Daniel Dennett died on April 19 at age 82. There were obituaries in both Nature and Science for this prolific neuroscientist. His insights on consciousness, cognition and philosophy fill books that have been read by many. I have a few in my bookcase, and they are well worth reading. The fact that he received an…
At the end of May, temperatures in Delhi, India, reached above 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit). Last summer was apparently the warmest in about 2,000 years, with temperatures averaging two degrees warmer than all our climate models predicted. As everyone is aware, fossil fuels continue to increase the level of carbon dioxide in the…
In mid-April I attended two conferences. The first was the Faith & Science Conference offered by BioLogos and held in Raleigh, North Carolina. The second was more local, “Beyond Culture Wars”, sponsored by the Institute for Christian Studies and Martin Luther University College in Waterloo, my hometown. Unfortunately, the conferences overlapped; one started on Wednesday…
Our God-given brains use chemicals and electricity to communicate among cells and neurons. Chemicals (neurotransmitters and hormones) primarily communicate between neurons, while electricity is often the means of communication along the sometimes-considerable length of neurons. We have long influenced the brain’s chemical communication with medicines and drugs but until recently, we have been unable to…
“I think the significance of the leap year,” scientist Alexander Boxer, speaking on the U.S.’s National Public Radio, said, “is that it’s a great reminder that the universe is really good at defying our attempts to devise nice and pretty and aesthetically pleasing systems to fit it in.” When I heard this, I immediately substituted…
Two years ago, I wrote a column about scientific studies of sleep and dreaming (“Why Do We Sleep?”, January 10, 2022), and I don’t want to repeat myself, except to say, that while sleep is complex and does many things, its overarching reality is still not well understood. The American National Institute of Health, in…
This December, Science magazine declared that drugs that mimic a gut peptide, GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1), were the scientific breakthrough of 2023. These drugs were first used to treat diabetes but were soon found to cause weight loss and have other beneficial health effects. While there are a number of these drugs, the most well-known and…
In 2018, when Donna Strickland won the Nobel Prize in Physics for her work with lasers, she was still only an associate professor at the University of Waterloo. University faculty are usually hired as assistant professors and then promoted to associate status before finally, when successful, being promoted to full professors (usually just called professors)….
As a Christian scientist, there are questions I do not have answers to and often do not understand. A source of many questions is the scale of the universe in contrast to the particulars of our faith. The universe is large and old, reflective of the power of our God, but our faith hangs on…
In 2015 the United Nations (partly at the instigation of two women from Colombia, Paula Caballero and Patti Londoño) agreed to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These 17 goals were intended to be reached by 2030 and include things like no poverty (Goal 1), quality education (Goal 4), gender equality (Goal 5) and climate…
At the end of July, I was able to attend the joint American Scientific Affiliation and Canadian Scientific Christian Affiliation annual conference. The meeting was held at the Mississauga campus of the University of Toronto, as it was the 50th anniversary of the CSCA. Hearing talks and sharing our faith with other Christian scientists was…
In most cases, determining if someone has died is straightforward. Breathing ceases, the heart stops, and we know the person has left us and gone to be with our Lord. But it’s not always that simple. Modern technology and medical knowledge mean death can sometimes be prevented or deferred. People can be resuscitated, such as…
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