Science and Christianity seminar last weekend

Posted in my Facebook notes.

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The church I attend in Madison (I don't like to say "my church" ever, because as a pastor's kid I'm a bit allergic to church-specific allegiance) is a bit of an odd case because it's an Evangelical Free Church, but unlike the typical evangelicals in the US, they're pretty neutral politically and even open to what Americans usually consider left-wing issues. Last year there was a sermon on "The Future" and my reaction to the title was Oh groan they're going to talk about Revelation, but instead the pastor invited a UW professor to talk about climate change =D

Anyway, last weekend there was a seminar on science and Christianity which I attended. I ran into a few people I didn't expect, including a kid called Rob in my molecular biology techniques class. Descriptions of the speakers are here here.

The five speakers included three current and one emeritus UW professors, one of whom was Rick Lindroth, the entomology prof who did the "Al Gore" talk mentioned above =D

The other two UW professors are Jeff Hardin, in Zoology, and Stuart Knechtle, a professor of transplantation. Hardin is in developmental biology, which is really cool. Dev bio is also one of the areas that's very much dealing with the "where did life come from" question.

The retired prof, Wayne Becker, is a biochemist. He did a cute little gimmick of literally wearing different hats as he described positions along the creation/evolution continuum: Young Earth Creationists (Henry Morris), Old Earth Creationists (Hugh Ross), Theistic Evolutionists (Francis Collins - the Human Genome Project guy, and me), and Naturalistic Evolutionists (Richard Effing Dawkins).

I was saying something to someone today about Francis Collins and I said Michael Collins by mistake...wait...not the astronaut dude. =D

The one non-UW faculty member is John Walton, a professor of Old Testament at Wheaton, who talked about reading the OT in the light of ancient Middle Eastern thought...comparative literature I guess. I ended up buying one of his books on the subject, message me if you're interested in reading it.

In sum, it was definitely worth getting up early on Saturday (after staying up till 3am reading Terry Pratchett's "Thud" =PPP I needed to catch up on Sam Vimes.)

Ultimately my position as a Christian and a scientist is based on faith. I'm trusting that a) God exists and b) made a world which is systematic and c) gave us rational minds, I'm not going to go into by what mechanism here and d) loves us enough not to mess with our minds too much. If those four assumptions are correct, nothing the Bible says should contradict the findings of reason and observation, and vice versa. There ya go.

To close, a note from St. Augustine:

"Since, then, in those situations where such things are appropriate, some perish to make way for others that are born in their room, and the less succumb to the greater, and the things that are overcome are transformed into the quality of those that have the mastery, this is the appointed order of things transitory. Of this order the beauty does not strike us, because by our mortal frailty we are so involved in a part of it, that we cannot perceive the whole, in which these fragments that offend us are harmonized with the most accurate fitness and beauty." (City of God*, Book XII, Chapter 3.)

I think Augustine would have been a TE =)

ARGH I HAVE HOMEWORK AGAIN. At some point I'll get around to posting the theory I came up with for my last Path 750 assignment. I got fifty out of fifty marks for writing about Devil Facial Tumour Disease (I guess "tumour" ought to be spelt with a u, since it is an Australian animal) and I'm very pleased with it. At the rate I'm going with this second one, it may be somewhat less pleasing.

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*Unfortunately Augustine's books are no longer on Gutenberg.org. They're now in the CCEL, which you can access for free but have to register.