A Guide for Skeptics of Anthropogenic Climate Change
Author: Larry Molnar, Professor of Physics and AstronomyMinds exclusive
Posted on: Dec 18, 2009
The comment that has been in my head for some time, even before the recent controversy over the e-mails of some climate change researchers, is that while climate policy is a complex subject, one on which different people will have different viewpoints based on differing personal advantages and disadvantages as well as differing moral codes, the basis of anthropogenic climate change is simply not that controversial. Apparent controversy results from talking around the core issues.
On Boundaries: Let Science Be Science? Let Religion Be Religion?
Author: Arie Leegwater, Professor Emeritus of ChemistryPerspectives on Science and Christian Faith
Posted on: Dec 14, 2009
In a perceptive article, Peter Harrison, Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at Oxford University, describes how the dual categories of science and religion have been invented over time. Not only are the boundaries of science in flux, only becoming somewhat stable in the nineteenth century, but so are those of religion, having been constructed earlier during the European Enlightenment, usually in terms of a set of propositional beliefs. This demarcation or boundary issue, what is properly science and what is properly religion, has also exercised the Christian community.
Why is there no controversy surrounding theistic embryology?
Author: Steve Matheson, Professor of BiologyChristian Perspectives in Science Seminar Series
Posted on: Jun 10, 2009
This presentation was given on May 1, 2009, in the Christian Perspectives in Science Seminar Series at Calvin College.
Those who simultaneously express Christian belief and affirm evolutionary theory are said to espouse a position called “theistic evolution.” The view holds the peculiar distinction of being reviled by both hard-line creationists (who call it “appeasement”) and prominent atheist commentators (who deride it as fallacious). I argue that these critics typically fail to articulate objections that are specific to the view.
Faith and Scientific Practice
Author: Arie Leegwater, Professor Emeritus of ChemistryPerspectives on Science and Christian Faith
Posted on: May 27, 2009
Religious faith, primarily in the active sense of believing, is both a gift and a blessing from God, and a “sure knowledge” of certain basic and deepest realities. In faith we know who God is. We know that we are fallen, but redeemed creatures. We and all other creatures are part of God’s good creation, which though fallen, is being redeemed through the work of Jesus Christ. Thus we may have a deep trust and quiet confidence in the “givenness” of God’s initial address to us in his revelation in the Scriptures and creation. God’s address invites us to patiently listen with bated breath. This address or promise elicits a posture of receptivity, of listening, rather than first (subjectively) seeing. If God’s revelation is primary (original), it should animate our faith response and allow scientific practice to retain its relative, limited, but frequently necessary and fascinating, place in our lives.
Care of the Elderly Diabetic Client
Author: Stephanie Postma, Calvin College Class of 2009Minds exclusive
Posted on: May 26, 2009
This presentation of the author’s honors project was given at a Nursing Department Seminar at Calvin College on May 7, 2009.
Through the Whitney Young Scholarship, a diabetic teaching model was created for licensed nursing staff at Clark Retirement Community. It includes a Powerpoint, a pre-test and post-test. Staff will be given 1 CEU for completing the module. A nursing professor and Stephanie partnered with the Director of Nursing (DON) and nurse educator from Clark and used resources from the John Hartford Foundation and Geriatric Nursing Education Consortium (GNEC) to develop the module.