Science envy is alive and well in old Kentucky
A trilobite, Ceraurus milleranus, found in Maysville, Kentucky. Whence this delight? There are two options here: (1) Ceraurus milleranus lived during the Ordovician, a period that lasted from about 488 to 444 million years ago and all its trilobyie cousins went extinct by the end of the Permian (250 million years ago); or (2) Ceraurus [...]
Too late for today, maybe, but still. Next time you vote, please don’t vote intelligent design
One intelligent orangutan. Image source: latrola.net Just a moment ago it struck us that there are no posts on intelligent design (ID) here at psnt.net. There is a manuscript of a presentation that addresses ID, but no posts. Therefore we said to ourselves, “Ourselves, this must be remedied.” So here we are, 2 Novemvber 2010, [...]
On the social value of weird animals
Not the weirdest in the sea, perhaps, but pretty weird nonetheless: Murray’s abyssal anglerfish, Melanocetus murrayi. Source: Wikimedia Commons My Dear Alert Readers, thank you for being so very alert. I am but a small soul adrift in cyberspace, and cyberspace is big. I cannot even for a moment achieve anything close to a global [...]
What we have here is a failure to disbelieve
This jolly fellow is Maximus the Confessor (c. 580-662), a Christian monk, theologian, and scholar. He was the first to write serious commentaries on the work of Pseudo-Dionysius, who himself (whoever he was) was perhaps the first true advocate of what has come to be called negative, or apophatic, theology. In negative theology, one builds [...]
Christine O’Donnell: what is truth?
Hieronymus Bosch, Christ Before Pilate, c. 1520. Jesus talked about the truth, but Pilate wouldn’t have it. Instead, he washed his hands of the affair, asked What is truth? and promptly subjugated truth to politics. We sigh: There is nothing new under the sun. Source: Wikimedia Commons Politics does not make a big splash at [...]
Two apologies for apologetic
Raphael Sanzio da Urbino, Study for St. Paul Preaching in Athens, 1515. Source: raphaelsanzio.org. This work shows St. Paul atop the Aeropagus in Athens, defending Christianity to a bunch of cranky philosophers I must apologize. Twice. Just last week I began my third and final year of seminary. Which means I’ve been reading all kinds [...]
Some Baptists just can’t keep their heads
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Salome with the Head of the Baptist c. 1609. Source: caravaggio-foundation.org In the last month a friend of mine at church has sent me some interesting stories provided by the Associated Baptist Press. Both have to do with statements made by faculty and administration of the once-great Southern Baptist Theological Seminary [...]
Evolution and the art of dying well
They died out, sure. But did they die out well? Apatosaurus lived about 150 million years ago, during the Jurassic Period (Kimmeridgian and Tithonian ages). It was one of the largest land animals that ever existed, with an average length of 23 m (75 ft). Yet it, like every other form of life on our fair planet, [...]
The surprising joys of the late Precambrian
Beauty etched in stone: A fossil of Spriggina floundensi, discovered in the Flinders Range of South Australia. This animal, which may have been a precursor to the trilobites, lived during the Ediacaran Period, the last of the Precambrian Eon. The fossil shown is about 3 cm long. Image source: Wikimedia Commons In today’s New York [...]
It’s only evolution, but I like it
Charles Darwin, 1863 I don’t know very much about evolution, really. But I fully support it. Does this make me hypocritical? Maybe, but I don’t think so. Here are five reasons why. (1) Biologists that I know. I have had the pleasure of knowing a number of biologists. They tell me that it’s a great [...]
