Wormholes could blast out blazing hot plasma at incredible speeds

 

Image courtesy of Rostislav Zatonskiy / Alamy

Joel Kontinen

Wormholes are a mystery in science. “They are that are surrounded by matter, like the ring that gathers around a black hole, could create strange rotating clouds of hot plasma. Anything that falls in one end could sh  oot out the other at 200 million kilometres per hour, or even faster if the wormhole is enormous.”

According to evolutionists, “a wormhole is a tunnel between two locations in space-time. The simplest versions of these hypothetical objects have black holes as “mouths” on either end of the throat connecting them – nothing. “

In science is so wonderful, even though we might not understand it, but in God’s creation everything is delightful.   

Source:

Leah Crane, 2024. Wormholes could blast out blazing hot plasma at incredible speeds | New Scientist 31 May

Human origins is a Big Mess

 

Aaustralopithecus africanus skull, by josé braga; cc by-sa 4.0.

Joel Kontinen

After publishing in Science, In this press release the senior author of the new study, Sergio Almécija, a senior research scientist at the American Museum of Natural History, is also quoted as offering this remarkable admission: “When you look at the narrative for hominin origins, it’s just a big mess — there’s no consensus whatsoever.”

As Gunthr Bechly said,  That is a fair assessment. It does not mean that these evolutionary speculations are all wrong or futile enterprises. However, it at least shows that those bold hardcore Darwinists, who think they can dismiss and rebuke Darwin critics and ID proponents with some grandiose claims of allegedly settled science, are not just vastly overstating their case but indeed are ignorant of the current state of the scientific debate. The question of human origins is far from being resolved and non-mainstream options should be explored based exclusively on the available evidence, rather than being rejected due to world-view bias.

Yes, the Scientific answer to the question of who was before us is s not fought in the Darwinian era.

Source

Bechly Günter. 2021. Scientists Conclude: HumanOrigins Research Is a Big Mess 10 May. 

 

Most Atheists Believe in The Supernatural, Despite Trusting Science, Says New Scientist

Image courtesy of: Zoe Margolis, CC BY 2.0.



Joel Kontinen

Do atheist belief in science that always shows what’s right. A recent New Scientist article might cause them harm.

“Belief in the supernatural is still alive and kicking, even among people who don’t believe in a god. Research on atheists and agnostics around the world has revealed that almost nobody can claim to completely reject irrational beliefs such as life after death, astrology, and the existence of a universal life-force.

The UK-based Understanding Unbelief project interviewed thousands of self-identified atheists and agnostics from six countries – Brazil, China, Denmark, Japan, US and UK. It found that despite their godlessness, a majority believe in at least one supernatural phenomenon or entity.”

As David F. Coppedge writes in creation evolution headlines New Scientist asked for the opinions of two atheists: Marjaana Lindeman of the University of Helsinki in Finland, was surprised by the findings. The other one, Jonathan Lanman, an anthropologist at Queen’s University Belfast and one of the leaders of the Understanding Unbelief project said that Humans are not rational.

The study concluded that some believed in life after death; others believed in underlying forces of good and evil; and some believed in other non-physical influences.

For instance, Richard Dawkins says that in a debate with Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, he described himself as an agnostic instead of an atheist. He said that the probability of God’s non-existence is 6.9 on a 7-point scale.

That would be 98.57 per cent. Expressed as a probability it would be 0.985714285.

The probability for winning the Finnish lottery this is 0.0000065. Thus, according to Dawkins’ logic, the probability that God exists is by far much greater that winning a few million euros in the lottery.

Moreover, even atheist believe that they are have lower morals than other people.

Could they also be wrong about the existence of God?

Source:

2019. Most atheists believe in the supernatural, despite trusting science. New Scientist (30 May).

The Truth About the Dark Agers

Roger Bacon. Image courtesy of Michael Reeve, CC BY-SA 3.0.




Joel Kontinen

Skeptics will tell us that the Middle Ages were exceptionally dark, at least in the intellectual and scientific realm. However, historians would disagree as many great inventions were made during that period .

When it comes to the dark agers, Atheists, like Bill Nye the “Science Guy,” or celebrity astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson, or the late Carl Sagan are /were telling a story that is not factual.

To combat the error, Michael Newton Keas has authored a book entitled “Unbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion.”

“Keas notes that Christians invented the institution of the university, in which ‘30 percent of the curriculum was devoted to science.’ He cites the example of Roger Bacon, an English monk and natural philosopher (1214-1292) whose work considered the properties of light and other scientific questions. “

However; It flatters die-hard secularists, to forget all this.

Source:

Klinghoffer, David, 2019. “No Astronomical Investigations of Importance” in the Middle Ages? Not True! Evolution news and views. (29 January).

Elon Musk Warns of an Immortal AI Dictator

As an idea, AI is not a recent invention. Image courtesy of Sybil Tawse, from Stories of Gods and Heroes (1920) by Thomas Bulfinch. Public Domain.




Joel Kontinen

Elon Musk used to team up with Stephen Hawking to warn of the dangers of artificial intelligence that might turn into a disaster for humans.

Not so long ago he said that AI was a bigger threat than North Korea.

Musk shares his fears in a new AI documentary called Do You Trust This Computer?

He is afraid that in contrast to human dictators – who will eventually die – it would be practically impossible to get rid of an AI dictator:

"At least when there's an evil dictator, that human is going to die,” Live Science quotes Musk as saying, "But for an AI there would be no death. It would live forever, and then you'd have an immortal dictator, from which we could never escape."

However, the second law of thermodynamics practically guarantees that nothing we make will last forever, but it will break down – sooner or later.

The only thing that remains is the Bible, the Word of God. And it definitely rules out an immortal AI dictator.

Source:

Specktor, Brandon. 2018. Elon Musk Worries That AI Research Will Create an 'Immortal Dictator'. Live Science (8 April).

Fake Science Papers in the News

Image courtesy of Frederick Burr Opper, Public Domain.




Joel Kontinen

In 2015, a group of Chinese scientists published a paper entitled “Nucleolin Promotes TGF-β Signaling Initiation via TGF-β Receptor I in Glioblastoma” in the Journal of Molecular Neuroscience.

While it might sound like a genuine scientific paper, there is little genuine in it. 1) Its stated funding source was not the real funding source. 2) One of the co-authors admitted he had not taken part in the research or in writing the paper and didn’t even know about the study. 3) The senior author acknowledged that he had not taken part in the submission process and did not support its publication. 4) The journal’s editors suspected that the peer-review process was compromised,

The paper was retracted in June 2017. This year, the journal’s publisher Springer has retracted over 100 scientific papers, prompting Live Science to begin an article with the words:

“Lies, exaggerations, criminal acts, unbridled irony, alternative facts,
fake news … No, we're not talking about 2017 politics. This is the 2017 world of science.”

The article goes on to say:

“This past year, hundreds of scientific papers were retracted from professional journals. In the majority of cases involving these retractions, the reason was an innocent, yet sloppy, error in the methodology of the experiment that the authors themselves caught. But for quite a few papers, the retractions reflected scientific misconduct and a not-so-innocent attempt to tweak the data — or make it up entirely.”

And Live Science didn’t even mention the case of a dog sitting on the editorial board of 7 journals.

It seems that scientific misconduct thrives in the Darwinian community.

Quite often, big science gives rise to big lies.

Source:

Wanjek, Christopher. 2017. Lies, Mistakes & More: These Scientific Papers Got Nixed in 2017. Live Science (27 December).

Elon Musk: AL Is a Bigger Threat to Us than North Korea

Image courtesy of Gnsin, CC BY-SA 3.0.




Joel Kontinen

Who’s afraid of artificial intelligence?

"If you're not concerned about AI safety, you should be. Vastly more risk than North Korea," Elon Musk tweeted on 11 August.

The billionaire businessman has previously suggested that
humans are living in a computer simulation.

Now, however, he has begun to echo Stephen Hawking, who has previously warned us of the very same danger.

The threat is more sci.fi that anything else. Machines can only do what they are programmed to do.

Could this fear stem from the naturalistic worldview in which mind is assumed to have arisen from matter?

In real life, it doesn’t.

Source:

Chow, Denise. 2017. Elon Musk: AI Poses Bigger Threat to Humanity Than North Korea. Live Science (16 August).

Time to Kill a Science Myth?

Image courtesy of Becker1999, Creative Commons (CC BY 2.0).





Joel Kontinen

The war on science is a leftist slogan that has little or any bearing on reality, but rather serves as a warning example of Orwellian newspeak.

It has nevertheless brought thousands of people on the streets, but they might actually not know how science works.

Writing in Nature, Daniel Sarewitz takes on the myth that basic research is a “miracle machine” that would benefit all citizens:

“But the myth of the miracle machine harms science and society because it shields scientists from accountability, governance and being responsive to human needs. A major reason that pervasive problems such as poor quality publications, hyper-competition and hype have been allowed to fester is the miracle-machine ideology: give us money, leave us alone and we’ll solve the world’s problems.”

It is not difficult to agree with him that ideology plays a major role in today’s naturalistic science. This might be a good thing for the researchers who get paid, but not so much for society.

Perhaps it would indeed be best to “kill the myth of the miracle machine,” as Dr. Sarewitz puts it.

Source:

Sarewitz, Daniel. 2017. Kill the myth of the miracle machine. Nature 547, 139.

High Time to Distrust Peer Review: Dog Sits on the Editorial Board of 7 Journals

A dog like this sits on the editorial board of seven medical journals. Image courtesy of Andrejco, public domain.





Joel Kontinen

Dr. Olivia Doll sits on the editorial board of seven medical journals.

Her CV says that she holds a degree from Subiaco College of Veterinary Science, where she currently works as senior lecturer and is an expert in canine massage. It also lists her past work at Shenton Park Institute for Canine Refuge Studies.

Dr. Olivia Doll happens to be a Staffordshire terrier named Ollie. The Shenton Park Institute is a code term for a dog shelter.

The five-year-old terrier is owned by Professor Mike Daube. He invented Dr. Doll’s credentials in an attempt to examine how carefully medical journals vet their reviewers.

Not very carefully, obviously.

None of the journals suspected anything fishy about this reviewer. She was even offered the position of associate editor of the Global Journal of Addiction and Rehabilitation Medicine.

Peer review and proper scientific conduct seem to be in a crisis. Journals have accepted bogus papers, and scientific misconduct thrives in the Darwinian world.

Source:

Ghose, Tia. 2017. Dog 'Scientist' Sits on Editorial Board of Medical Journals. Live Science (31 May).

New Scientist Admits: Liberals Are Biased And Deluded

Image courtesy of Becker1999, Creative Commons (CC BY 2.0).



Joel Kontinen

New Scientist has admitted that liberals are “just as deluded as everybody else.”

Reporting on several recent studies, NS concludes that liberals are anything but open-minded.

Research published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology suggests that like anybody else they were so “averse to listening to opposing viewpoints on hot-button issues, such as same-sex marriage [that]…they were willing to give up the chance to win money just to avoid the unpleasantness of hearing an opinion they disliked.”

The NS article uses expressions like 'the Regressive Left' and admits that American university culture is toxic and intolerant, thanks to "liberals".

NS also discloses that people who regard themselves as progressives and vote for Democrats, do not necessarily embrace science – even though they might march for it:

“Consider Seattle, a city that voted 87 per cent for Hillary Clinton and is proudly one of the most progressive … in the US. A warm embrace of scientific reality doesn’t come with the territory: Seattle isn’t terribly fond of biotechnology, rejecting GMOs and even vaccines. Rwanda’s childhood polio vaccination rate is higher than Seattle’s. As for other vaccines, including MMR, only five US states have higher exemption rates than Washington State.”

We welcome the opportunity to agree with NS’ conclusions, as this doesn’t happen too often. (Here’s one noticeable exception.)

Recent weeks have provided us with empirical proof of how closed-minded liberals really are.

Bill Nye, for instance, would rather suck than explore the merits in alternatives to his godless worldview.

This is probably also true of men like Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins.

Source:

Berezow, Alex. 2017. Liberals are no strangers to confirmation bias after all. New Scientist (28 April).

Big Science, Big Lies, Scientific Fraud

It seems that Darwinian morality is having a bad effect on science.




Joel Kontinen

Big science has a big problem.

New Scientist has cultivated the phrase post-truth world quite a bit recently, especially before, during and after the recent US presidential elections.

It put the blame on politicians. However, it is now becoming increasingly obvious that scientists can’t afford to throw the first stone.

Time and again, they have had to warn of fake science stories and even outright fabrications.

Recently, Timothy Clark issued a dire warning in Nature. A senior research fellow at the University of Tasmania, he is worried about the spread of dishonesty in science:

The introduction sets the tone of the article:

“Too many researchers make up or massage their data, says Timothy D. Clark Only stringent demands for proof can stop them.”

Then he discloses some very alarming facts:

“Late last month, a US physicist began a jail sentence for scientific fraud. Darin Kinion took funds for research on quantum computing but did not carry out the work he claimed; instead, he invented the data that the research supposedly produced.”

And we have heard of several similar cases.

Clark goes on to say:

“Scientists like to think that such blatant dishonesty is rare, but I myself have witnessed several serious cases of scientific misconduct, from major data manipulation to outright fabrication. Most have gone unpunished — in fact, it has been disheartening to see the culprits lauded. It makes little sense for fraudsters to fabricate mediocre data. Their falsehoods generate outstanding stories, which result in high-profile publications and a disproportionately large chunk of the funding pie.

I have noticed a lesser-known motive for bad science in my field, experimental biology. As environmental change proceeds, there is great demand from the public and policy¬makers for simple stories that show the damage being done to wildlife. I occasionally meet scientists who argue that the questions we ask and the stories we tell are more important than the probity of our investigations: the end justifies the means, even if the means lead to data fabrication. That view is alarmingly misguided and has no place in science.”

The underlying problem is that scientists often have an agenda. This is at times glaringly obvious in the Darwinian community.

Researchers seek to find evidence for assumed transitional forms or missing links, for instance.

Remember Darwinius massillae, better known as Ida?

Or Eoanthropus dawsoni aka. Piltdown Man or perhaps even Nebraska Man?

Scientific misconduct thrives in the Darwinian community as evolution does not give objective grounds for morality.

Source:

Clark, Timothy D. 2017. Science, lies and video-taped experiments. Nature 542, 139. (7 February).

Why Compromise Is Not the Answer to the Science vs. Religion Debate

Is this science? Image courtesy of K1234567890y, public domain.




Joel Kontinen

Both the popular media and science publications often address the science – religion dialogue that in effect looks much more like a debate than a dialogue.

What is more, the terms are defined very carelessly. By science they almost always mean the search for the best naturalistic explanation for a certain phenomenon.

Sometimes, however, the best naturalistic explanation is as wrong as wrong could be.

Recently, Nature published a worldview article by Kathryn Pritchard, who works for the Archbishop Council in the Church of England. She discusses things like multiverses (that have nothing to do with science).

The problem with approaches like these is that the ”science” side wants the ”religion” side to accept its thinking uncritically, adding millions of years of naturalistic processes to what the Bible says.

That is not true dialogue. That is compromise. The naturalistic side will not accept key biblical events, such as supernatural creation, the Fall and the Flood, and does not see the fine tuning we see all around us – and in us – as signs left by the Creator, as the naturalistic view does not accept a creator.

Moreover, describing the issue as a dialogue between science and religion amounts to misleading people. With its myriads of unscientific things like quantum fluctuations, cosmic inflation and abiogenesis, naturalistic science steps outside the realm of true science and is, in effect, almost like religion.



Source:


Pritchard, Kathryn. 2016. Religion and science can have a true dialogue. Nature 537 (7621), 451.

RIO2016: The The Ryan Lochte Case and the Science of Lying

The Darwinian world does not see lying as a big issue.




Joel Kontinen

Can science explain why some people choose to tell lies?

Live Science published an article that attempts to say that it does. The conclusion was inspired by the story that U.S. swimmer Ryan Lochte and three of his team mates told the press.

They claimed that they were robbed at gunpoint.

However, surveillance cameras told a very different story. The article suggests that the swimmers lied in order to avoid embarrassment.

It speculates that lying starts at a very young age. Adults might use the same strategy they learnt as kinds to wiggle out of a difficult situation. The obvious motive is to avoid punishment and embarrassment.

It should not matter in a Darwinian world whether individuals told outright lies, as it does not acknowledge the existence of a Divine Lawgiver who ultimately sets the rules.

Even scientists can’t always resist misconduct.

It’s a very different story in a Christian world. Truth is all-important, and God’s Word infers that lying is a sin.

Source:

Kubota, Taylor. 2016. Lochte's Lies: How Science Explains Fibbers. Live Science (19 August).

Thank Evolution for Bad Science

Is Charles Darwin culpable for bad science?



Joel Kontinen

The scientific community is facing a huge crisis.

Increasingly, researchers are publishing results that others can’t replicate. Scientific misconduct is on the rise. Many papers have been retracted, as scientists were less than rigorous in their research.

Unfortunately, at least one good paper was also retracted for no other reason than its use of two non-Darwinian keywords.

Now two scientists are proposing an interesting reason for increasing scientific misconduct: evolutionary forces.

Writing in New Scientist, Simon Oxenham says:

“Paul Smaldino and Richard McElreath at the University of California Davis used an evolutionary theory-based computational model to analyse the problem of bad science. They found that ‘the most powerful incentives in contemporary science actively encourage, reward and propagate poor research methods and abuse of statistical procedures’. In short, it’s natural selection for shoddy science.”

Well, if that is what evolution-believing researchers think, how can we trust anything they say?

While scientists are fond of using words like ‘innovative’, ‘groundbreaking’ and ‘novel’ in the abstracts of their papers, they tend to exaggerate the importance of their findings:

“Smaldino and McElreath found that their model pushed researchers to do less rigorous science, and publish more false positives. They suggest that their model shows that bad science can be explained as a result of the evolutionary selective pressures that are acting on scientists.”

Putting it in slightly different words, it seems that scientific misconduct thrives in the Darwinian community.

For instance, evolutionary psychologist Marc Hauser, a champion of Darwinian morality, was accused of scientific misconduct.

So perhaps we should thank evolution for bad science.

Source:

Oxenham, Simon. 2016. Evolutionary forces are causing a boom in bad science. New Scientist (8 July).

Elon Musk, Computer Simulations and Transhumanism: Atheists Are Getting Religion

A virtual world? Image courtesy of Maurizio Pesce, Creative Commons (CC BY 2.0).




Joel Kontinen

Are atheists embracing religious belief? Writing in The Spectator, journalist Daniel Jackson thinks that they are.

But it is not a theistic faith they have accepted. They obviously believe that they can evolve into secular gods, with a little help from technology.

This approach is known as trans-humanism or post-humanism.

Billionaire businessman Elon Musk famously said that we might be living in a computer simulation.

This, of course, would necessitate belief in some sort of intelligent design, as a computer simulation does not just happen.

Some believe that given “the increasing pace of progress in computer technology, we will eventually be able to synthesise reality and consciousness.”

Mr. Musk’s beliefs prompted Jackson to write:

“It is a tired argument, but Atheists are increasingly behaving like members of a religious sect. There is factionalism and infighting amongst them. They have icons; Spinoza, Darwin, Dawkins (and something close to a martyr in Christopher Hitchens). And now they can choose to believe in a creator.”

Atheists can revere Charles Darwin, as he popularised a creation myth known to both ancient Indian and Greek philosophers, featuring descent with modification in which marine creatures crawl onto dry land and gradually change into terrestrial animals and some eventually into humans.

This, if anything, is a religious view but a version that knows nothing of sins committed against a transcendental Creator and their dire consequences.

Atheists want to have a say in how this assumed evolution will proceed in the coming days. While scientism seems to run the show, a better word might be wishful thinking.

The Spectator article describes it as bunkum.

Source:

Jackson, Daniel. 2016. Atheists are embracing Gods and creationism. The Spectator (8 June).

Transhumanist Wants to Turn Us Into Gods

Yearning to transcend human limitations. Image courtesy of greyloch, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).





Joel Kontinen

Transhumanist Zoltan Istvan thinks humans have a huge problem:

“Humans are handicapped by our biology. We operate tens of thousands of years behind evolution with our inherited instincts, which means our behavior is not suited towards its current environment.”

He seems to think that he has found a solution to our dilemma:

“Futurists like to say evolution is always late to the dinner party. We have instincts that apply to our biology in a world that existed ages ago; not a world of skyscrapers, cell phones, jet air travel, the Internet, and CRISPR gene editing technology. We must catch up to ourselves. We must evolve our thinking to adapt to where we are in the evolutionary ascent. We must force our evolution in the present day via our reasoning, inventiveness, and especially our scientific technolog. In short, we must embrace transhumanism -- the radical field of science that aims to turn humans into, for lack of a better word, gods.”

This has next to nothing to do with orthodox Darwinism that relies on random processes.

We already are wonderfully made, but we can never become gods, regardless of what we do. But we can become God’s children through faith in Christ.

“The transhumanist believes we should immediately work to improve ourselves via enhancing the human body and eliminating its weak points. This means ridding ourselves of flesh and bones, and upgrading to new cybernetic tissues, alloys, and other synthetic materials, including ones that make us cyborg-like and robotic. It also means further merging the human brain with the microchip and the impending digital frontier. Biology is for beasts, not future transhumanists.”

It seems that Mr. Istvan has read a bit more science fiction than is good for his health.

Transhumanists are by no means the first to think of superhumans. Friedrich Nietzsche toyed with the idea in the late 19th century, and Aldous Huxley envisioned his brave new world way back in 1931.

And then we heard about Superman and Batman and a big bunch of other comic book characters.

There is a tendency to see science as a secular saviour that can solve all our problems.

It might be good to remember that C. S. Lewis already warned of scientism.

Moreover, wishful thinking will not solve humanity’s basic problem that is sin.

Source:

Istvan, Zoltan. 2016. Transhumanism and Our Outdated Biology. The Huffington Post (21 April).

Religious Belief May Promote Scientific Creativity and Insight, New Study Suggests

David Livingstone meets Henry Morton Stanley. Image courtesy International Mission Photography Archive, ca.1860-ca.1960, public domain.




Joel Kontinen

Religious faith might not be a bad thing for a top scientist. The pioneers of modern science (for instance Robert Hooke, Sir Isaac Newton and Louis Pasteur) were Christians. In spite of what atheists might claim, “from 1901 to 2000, 654 Nobel laureates, or nearly 90 percent, belonged to one of 28 religions.”

A new paper published in PLOS ONE attempts to fathom the assumed dichotomy between science and belief. The researchers believe they were able to explain this by the structure of our brains.

They also found that people of faith tend to be more prosocial and empathic than those who take a more analytical approach to the great questions of life.

Even some atheists acknowledge that religion is good for us.

However, religions do differ. Christianity is the most pro-social religion, but political correctness would not allow the researchers to say so. Christians have done much to make the world a better place. William Wilberforce and David Livingstone fought against the slave trade, for instance.

"Having empathy doesn't mean you necessarily have anti-scientific beliefs. Instead, our results suggest that if we only emphasize analytic reasoning and scientific beliefs, as the New Atheist movement suggests, then we are compromising our ability to cultivate a different type of thinking, namely social/moral insight," says Jared Friedman, a co-author of the paper.

The study throws cold water on those who emphasise the bad consequences of religion: “Religious belief is associated with greater compassion, greater social inclusiveness and greater motivation to engage in pro-social actions.”

The paper’s lead author, associate professor Anthony Ian Jack, also issued a warning: "Religion has no place telling us about the physical structure of the world; that's the business of science.”

This perhaps reflects the same journal’s recent episode featuring the Creator’s design that attracted much attention – and ire – from some atheists.

Source:

Case Western Reserve University. 2016. Conflict between science, religion lies in our brains. Science Daily (23 March).

350 Years Ago: Creationist Robert Hooke Published First Book on Animals Seen through a Microscope

An illustration of a flea in Hooke’s book Micrographia. Image courtesy of the National Library of Wales, public domain.




Joel Kontinen

In 1655 Robert Hooke’s book Micrographia made history. For the first time people could see what parasites, plants and small insects looked like.

Robert Hooke (1635 –1703) was one of the most important pioneers of modern science. A member of the Royal Society, he was a polymath who has been likened to Leonardo da Vinci.

A ScienceShot article says,

“Robert Hooke was one of history’s most important scientists, coining the word ’cell’ and making profound contributions to timekeeping, astronomy, physics, and microscopy. He also argued, controversially in Micrographia, that fossils were the mineralized remains of ancient living organisms. We’ve learned a lot in the intervening centuries, but Hooke’s illustrations still inspire us to look closer.”

What the brief article in Science does not say is that Hooke gave glory to God. He was humble enough to acknowledge that seeing life through a microscope indicated that compared to us, the Maker of all living beings is really awesome:

““The more we magnify the object, the more excellencies and mysteries do appear; And the more we discover the imperfections of our senses, and the Omnipotency and Infinite perfections of the great Creator.”

Like many other pioneers of modern science, for instance, Sir Isaac Newton and Louis Pasteur, Hooke believed in God, who is introduced to us in the Book of Genesis.



Sources:

Harrison, Peter. 2001. The Bible, Protestantism and the Rise of Natural Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rogers, Nala. 2015. Hooke opened up the world of the unseen 350 years ago. ScienceShot (16 October).

History Professor Busts Atheistic Myths

An article in Salvo magazine discusses the relationship of science and religion.


Joel Kontinen

The purported conflict between science and religion is an atheistic myth, Professor Michael Keas writes in Salvo magazine. He says that while leading historians of science, for instance Ronald Numbers, have exposed this as “the greatest myth in the history of science and religion,” many advocates of atheism have continued to use this false argument.

Discussing their views, Prof. Keas says, “An anti-Christian agenda … often lurks below.” He points out that far from hampering science, Christianity actually promoted the growth of science:

“Science and biblical religion have been friends for a long time. Judeo-Christian theology has contributed in a friendly manner to such science-promoting ideas as discoverable natural history, experimental inquiry, universal natural laws, mathematical physics, and investigative confidence that is balanced with humility. Christian institutions, especially since the medieval university, have often provided a supportive environment for scientific inquiry.”

Keas shows that the expression Dark Ages is a misnomer. During the Medieval Period, the Church never hindered scientific progress. Most people never really believed in a flat earth, and the Galileo affair had more to do with the conflict between the Aristotelian view and Copernican cosmology than with theology. In the early 17th century, “the Aristotelian viewpoint, held by most church leaders, was the majority scientific view of the time.”

Thus, even if sceptics might not like Christianity, they should not argue against it by using false arguments.


Source:

Keas, Michael. 2013. In the Beginning: Episodes in the Origin & Development of Science. Salvo 26 Science & Faith Supplement.

Flat Earth Is The Sceptics’ Own Myth

Emperor Fredrick I Barbarossa holds the symbol of Earth (an orb) in his hand. Painting from the 13th century. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.






Joel Kontinen

Sceptics often claim that the Bible says that the Earth is flat. They believe that the writer(s) of Genesis had embraced the Babylonian worldview.

This myth does not stem from the Bible. Several Scripture passages speak of a round earth.

There is no evidence that even medieval Christians believed in a flat earth. On the contrary, the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire had an orb that symbolised the earth.

Like all orbs, the Emperor’s symbol was round – the same shape as the earth in the Old Testament Book of Isaiah (ca. 700 BC).

Sceptics invented the flat earth much later.