Presenter Biographies

Justin L. Barrett completed his B.A. in psychology at Calvin College and his Ph.D. in experimental psychology at Cornell University. Dr. Barrett served on the psychology faculties of Calvin College and the University of Michigan and as a research fellow of the Institute for Social Research. He was the associate director of the International Culture and Cognition Consortium and a founding editor of the Journal of Cognition and Culture. His cross-cultural, developmental, and experimental research on religious concepts has appeared in numerous books and scholarly journals, including his recent book, Why would anyone believe in God? (2004, AltaMira Press). Dr. Barrett currently co-directs Douglas County ( Kansas ) Young Life with his wife Sherry Barrett, and continues his scholarly pursuits as the International Coordinator of Experimental Research Programmes for the Institute of Cognition and Culture at the Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. The Barretts have an eleven-year-old son Skylar and a nine-year-old daughter Sierra. Justin Barrett's presentation is entitled "Why Would Anyone Believe in God? An Introduction to the Cognitive Science of Religion."

Donald Cronkite grew up in Colorado, and received his B.A. and Ph.D. in Zoology at Indiana University in Bloomington. He was on the faculty at the University of Redlands in California 1972 – 1978 before moving to Hope College in Holland, MI, where he is a Professor of Biology. His research interests have been in genetics, cellular water regulation and bacterial biofilms, and he has also taken an active role in professional development of high school biology teachers. He is a contributing editor of Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought and was the Science Editor of that journal for three years. Professor Cronkite is married and has three grown children. Donald Cronkite's presentation is entitled "Making the Doctrine of Creation Whole: Poetic Contradiction in a Land of Prose."

Bruce Gordon received his Ph.D. in the history of philosophy of physics from Northwestern University. His primary research interests are in the areas of philosophy of science, philosophy of physics, analytic metaphysics, philosophical theology, and questions at the intersection of these disciplines. He has been at Baylor University since 1999 in the role of an administrator and adjunct assistant professor of philosophy. Bruce Gordon's presentation is entitled "Quantum Indeterminacy, Evolutionary Directionality, and Theistic Metaphysics."

John F. Haught (Ph. D. Catholic University, 1970) is Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Theology at Georgetown University. His area of specialization is systematic theology, with a particular interest in issues pertaining to science, cosmology, evolution, ecology, and religion. He is the author of numerous books, including Deeper Than Darwin: The Prospect for Religion in the Age of Evolution and God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution. Haught has also authored numerous articles and reviews. He lectures internationally on many issues related to science and religion. In 2002 he was the winner of the Owen Garrigan Award in Science and Religion and in 2004 the Sophia Award for Theological Excellence. He and his wife Evelyn have two sons and live in Arlington, Va. John F. Haught's presentation is entitled "Religion, Intelligence and Evolutionary Explanation."

James P. Hurd was reared in California and served in Latin America for ten years as a pilot with Mission Aviation Fellowship. He received a Ph.D. in anthropology from Penn State University, and has taught at Bethel University, St. Paul, for twenty-three years. His academic interests include embedded religious groups in the United States, human origins, and the biology of behavior. He edited the volume, Investigating the Biological Foundations of Human Morality, and in 2006 will publish a coauthored volume, Hoofbeats of Humility: Horse & Buggy Mennonites in a Postmodern World. James P. Hurd's presentation is entitled "Religious Deception: Is It Adaptive?"

Dominic Johnson received his D.Phil. in evolutionary biology from Oxford University , and a Ph.D. in political science from Geneva University. Drawing on both disciplines, he is interested in the impact of human nature and evolutionary legacy on cooperation, conflict, politics and religion. Based at the Princeton University Society of Fellows, he is also a Branco Weiss Society in Science Fellow, and a visiting Global Fellow at UCLA. Following research fellowships at Harvard and Stanford Universities, he recently published a book entitled Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions (Harvard University Press, 2004), which argues that common psychological biases to maintain overly positive images of ourselves, our control over events, and the future, play a key role in the causes of war. Links to this and his other work can be found at http://www.princeton.edu/~dominic/. Dominic Johnson's presentation is entitled "Hand of God, Mind of Man: Supernatural Agency and Cognition in Human Evolution."

Joseph LaPorte is an associate professor at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where he has taught since taking a PhD from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1998. His research interests lie primarily in metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of science (especially biology). Recent publications include a number of articles in these areas and a book, Natural Kinds and Conceptual Change, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Current projects include a book on rigid designation and the philosophy of mind. Joseph LaPorte's presentation is entitled "How to be a Darwinian Christian."

Tim Morris received his PhD from the Department of Immunology and Medical Microbiology at the University of Florida in 1989 based on work in human gene expression. He did postdoctoral work in virology at the University of Georgia and joined the faculty of Covenant College in 1995. He was a participant in the Templeton/Oxford Seminars on Science and Christianity held during the summers of 1999, 2000, and 2001. Tim Morris' presentation is entitled "David Sloan Wilson's Group Selection Theory of Religion and the Question of Christ and Culture."

John T. Mullen is currently Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, Oklahoma. During the 2004-2005 academic year he was Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana. He received his Ph.D in Philosophy and his M.A. in the History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Notre Dame in 2004. He also holds an M.A. in Philosophy from Texas A&M University (1998), an M.A. in Theological Studies from Reformed Theological Seminary (1994), and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy (1983). Prior to his philosophical career, he served nine years on active duty in the U.S. Navy, and is now retired from the U.S. Naval Reserve. John T. Mullen's presentation is entitled "Can Evolutionary Biology Confirm Original Sin?"

Michael Murray is Arthur and Katherine Shadek Professor in the Humanities at Franklin and Marshall College (Lancaster, PA). In addition to a variety of articles in the history of philosophy and the philosophy of religion, he has published Philosophy of Religion: The Big Questions (Blackwell, with Eleonore Stump), Reason for the Hope Within (Eerdmans), and has three books forthcoming: Philosophy of Religion (Cambridge, with Michael Rea), Predestination and Election: A Study in Leibniz's Philosophical Theology (Yale), and a recently completed monograph on the problem of evil and animal suffering. Michael Murray's presentation is entitled "Evolutionary Accounts of Religion: Explaining and Explaining Away."

Alvin Plantinga is John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He received his AB from Calvin College in 1954 and his Ph.D. from Yale in 1958. Alvin Plantinga has taught philosophy at Notre Dame for twenty three years; prior to that he taught it at Calvin College for nineteen years. At Notre Dame he gives seminars in Philosophy of Religion, Metaphysics, and Epistemology. Among his books are God and Other Minds (1967), The Nature of Necessity (1974), God, Freedom and Evil (1974), Does God Have a Nature? (1980), Warrant: the Current Debate (1993, Warrant and Proper Function (1993) and Warranted Christian Belief (2000). He spends too much time flying around the US and other countries, but too little time rock climbing. Alvin Plantinga's presentation is entitled "Evolutionary Psychology and Scripture Scholarship: More Similar than you Might have Thought."

Del Ratzsch, Calvin College, will give a presentation entitled "Humanness in Their Hearts: Where Science & Religion Fuse."

Jeffrey P. Schloss received his Ph.D. in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from Washington University after undergraduate studies in biology and philosophy. He has taught at the University of Michigan, Wheaton College, Jaguar Creek Tropical Research Center, and is currently Professor of Biology at Westmont College in Santa Barbara. He has been awarded a Danforth Fellow, a AAAS Media Fellow in Science Communication, a Discovery Fellow, and Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion, and serves on the editorial and advisory boards of numerous journals and organizations relating science and religion, including Zygon, the Journal of Theology & Science, Science & Christian Belief, Science & Religion News, and Science & Spirit. His twofold research interests involve fieldwork in ecophysiology of poikilohydry, and evolutionary theories of human nature. Recent projects include a collaborative volume, Altruism and Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Dialogue (Oxford University Press, 2002), a two volume series of the Journal of Psychology & Theology on evolutionary psychology, and a forthcoming coedited book, Evolution and Ethics: Scientific and Theological Perspectives on Nature and the Good. Jeff lives with his wife, Melody, and their three sons; they enjoy surfing, fishing, and making music.

Ralph F. Stearley was educated at the Universities of Missouri and Utah before going to the University of Michigan, where he completed his Ph.D. in geology with an emphasis in paleontology. During the years 1991-1992 he was a research scientist at the Illinois State Museum, where he collaborated in the compiling of the Faunmap database on the biogeography of Late Pleistocene mammals. Since 1992 he has taught geology, oceanography and paleontology at Calvin College. He has published scientific papers on marine invertebrate ecology & paleoecology, the evolution and systematics of salmonid fishes, and on fish skeletal remains from archaeological sites. In 1999 he directed the excavation of a Pleistocene mastodont in Cascade, Michigan. He is currently collaborating with Davis Young, professor emeritus at Calvin, on an update of the 1982 volume, Christianity and the Age of the Earth. Ralph F. Stearley's presentation is entitled "Teleological and antiteleological presentations of the history of life."

William Struthers obtained his Ph.D. in Biopsychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago where he worked on the neuroanatomy of male rat sexual behavior and gene expression. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Wheaton College (Wheaton, IL) where he is investigating the neural mechanisms that underlie behavioral arousal and the processing of novel environments. He is also involved in Psychology/Theology integration research focusing issues related to the brain, personhood and spirituality. He has published papers in Brain Research, Physiology and Behavior, NeuroReport, and Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith. William Struthers' presentation is entitled "The Neurobiology of the Relationship-Oriented Mind."

Charles Taliaferro (Ph.D. Brown) is the author of Evidence and Faith: Philosophy and religion since the seventeenth century (Cambridge), Contemporary Philosophy of Religion (Blackwell), Consciousness and the Mind of God (Cambridge), the co-editor with Alison Tepley of Cambridge Platonist Spirituality (Paulist Press) and co-editor with Philip L. Quinn of The Companion to Philosophy of Religion (Blackwell) and the Philosophy of Religion Reader with Paul Griffiths (Blackwell). He is the current Book Review Editor of Faith and Philosophy, the analytic philosophy of religion editor of Religious Studies Review (Blackwell), and the philosophy of religion area editor of both the Macmillan 2nd edition of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Blackwell's forthcoming Philosophy Compass. Charles Taliaferro's presentation is entitled "Descriptions and Explanations: Some Lessons from the Cambridge Platonists."

Raymond J. VanArragon did his undergraduate work at Calvin College, graduating with a double major in philosophy and religion/theology. He then got a Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, where Alvin Plantinga was his dissertation director. He spent four years teaching philosophy at Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky, before moving on in the summer of 2005 to Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota. His particular areas of interest are epistemology and philosophy of religion, and he is coeditor of the book Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion. Raymond J. VanArragon's presentation is entitled "Naturalistic Explanations of Religious Experience."

David Vander Laan is an assistant professor of philosophy at Westmont College. His research interests lie in metaphysics, especially in ontology and philosophical theology. His publications include “A Regress Argument for Restrictivism” (Philosophical Studies), “Counterpossibles and Similarity” (Jackson and Priest, eds., Lewisian Themes: the Philosophy of David K. Lewis), and “Persistence and Divine Conservation” (forthcoming in Religious Studies). David Vander Laan's presentation is entitled "Evolution and the Fall."

Jitse M. van der Meer (1947) is professor of biology and of history and philosophy of science at Redeemer University College. He is a founding director of the Pascal Centre for Advanced Studies in Faith and Science (1988) and served as its director from 1988 to 2000. His publications cover developmental biology, history and philosophy of biology as well as science and religion. He is editor of Facets of Faith and Science. Volumes 1-4. University Press of America. Lanham. 1996, and co-editor of Science in Theistic Contexts: Cognitive Dimensions. (with John H. Brooke and Margaret Osler), Osiris 16. University of Chicago Press. Chicago. 2001. Current research interests include the engagement of religion and science, the history and philosophy of 19th century biology (G. Cuvier, T. Dobzhansky) and theoretical biology. Jitse M. van der Meer's presentation is entitled "Biology of Moral Behaviour: Fact and Fiction."

Robert Waltzer was born in Philadelphia, PA. He attended the University of Delaware and received a BA in Biology. He then attended Ohio State University, which he received a PhD in Anatomy with an emphasis in Neuroanatomy. He has taught at Ohio State, Wheaton College, and Belhaven College, where he is currently employed (since 1993). He has interests in Neuroscience, Cell Biology, and Intelligent Design. His most recent work has been on the nature of function and the foundational assumptions upon which it is based. He has spoken on these matters before lay groups, academics, and international audiences. He resides in Jackson, Mississippi and attends Pear Orchard Presbyterian Church (PCA). Robert Waltzer's presentation is entitled "Function in Biology: Its Meaning, Foundation, and Relationship to Design and Evolutionary Explanation."

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