This web site serves as an archive of posts from the years 2005-2007. It is no longer maintained. You may find current NE events at uniteboston.com and at churchline.com.
Science, Faith and Technology: The Veritas Forum at MIT, March 1st-3rd, 2007 The First Veritas Forum at MIT seeks to explore the practical connections
between science, faith, and technology. How should our science influence our
beliefs? How should our faith influence our technology? What can we learn from
the historical interplay between science and faith? Top-notch scientist like Francis Collins will participate.
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Dr. Roselli, a researcher at the Oregon Health and Science University, has searched for the past five years for physiological factors that might explain why about 8 percent of rams seek sex exclusively with other rams instead of ewes. The goal, he says, is to understand the fundamental mechanisms of sexual orientation in sheep. Other researchers might some day build on his findings to seek ways to determine which rams are likeliest to breed, he said.
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We revere faith and scientific progress, hunger for miracles and for MRIs. But are the worldviews compatible? Can religion stand up to the progress of science? This debate long predates Darwin, but the antireligion position is being promoted with increasing insistence by scientists angered by intelligent design and excited, perhaps intoxicated, by their disciplines' increasing ability to map, quantify and change the nature of human experience. For its Nov. 13, 2006 cover story, TIME convenes a debate between Richard Dawkins, professor at Oxford University, and Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. [COMMENTS]
Who doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong? Yet that essential knowledge, generally assumed to come from parental teaching or religious or legal instruction, could turn out to have a quite different origin. An Harvard biologists argues that our genes make us prefer good over bad.
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Sunday Times: I’ve found God, says man who cracked the genome Francis Collins, the director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute, claims there is a rational basis for a creator and that scientific discoveries bring man “closer to God”.
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Despite opposition from some of their colleagues, 86 evangelical Christian leaders have decided to back a major initiative to fight global warming, saying "millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors." Among signers of the statement, which will be released in Washington on Wednesday, are the presidents of 39 evangelical colleges, leaders of aid groups and churches, like the Salvation Army, and pastors of megachurches, including Rick Warren, author of the best seller "The Purpose-Driven Life."
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Daniel Dennett, a Tufts philosopher and famed Darwinist wants us to study religion like any other human behavior - as a 'natural phenomenon.' Scientists, meanwhile, may be on the way to explaining how, and why, we got religion. Dennett sees Darwinism not just as an explanation for the origin of species, but for the fundamental whys and hows of human habits, beliefs, thinking, and desires. The logic of evolution, Dennett wrote in his 1995 book ''Darwin's Dangerous Idea," is a ''universal acid," it ''eats through just about every traditional concept, and leaves in its wake a revolutionized worldview."
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USA Today: David Hill's opinion on evolution as an 'undeniable fact' Pastor David Hill from Brighton MA published his opinion on evolution in the Jan. 23, 2006 edition of USA Today. He writes: "I had to smile at Edward Wilson's assertion that “evolution, including the origin of species, is an undeniable fact.” Is it really?
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Topeka KAN (Nov. 9, 2005) - Critics of evolution won a big victory in Kansas with the adoption of new public school standards that defy mainstream views on the mystery of mankind's origins. The standards, approved Tuesday by the state Board of Education, cast doubt on Darwinism and redefine the word "science" so that it's not limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena. The board's 6-4 vote was lauded by intelligent design advocates, who helped draft the standards. Intelligent design holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power. [COMMENTS]
Reuters: Cardinal backs 'evolution' and 'intelligent design' (Oct.4, 2005) A senior Roman Catholic cardinal seen as a champion of "intelligent design" against Darwin's explanation of life has described the theory of evolution as "one of the very great works of intellectual history." Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, a top Church doctrinal expert and close associate of Pope Benedict, said he could believe both in divine creation and in evolution because one was a question of religion and the other of science, two realms that complimented rather than contradicted each other.
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Christian Science Monitor: Scientific study, faith, not so far apart The current debate over whether intelligent design should be taught alongside the theory of evolution in science class often includes the claim that what is grounded in faith should be kept separate from what is empirically based. While I agree with those who recommend that intelligent design should not be taught in a science class, the argument that knowledge based on faith is radically different from the knowledge gained from the scientist's mode of inquiry is based on a simplistic understanding of the many expressions of faith in the modern world. [COMMENTS]
Dr. Charles Roselli has been criticized for his study of gay sheep.
Boston Globe 'Housing first,' a radical new approach to ending chronic homelessness, is gaining ground in Boston
