-
June 1, 2011
With all the heat generated about global warming (or climate change) one might think that only humans affect Earth’s environment. After all, who else drives cars? Or dramatically alters the local landscape? Or burns fossil fuels to run businesses, produce power, and operate myriad electronic and mechanical devices? While these activities reside almost exclusively in the human arena, Earth’s habitability depends on far more drastic changes caused by other life.
-
February 1, 2011
In an ad for the Heart Institute that bears his name, Tommy Lasorda, former manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, says, “I don’t get heart attacks; I give them.” As manager of a Major League Baseball team, he did what he could to stress the hearts of competing managers. He also realized it was important for him to stress his own athletes to some degree so that they could become better athletes. And by making his players better, he reasoned, he would cause even greater stress and anxiety for competing managers.
-
February 1, 2011
Physicists study the universe through the prism of mathematics. Recognizing the important role mathematical constructs play in understanding the cosmos raises a critical philosophical question: How can the conceptual principles present in the human mind correspond to the structure of the physical universe itself? In other words, why should it be possible for Albert Einstein’s famous equation (E = mc2) to correspond to the very nature of the universe? Or put more simply: Why is mathematics valid?
-
February 1, 2011
Graduation, marriage, the birth of a child: these are all climactic events in a person’s life. Likewise, there have been a number of highlights in the history of life on Earth. One is the birth of complex or eukaryotic cells. Though often explained in evolutionary terms, a recent article published in the scientific literature raises questions as to whether an evolutionary perspective can adequately account for this milestone in life’s history.1
-
-
February 1, 2011
Radioisotope dating techniques have long provided evidence for Earth’s (and the universe’s) antiquity.
-
Radiometric Dating Techniques
-
February 1, 2011
When I was fulltime as a Caltech researcher, I blended in with my peers. I cut my own hair, maybe three times a year. I purchased my clothes and shoes at the Lucky supermarket. I bought pants three inches short so the cuffs wouldn’t get caught in my bicycle chain. I paid no attention to matching colors or patterns, only to comfort. I bought shirts with two chest pockets to hold all my pens, pencils, and a protractor. Because I eschewed pocket protectors (they were too uncomfortable), all my shirts sported ink stains. However, with scientific calculators horribly expensive in those days, I did hang a leather calculator holster from my belt.
-
February 1, 2011
It’s easy to get confused—especially when working on something complicated. Not many things are more convoluted than trying to figure out the behavior of Neanderthals from the fossil and archeological records. As it turns out, paleoanthropologists seem to have been mixed up about Neanderthal behavior for some time.
-
February 1, 2011
Many of us have heard from healthcare professionals we need to do whatever we can to minimize stress in our lives. The Bible fully acknowledges that too much stress or the wrong kind of stress can be damaging. At the same time, however, Scripture teaches that some level of stress is essential for both physical and spiritual health.
-
-
February 1, 2011
I grew up in the 70s: channeling Evel Knievel on my bike, carrying a Star Wars lunch box, and having some rather unfortunate encounters with bell-bottom pants. I’m sure I’m not alone in my recollection of a popular margarine commercial where viewers were admonished not to fool “Mother Nature.” Little did I know, this memorable tagline introduced me to a character who has come to dominate our cultural dialogue: Mother Nature or Mother Earth.
-
TCM - Faint Sun Paradox
-
Global Warming
-
General Apologetics
-
January 12, 2011
If a little is good, more must be better, right? Though it is tempting to live by this adage, it seldom turns out to be true. More is rarely better.
-
October 1, 2010
Imagine riding a “bicycle” with pedals attached to sled runner in place of wheels. It just wouldn’t work! Wheels allow even the most rudimentary bicycle to move across the ground in spite of all the other inefficiencies, like friction. In a system that provides the bulk of the energy used by life, biological organisms exhibit a design far more elegant than the wheel. To achieve a global diversity of life-forms, poor wheel design can be tolerated; but a non-fine-tuned photosynthetic process cannot.
-
October 1, 2010
Bestselling novelist Anne Rice recently repeated Gandhi’s sentiment. Twelve years ago, Rice left atheism and embraced Catholic Christianity, but she recently announced on her Facebook page, “Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out.” Elaborating further, she stated: “I remain committed to Christ as always but not being ‘Christian’ or to being part of Christianity...It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group.”2
-
-
October 1, 2010
Did Adam and Eve really exist? Did all humanity originate from a single pair? These questions are not peripheral topics for an academic debate; they are central to the Christian faith.
-
October 1, 2010
Over 300 years ago German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) asked what may still be the ultimate metaphysical question: “Why is there something rather than nothing?”1
-
October 1, 2010
The Moon has fascinated every one of my kids. Sometimes they would look out the window with their favorite stuffed animal. Often they made sure everybody knew the Moon’s location if they found it in the sky. My oldest son witnessed his first lunar eclipse at the age of four. This intriguing cosmic body has not only captivated my children’s imagination, but also provides a tool to help researchers find more detailed signatures that could tell us whether or not life exists on the Earth-sized planets astronomers are beginning to soon detect.
-
October 1, 2010
Research advances of recent months and years have allowed astronomers to develop a remarkably detailed model for the origin and history of the universe, called the LCDM inflationary hot big bang, or simply the standard cosmological model. The LCDM stands for a big bang universe with dark energy as the primary component and exotic dark matter as the second most dominant component—more specifically cold exotic dark matter, its particles moving at low velocities relative to the velocity of light.
-
-
October 1, 2010
Some children are naturally curious about science and want to become scientists. What can parents do to sustain that curiosity and equip children to achieve their life goals? More importantly, what can parents do to prepare their children to become distinctly Christian research scientists?
-
Kids
-
Learning
-
Educators/Homeschoolers
-
June 1, 2010
What is the most compelling evidence for human evolution? Many people would say it’s the close genetic similarity between humans and chimpanzees. Proponents of the evolutionary paradigm assert that the structure of human chromosome 2 provides axiomatic evidence that humans evolved from a shared ancestor with chimpanzees and bonobos.
-
June 1, 2010
Looking to the stars and beyond, Christians have marshaled arguments of their own through the centuries to contend for the existence of the God of the Bible. In terms of scientific relevance, the cosmological and teleological arguments(or “causal argument” and “argument from design”) represent the two most potent lines of reasoning.
-
June 1, 2010
Massive thunderstorms; earth-shattering quakes; climate-altering volcanic eruptions. Such extreme conditions on Earth seem like cap gun shots compared to what regularly happens in the vast reaches of the cosmos.
-