Science

Speech and Silence

Through language, humans bring out the full potentiality hidden in matter, advance the building of bird nests and beaver dams to architecture and engineering, the gathering of nuts to farming, squawks and barks to music, and limited animal perception to the intellectual jewels of modern Western culture...

Salvation and Sufficiency: A Lesson from Statistics

In the world of statistics, sufficiency plays an important role in estimation. But what about sufficiency in other aspects of our lives? What about God? What about my eternal destiny? What is sufficient, here and now, to know all that I can know about my purpose in this...

Science Lost in Math

Now, when the subatomic world and the cosmological universe seem to reveal some of the inconsistencies in modern theoretical physics, could the whole idea of a world sitting on fundamental elements be in question? Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics

The Given as Gift

Introduction: If the God of the Bible is creator of the universe, then it is not possible to understand fully or even appropriately the processes of nature without any reference to that God. If, on...

“The End of the Cold War”

“Why can’t we eat normal food?” Frank moved the fried tempeh, steamed broccoli, and brown rice around on his plate with his dinner fork, much like the eight-year-old boy he was forty years ago. His wife’s jaw...

The Return of Storytelling in a Digital Age

Podcast stories, like reading, have the advantage of engaging the audience’s imagination. And lest the technophobes among us decry the dominance of gadgets, rather than the gadgetry taking us into a brave new world, the technology is actually allowing us to participate in a much older form of literature:...

Of Men, Monkeys, and Jared Diamond

For the twenty-first-century disciple of Darwin, man—though he possesses no essential, intrinsic worth that separates him from his chimpanzee cousins—has proven himself a most effective destroyer of that very mother nature who evolved him into his present form... The Third Chimpanzee, by Jared Diamond (432...

Science, Faith, and English Professors

While science and religion have differences that need reconciliation, you can regard the so-called ‘war’ between them as ‘fake.’ The history of science is entwined with our human search to discern a deeper understanding of our purpose within the universe....

Finding Refreshment in a World of Endless Work

It only took a moment. The smartphone was somewhere in the grass, forgotten. Our hands and jeans were covered in smears of purple and green sidewalk chalk. My two-year-old daughter and I were busy drawing roads and buildings...

Aliens, Elephants, and Angels

Some time ago while wasting time I came across a seemingly profound, but ultimately silly discussion which is prevalent within popular culture. It’s called the Fermi Paradox, and it goes like this: “There are billions of stars out there like the sun. Therefore, statistically there must be billions of planets like earth where...

A Death in New Mexico: The Old Healer

When I moved to Santa Fe, the City Different was a small, sleepy Western town with real stores around the Plaza, not upscale tourist traps that appeared after marketers invented the Santa Fe style. One day, I wandered...

Nature, Science, and Civilization

At its finest, the new conception of nature enabled people to appreciate, and wish to safeguard, the natural environment on which life depends. At its worst, this reverence for the natural world gave rise to a mindless sentimentality that regarded all human activity as harmful and exploitive...

Messages From Outer Space: Man, Contemplation, & Technology

All the minds of all the brilliant thinkers that the world has ever known will still come up pathetically short when compared with the grandeur of the universe. Technology, if it is to soberly measure its own capabilities and power, must approach the questions of the universe...

Apocalyptic Visions: Faith, Reason, & Science Fiction

The apocalyptic vision in science fiction is akin to the memento mori in mediaeval art. It reminds us of the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. And these last things remind us of the first things—most importantly the primary reality that we are made in...