Climategate and the Death of Science?

Padre Steve at Da Mihi Animas posted this video clip from the Wall Street Journal.


Many years ago, I read at least one of Fr. Stanley Jaki's books, probably Science and Creation: From Eternal Cycles to an Oscillating Universe. There, I learned that science, as we know it today, depends on the Christian worldview. Unfortunately, as the Christian influence on society fades away, genuine science is being replaced by politicized science. Global warming, of course is the prime example today, thanks to the exposure of the conspiracy to falsify the data, but Darwinism has a similar track record. "Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts," as somebody said, but if there is no objective truth, then why not have your own facts?

Science is unusual as an institution because it has no authority. Think about it -- authority is the right to be believed or obeyed. If you have true authority, the only reason you need to give is "because I said so." But science can never say that. The minute that it does, it ceases to become science. An individual scientist, for instance a man who has spent 30 years studying beetle eyes, acquires a great authority in his one field, but even he has to be able to answer the objections of his students. Let us hope that this will be the beginning of a critical appraisal of modern science that will cleanse it of its falsehood.

TTL

The Manhattan Declaration

Great news! A group of religious and civil leaders have given us the Manhattan Declaration, a truly Christian manifesto on the great dangers that threaten us today.

The declaration focuses on three main dangers.

1. the sanctity of human life
2. the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
3. the rights of conscience and religious liberty.

The declaration is well worth reading. It has a summary of the Christian record on social issues...

Christians are heirs of a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God’s word, seeking justice in our societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering.
While fully acknowledging the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions and communities in all ages, we claim the heritage of those Christians who defended innocent life by rescuing discarded babies from trash heaps in Roman cities and publicly denouncing the Empire’s sanctioning of infanticide. We remember with reverence those believers who sacrificed their lives by remaining in Roman cities to tend the sick and dying during the plagues, and who died bravely in the coliseums rather than deny their Lord.
After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries preserved not only the Bible but also the literature and art of Western culture. It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries decried the practice of slavery and first excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade; evangelical Christians in England, led by John Wesley and William Wilberforce, put an end to the slave trade in that country. Christians under Wilberforce’s leadership also formed hundreds of societies for helping the poor, the imprisoned, and child laborers chained to machines.

And a note on how the Gospel imposes demands on us today.

Christians today are called to proclaim the Gospel of costly grace, to protect the intrinsic dignity of the human person and to stand for the common good. In being true to its own calling, the call to discipleship, the church through service to others can make a profound contribution to the public good.



We act together in obedience to the one true God, the triune God of holiness and love, who has laid total claim on our lives and by that claim calls us with believers in all ages and all nations to seek and defend the good of all who bear his image. We set forth this declaration in light of the truth that is
grounded in Holy Scripture, in natural human reason (which is itself, in our view, the gift of a beneficent God), and in the very nature of the human person. We call upon all people of goodwill, believers and non-believers alike, to consider carefully and reflect critically on the issues we here address as we, with St. Paul, commend this appeal to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.

While the whole scope of Christian moral concern, including a special concern for the poor and vulnerable, claims our attention, we are especially troubled that in our nation today the lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are severely threatened; that the institution of marriage, already buffeted by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is in jeopardy of being redefined to accommodate fashionable ideologies; that freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized by those who would use the instruments of coercion to compel persons of faith to compromise their deepest convictions.

The Manhattan Declaration is by no means perfect, but it is a very solid and well-reasoned document. I urge everyone to go and sign it.

This is also a fine example of ecumenism at its best. These leaders were not watering down the Gospel to try to make it acceptable to everyone; they were proclaiming it in the face of a hostile and increasingly violent society. (I do not overlook the fact that it does not condemn artificial contraception.)

Now is the time to speak out against the culture of death. America is falling under the grip of a totalitarian ideology working through the courts, politics and a near monopoly of social communications. As Solzhenitsyn said, the only way to resist violence is with firmness.

TTL

Star Trek

The recent Star Trek movie "reboots" the popular science fiction series, being both an origin and (through a temporal anomaly which I will not reveal here) redefinition of the crew we love from the original 1960's television series. This is a fun and exciting film which science fiction fans should see.

The film introduces James T. Kirk as a juvenile delinquent (both very juvenile and very delinquent), probably because Kirk's father died shortly after he was born. He finds himself recruited into Starfleet by Captain Pike (a name familiar to real Trekkies), who believes that Kirk has real potential. Pike, of course, is proven correct by the end of the movie.

This film is refreshingly free of the self-righteous anti-morality that made the Next Generation series so obnoxious. Kirk is shown as a womanizer in the early part of the film, but the audience can see that there is something pathetic about it (Kirk consistently fails to get Lt. Uhura's interest). Perhaps one can see this is something that he will grow out of, but Hollywood will probably correct that in the sequels.

This film is great fun and will not ashamed to stand with the even-numbered movies of the past.

TTL

Darwin's God

Have you ever noticed that, when evolutionists defend evolution, they always talk about religion? I always thought that it was because Darwinism’s real strength is from its role as the atheist creation myth, but Cornelius G. Hunter gives us another suggestion.

In Darwin's God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil, Hunter argues that Darwin adopted the theory of evolution through unguided natural selection as a solution to the problem of evil. Darwin was bothered by the waste and cruelty that he saw in nature, and he could not square it with his idea of God. Then, as now, men had the idea of a “nice” God who did not quite match the mysterious and demanding god of Christian revelation. This God liked things neat and clean and simple.

This argument depends on a preconceived notion of the creator. Darwin and his followers argue that God would simply not have designed things the way that they are found. (While reading the book, I found an example of just this reasoning in an article on trilobite eyes. "[To evoke intelligent design] detracts from the idea of an omniscient being. It would have God tinkering with many flawed and suboptimal 'designs' and never developing a perfect one. Who would want to worship a god like that?") .

Darwin, in particular, argued that homologous structures, which are the same between related species even if they are used for different purposes, disprove a special creation. Wouldn’t a creator come up with a new design for each species instead of reusing the same design over and over again? This is an argument that many people find very convincing, but Christians find it rather less so. God did not have to create the universe at all, so why would he have to create it the way the Victorians understood it?

Darwin’s God is valuable reading to anybody who wants to understand the appeal of evolution.

By the way, my own ideas on the argument from homology come from my experience as a computer programmer. I know that there is a great satisfaction in taking a good design and using it in many different ways to show how much potential it has. I have no trouble imagining that God would do the same thing.

TTL

Thanksgiving

“And where are the other nine?”

Thanksgiving is the time America pauses to thank God for the many benefits He has given us.

In my own life, I would thank God for giving me a wonderful wife and baby boy, a car to drive to work in and a roof over my head. I’m grateful that my parents are still with me, now that I can appreciate all that they have done for me. I thank God for the talents and education that I use to earn my living.

It is harder to do, but I also thank God for all of the trials, sorrows and misfortunes of my life. I know that, however painful these things have been, they are given to us that we may obtain some great good from them.

I thank God for giving me my home town, even if it shares fully in the heartbreak of small-town America; and my wonderful country, even if it is in mortal peril from enemies inside and out.

We must thank God for everything, because we would have nothing without Him. God ordains all things for our good.

Thank you, God. Thank you so much.

TTL

I Sold Another One!

I sold another item on Zazzle! This one is a key chain with a picture of the Philippine Tarsier, the world's smallest primate (it's not really a monkey). This time, the buyer is paying in British currency.

Philippine Tarsier by EdwardWCole
Browse other Philippine Keychains

I took this picture when I traveled to the Philippines to meet my beloved Mel for the first time.

TTL

"Loving Commentator" Award

My wife gave me an award for a comment I left on her blog.

Somebody had left a very unchristian comment and I wanted to cheer her up. I said this.

My beloved wife, things do go wrong sometimes, and people can be hurtful and cruel. Sometimes you feel quite worthless and inferior. But you are a good and worthy woman, beautiful and talented, sweet and considerate, and deserving of the very best in everything. You are still the very best thing that has ever come into my life.

Of course, it is all true. My wife is a very special woman, and I am very grateful to have her.

So thank you, dear! you are my heart's ease in this world.

TTL