On January 30 & 31, CSCA co-sponsored three lectures by Stanford University neuroscientist Bill Newsome, along with UBC’s Graduate & Faculty Christian Forum and Trinity Western University’s Faculties of Natural & Applied Sciences and of Humanities & Social Sciences. At TWU he also spoke in a psychology class, conversed with faculty and graduate students over coffee, and advised and encouraged undergraduate students over dinner. He also gave a neuroscience research colloquium at UBC entitled “Detecting ‘changes-of-mind’ from neural population recordings in prefrontal cortex.” His TWU public lectures were entitled “Can Subjective Awareness (I.e. Consciousness!) Be Satisfactorily Accounted for by Modern …
Artificial Intelligence: Discerning A Christian Response
Derek C. Schuurman (PhD, McMaster University) is a professor of Computer Science at Calvin College where he currently holds the William Spoelhof Chair. Shaping a Digital World: Faith, Culture and Computer Technology (InterVarsity Press, 2013) is his most recent book. He describes for us on the ASA and CSCA web sites, the latest developments and challenges in artificial intelligence. That focus calls for our attention to the promise and threat, at hand and in the near future, for issues such as job enhancement and displacement, building in guidance for systems that will then act autonomously, and what it is to be a person. Schuurman’s essay is intended as an invitation. Readers are encouraged to take up one of the insights or questions, or maybe …
Earth Science & Christian Faith
As part of our 3-year Local Chapters Project, CSCA is producing a series of pamphlets on matters of science and faith. These “Faith and Science, Eh?” pamphlets are provided as a courtesy to help Canadians explore intersections of science and Christian faith in a variety of areas. These pamphlets may be downloaded, printed, and distributed free of charge. This blog post reproduces the full text of this pamphlet. Foundational Matters Geology, or earth science, as it is now more commonly referred to, is a fascinating topic which has intrigued many people and inspired many Christians. A Canadian scene of a …
Quantum Physics, Reductionism, and God’s Knowledge
As part of our 3-year Local Chapters Project, CSCA is producing a series of pamphlets on matters of science and faith. These “Faith and Science, Eh?” pamphlets are provided as a courtesy to help Canadians explore intersections of science and Christian faith in a variety of areas. These pamphlets may be downloaded, printed, and distributed free of charge. This blog post reproduces the full text of our first pamphlet. What is Quantum Physics? Quantum physics refers to our current understanding of matter and energy on the small scale of atoms and sub-atomic particles. Developed in the early 20th century, it …
Scholarship Reflection: Seth Hart
Seth Hart attended “Religion, Society, and the Science of Life,” a conference held at Oxford by the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science & Religion (July 19-22, 2017). [columnize]While there were many aspects of this conference I could praise, I want to reflect on the particular moments and features that were most enlightening to me in my academic journey on the relationship of science and faith. First, it was very interesting to see the wide range of perspectives present at the conference. Not only were theologians in attendance, but scientists and philosophers of all religious persuasions came as well. This engendered …
Science, Religion, and the Governor General
Canada’s new Governor General, the Right Honourable Julie Payette, recently gave a speech to the Canadian Science Policy Convention, and in the process she took some shots at climate change denial, alternative medicine, and astrology, and expressed surprise that they are still debated “in learned society.” But what’s attracted the most attention is her incredulity “that we are still debating and still questioning whether life was a divine intervention or whether it was coming out of a natural process let alone, oh my goodness, lo and behold, random process?” It is not terribly surprising that she finds arguments for divine …
Scholarship Reflection: Stephen Sesink
Stephen Sesink attended the 2017 BioLogos Conference: Christ & Creation (March 29-31, 2017 in Houston, TX). [columnize]The “Christ & Creation” BioLogos conference in Houston was a great pleasure to attend. N.T. Wright’s lecture was quite stimulating. He argued that in order to properly comprehend creation, we must reverse the “epistemological track” of the common evangelical conception of God and creation,
New Student & Early Career Member
The CSCA would like to welcome Timothy Opperman as our new student and early-career representative on our Executive Council. Tim currently lives in Vancouver where he recently attained an MA in theological studies with an interdisciplinary concentration from Regent College. His master’s thesis was on an evolutionary creationist approach to original sin. Tim has long had an interest in the relationship between science and religion. He is originally from Edmonton and completed his BA in cultural anthropology, with a minor in philosophy, at the University of Alberta. Tim has also worked as an English teacher, in Vancouver and Taiwan, and has …
Scholarship Reflection: Andrew Reeves
On May 13th, 2017, Andrew Reeves (University of Waterloo, M.Sc. Physics: Astrophysics and Gravitation Candidate) attended “Playing God? Research, Ethics, and Practice in Modern Medicine,” a conference held by Christians in Science (CiS), our UK partner. As a part of his trip, he also arranged to attend a series of other events, including two talks by J. Richard Middleton, entitled “Human Distinctiveness and the Origin of Evil in Biblical and Evolutionary Perspective” and “A New Heaven and a New Earth”–as well as talks by Gavin Merrifield and Sir John Lennox.
Scholarship Reflection: Victoria McKinnon
Victoria McKinnon (McMaster University, MD Program) attended “A Postsecular Age? New Narratives of Religion, Science, and Society”–a conference held by the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science & Religion. (July 27-30, 2016, St. Anne’s College, Oxford, UK.) [columnize]The purpose of this year’s Ian Ramsey Centre conference was to investigate the interdisciplinary subfield of secularism studies and its implications.