In late 2016, Richard Dawkins came to Vancouver, B.C. He was on stage at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts (University of British Columbia) in an event billed as “AN EVENING WITH RICHARD DAWKINS … In conversation with Matt Dillahunty.” I live half-time in Vancouver with my wife, Sonya. We both respect Dawkins and enjoy his writings. So we bought our $100 tickets and attended the event. Taking our seats near the front, we settled in anticipating an intellectually stimulating lecture (well, we thought it would be a lecture) by Dawkins. It turned out to be more of a …
William Newsome (Stanford University), “Of Two Minds”
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 …
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). Seth Hart earned his BA in Biblical Studies at Ozark Christian College (Joplin, Missouri) and an MA in Ministry from Johnson University (Knoxville, Tennessee). He is currently working on a Masters of Theological Studies at Regent College, Vancouver, and he plans to pursue doctorate studies in the field of science and theology. For 2016-2018, the CSCA is offering five scholarships per year (up to $1600 each) to send Canadian students to science-religion conferences …
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). 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.) The purpose of this year’s Ian Ramsey Centre conference was to investigate the interdisciplinary subfield of secularism studies and its implications.