Science, Faith and Culture: Pursuing truth in a divided world
-
A woman’s perspective on the gospel, part 1
Back when I was in college, I took a creative writing class, and occasionally I try to write short stories. But I’m not that good. Among other things, I naturally wind up writing characters that strongly resemble me. And, according to my children, I’m a pretty boring person. Everyone naturally views the world around themselves…
-
How to engineer a pyrrhic victory
We fought a lot early on in our marriage. Well, kind of fought. She would lash due to feeling overwhelmed and unloved. I responded with avoidance and retreating further into my shell. Needless to say, neither approach solved the conflict. We played the blame game, determined not to lose. In the end, we both did. As humans, we naturally blame others and absolve ourselves when we find ourselves in conflict. Our brains are wired that way. Our cognitive biases lead us to prefer overly simplistic…
-
Breakfast memories for a lifetime
Forty years later, I remember the moment like it was yesterday. It was late morning, the sunlight trying to filter through an overcast sky. Not unusual weather for January in Cleveland. I was working on physics or math homework while sitting at my dorm room desk. That consisted of the right-hand end of a long strip of white Formica that ran the width of the room in front of the windows. Two sets of drawers separated my roommate’s desk…
-
Chocolate is the new White
It would be just an amusing story about government bureaucracy—if it weren’t for the dark undertones. It was about a year after I had married my Mexican bride. We were at the immigration office for her permanent residency interview. (She has since become a citizen.) The interview itself had gone smoothly; no, our interviewer really did…
-
Not a legend in his own time
I would have been tempted to make the same error if I were in his shoes. Students in my PhD graduate research group were taking turns practicing our research talks for the upcoming national conference. One of the newest students introduced his topic, discussed background information and described what he had done. So far, so…
-
It’s good to be wrong
I looked at the phosphor screen dumbfounded. Several months previously I had confidently predicted I would never see this. Yet, there it was in front of me. I rotated the sample 60 degrees, and the pattern reversed, just as expected. I had a good, logical reason why this shouldn’t have happened. But I could see…
-
Implications of the Big Bang
Albert Einstein later called it ‘the greatest blunder’ of his life, at least that is how the story goes. At the beginning of the 20th century many astronomers assumed that the universe was static and unchanging. For good reasons. They had found the distances between stars to be mind-boggling and no evidence of them moving…
-
The gift of dual perspective
At least I think it is a fun way to end the semester. Looking through 3-D glasses at an astronaut. Passing around a View Master. Looking at both sides of the coin at once. Trying to see the 3-D image in a Magic Eye illustration. But of course, I have a really good academic justification…
-
An existential question of truth
I was afraid to open up about my true, inner thoughts. In my church youth group I had been paired up with an adult volunteer. Not just any guy, but a seminary student studying to be a professional religious person. On the outside that surely looked like a good idea. My father served as a…