Education doesn't always have a positive effect: What do you get when you educate sinners? The answer is simple enough—clever sinners. Knowledge, by itself, does not make people better; it may make them worse. —Douglas Wilson, Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning Education can be social engineering of the worst sort—think of education under the …
Month: April 2006
Black Hole Power
The Astronomy Picture of the Day for April 27th is about the tremendous energy that is released when matter falls into a black hole. This situation is incredibly efficient at producing energy; even more so than nuclear reactions. How about a black hole power plant in the future? If I remember right, the science fiction …
ID and Creationism
The second article posted today by Christianity Today on origins is The Other ID Opponents. The first ID (Intelligent Design) opponents are, obviously, the evolutionists. The other ID opponents are the young-earth creationists, and the article is about the relationship between ID and these groups, such as Ken Ham's Answers in Genesis. Some good points …
Why is this “science”?
Christianity Today has a couple of articles on ID and creationism that they posted on the web today. The first of these is called Science in Wonderland. It is a wide-ranging article, with sections on the teaching of evolution in public schools, elephant pheromones, and the extinctions that occurred at the end of the Permian …
I see you!
There are a number of good mapping and imagery sites on the internet. One of my favorites is Terraserver-USA, which has aerial photography of virtually the entire 48 contiguous states. Over large urban areas, the site has high-detail color imagery (good enough to see cars and in some cases the shadows of individuals on the …
Earth Day 2006 #2
A good internet article summarizing a Christian perspective on the environment is Christian Environmentalism by Dr. Ray Bohlin of Probe Ministries. Here are some quotes from the article: What we fail to realize is that Christians have a sacred responsibility to the earth and the creatures within it. The earth is being affected by humans …
Earth Day 2006
Christians often don't know what to make of Earth Day, which is celebrated on April 22nd, or at least on a weekend close to that date. Increasingly, believers in Christ are aware of environmental issues, but something like "Earth Day" is viewed as being for new agers, tree huggers, pro-abortion people, and theological liberals. I've …
Why Do I Teach High School Students?
A quote from a letter by Benjamin Vaughan to Benjamin Franklin, 1783: Influence upon the private character, late in life, is not only an influence late in life, but a weak influence. It is in youth that we plant our chief habits and prejudices; it is in youth that we take our party as to …
Earthquakes and the End Times
Since today is the 100th anniversary of the great San Francisco earthquake... "There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains." Matthew 24:7,8 ESV A common "fact" proclaimed in Bible end-times prophecy books (Hal Lindsey and others), radio broadcasts, and on numerous web sites is …
San Francisco Earthquake, April 18, 1906
Today is the centennial of the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, which killed at least 700 (perhaps many more), and was one of the first earthquakes to be the subject of intense scientific study. The San Andreas fault had displacement along 477 km of its length, compared to the 40 km displacement …
Asteroids galore
It's time to update my lecture notes. Based on information from probably about ten years ago, my PowerPoint presentation for the Physical Science unit on asteroids says that there are a total of about 6000 asteroids. I'm off by a whole bunch. According to the Wikipedia article on asteroids, they are now being discovered at …
The Science of Marital Bliss
I usually stay away from articles from the "soft science" fields of sociology and psychology, but How to Make Your Wife Happy at LiveScience.com got my attention. "The key ingredient to a woman's marital bliss is her husband's emotional commitment, suggests a new study based on a survey of 5,000 couples across the country." Commitment …
A Darkened Mind
A quote from C.S. Lewis which applies to many areas of life: All that is made seems planless to the darkened mind, because there are more plans than it looked for. From Perelandra, p. 218 in my edition.
One Flew Over the ID Nest
Does nature point to a Creator? The Scriptures teach that we should expect it to: "The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard." …
Inclusive Exclusivity
The greatest put-down in today's postmodern society is to accuse someone of intolerance or exclusivity. Because of this, any person who states that Christianity is the only true religion is accused of bigotry. So how do I respond if someone accuses me of being judgmental, intolerant, and narrow for saying that Jesus Christ is the …
Urban Legends
Hopefully there is no need to tell you, but wild stories circulate on the internet—on web pages and via email. My web site of the week is Snopes.com, which is devoted to uncovering the truthfulness or falsehood of these "urban legends". What would make one suspect that a story received in one of those emails …
Textbook Selection
I have been working on selecting a new textbook for high school Biology for next year, and I have chosen Prentice Hall Biology by Miller and Levine. When asked why I chose this book over others, including books from Christian publishers, I gave the following reasons: Most Christian textbooks include what I consider to be …
The Value of Human Beings
A couple news items have come to my attention lately regarding perspectives on the value of human life: Earlier this year, a street dog in Bucharest, Romania bit a Japanese businessman in the leg. The bite broke an artery, and the man quickly bled to death. The city government has once again begun a program …
Beauty in Stone
For the web site of the week, I have chosen Igneous rocks in thin section. In order to identify minerals and interpret the history of a rock, geologists will often make a thin section. A thin section is made by slicing and polishing a rock until it is only about 30 micrometers thick (human hair …
Science and Prayer Part 2
I had a couple of Scriptural insights into yesterday's post and article regarding the scientific study of prayer. And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. He answered them, "When it is evening, you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky …
GeoChristian 