April 2018 Newsletter
In this Clergy Letter Project update, you’ll find the following six items:
- A Free Book Offer to Help Shape Your Understanding of Evolution;
- Astrobiology News for April 2018: Discovering Earth-like Worlds with TESS;
- Darwin Feet on a Christian Fish;
- Video of WesleyNexus’s Evolution Weekend 2018 Symposium;
- How Darwinism Became an Epithet; and
- 21 Reasons Why Noah’s Flood Never Happened.
1. A Free Book Offer to Help Shape Your Understanding of Evolution
Dr. David Loye, psychologist, long-term friend of The Clergy Letter Project and prolific author (with 30 books to his credit), has just published Rediscovering Darwin: The Rest of Darwin’s Theory and Why We Need it Today.
The book is described as follows:
“This is the story of the discovery of the rest of Darwin’s theory and the mystery of how on earth it was lost for over 100 years. How could it go unnoticed that in his classic work on human evolution, The Descent of Man, Darwin wrote only twice of ‘survival of the fittest’ but 95 time about love? And in a better world desperately in need of moral guidance, how could he write 92 times about the Moral Sense as prime driver of evolution and almost no one knew it?”
David has generously donated a number of copies to The Clergy Letter Project to help members think deeply and differently about Darwin and his work. If you think this book will help you do just that with your congregation, let me know and I’ll award a free copy the every fourth person requesting one until all copies are claimed. And, even though it is early, please use this opportunity to sign up to participate in Evolution Weekend 2019 with your congregation or school group.
_____ Please enter me in the drawing to win a free copy of Rediscovering Darwin. If selected, I agree to pay $5 for postage and handling.
______ I plan to participate in Evolution Weekend 2019. Please add me to the growing list of participants.
Name of Congregation:
Location:
Your Name:
2. Astrobiology News for April 2018: Discovering Earth-like Worlds with TESS
In this month’s Astrobiology News, Clergy Letter Project consultant and Adler Planetarium astronomer Grace Wolf-Chase discusses NASA’s latest endeavor: the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.
Launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) began its two-year mission to seek out strange new worlds - if not new civilizations – on April 18th. TESS is headed for an unusual, highly elliptical, orbit, circling the Earth twice for every orbit of the Moon. By June, it will begin its science operations, using the same method to detect exoplanets as the Kepler Observatory; however, the two missions were designed with different goals in mind.
During its main mission, Kepler “stared” at a patch of sky about the size of your hand projected on the sky from arm’s length, but TESS will observe roughly 85% of the entire sky! Whereas Kepler’s principal focus was on determining how common different types of exoplanets are, TESS will focus on finding the nearest transiting terrestrial (rocky) worlds. Most of the stars in Kepler’s view were faint and distant, while TESS will monitor 500,000 “nearby” stars.
TESS is expected to discover thousands of new exoplanets, including ~500 worlds the size of Earth and slightly larger – so-called “Super Earths” that appear to be abundant, but aren’t represented in our own Solar System.(1) Since TESS’s focus is on a large survey of worlds that orbit bright, nearby stars, in tandem with follow-up observations by ground-based telescopes, it will identify the best candidates for rocky worlds that orbit in the habitable zones of their stars. This will provide a critical database for large telescopes capable of searching for biomarkers in the atmospheres of these worlds, such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), currently scheduled for launch in 2020.
You can find much more information about TESS and related missions whose ultimate goal is the identification of habitable, and possibly inhabited, worlds, on NASA’s TESS mission site.(2)
Until next month,
Grace Wolf-Chase, Ph.D. (gwolfchase@adlerplanetarium.org)
1. The hypothesized “Planet Nine” may fall into this category though.
2. https://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/
3. Darwin Feet on a Christian Fish
“We are attempting to sort of challenge the popular narrative that says that faith and science are not compatible,” notes Clergy Letter Project member Rev. Amy Thoren in a fascinating article published in The Daily Illini. Rev. Thoren is Pastor and Director of St. Andrew's Lutheran Church and Campus Center in Champaign, IL. As part of her efforts, she worked with students who redesigned a bike rack originally in the shape of “the Christian fish” by adding “Darwin feet.”
Take a look at the article and the very attractive bike rack to see how this congregation is working to promote the compatibility of religion and science. It’s well worth noting that they are doing far more than redecorating their bike rack!
4. Video of WesleyNexus’s Evolution Weekend 2018 Symposium
In each of the past several years, our good friends at WesleyNexus have organized a conference in Maryland to celebrate Evolution Weekend. They have now made the video of the 2018 conference available. The conference was entitled “Faith and Science Confront Pain: The Churches address the Opioid Crisis” and it can be viewed by clicking here. This might be something you will want to share with your congregation, perhaps as part of your Evolution Weekend 2019 event!
5. How Darwinism Became an Epithet
Professor Ken Miller, a long-time member of The Clergy Letter Project’s list of scientific consultants and an outspoken, articulate critic of all aspects of creationism, just published a provocative essay in Scientific American. Entitled “On ‘Darwinism’,” Ken explores the ways in which the use of the term “Darwinism” has come to be an attack on evolution.
He makes a number of important points in the essay. Consider just two:
- “In advocating for greater public understanding of evolution, we might do well to keep in mind that it is a theory for the origin of species, not the explanation of all things human, great and small.”
- “Some may feel demeaned by our evolutionary heritage, but I would argue that the more appropriate emotions are joy and delight. Joy that we are approaching a genuine understanding of the world in which we live, and delight at being the very first stirrings of true consciousness in the vastness of the cosmos.”
Take a look at his piece; you won’t be disappointed.
6. 21 Reasons Why Noah’s Flood Never Happened
Professor Lorence Collins, a member of The Clergy Letter Project’s list of scientific consultants and a geologist tirelessly explaining why Noah’s Flood never happened, recently had his work attacked by Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis and Ark Encounter, the theme park designed to look like Noah’s Ark. Ham was upset by Larry’s recent article that appeared in Skeptical Inquirer. Perhaps channeling Donald Trump, Ham opens his critique by calling the article “sad.”
The exchange was addressed in an article that appeared recently in The Christian Post. Larry mentioned to me that Skeptical Inquirer has agreed to publish his rebuttal later this summer. All of this makes for fascinating reading.
Finally, as always, I want to thank you for your continued support and as I do every month, I urge you to take one simple action. Please share this month’s Newsletter with a colleague or two (or post a link via any social media platform you use) and ask them to add their voices to those promoting a deep and meaningful understanding between religion and science. They can add their signatures to a Clergy Letter simply by dropping me a note at mz@theclergyletterproject.org. Together we are making a difference.
.
Michael
Michael Zimmerman
Founder and Executive Director
The Clergy Letter Project
www.theclergyletterproject.org
mz@theclergyletterproject.org