Jan Dunlap's Blog - Posts Tagged "research"
How to be both Christian and a science nerd
Being a closet science nerd, I love reading about cutting-edge research in any field: quantum mechanics, neurobiology, nutrition, veterinary medicine, geology, astrophysics, genetics. As a former college English major turned college English instructor, I also love Shakespeare and classic literature. So it was with great delight that I combined these two loves in my latest suspense novel titled “Heaven's Gate: Archangels Book One,” giving two of my characters a scientific profession, and another two an intimate familiarity with the Bard and other great writers. In fact, one of my favorite lines in the book is a direct quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and comes during a heated discussion about the possibility/reality of life after death: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”I think that is a fitting description of much of today’s scientific discoveries – hard-working researchers are teasing out the secrets of life that surpass even what we might have imagined or predicted in theory. Every new development leads to more inquiry and speculation – a hundred years ago, who could have imagined that MRIs or angiograms would become such common procedures in the medical practice of diagnosis? Or who would have thought that we’d be gawking at photos of galaxies light years away at the touch of a few keys on a tablet-sized computer?
As a committed Christian, I also think Shakespeare’s line is an insightful expression of the omniscience and omnipotence of our wondrous God. There’s a reason that Paul poses this question in I Corinthians 2:16: For, "Who can know the LORD's thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him?" God alone knows everything, and even the most dedicated scientist’s efforts to see into the mind of God will fall short. No human can possibly instruct the Lord who created all things in heaven and earth and even beyond! Personally, I get annoyed with anyone who claims to have all the answers, or even THE answer to any one riddle of life. Our God is infinite and full of infinite possibility, which means, to me, that His imagination has no boundaries. All any researcher can do is explore a small piece of creation in hopes he might learn something about it and be able to add it to the store of human knowledge about life. And that’s not a bad thing, because wisdom grows from knowledge, especially when it is tempered with the love of Jesus Christ.
Likewise, to think that science has nothing to do with God is, for me, ludicrous. God gave us intellects to know Him and His creation. Why wouldn’t we use the awesome gift of our thought processes to discover more about our Maker and his work? Doesn’t the Lord charge us to use the gifts He gave us? And don’t we know God and each other through our works? Whether it is through service, or science, or simple obedience, God has blessed us with many avenues for approaching Him, and I, for one, am grateful for them all. May each of us reach beyond our philosophies to seek, and ultimately find, our God.Jan Dunlap
Facts behind the Fiction
I love doing research.
When I was in high school, one of my favorite assignments was writing research papers; all through college, I wondered how I could make a living out of weaving together facts to form intriguing narratives. I gave journalism a try, but it didn't satisfy my creative leanings: straight facts got a bit too dull.
Then I discovered writing fiction, and while I'm still not making a living out of it, every book I write involves extensive research. The creative task of pulling it all together - blending fact and fiction so seamlessly that my reader isn't sure where the fact ends and the fiction begins - is both why I write and my greatest creative satisfaction in writing.
Since my newest thriller, Archangels Book I: Heaven's Gate, draws heavily on cutting edge science, literary theory, and psychic ability, I thought it would be fun to clue readers into the fascinating facts that helped inspire the fiction.
1. The Unified Field Theory, or Theory of Everything (TOE), has been the quest of theoretical physicists for decades. As a single mathematical formula, it would explain how the physical universe ultimately worked, from the smallest subatomic particles to the inconceivably massive galaxies of the universe. String Theory is one contender for the TOE; it rests on the idea that the tiniest bits inside atoms can best be described as vibrating strings of energy, not particles. String Theory also predicts the existence of alternate universes.
2. Stephen Hawking, one of the most celebrated theoretical physicists alive today, once suggested that his work was driven by “the desire to know the mind of God.”
3. Albert Einstein devoted the last two decades of his life to formulating the Unified Field Theory. He became increasingly reclusive, focusing only on his quest for unification. He began to speak in philosophic terms, talking about his “cosmic religion,” the “big picture” and the “perfect harmony of the universe.” Many of his colleagues began to avoid him, afraid he was losing his mind.
4. Kirlian photography is a photographic technique that documents electrical discharge from an object subjected to a high voltage electrical field. The print that is generated by the process displays colored waves of energy frequently referred to as an aura. Kirlian photos are often used in alternative medicine research.
5. In 1995, at the String Theory conference at the University of Southern California, Ed Witten, one of the world’s greatest physicists, introduced M Theory, a new slant on String Theory. M Theory solves many of the problems that are inherent in String Theory; as a result, its discovery has launched theoretical physicists into new areas of inquiry.
6. Susy Smith was a medium, psychic researcher, and author who joined Dr. Gary Schwartz in his lab at the University of Arizona as he conducted research into the afterlife. Her role in the research is recounted in Schwartz’s book “The Afterlife Experiments.” Prior to her death in 2001, Susy set up a secret code and a $10,000 reward for the first person who successfully received the code which she would attempt to communicate after her death. To date, no one has broken the code and the money remains unclaimed.
7. Invented by Erno Rubik, the Rubik’s Cube is the world’s best-selling toy. Rubik, a professor of architecture in Budapest, used the Cube to teach his students about spatial relationships. According to the official toy website, there are 42 quintillion possibilities of arranging the 26 squares that make up the Cube, but only one correct solution (which you can find on the website if you get tired of trying to solve the Cube on your own).
8. In the 1970s, literary critic Jean-Francois Lyotard developed his Grand Narrative concept, claiming that all thought and meaning was relative and narrational, a ‘story’ about the social nature of the world that was dependent upon the story-teller’s agenda. As a result, the story-teller chooses what will be revealed and what is hidden. By manipulating information, the story-teller (be it a corporation or a political pundit) effectively creates ‘reality’ and controls what people think, since they only have access to what the story-teller wants to provide. In light of this model, information is power, and truth is malleable. (Being an election year, I find the Grand Narrative concept to be especially chilling given the antics of biased news outlets. Does the media control what we think? I don't think there's any question about it.)
9. Some of history’s most talented scientists have been Christian ministers and priests. Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit priest who was ordered silent by Rome because his work dealt with the evolutionary sequence of the universe. Since his research conflicted with the official Church stance on creation, he was exiled to China, where he focused on paleontology fieldwork. His scientific and religious works have since been published and are still very influential; some people even credit him with prefiguring global communications and the Internet because of his insistence on an emerging global consciousness. You can find priests and ministers among the roster of scientists in almost every discipline - the idea that science and faith are mutually exclusive is, I think, hogwash.
10. Psychics have helped police locate missing children. Noreen Renier, one such psychic, lectured at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia in 1981, although her work with police detectives was considered controversial. Since then, she has become a well-known psychic detective who has worked on over 500 unsolved cases with city, county, and state law enforcement agencies in 38 states of the U.S. and six foreign countries.
You know that old saying that "Truth is stranger than fiction"? Now, THAT I believe.Heaven's Gate
When I was in high school, one of my favorite assignments was writing research papers; all through college, I wondered how I could make a living out of weaving together facts to form intriguing narratives. I gave journalism a try, but it didn't satisfy my creative leanings: straight facts got a bit too dull.
Then I discovered writing fiction, and while I'm still not making a living out of it, every book I write involves extensive research. The creative task of pulling it all together - blending fact and fiction so seamlessly that my reader isn't sure where the fact ends and the fiction begins - is both why I write and my greatest creative satisfaction in writing.
Since my newest thriller, Archangels Book I: Heaven's Gate, draws heavily on cutting edge science, literary theory, and psychic ability, I thought it would be fun to clue readers into the fascinating facts that helped inspire the fiction.
1. The Unified Field Theory, or Theory of Everything (TOE), has been the quest of theoretical physicists for decades. As a single mathematical formula, it would explain how the physical universe ultimately worked, from the smallest subatomic particles to the inconceivably massive galaxies of the universe. String Theory is one contender for the TOE; it rests on the idea that the tiniest bits inside atoms can best be described as vibrating strings of energy, not particles. String Theory also predicts the existence of alternate universes.
2. Stephen Hawking, one of the most celebrated theoretical physicists alive today, once suggested that his work was driven by “the desire to know the mind of God.”
3. Albert Einstein devoted the last two decades of his life to formulating the Unified Field Theory. He became increasingly reclusive, focusing only on his quest for unification. He began to speak in philosophic terms, talking about his “cosmic religion,” the “big picture” and the “perfect harmony of the universe.” Many of his colleagues began to avoid him, afraid he was losing his mind.
4. Kirlian photography is a photographic technique that documents electrical discharge from an object subjected to a high voltage electrical field. The print that is generated by the process displays colored waves of energy frequently referred to as an aura. Kirlian photos are often used in alternative medicine research.
5. In 1995, at the String Theory conference at the University of Southern California, Ed Witten, one of the world’s greatest physicists, introduced M Theory, a new slant on String Theory. M Theory solves many of the problems that are inherent in String Theory; as a result, its discovery has launched theoretical physicists into new areas of inquiry.
6. Susy Smith was a medium, psychic researcher, and author who joined Dr. Gary Schwartz in his lab at the University of Arizona as he conducted research into the afterlife. Her role in the research is recounted in Schwartz’s book “The Afterlife Experiments.” Prior to her death in 2001, Susy set up a secret code and a $10,000 reward for the first person who successfully received the code which she would attempt to communicate after her death. To date, no one has broken the code and the money remains unclaimed.
7. Invented by Erno Rubik, the Rubik’s Cube is the world’s best-selling toy. Rubik, a professor of architecture in Budapest, used the Cube to teach his students about spatial relationships. According to the official toy website, there are 42 quintillion possibilities of arranging the 26 squares that make up the Cube, but only one correct solution (which you can find on the website if you get tired of trying to solve the Cube on your own).
8. In the 1970s, literary critic Jean-Francois Lyotard developed his Grand Narrative concept, claiming that all thought and meaning was relative and narrational, a ‘story’ about the social nature of the world that was dependent upon the story-teller’s agenda. As a result, the story-teller chooses what will be revealed and what is hidden. By manipulating information, the story-teller (be it a corporation or a political pundit) effectively creates ‘reality’ and controls what people think, since they only have access to what the story-teller wants to provide. In light of this model, information is power, and truth is malleable. (Being an election year, I find the Grand Narrative concept to be especially chilling given the antics of biased news outlets. Does the media control what we think? I don't think there's any question about it.)
9. Some of history’s most talented scientists have been Christian ministers and priests. Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit priest who was ordered silent by Rome because his work dealt with the evolutionary sequence of the universe. Since his research conflicted with the official Church stance on creation, he was exiled to China, where he focused on paleontology fieldwork. His scientific and religious works have since been published and are still very influential; some people even credit him with prefiguring global communications and the Internet because of his insistence on an emerging global consciousness. You can find priests and ministers among the roster of scientists in almost every discipline - the idea that science and faith are mutually exclusive is, I think, hogwash.
10. Psychics have helped police locate missing children. Noreen Renier, one such psychic, lectured at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia in 1981, although her work with police detectives was considered controversial. Since then, she has become a well-known psychic detective who has worked on over 500 unsolved cases with city, county, and state law enforcement agencies in 38 states of the U.S. and six foreign countries.
You know that old saying that "Truth is stranger than fiction"? Now, THAT I believe.Heaven's Gate
