Science and Faith – Page 2

HARD FACTS: And You Thought Water Was Just H2O?

Actually, water “is a supernatural liquid with 74 unique physical/chemical properties,” according to the eminent Brazilian chemist, Dr. Marcos Eberlin, during a video interview published by the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture.

Dr. Marcos Eberlin is past president of the International Mass Spectrometry Foundation.

“You look at this and you say ‘there is no color, there is no flavor, there is no smell,’ so you tend to believe it’s common liquid, but it’s not,” Eberlin declares. “It has 74 unique properties, some weird properties actually.”

Among those 74 properties, according to Eberlin, is the familiar fact that it is essential for life on earth. No water, no life. Eberlin knows whereof he speaks, having just published a fascinating book, “Foresight: How the Chemistry of Life Reveals Planning and Purpose.”

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HARD FACTS: Your Computer’s Coding Requires Intelligent Design, So Why Not For The Universe?

Imagine that your life depends upon your finding one particular molecule among all the molecules that make up our galaxy, the Milky Way? Oh, and you are blindfolded. What are the odds?

This is you searching the Milky Way galaxy for one particular molecule. Don’t miss the blindfold!

Well, according to molecular biologist Douglas Axe, who did the calculations, your odds of choosing the right molecule out of all the molecules that make up the Milky Way are actually better than the odds of random genetic changes to produce something new, even something as modest as a new protein function?

Axe, who received his PhD from CalTech in chemical engineering, puts it this way: “We ask how rare or how common functional proteins are within the space of possibilities. Doing experiments and calculations, we found that they are exceedingly rare, like one in 10 to the 74th power rare.”

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THINK ABOUT THIS: What About The ‘Puddle Argument?’

Ever hear of the “Puddle Argument”? That’s the idea that if there is a puddle in the sidewalk, that just indicates that circumstances developed in the concrete in such a manner that it allowed rain water to accumulate.

The fact the hole appeared and rain water filled it up over time doesn’t thereby demonstrate a design or purpose in its appearance in the sidewalk. The Puddle Argument is sometimes made by critics who reject the idea that design requires a designer. Continue reading “THINK ABOUT THIS: What About The ‘Puddle Argument?’”

THINK ABOUT THIS: If There Are Aliens In The Universe …

Would it undermine the Bible’s account of creation in Genesis if we Earthlings woke up tomorrow to a close encounter of the totally unexpected kind?

Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) are getting a lot of media attention these days. Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, for example, spends significant air time talking about UFOs and former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid agrees that “the truth is out there.”

Even as respected a media outlet as the Intelligencer column of New York magazine last year offered “13 Reasons To Believe Aliens Are Real,” with the first reason being “the government literally just admitted it’s taking UFOs seriously.”

So what if UFOs are real and there are other life-forms — aka “aliens” in popular culture —in the universe? What does that do to Christianity, the Bible and the belief that God’s creation of man in His own image is His greatest work?

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APOLOGETICS: What Should We Think About Quantum Mechanics And The Laws Of Logic?

Right off, let me be clear that I am a journalist, not a philosopher or scientist, so the following discussion is that of an interested layman who makes no claims of special insight.

That said, I often hear in discussions with atheists and agnostics that Quantum Mechanics (QM) renders much of the conventional wisdom about the physical universe obsolete.

As an example, Kenneth Samples of Reasons To Believe, who is both a philosopher and theologian, considers the argument that QM specifically renders the Law of Non-Contradiction (LNC) old news.

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THINK ABOUT THIS: Ever Wonder ‘Who Created God?’

The answer begins with understanding what it means to live outside of time

Astronomer Hugh Ross says the question of “who created God” is the query he is most often asked on social media. That’s understandable as every human being at one time or another likely has wondered the same thing.

Astronomer Hugh Ross. Screen shot from Reasons to Believe video.

“Every atheist scientist I’ve ever debated publicly has raised that issue,” Ross explains in a recent interview on Reasons to Believe. “There is a fallacy there. They are assuming that God is constrained in time like the universe is and all life in the universe.”

Ross notes that “any entity that is constrained to a single dimension of time, where time can’t be stopped or reversed, at some point must have a beginning or a creation event.”

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How A Young British Astronomer Proved Albert Einstein’s Theory Of Relativity

Yes, today is Memorial Day, but it’s also just two days short of the 100th anniversary of the proving of what has been termed the greatest scientific achievement by a single individual in the history of mankind.

Most famous equation in human history? Photo courtesy of Freerange.

That was when British Astronomer Arthur Eddington and two teams dispatched by the “Joint Permanent Eclipse Committee of the Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical Society of Britain to observe and record photographically the full solar eclipse scheduled to take place on May 29, 1919,” according to Professor of Political Science Emeritus Salim Mansur, writing today on American Thinker.

“At the time under Portuguese rule, Principe was selected as one of the two sites – the other was Sobral in the Brazilian Nordeste – from where the total solar eclipse and its full effect could be best observed. The expedition was proposed by Eddington, a rising star among British astronomers, to test Einstein’s general theory of relativity published in the middle of the Great War.”

All sorts of things happened — not the least of which was inclement weather — that could have left the mission a failure. But Eddington was able to overcome the obstacles and completed the photographic work required to test Einstein’s theory.

It’s a fascinating and significant story and one I suspect you will thoroughly enjoy reading on this holiday Monday.