Christians Divided Over Science Of Human Origins

[Y]ou're either going to accept that the Bible gives us the authoritative word concerning the entirety of our understanding of things relative to who we are as human beings, what God did in creating the world and what God did for us in Christ. If the Bible is not the authoritative source for that and instead has to be corrected by modern science, then the Bible is just there for our manipulation, and quite frankly, the Gospel is there for constant renegotiation. It ends up being another Gospel, the very thing the apostle Paul warned against.

So said Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in this very interesting discussion from an NPR podcast about evolution science and the Genesis story of the Fall. I have a difficult time understanding such misguided attitudes that pit faith against reason and seem to "kick against the pricks" (Acts 9:5 KJV). Perhaps coming from a Catholic background accepting evolution just wasn't as difficult for me than for a Southern Baptist like Mohler. Indeed, this 1994 document from the Pontifical Biblical Commission speaks about the dangers and folly of such thinking:

Fundamentalism also places undue stress upon the inerrancy of certain details in the biblical texts, especially in what concerns historical events or supposedly scientific truth. It often historicizes material which from the start never claimed to be historical. It considers historical everything that is reported or recounted with verbs in the past tense, failing to take the necessary account of the possibility of symbolic or figurative meaning...

It is often narrowly bound to one fixed translation, whether old or present-day. By the same token it fails to take account of the "re-readings" of certain texts which are found within the Bible itself...

The fundamentalist approach is dangerous, for it is attractive to people who look to the Bible for ready answers to the problems of life. It can deceive these people, offering them interpretations that are pious but illusory, instead of telling them that the Bible does not necessarily contain an immediate answer to each and every problem. Without saying as much in so many words, fundamentalism actually invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide. It injects into life a false certitude, for it unwittingly confuses the divine substance of the biblical message with what are in fact its human limitations.

The mental gymnastics one must engage in to ignore evolution and deny what seems to be pretty clear from all disciplines of science, that the universe is older than 6,000 years, life evolved and humanity did not arise from a single couple, seems to make a mockery of faith in my view. I do not expect a Bronze Age writer to expound upon scientific theory as we might do so today. Such was not a part of their culture and would have been completely alien to their understanding of the world. No, the Creation story in Genesis wasn't meant to be taken as science or history in my view but instead as myth which conveys a moral tale with essential truths about the faith. It seems to me rather silly to be continuing an argument about this that should have ended decades ago. Still, a good discussion and a podcast I recommend.

Giant Crack in Africa Will Create a New Ocean

Sometimes science can be so cool to read about...

Cement’s basic molecular structure finally decoded

Considering how important cement is in my field, as well as to building in all modern nations, this is an interesting find.

Life After People?

A very interesting show that tries to answer the question: "How long would the material things of our modern civilization last if people just disappeared?". Instead of dwelling on how every last human is removed from the earth, which is mostly immaterial to the premise of the show, the focus is on the aftermath of our disappearance. I guess it's kind of like watching a car accident or any number of disaster movies, one is compelled to watch even if the subject makes them a bit queasy.

One of the reasons I enjoyed this program so much was due to the post-apocalyptic series by S.M. Stirling I've been reading. It's an enjoyable read but before watching this show I thought his description of how quickly the material things of modern civilization were essentially swallowed up by Mother Nature seemed a bit far-fetched. Having now seen this program it does appear that left unchecked, every material thing we see around us is indeed temporary and man's mastery of Nature a bit more illusory than we imagine. Rather sobering to think that the remnants of the ancient Greek & Egyptian cultures have lasted far longer than ours would if modern society collapsed. A fascinating program, I highly recommend it.

You can watch the rest of the show here. Enjoy!

How The Earth Was Made

A really cool History Channel special I happened to find on iTunes. A very fascinating look at the possible history of our planet. After watching this and given the Rare Earth Hypothesis championed by geologist & paeleontologist Peter Ward, I just cannot see how anyone can deny the existence of God. It's one thing to claim that one particular religion is in error, or even that all known religions are filled with errors given man's fallibility, yet it is quite another to claim that there is no God at all. Given the complexity of Earth's formation and 4.5 billion year history, as well as the possibility that our humble planet may be a rarity in this vast universe, all of this just screams the miraculous to me. Evolution is a no-brainer to me but attributing Life to "gamma rays that ignited the life-spark that ultimately created single-celled life-forms which, eventually through the magic of evolution", brought us man,to paraphrase Jonah Goldberg, takes far more faith in my estimation than believing in a Deity.

You can find the other parts to this show here. Enjoy.

Recycled Sewage: Coming to a Tap Near You?

Ugh. Interesting but not exactly something I want to think about when I turn on the tap...

Homosexuality & Evolution

Pretty decent response on the subject:

When Galaxies Collide...

Arp 81 is a strongly interacting pair of galaxies, seen about 100 million years after their closest approach. It consists of NGC 6621 (to the left) and NGC 6622 (to the right). NGC 6621 is the larger of the two, and is a very disturbed spiral galaxy.

Pretty cool images from the Hubble Space Telescope of various colliding galaxies . If you haven't seen the Hubblecast vidcast, I highly recommend it.

Scientists discover secret sex nerve

Researchers have only recently discovered an olfactory nerve that they believe is the route through which pheromones are processed. Nerve “O,” as it is called, slipped under the radar for many years because it is so tiny. However, when the nerve was discovered in a whale, scientists surmised that this little nerve might be found in humans as well. And it was!

So what is the role of Nerve “O”? Nerve “O” has endings in the nasal cavity, but the fibers go directly to the sexual regions of the brain. Indeed, these endings entirely bypass the olfactory cortex! Hence we know the role of Nerve “O” is not to consciously smell, but to identify sexual cues from our potential partners... (MSNBC)

Interesting discovery. Given previous research that the hypothalamuses ("a part of the brain that governs sexual arousal") of gay males responds the same way as heterosexual females to male pheromones, I'm curious whether this find is related in some way. It would be interesting to expand research on this to explore the possibility.

Medieval DNA To Help With HIV/AIDS Research?

The remains of what DNA analysis showed to be a boy found in the Dutch Medieval village Eindhoven, could prove to be revolutionary for both archaeology and modern research on HIV/AIDS:

This chance discovery of ancient DNA has led to one of the most ambitious archaeological projects ever to come out of the Netherlands--a massive excavation in the St. Catherine's Church cemetery and the establishment of a major ancient human DNA databank. With $3.4 million in funding, Arts and a team of archaeologists and physical anthropologists have now unearthed the skeletons of more than 750 Eindhoven citizens. And over the next two years, University of Leiden geneticist Peter de Knijff will attempt to recover DNA from these remains. "We expect that at least 75 percent of all individuals will have ancient DNA and proteins," says [Eindhoven Municipal Archaeologist, Nico] Arts.

For researchers, the Eindhoven DNA bank could prove a major windfall, paving the way for a host of new studies. To unravel the mysteries of human disease, researchers are increasingly studying genetic variations in human populations that increase the risk of illnesses, such as diabetes, or boost resistance to infections such as malaria. By studying the variants over time, researchers hope to advance knowledge of these diseases and gather clues to produce vaccines or new drug treatments. And such medical research is where the Eindhoven DNA bank, which spans 600 years of history, could really shine.

The Dutch team hopes, for example, that their project will reveal the origin and prevalence of a genetic variant that increases resistance to one of the world's most lethal viruses--HIV. Today, nearly 10 percent of people of northern European descent possess this variant, known as the CCR5D32 allele, and the discovery is sparking the development of a new class of AIDS-fighting drugs. Evidence suggests that this mutation first arose 3,100 to 7,800 years ago, but how did it become so prevalent across Europe in an age before the AIDS epidemic? Could this mutation also have boosted resistance to an earlier epidemic, such as smallpox or the Black Death? In search of new data, Knijff and his team will search for this variant in the DNA of Eindhoven's citizens. "There is no doubt that these studies are valuable," says Susan Scott, a University of Liverpool historian who has written extensively on the Black Death and its possible connection to the HIV-resistance variant. "Whilst I don't think [ancient DNA] studies will yield a vaccine for AIDS, they may assist molecular geneticists to develop some gene therapy." (Archaeology magazine)

Investigations into "why so many residents of Eyam, England, survived the black death when it hit the remote village in 1665", produced similar evidence for this genetic resistance. All in all, a fascinating blending of archaeology and modern medicine which has the potential of not only providing us more understanding of our ancestors, but possibly could assist in research for diseases like HIV/AIDS today.

For more on the excavation at Eindhoven, click here.

h/t Per Omnia Saecula

(this is also posted over on Gay Patriot)

First Evidence Of Another Universe Found?

ITWire reports that we may just have. Pretty cool. Long live the Terran Empire!!!

h/t Gay Orbit

National Geographic: Fight Science

This. Is. So. Effing. Cool.



Combine the deadly skill of the greatest martial arts with the geekiness of science (add a Hollywood touch in computer graphics too of course) and what do you get? Weird science of a kind that reeks of testosterone and sheer coolness. Forget Pokemon. My nephew is going to devour this show so intensely that I'll have to keep reminding him to breathe. Great concept actually, many people who have studied martial arts themselves or at least watched a few movies of that genre have wondered about how real some of the legends are. Wonder no more and watch this awesome documentary. Above is embedded just the trailer, but you can download the full show here or watch it on You Tube (sadly out-of-synch though). Courtesy of iTunes, you can also download some snippets to your iPod here. Enjoy.

Oldest Piece of Chewing Gum Found

Somehow I'm thinking that this 5,000 year old piece of gum has lost it's wintergreen flavor. See? Your Mom was right: it never goes away so don't swallow it ya maroon! (Metro)

Newton: World to end in 2060

His famously analytical mind worked out the laws of gravity and unravelled the motion of the planets.

And when it came to predicting the end of the world, Sir Isaac Newton was just as precise.

He believed the Apocalypse would come in 2060 – exactly 1,260 years after the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire, according to a recently published letter. (Evening Standard)

While Newton was a man of faith, this calculation of The End seems based more on "put[ting] a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end" than religious conviction. Nevertheless, an interesting find.

Evidence found for water on Mars?

Pretty cool.