Jay L. Wile's Blog, page 6

My 2022 Commencement Address to Homeschool Graduates

The 2022 Statewide Homeschool Graduation Ceremony

This past weekend, I gave a commencement address to graduating homeschooled students at the 2022 Statewide Home School Graduation hosted by the Indiana Foundation For Home Schooling. It was a wonderful, meaningful ceremony, and I want to thank the Indiana Foundation For Home Schooling for inviting me. If you are interested in what I had to say to our nation’s hope for the future, you can find a reasonable approximation of my speech below:

Thank you very much for that kind introduction. It is a real delight being here, and I mean that sincerely. Of all the speaking engagements I have, homeschool commencements are my favorite, because they give me hope. If you keep up on the news, it is very easy to become discouraged about the future. However, the more homeschool graduates I see, the less discouraged I become. So I am not really here for you, your parents, your family, or your friends. I am here for me. I need a good shot of hope!

Now, over the next 2-3 hours, I am supposed to come up with some words of wisdom to inspire you as you contemplate your future. Unfortunately, I don’t have any. But that’s okay, because there have been lots of other people wiser than me, so I will borrow some of their words. Let’s start with Abraham Lincoln. On the first of January in 1863, he signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Many students, and unfortunately some teachers, think that the Emancipation Proclamation abolished slavery. It did not. It was an important proclamation, because it directly tied the issue of slavery to the Civil War. Since most European countries had already abolished slavery, this kept them from supporting the Confederacy, because they didn’t want to be seen as siding with that abominable practice. It also encouraged those who were held in slavery to escape and go north. Many of them found better lives there, and some of them ended up joining the Union army, providing significant aid at a time when it was desperately needed. Thus, the Emancipation Proclamation had important, positives effect. However, it did not abolish slavery; the 13th amendment to the United States Constitution did that.

Why wasn’t slavery abolished by the Emancipation Proclamation? Because it did not have the force of law. It was an executive order, and most legal scholars at the time thought that it went far beyond the authority of such an order. In fact, Lincoln, a lawyer himself, agreed with them. He said calling the Emancipation Proclamation a law would be like asking a child how many legs his calf had if he counted the tail as a leg. The child would say “five,” but the correct answer would be “four,” because calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg. It is still a tail.

Why am I sharing this tidbit of history with you? Because unfortunately, you are graduating at a time when many people in this country want to believe that calling a tail a leg makes it a leg. Worse yet, they want everyone else to agree that the tail is a leg, as long as someone decides to call it that. While this might make some people feel better, it is delusional. It is a lie, and Christians should have nothing to do with it.

Proverbs 12:22 says, “Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD, But those who deal faithfully are His delight.” When you call a tail a leg, you are lying, and that is an abomination to the Lord. It should also be an abomination to you. Lies are destructive. Believing them may produce some short-term happiness, but it always results in long-term misery. Lies enslave. When you lie about something, it might make you feel better for a while, but then you must continue to reinforce the lie with other lies. As time goes on, you become a slave to a web of lies. Eventually, the web falls apart, and you end up suffering. The best way to avoid such calamity is to refuse to believe the lie to begin with.

Of course, refusing to believe a lie is difficult when everyone around you seems to be committed to it. But I think that you as Christian homeschool graduates have a distinct advantage. There are specific aspects of a Christian home education that make you more suited to believe the truth regardless of what others are thinking. First, since your education was firmly rooted in Scripture, you are better able to identify what is true. Publicly-schooled students are forbidden to study Scripture as a part of their education, at least in any meaningful way. Even Christian schools tend to relegate Scripture to Bible class and Chapel. However, my experience with Christian homeschoolers is that they integrate Scripture into nearly all their academic subjects. For example, just as scientists did for the vast majority of science history, I relate the science I teach in my courses to Scripture. In fact, I cannot imagine how I would teach science without relating it to Scripture, because they both come from the same Source.

In John 8:31-32, Jesus says, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” To know the truth, then, you have to be firmly grounded in God’s Word. Hopefully, the Bible was such an integral part of your education that you will be better to identify what is true and what is a lie. Of course, this means that you can’t stop your study of Scripture when you stop your formal education. Jesus says you must continue in His Word to know the truth. So you must continue with what your parents taught you – continue studying Scripture daily. That way, you will be able to discern the truth from the lies.

In addition, you have been given a better education than most of your non-homeschooled peers. How do I know this? Partly because of the many studies that demonstrate homeschool graduates are, on average, better educated than the rest of the population. But also, it has been my personal experience. I started working with homeschoolers before I had a child of my own, because as a university professor, my best chemistry and physics students were homeschool graduates. Indeed, while I no longer teach university classes full time, I still teach them occasionally, and to this day, my best students are still the homeschool graduates.

This superior education has taught you a lot of facts, but more importantly, it has taught you how to think critically. Lots of lies come wrapped in wonderfully pretty packages, promising joy and contentment. However, a critical thinker can look past the packaging and actually reason through the issue. Honestly, if more people knew how to do that, we wouldn’t be experiencing the cultural insanity we find ourselves in today. However, as experience has shown us, the general public is really quite inept at thinking critically, and as a result, the pretty packaging is enough to convince them that the lies are true.

But most importantly, you have been given an incredible gift in the form of your parents. Not many parents are willing to sacrifice for their children the way your parents have sacrificed for you. Think about it. How much money have your parents spent on overpriced homeschool curriculum written by greedy authors? How much money did they give up because one of them couldn’t have a job while you were being babysat in school? How much of their own time did they sacrifice in order to help you learn the things you needed to learn? Most parents don’t have to spend time worrying about trigonometry, but homeschooling parents do. Now that’s a sacrifice!

Finally, your parents have given you a unique gift when it comes to fighting our culture’s descent into madness. They have given you real-life examples of what can happen when you defy culture and do what you know is right. Think about it. Were your grandparents happy about your parents’ decision to homeschool you? What about your aunts and uncles? What about your parents’ non-homeschooling friends? How often did a well-meaning teacher try to convince your parents that they were going to ruin you by homeschooling you? The culture says that real education can only happen if you cloister kids away in a ghetto with others their age. We call that school. Aren’t you glad your parents didn’t believe that lie? If you haven’t done so already, the very first thing you need to do when you leave this auditorium is to thank your parents for their sacrifices and for resisting the culture and doing what they knew was right.

So here’s what I want you to do. Be like your parents. Ignore the culture. Don’t accept the lies. Stand for the truth. I’m not gonna lie – it will be hard. Very hard. But this is important. Our culture is going stark raving mad, and I honestly believe that it’s up to your generation to stop this march into full-blown insanity.

I want to inspire you to be like your parents, so I want to borrow some more words, but this time, from a very unlikely source. In fact, they come from a comic book. You see, I believe that truth can be found in many places, and regardless of the source, when you find it, you should share it. The words I want to share come from The Amazing Spider Man Volume 1, #537. You might have heard it referred to as Civil War. If you saw the movie, you heard some of these words, but they were misquoted and mischaracterized. The movie is never as good as the book. These words were originally written by J. Michael Straczynski, and they were part of a speech given by Captain America.

Here is the truth that I want you to remember for as long as you can. In the words of Captain America:

Doesn’t matter what the press says. Doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn’t matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: the requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world — “No, you move.”

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Another Reason Homeschooling Is Best for Most Students

Over the years, I have compiled a lot of information regarding why homeschooling is the best mode of education for most students. Homeschooled students learn more than their publicly- and privately-schooled peers. Homeschool graduates make the best university students. Homeschooled students are better socialized than their peers. Homeschool graduates are more accepting of people who are different from them. Homeschooled students eat better and sleep better than their peers. However, there is another (very obvious) reason home education is the best option for most students, but I have failed to write about it. I will correct that oversight now.

Let me begin by telling you a little story about something that happened in one of my online high-school physics courses this year. Most of the students in the class are juniors or seniors in high school, since they must have basic trigonometry before they can take the course. Well, before class time officially started one day, a student was talking about his recent experience in a debate tournament. While he was talking, something like this happened in the chat box, where students can type their thoughts so they don’t interrupt the speaker:

Student A: I love debate. I have been doing it since junior high.

Student B: I love it, too.

Student C: I wanted to do it, but you have to be 12.

Student A: Wait….what?

Student B: huh?

Student D: ?????????!!!!?????

Student E: You aren’t 12 yet?

Of course, I knew that student C was several years younger than the vast majority of students who take physics, but she had mastered the necessary math, so I accepted her in my chemistry course the year before and in my physics course this year. She has earned A’s each semester and has been an active participant in class.

I have another student who took chemistry with me last year and is currently taking physics. She recently sent me her graduation announcement. In it, she shared that she will be graduating from high school and getting her associates degree this month. She uses her artistic talents and the knowledge she gained while getting her associates degree to produce original Mugs, Craft Supplies, Ornaments, and Hoodies.

Finally, many years ago I met a high school student while I was speaking at a series of homeschool events. She had a broad range of knowledge from biology to history to the arts, and I really enjoyed my conversations with her. Later on, I received a handwritten letter from her in the mail, but the letter looked like it had been written by someone who was just learning to write. Some of the letters were backwards, and many of the words were horribly misspelled.

I thought it was a joke, so I began writing a snarky letter back to her. Then something (probably the Lord) told me to ask her mother about it, so I emailed her mother. Her mother said that the letter was normal for her. It turns out that this young lady has many learning challenges. In fact, in homeschool, she took three years to get through first grade. Nevertheless, if I had not seen her handwriting, I would have never known, because she was clearly articulate and well-educated. She is now the Creative Director and Designer for a software firm that develops apps.

What do these three students have in common? Because they were homeschooled, their education was tailored to them so it would meet their needs. The young physics student would have been terribly bored in a typical school setting, because she is clearly advanced when it comes to math and science. Her homeschool experience allowed her to learn much more than she could have in most schools. The student earning her associates degree while in high school was able to take many post-high-school classes before graduating, because she could tailor her schedule and be flexible with the high school classes she took. As a result, she could use her talents to start a business in what will probably end up being her chosen field. The student with learning challenges had her education tailored so that her challenges did not keep her from developing her strengths.

Of all the benefits homeschooling brings, a tailored education might be the most important one. There is no such thing as an effective “one size fits all” education, even though that’s what the vast majority of schools offer. Homeschooling allows students to learn at their own pace in a way that meets their specific needs. That way, they can make the most of their education.

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Physics Helps You Understand the Mysteries of Christianity

Dr. John Charlton Polkinghorne was a theoretical physicist whose work was important enough to earn him election as a fellow in the longest-lived scientific organization in the world, the Royal Society. However, after 25 years of contributing to our knowledge of God’s creation, he decided that his best work in physics was behind him, so he began training to become an Anglican priest. After being ordained, he served in the Anglican Church for 14 years before retiring.

Obviously, Dr. Polkinghorne’s education and life experiences make him an authoritative voice when it comes to the relationship between Christianity and Science. He wrote a lot about the subject, and while I often disagree with him, I have read and appreciated much of what he has written. In 2009, he and one of his students (Nicholas Beale) wrote a book entitled, Questions of Truth: Fifty-one Responses to Questions about God, Science, and Belief. I read it quite a while ago, and I reacted as I usually did – agreeing with some parts of the book and disagreeing with others. However, I was thumbing through it to find a quote I wanted to use, and the Foreword caught my eye. I don’t think I read it when I read the book, so I decided to take a look at it.

It was written by Nobel Laureate Dr. Antony Hewish, who was an astronomer and a devout Christian. In less than two pages, he makes one of the most interesting arguments I have ever heard regarding the relationship between science and Christianity. He first makes the point, which I make over and over again when I teach science, that science does not follow common-sense thinking. Aristotle used common-sense thinking to come to the conclusion that all objects have a natural state of being at rest, and you have to force them out of that state to get them to move. Galileo and Newton followed experiments rather than common sense, and they demonstrated that an object has no preferred state of motion. It remains in its current state until it is acted on by an outside force. That non-common-sense notion is now called Newton’s First Law of Motion.

Of course, since Dr. Hewish is well-versed in physics, he gives a better example of how physics doesn’t follow common-sense thinking and then makes a conclusion from this fact:

For example, the simplest piece of matter, a hydrogen atom, cannot be accurately described without including the effects caused by the cloud of virtual particles with which it is surrounded. There is no such thing as truly empty space. Quantum theory predicts that even a perfect vacuum is filled with a multitude of particles that flash into and out of existence much too rapidly to be caught by any detector. Yet their existence modifies the motion of electrons orbiting protons in a calculable way that has been verified by direct observation. The ghostly presence of virtual particles defies rational common sense and is nonintuitive for those unacquainted with physics. Religious belief in God, and Christian belief that God became man around two thousand years ago, may seem strange to common-sense thinking. But when the most elementary physical things behave in this way, we should be prepared to accept that the deepest aspects of our existence go beyond our common-sense intuitions.

(John Polkinghorne and Nicholas Bealexii, Questions of Truth: Fifty-one Responses to Questions about God, Science, and Belief, (Presbyterian Publishing 2009), p. xii)

In the end, Dr. Hewish is making the case that understanding modern physics should make you more inclined to be a Christian (or at least more inclined to be religious), since it conditions you to believe that the universe is based on mysterious processes that cannot be directly observed.

I have to say that this has happened in my own life, even though I was not aware of it. I went from being an atheist to believing in some kind of Creator because science showed me that the universe was obviously the result of design. I eventually became a Christian because after reading extensively on world religions, by grace I saw that Christianity is supported by the most evidence. I was initially very uncomfortable with the mysteries that are inherently a part of Christianity, but as I grew older, I became more and more comfortable with them. I thought that this was because I had grown accustomed to them. However, after reading Dr. Hewish’s foreword, I noticed that my level of comfort with the mysteries of Christianity coincided with my increasing knowledge of quantum mechanics.

Dr. Hewish seems to have hit the nail on the head, at least when it comes to how modern physics has helped me grow in my faith.

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The Heavens Tell of the Glory of God

Astronomer Johannes Kepler (left) and Astronaut James Irwin on the moon (right)

As I wrote previously, one of the reasons I took a break from blogging was so that I could concentrate on teaching a Master’s Class at Memoria College this year. In that class, we read the great natural philosophers of the past, from Archimedes to Darwin. Many of the students remarked on how often God was mentioned in these works, especially the works of astronomy. For example, Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), the brilliant astronomer who figured out that planets orbit the sun in ellipses, not circles, described the sphere of the universe this way:

For in the sphere, which is the image of God the Creator and the Archetype of the world-as was proved in Book 1-there are three regions, symbols of the three persons of the Holy Trinity – the center, a symbol of the Father; the surface, of the Son; and the intermediate space, of the Holy Ghost.
(Johannes Kepler, Epitome of Copernican Astronomy – Book IV, First Book on the Doctrine of the Schemata [436])

In other words, he saw the Trinity in his model of the universe. The sun represented God the Father, the outer edge of the universe (where he thought all the stars resided) represented God the Son, and the area in between represented God the Holy Spirit.

I find it refreshing that scientists like Kepler were comfortable relating their science to their faith. Nowadays, that kind of language is censored from the scientific literature, but for most of history, it wasn’t. That’s one of the many benefits of reading scientific works from the past. It allows you to see the incredibly strong, positive impact Christianity had on science.

I asked the class why Kepler viewed the universe the way he did. One student (a pastor) gave a Bible verse as his answer:

The heavens tell of the glory of God; And their expanse declares the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, And night to night reveals knowledge.
(Psalm 19:1-2, NASB)

In this student’s opinion (with which I agree), a person must strongly compartmentalize his or her thinking in order to study the universe and deny that God’s power and majesty are reflected in it.

In support of that idea, another student mentioned Astronaut James Irwin. After coming home from walking on the moon, he wrote a book entitled More than Earthlings. In it, he explained how his trip to the moon inspired him to take his Christian faith more seriously:

Being on the moon had a profound spiritual impact upon my life. Before I entered space with the Apollo 15 mission in July of 1971, I was a lukewarm Christian, to say the least! I was even a silent Christian, but I feel the Lord sent me to the moon so I could return to the earth and share his Son, Jesus Christ. The entire space achievement is put in proper perspective when one realizes that God walking on the earth is more important than man walking on the moon. I believe that God walked on the earth 2,000 years ago in the person of Jesus Christ.

As a result, he started the High Flight Foundation, which works “…hand in hand with leaders serving the Nations and the people as they discover God’s destiny for their lives and Nation.”

Johannes Kepler and James Irwin are just two of the many scientists who recognize that the heavens do, indeed, tell of the glory of God. In fact, that is the most important reason students should study science. The more you learn about science, the more you should be in awe of the power and majesty of God!

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Slaughtering Species in the Name of “Green Energy”

A wind farm in California at sunset (click for credit)

Nine years ago, I wrote about a study that indicated wind turbines in the U.S. kill more than half a million birds and more than 800,000 bats each year. Five years later, I wrote about another study that indicated wind farms act as apex predators in the ecosystem where they are built. While very little of this important information makes its way into the popular press, it has informed those who actually care about the environment. As a result, more studies have been done, and these studies indicate something rather surprising about two of the “green energy” solutions that have been promoted to “save our planet.”

So far, the most chilling study was published in Royal Society Open Science. The authors of the study collected feathers of dead birds found at selected wind farms and solar energy facilities in California. They found that of the many species killed by these “green energy” sites, 23 are considered priority bird species, which means their long-term survival is threatened. The list is quite diverse, including the American white pelican, the willow flycatcher, the bank swallow, and the burrowing owl.

Now, just because a species is threatened, that doesn’t mean a few extra deaths are going to be a problem. After all, these facilities are in specific places, and bird populations can cover wide geographical regions. A few extra deaths in some regions can be compensated for by more reproductivity in other regions. Thus, the authors used models to estimate the impact that deaths from wind farms and solar facilities will have on the overall populations. They conclude:

This study shows that many of the bird species killed at renewable energy facilities are vulnerable to population or subpopulation-level effects from potential increases in fatalities from these and other anthropogenic mortality sources. About half (48%) of the species we considered were vulnerable, and they spanned a diverse suite of taxonomic groups of conservation concern that are resident to or that pass through California.

In other words, the study indicates that 11 priority bird species that live in or pass through California are now more at risk because of “green energy” sites in that state. Now, of course, this conclusion is model-dependent, and the models might be wrong. However, at minimum, this study identified with certainty that at least 23 species of threatened birds are being slaughtered at wind farms and solar facilities. That should cause people who actually care about the natural world at least some concern. Unfortunately, even though this study was published a month ago, I haven’t seen a single report about it in the popular press.

As an aside, it’s pretty obvious how wind farms kill birds, but how do solar energy facilities do it? The short answer is that we don’t know. What we do know is that birds tend to crash into solar panels. Perhaps they interpret the shiny surface of the solar panels as a body of water where they can land. Perhaps they interpret it as more sky. Whatever the reason, we know that birds are dying at solar farms. Preliminary research indicates that in the U.S., somewhere between 37,800 and 138,600 die each year as a result of crashing into solar panels.

So what’s the take-home message from this study? It’s rather simple:

The “green energy” solutions touted by politicians and the press are not necessarily better for the environment.

The fact is that “green energy” processes are mostly new, so their long-term effects on the environment are mostly unknown. Ten years ago, no one would have thought that wind farms and solar facilities might be threatening the long-term survival of certain bird species. We now know otherwise. And don’t forget the bats. The effect that wind farms have on their populations hasn’t been studied in nearly as much detail, even though more bats are slaughtered by wind farms than birds!

Those who are pushing “green energy” might actually be pushing environmentally-hostile energy without even knowing it. That’s what happens when those who call themselves “environmentalists” ignore science and simply follow the politicians and the press.

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Discovering Design With Biology

In 1997, Marilyn Durnell and I published Exploring Creation With Biology, a college-preparatory biology course designed specifically for home-educated students. Because the science of biology changes over time (especially when it comes to classification), we published a second edition of the course eight years later. Unfortunately, we never got the time to write a third edition of the course, but the publisher did eventually use a different author to write a new edition, which was definitely needed. While the content of that new edition is solid and I think it can be used in a setting where there is a teacher who is knowledgeable about biology, I don’t think it is useful in most homeschool situations. As a result, I have teamed up with a different author, Dr. Paul Madtes Jr, to write a completely new biology book, Discovering Design With Biology. You can see samples of the book here (just click on “Product Resources”), but I thought I would use this post to answer the question that I have already been getting: “How is this book different from the second edition of Exploring Creation With Biology?”

Most importantly, Dr. Madtes is the first author. Thus, all the major decisions about the book (what would be covered, how it would be covered, etc.) were made by him. This is important, because he teaches biology at the university level, so he knows what will best prepare high school students for that experience. As a result, the “voice” of this book is different from that of my other books. It is still written in first person in a very conversational style, but the style is that of Dr. Madtes, not me. For example, I rarely include Bible verses in my books unless they relate directly to the material. However, Dr. Madtes thought that the best way to keep students focused on the Creator would be to start every chapter out with one or more verses. Thus, that’s what you see in this book.

Unlike the second edition of Exploring Creation With Biology, this book builds biology from the ground up. After an introductory chapter, we start with molecules, then we discuss cells, then cell division, then genetics, then biotechnology, then single-celled organisms and fungi, then animals, then plants, then environmental science, and then biomes. Within each topic, the focus is also quite different. In genetics, for example, Exploring Creation With Biology, 2nd Edition concentrated on Mendelian genetics and only briefly mentioned non-Mendelian genetics. In this book, we discuss the non-Mendelian mechanisms in more detail. We also discuss the different types of mutations that can occur and how they affect the organism.

Evolution is handled differently as well. In this book, the design you see in nature is stressed. In fact, that word appears on 92 of the 512 pages that make up the 16 chapters of content. However, evolution is only discussed in the final section of each chapter. The last section of the first chapter, for example, deals with natural selection. We discuss how it works and how it ends up being a necessary component in any scientific treatment of origins. Indeed, we discuss how anyone who believes in a Global Flood (which we both do) must use natural selection as a means by which to understand the diversity of life we see today. In other chapters, however, the final section is devoted to explaining how the material that has been discussed demonstrates that there is a limit to the amount of change natural selection can produce. As a result, a recent, supernatural creation followed by a Global Flood is the scenario that best fits the current data.

One other notable difference is our treatment of human beings. Exploring Creation With Biology, 2nd Edition did not discuss human anatomy or physiology at all, but this book devotes almost an entire chapter to it. We also discuss how and why biologists classify people in the same biological order as lemurs, monkeys, and apes, and why there is no problem with that approach. However, we also discuss how humans are unique in creation, since we have been given the Image of God. Thus, while we have several physical characteristics in common with many mammals, we are something wholly different from any of them.

As was the case in the second edition of Exploring Creation With Biology, there are three kinds of laboratory exercises in the course. There are 17 experiments that use household items. These include extracting DNA from fruit, determining the effects of temperature and pH on proteins, exploring reflexes, and exploring the effect of surface area on diffusion. An additional 14 experiments use a microscope kit, and they include identifying different stages of mitosis, examining bacteria cultures, studying blood, and studying invertebrates. The other seven experiments use a dissection kit. In those experiments, students dissect an earthworm, a crayfish, a fish, a frog, an egg, a feather, and a flower. In order for this course to count as a laboratory-based, high-school biology course, students must do all of at least two of those three types of experiments (household and dissection, household and microscope, or microscope and dissection).

Most importantly, we give Glory to the One who created it all. In the book’s introduction, we quote Carolus Linneaus:

I saw the infinite, all-knowing and all-powerful God from behind as he went away, and I grew dizzy. I followed his footsteps over nature’s fields and saw everywhere an eternal wisdom and power, an inscrutable perfection. (Peter Whitfield, History of Science, Scholastic Library Pub 2003, p. 23)

At the end, we quote John Ray:

There is for a free man no occupation more worthy and delightful than to contemplate the beauteous works of nature and honor the infinite wisdom and goodness of God. (Charles E. Raven, John Ray, Naturalist: His Life and Works, Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 83)

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I’m BAAAAACK!!!!!!!!!

Did you miss me? I know some people did. I received a few messages from readers, asking why I have been so quiet lately. Well…I have just been insanely busy. A biology professor, Dr. Paul Madtes Jr, and I have been writing a new high school biology text. While writing with him has been an incredibly rewarding experience, it took a lot of time. In addition, I taught a Master’s Class at Memoria College this year, and it was pretty challenging. We read the great natural philosophers of the past and discussed how their work shaped modern science.

Now things are winding down on both fronts. The book has been sent to the printer, and this week is the final week of the Master’s class. As a result, I can now return to blogging. Tomorrow, I will post an article discussing our new biology course and how it is different from Exploring Creation with Biology, 2nd Edition, which the publisher allowed to go out of print. For now, if you want a preview of what it looks like, you can go here:

Discovering Design with Biology by Dr. Paul Madtes Jr and Dr. Jay L. Wile

If you click on “Product Resources,” you will find a table of contents, the entire first chapter, a scope and sequence, and the details about the experiments.

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Dr. Peter Boghossian and the Decline of Higher Education

Dr. Peter Boghossian, who has demonstrated the insanity that exists in some academic circles (click for credit)Dr. Peter Boghossian is an interesting individual. He holds a doctorate in education (Ed.D.) and specializes in making philosophy more accessible to the average person. I first encountered him when I read his book, A Manual for Creating Atheists. I was not impressed. There are atheists who impress me (see here here, and here, for example), but based on his book, Dr. Boghossian was not one of them. In short, the book is full of misconceptions about the nature of faith, doesn’t engage well with the arguments of Christian philosophers, and exaggerates the strength of atheist arguments.

Nevertheless, I found myself being impressed by him a few years later, when he and two colleagues decided to demonstrate the insanity that exists in some academic disciplines. They did this by following a methodology to write “scholarly papers” that promoted nonsense, but it was nonsense which was perfectly welcome in certain fields of study. As they state:

Our paper-writing methodology always followed a specific pattern: it started with an idea that spoke to our epistemological or ethical concerns with the field and then sought to bend the existing scholarship to support it. The goal was always to use what the existing literature offered to get some little bit of lunacy or depravity to be acceptable at the highest levels of intellectual respectability within the field. Therefore, each paper began with something absurd or deeply unethical (or both) that we wanted to forward or conclude. We then made the existing peer-reviewed literature do our bidding in the attempt to get published in the academic canon.

Not surprisingly, their “scholarly papers” were accepted to be published in the prestigious academic journals of the disciplines that they lampooned, and until the authors themselves came forward, no one in the fields thought there was anything remotely wrong with their work!

Well, it turns out that Dr. Boghossian is back in the news, and I am once again impressed by his actions. This time, he thinks an entire institution, Portland State University (where he had been teaching), has gone off the deep end. He wrote an open letter to the Provost of the university, stating that he had to resign, because the university

…has transformed a bastion of free inquiry into a Social Justice factory whose only inputs were race, gender, and victimhood and whose only outputs were grievance and division.

Students at Portland State are not being taught to think. Rather, they are being trained to mimic the moral certainty of ideologues. Faculty and administrators have abdicated the university’s truth-seeking mission and instead drive intolerance of divergent beliefs and opinions. This has created a culture of offense where students are now afraid to speak openly and honestly.

I strongly encourage you to read the entire letter, as it describes the insanity that is currently infecting many institutions that were, at one time, centers of higher learning. Now, they are craven organizations that have chosen to protect their students’ feelings at the price of their students’ education.

Unfortunately, I think this can be said of a great many “universities” found in the United States. Instead of being institutions in which open inquiry is encouraged, they have become indoctrination centers where many views are considered completely off-limits and free inquiry has been sacrificed at the altar of people’s feelings. If you are thinking of sending your child to a university, please spend some time exploring its views on academic freedom. To give you an idea of what that means, this article has a list of “do’s” and “don’ts” when it comes to evaluating whether an institution is a university or a Social Justice Warrior Indoctrination Center.

It is unfortunate that parents must worry about this kind of nonsense today, but it is not unexpected. When a society ceases to believe in God, it will believe in virtually anything, including the ravings of anti-science, anti-reason lunatics.

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Dr. John Sanford, Another Atheist-Turned-Christian

Dr. John Sanford (right) and me (left) at the Creation Science Fellowship Meeting in Costa Mesa, California.

Dr. John Sanford is a brilliant geneticist. He has published more than 100 papers in the peer-reviewed literature and holds several dozen patents in genetics. Most notably, he was the primary inventor of the gene gun, which allows scientists to take genes from one species and insert them into another species so that they work. For 18 years, he was a professor of plant genetics at Cornell University.

When it comes to his worldview early in his career, he puts it rather clearly:

I was totally sold on evolution. It was my religion; it defined how I saw everything, it was my value system and my reason for being.

In his incredible book, Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Human Genome, he tells the reader some of what led him to change his mind. He defines the “Primary Axiom” as the belief that man is merely the product of random mutations plus natural selection. He then writes:

Late in my career, I did something which for a Cornell Professor would seem unthinkable. I began to question the Primary Axiom. I did this with great fear and trepidation. By doing this, I knew I would be at odds with the most “sacred cow” within modern academia…To my own amazement, I gradually realized that the seemingly “great and unassailable fortress” which has been built up around the Primary Axiom is really a house of cards. The Primary Axiom is actually an extremely vulnerable theory – in fact, it is essentially indefensible. Its apparent invincibility derives largely from bluster, smoke, and mirrors. (2nd edition, p. vi)

Once he realized that the Primary Axiom is indefensible, he had to reevaluate his entire worldview. He started off coming to the conclusion that there must be a Creator, and then he started submitting to Jesus. He left Cornell University specifically because the academic environment was hostile to Christian values, but he has not stopped using his scientific talents. He continues to publish in the peer-reviewed literature, doing original research that demonstrates how indefensible the Primary Axiom is (see here, here, and here, for example). He is also president of Logos Research Associates, which is focused on original scientific research related to the field of origins.

As those who have read this blog know, science turned me from an atheist into a Christian. While science was clearly a part of Dr. Sanford’s conversion, he makes it clear that his experience was different from mine:

I would not say that science led me to the Lord (which is the experience of some). Rather I would say Jesus opened my eyes to His creation—I was blind, and gradually I could see. It sounds simple, but it was a slow and painful process.

On a personal note, I read Dr. Sanford’s book shortly after it was published in 2005, and I was impressed. Twelve years later, I met him at a Creation Science Fellowship Meeting in California where we were both speakers. A few months after that, he came to Anderson University to visit with me and discuss a research project that we are currently collaborating on. I have to say that in addition to being a brilliant scientist who is deeply committed to Christ, he is a truly gentle soul who wants to show everyone the love of Christ. I am thrilled to call him my brother.

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The Great Barrier Reef Is Doing Well, Despite What the Alarmists Have Said

A portion of the Great Barrier Reef (click for credit)

Over the years, the headlines have been dire. Just two years ago, USA Today claimed:

Great Barrier Reef can’t heal after global warming damage

Similar news outlets ran similar headlines, because a study showed that the number of new corals being produced was significantly lower than normal.

The problem, of course, is that such studies have no context whatsoever. Yes, the Great Barrier Reef went through some tough years. Lots of corals experienced bleaching, a process by which they expel the algae that live inside them. Since the algae provide a significant amount of food to the corals, bleaching can be deadly. However, it’s a process we still don’t understand well, and there is some evidence that it is actually a mechanism designed to help the coral adapt to changing conditions. In addition, bleaching events have been happening for more than 300 years, and evidence suggests they happened more frequently in the late 1800s, the mid 1700s, and the late 1600s than they do today.

Given these facts, it’s not surprising that the doom and gloom headlines about the Great Barrier Reef have been shown to be completely wrong. The Australian Government, in collaboration with the Australian Institute of Marine Science, has been monitoring the health of the reef since 1985. They have collected an enormous amount of data, but I just want to focus on Figures 3, 4, and 5, which show the amount of coral cover in the Northern, Central, and Southern Great Barrier Reef.

The blue lines represent the percent of the area that is covered in coral, and the light-blue shading represents the uncertainty in that value. Notice that in each part of the Great Barrier Reef, there are times when the coral coverage is high, and there are times when it is low. Sometimes, the coral coverage is very low. Nevertheless, right now, coverage is nearly as high as it has ever been. Contrary to what USA Today claimed just two short years ago, then, the Great Barrier Reef has recovered from its low point over the past few decades.

Does that mean there’s nothing wrong with the Great Barrier Reef? Of course not! With less than 40 years of direct study, we really don’t know what the overall status of the reef should be, so we have no idea whether what we are seeing now is good, bad, or indifferent. My point is simply that it’s too easy for scientists and the media to look at a short-term trend (like 2010-2106 in the Northern Great Barrier Reef) and draw irrational conclusions. In the end, that not only hurts the cause of science, but it also makes it nearly impossible for us to figure out how best to care for the creation God has given us.

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