The past week brought a total solar eclipse and a magnitude 4.7 earthquake to the northeastern United States (among other places for the eclipse). For the folks who will seize any opportunity to invoke the rapture and possibly God’s judgment on specific subpopulations, it was a convergence too delicious to pass up. This in turn could not be overlooked by the folks who love to trot out a science fact. Don’t you know that eclipses and earthquakes have natural causes, and that the eclipse has been predictable for decades? Now, while I’m inclined to agree that ascribing guilt for natural events is dicey, and I am well aware that many predictions of the rapture have come and gone unfilled (including any associated with this eclipse), I also think invoking plate tectonics and celestial mechanics rather misses the point.
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Science and Faith
Science Corner: Ask Your Parents Where Life Comes From
Lent is halfway through, we’ve set our clocks ahead, and Peeps are on the store shelves. It must be nearly spring, and so soon young men’s fancies will lightly turn to thoughts of life. New life will be everywhere: blooming flowers, baby birds, buzzing cicadas. We know where this life comes from. But where did the first life come from? That remains a mystery, yet one which many young folks of all sorts seek to unravel. One group in Scotland has gone so far as to build their own “Chemputer” to help, and its first results are starting to come in.
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Science Corner: When the Bloom is off the Rose
Imagine if you will a holiday on which it is customary to bring flowers, chocolates, and the like to another person for whom one has romantic feelings. I know, I know, a preposterous proposition, but sometimes an outlandish thought experiment can be helpful. And so on this holiday, you bring a gift of flowers and observe how happy they make your crush. The next year, you are late to the florist and cannot get flowers so you bring chocolate instead and notice an equally happy reaction. The following year you are extra prepared–flowers ordered in advance and just-in-case chocolates; you give both and notice your crush is even happier, but not really twice as happy as with either gift alone. Now you are curious, and so the next year you supplement flowers and chocolate with provocative loungewear only to discover this makes your crush less happy than if they had gotten no gift at all. O dear! What is going on?
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ESN Announces: American Scientific Association 2024 Winter Symposium
The Emerging Scholars Network has loved partnering with the American Scientific Affiliation for many years. Elaine Howard Ecklund is a friend and past ESN Conversation guest and so we were very excited to learn of her presentation this weekend at the ASA Winter Symposium. Here are the details!
WHEN: Saturday, January 27, 2024, at 1:00 ET
COST: Free (a free-will donation is suggested)
SPEAKER: Elaine Howard Ecklund
TITLE: Why Science and Faith Need Each Other
REGISTER: Scan the QR code above or visit the Winter Symposium page
BIO: Elaine Howard Ecklund is the Herbert S. Autrey Chair in Social Sciences, Professor of Sociology, and director of the Boniuk Institute at Rice University. As a sociologist of religion, science, and work, she is particularly interested in social change and how institutions change, especially when individuals leverage aspects of their religious, race, and gender identities to change institutions. Over the past several years Elaine’s research has explored how scientists in different nations understand religion, ethics, and gender; religion at work; and the overlap between racial and religious discrimination in workplaces. Most recently Elaine is co-directing a $2.9 million grant in order to create a new field of sociological research examining science and religion. Elaine has received funding for her research from the National Science Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, Lilly Endowment, Issachar Fund, John Templeton Foundation, Templeton Religion Trust, and Templeton World Charities Foundation. She is the author (with students and colleagues) of over 100 journal articles and seven books, including Why Science and Faith Need Each Other: Eight Shared Values That Move Us Beyond Fear. In 2018 she gave the Gifford Lecture at the University of Edinburgh.
Books by Elaine Howard Ecklund can be purchased through the ASA virtual bookstore here.
Science Corner: I Wanna Live Forever … ?
Apparently, the Santa Fe Institute had a workshop on immortality last fall. There’s no evidence of a theological or religious or even much of a philosophical component to the proceedings. That’s maybe a little surprising, seeing as how SFI tends to be expansively interdisciplinary. But there’s plenty to discuss on the scientific side of things, so fair enough. I learned about it via Sean Carroll’s podcast (see below). In this special holiday episode, he shares a version of his contribution to the workshop and comments on a few of the other presentations. Give it a listen, or read the transcript here and then let’s discuss.
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