It’s science and religion. Faith and reason get along fine, or should.
I see no problem with seeking truth that we find in this universe and seeking truth’s source. Honest research cannot interfere with an informed faith. Not for a Catholic, at any rate.1
Links to ‘science’ posts start under What’s Here, What’s Not. First, here’s more than you need, or maybe want, to know about what happened to this blog’s usual Friday ‘science news’ posts —
Off Schedule, and Loving It
Technical issues put me off my ‘science news every Friday’ schedule. After my son resolved them, going back to the routine was an option. Instead, I decided to start work on several ‘back burner’ projects; including a book that’s been on my ‘really should do this’ list for some time:
- “Writing, a Raven and Pallas”
(April 8, 2018) - “Writing, a Raven and Pallas”
(April 8, 2018) - “Unscheduled Posts and Other Changes”
(April 3, 2018)
I’ll also be posting something new whenever there’s something ready. Some posts will be in the usual being Catholic and science news categories, some in not-so-usual categories like being a citizen or being an artist. The one I finished first, “Spirit Photographs,” wouldn’t fit in existing categories, so I made a new one: discursive detours.
My ‘science’ posts are not about ‘Bible science,’ or ‘creation science.’ (March 31, 2017)
What’s Here, What’s Not
If you click “science” in this blog’s Tag Cloud, you’ll find some posts with a mostly ‘non-science’ focus; but enough science to warrant the tag.
Checking out the science news under Categories, you’ll find posts focusing on engineering or technology more than science; like “Miami Bridge Collapse,” “Coming: Robots” and “Books and Flying Cars.”
I think posts in this list have a significant ‘science’ focus. Your experience may vary:
- “Found: a ‘Baby Planet’”
(May 2, 2018) - “Brains and Ethics”
(May 2, 2018) - “Evolution and Tools”
(March 26, 2018) - “Early Birds, Unisex Fish”
(March 9, 2018) - “Art, Evolution and Aquinas”
(March 2, 2018) - “Oxygen, Alien Life”
(February 23, 2018) - “Mars and Beyond”
(February 16, 2018) - “Firestorm Comet?”
(February 9, 2018) - “Smoke and Monkeys”
(February 2, 2018) - “Chasing Butterflies and Truth”
(January 19, 2018) - “Alien Life: Notions and Research”
(January 8, 2018) - “Science and Religion”
(January 12, 2018) - “Alien Life: Notions and Research”
(January 8, 2018) - “Science in 2017”
(December 28, 2017) - “Off the Rails”
(December 22, 2017) - “California Fires, 2017”
(December 15, 2017) - “No More Sunspots?”
(December 8, 2017) - “Still Seeking Earth 2.0”
(December 1, 2017) - “Visitor from the Stars”
(November 24, 2017) - “Antarctic ‘Hot’ Spots”
(November 17, 2017) - “Science, Faith, and Me”
(November 5, 2017) - “A Century of Science”
(November 3, 2017) - “Love. And Science”
(October 29, 2017) - “Swatting Fast Flies”
(October 27, 2017) - “LIGO/Virgo: Another First”
(October 20, 2017) - “Finding New Worlds”
(October 13, 2017) - “Einstein’s Waves: New Views”
(October 6, 2017) - “Planet 9, Maybe; Nibiru, No”
(September 29, 2017) - “Values and Ichthyosaurs”
(September 22, 2017) - “Cassini-Huygens Mission”
(September 15, 2017) - “More Disasters”
(September 10, 2017) - “Labor Day SETI”
(September 8, 2017) - “Floods, Harvey, and Climate”
(September 1, 2017) - “Harvey Over Texas”
(August 30, 2017) - “Great American Eclipse 2017”
(August 25, 2017) - “Editing Genes, Ethically”
(August 18, 2017) - “Sane Environmentalism”
(August 11, 2017) - “A Mixed Bag”
(August 4, 2017) - “Fukushima, Six Years Later”
(July 28, 2017) - “Adam and the Animals”
(July 23, 2017) - “Using Vaccines Wisely”
(July 21, 2017) - “Climate Change, Attitudes”
(July 14, 2017) - “Misusing Opioids”
(July 7, 2017) - “Exoplanet Frontier”
(June 30, 2017) - “Old Truths, New Aspects”
(June 23, 2017) - “Oldest Human Fossils?”
(June 16, 2017) - “GSLV, Rocket Lab: Looking Good”
(June 9, 2017) - “New Worlds: The Search Continues”
(June 2, 2017) - “Climate Change, Whirligig Icebergs”
(May 26, 2017) - “Ammonites, Dinosaurs, and Us”
(May 19, 2017) - “Good Intentions”
(May 12, 2017) - “First Americans?”
(May 5, 2017) - “Repeatable Results That Aren’t”
(April 28, 2017) - “Looking for Life: Enceladus and Gliese 1132 b”
(April 21, 2017) - “Mars: Leaky Red Planet”
(April 14, 2017) - “Pesticides in the Water”
(April 7, 2017) - “DNA and Cancer”
(March 31, 2017) - “Knowledge: Opening the Gift”
(March 26, 2017) - “Baryons, Gravity Waves”
(March 24, 2017) - “Fast Radio Bursts”
(March 17, 2017) - “Earliest Life: Maybe”
(March 10, 2017) - “TRAPPIST-1: Water? Life??”
(March 3, 2017) - “Face Transplant at Mayo”
(February 24, 2017) - “Pollution: Still Learning”
(February 17, 2017) - “Bogs and Bison”
(February 10, 2017) - “Footprints in Ancient Ash”
(February 3, 2017) - “Gems, Metal, and Earth’s Core”
(January 27, 2017) - “Climate Change Continues”
(January 20, 2017) - “Urban Evolution and Big Brains”
(January 13, 2017) - “SETI: What If?”
(December 23, 2016) (The change of pace continues: learning about aliens might affect various religions; and speculation about ET.) - “Mars, Aliens, and SETI”
(December 16, 2016) (A change of pace: the Great Moon Hoax, Nicola Tesla, Martians, and life in the universe.) - “Tides and Our Moon’s Origin”
(December 9, 2016) - “KIC 8462852 and Strange Stars”
(December 2, 2016) - “Olive Threat, Ginkgo Genome”
(November 25, 2016) - “Brain Implants and Rewired Monkeys”
(November 18, 2016) - “Different Sorts of ‘Dead’ ”
(November 11, 2016) - “Near-Earth Asteroids”
(November 4, 2016) - “Right-Handedness and Evolving Jaws”
(October 28, 2016) - “Sweet Potatoes, Genes, and Long Life”
(October 21, 2016) - “Alchemy, Science, Life, and Health”
(October 16, 2016) - “Elastic Brains and New Tech”
(October 14, 2016) - “Bioethics and a Three-Parent Baby”
(October 7, 2016) - “Europa, Mars, and Someday the Stars”
(September 30, 2016) - “The Minden Monster, What Killed Lucy”
(September 23, 2016) - “Space Aliens and Life’s Ladder”
(September 18, 2016) - “ESA’s Gaia, HD 164695, and SETI”
(September 16, 2016) - “Philae, Jupiter, and Life”
(September 9, 2016) - “Proxima Centauri b, Looking for Life”
(September 2, 2016) - “Faith, the Universe, and Wisdom”
(August 28, 2016) - “Brogdar, Öetzi, and Piltdown Man”
(August 26, 2016) - “Polio, Zika, and Using Our Brains”
(August 21, 2016) - “Earth Overshoot Day and Pollinators”
(August 12, 2016) - “Bulldogs, Transgenics, and a Robot”
(August 5, 2016) - “Studying Thousands of New Worlds”
(July 29, 2016) - “Early Agriculture, New Tech”
(July 22, 2016) - “Sandra and Tommy: Apes and Ethics”
(July 15, 2016)
Other ‘science’ posts, from A Catholic Citizen in America on Blogger
(February 2, 2009 — April 29, 2016):
1 Seeking truth and seeking God are compatible. So are faith and reason. I thought this was true before I became a Catholic, and still do. More importantly, that’s what the Church says. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 35, 50, 154, 274, 283, 1706)
For a Catholic, faith should be consciously embracing “the whole truth that God has revealed.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 142–150)
We find truth in the Bible. That’s one reason we’re expected to study the Scriptures. (Catechism, 101–133)
We also find truth in the natural world’s order and beauty. (Catechism, 32, 41, 74, 283, 341, 2500)
I believe that God creates everything: the physical realities studied by science and the spiritual realities that faith pursues. (Catechism, Prologue, 27, 74, 214–217, more under Truth in the Catechism’s index)
Believing this while fearing knowledge of God’s world would be — illogical.
“…God, the Creator and Ruler of all things, is also the Author of the Scriptures – and that therefore nothing can be proved either by physical science or archaeology which can really contradict the Scriptures. … Even if the difficulty is after all not cleared up and the discrepancy seems to remain, the contest must not be abandoned; truth cannot contradict truth….”
(“Providentissimus Deus,”1 Pope Leo XIII (November 18, 1893) [emphasis mine])
