered by many to be the most important archaeological discovery ever made. One of the many tools used to verify their authenticity was carbon-14 dating.1 This technique has helped verify the timing of key biblical artifacts, including Hezekiah’s tunnel.2
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Radiometric Dating Techniques
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May 1, 2012
Young-earth (YE) and old-earth (OE) creationists disagree on a great number of scientific issues—most prominently the ages of the Earth and universe—but both groups generally agree on the astronomical distances measured with telescopes. The Sun sits just over eight light-minutes away, the center of the Milky Way Galaxy at 25,000 light-years, the Andromeda Galaxy around 2.5 million light-years, and the most distant quasars up to 13 billion light-years away. These distances pose no problems for inflationary, big bang models of the universe (consistent with an OE view), but the YE creationist models have a “distant starlight problem.” How do observers see such distant objects in a few-thousand-year-old universe?
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Scientific Evidence for a Young Earth
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May 1, 2012
Who’s the father of computer science? Although not a household name, Alan Turing (1912–1954) and his work have impacted nearly every facet of human existence. When he was 24 years of age, the British mathematician developed the theoretical framework that makes digital computing possible. This framework is embodied by an abstract, conceptual machine called a Turing machine.
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May 1, 2012
Flatness can be good or bad. Flat champagne or a flat tire is not good. On the other hand, everybody seems to want a flat stomach.
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May 1, 2012
What is the best way to show that the historic Christian faith and worldview are true? Christian apologists through the centuries have taken different approaches, but a powerful method gaining acceptance among Christian thinkers today is called best explanation or cumulative case apologetics.1
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Logic
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General Apologetics
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May 1, 2012
Who doesn’t enjoy a good mystery? The CSI franchise of television crime dramas ranks among the most popular TV programs in the world. Another scientific whodunit could be even more intriguing than any episode of CSI: What caused Neanderthals to become extinct? Researchers have run into unexpected twists and turns in the drama as they’ve applied increasingly sophisticated scientific methods to solve this mystery.1
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TCM - Human Origins
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Neanderthals
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May 1, 2012
Well, it wasn’t exactly scuttlebutt, but a team of scientists created quite a stir in the physics and astronomy community last September (2011) with a subatomic particle speed measurement. According to their research, neutrinos traveled from the France/Switzerland border to a detector in Italy at superluminal (faster-than-light) speeds. Numerous popular and semitechnical publications as well as countless blogs reported and discussed the finding, and rightfully so. If the result withstands scientific scrutiny it would undermine one key tenet of Albert Einstein’s almost-universally-accepted general relativity.
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May 1, 2012
Sean Stone, son of famous moviemaker Oliver Stone, recently declared: “I am a Jewish Christian Muslim.”1 Is such a provocative religious claim justifiable?
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May 1, 2012
The foundation for evaluating any science textbook begins with a consideration of the textbook author’s approach to studying the natural world. That methodology will guide how the data is presented and analyzed. Christian curricula generally adopt three different approaches to understanding the relationship between science and Scripture.
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May 1, 2012
Biochemist Fuz Rana provides a compelling case for the use of Turing machines as a possible theoretical framework that could help biologists gain greater insight into life’s operation at its most basic level (see “Biochemical Turing Machines ‘Reboot’ the Watchmaker Argument”). His discussion is a modern formulation of a long-standing apologetics tradition called the teleological argument––or most commonly known as the argument from design.
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Intelligent Design Movement
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March 1, 2012
One of the ways a creation perspective differs from an evolutionary perspective may be seen in its explanation of humanity’s arrival time. Evolutionists say we humans showed up after 3.8 billion years of Earth history because natural processes required that amount of time to transform the first relatively simple life-forms into immensely complex human beings. As I read Psalm 104, I encounter a different story. It’s a message of God’s thoughtful provision of layer upon layer upon layer of life, all to benefit human existence and, specifically, our development of civilization, even advanced technology.
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February 1, 2012
I enjoy watching The New Yankee Workshop and Ask This Old House. Both of these programs showcase the skills of master craftsman Norm Abrams and others as they fabricate elegant home furniture or renovate homes. Almost without exception, I discover better designs and building techniques for the home projects I undertake. In similar and increasing fashion, scientists and engineers look to one source of superior designs––biological organisms––as they seek to build more efficient, elegant, robust, and functional devices. Three examples of such biological mimicry demonstrate the potential for exciting applications.
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