Physicist, mathematician and blogger Peter Woit whacks strings, multiverses, simulated universes and “fake physics.” Quote: "... physics ... surpasses even psychology in its capacity for bullshit."
Physicist, mathematician and blogger Peter Woit whacks strings, multiverses, simulated universes and “fake physics.” Quote: "... physics ... surpasses even psychology in its capacity for bullshit."
When the physicist Russell Cowburn reached the end of his PhD studies, he had a choice to make. Having become a Christian at the age of eighteen, he thought deciding between a job in science or the church was choosing between the spiritual and the material.
There’s a reason why our cells store all of their genetic information as DNA. This remarkable molecule is unsurpassed for storing lots of data in an exceedingly small space.
The research takes us a step closer to making replacement brain tissue derived from a patient's own skin or blood cells to help treat conditions such as brain injury, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy and schizophrenia.
ISCAST Fellow Peter Harrison will visit Melbourne in August to give three talks. Peter is an eminent thinker on matters of science and religion and most recently wrote The Territories of Science and Religion, based on his 2011 Gifford Lectures. (More details about Peter are below.) Details of the talks are:
The latest issue of the ISCAST Digest, full of fascinating stories and resources, is now available for download.
Justin Brierley's popular UK radio program, "Unbelievable", regularly features atheists arguing their case.
Dr Jane Goodall, renowned humanitarian and conservationist, ‘the chimp lady’, and founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, visited Australia to share her dream of a world where people, animals and the environment all coexist in a sustainable future.
This year’s Wellcome Image Awards are truly awe-inspiring, and a reminder for me to look for moments of wonder and worship in my everyday routine.
A reflection, written by Claire Dawson for National Science Week (August 12-20), picks up where Mick Pope's recent piece on climate change denialism left off: our concern for future generations.
ISCAST president Alan Gijsbers and fellow Andrew Wood have written colaboratively on the mind-brain problem.
ISCAST fellow Mick Pope has written about climate change denialism at www.ethos.org.au. According to Mick, not all opinions are equal. We republish his article here with permission.
Here's an authoritative source indicating that the Apple iPhone evolved naturally over billions of years. And, in other science and faith news, apparently the oldest computer can be traced back to Adam and Eve. It was an Apple but with extremely limited memory of just one byte. Then everything crashed.
Review of David Hutchings and Tom McLeish's book 'Let There Be Science'
Chris McNeill, July 2017.
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On Sunday night 30/07/17 at 9pm James Garth (ISCASTian and rocket scientist) will be speaking on Light FM with Rob Martin on "Is There More Than This?". James says the show "touches on faith, dealing with doubt, Aquinas, Heisenberg, and gently putting the boot into Stephen Hawking ;)"
This post by Ruth Bancewicz at the ISCAST 'big brother' organisation, The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, summarises a talk by paleobiologist Simon Conway Morris about the difference between humans and (other) animals.
Nobody can have escaped the trials and tribulations of the Australian electricity situation in the last months and even years. And you are probably aware of Elon Musk's 100-days-to-install-or-it's-free promise for the world's largest battery ordered for South Australia last week (97 days to go?). For a country of abundant resources it seems that there's a problem of planning when things go so badly wrong as they did in the South Australian blackout last year.
What is fine-tuning?
A 47 minute interview with George Ellis.
Christianity's positive role in the formation of Western civilisation.
As I was finishing Nick Spencer’s The Evolution of the West, I happened to be in the same room with my mother on a Sunday afternoon. We’ve often exchanged books, so she asked what I was reading, and I showed her the cover, reading the subtitle to her, How Christianity Has Shaped Our Values. “Oh,” she said, “I always assumed that was true—that Christianity shaped how we think.”
ISCAST Fellow Ian Hore-Lacy has written a commentary on the Finkel review of Australia's National Electricity Market. Ian's article starts: "It is hard to see from a review of Australia's National Electricity Market how Australia can manage to balance cost, reliability and emissions without creating a role for nuclear energy, as in virtually all of its key economic competitor countries."
A letter in Nature, by University of Sydney academic Frank Nicholas, challenges the idea of a "chasm" between science and religion. The letter is here:
ISCAST Executive Director Chris Mulherin returned recently from Perth where he gave various talks for Claremont Baptist Church, Scripture Union WA, Christ Church Grammar School (CCGS), and a combined Baptist Churches Youth event. His talks included a number on science and faith issues as well as addressing all the staff at CCGS and taking a school philosophy class. Copies of the talks and/or slides are available on request.
This article in Australia's Cosmos magazine brings news of a new preprint article supporting the idea that evolution happens in fits and bursts (their term; punctuated equilibria). The theory was made famous by Stephen Jay Gould (photo), also well known for NOMA: the idea that the areas of enquiry of science and religion constitute Non-overlapping Magisteria.
ISCAST Distinguished Fellow Ken Freeman was honoured with the Companion of the Order of Australia in yesterday's Queen's Birthday honours list. Congratulations Ken from all ISCASTians. The article in The Australian reads as follows: