August 2024 Newsletter
In this Clergy Letter Project update you’ll find the following 18 items:
- Final Vote for Religion and Science Weekend’s 2025 Theme;
- Across the Cosmos for August 2024: Up PERYSCOPE;
- Support for Creationism Shrinking;
- Studying the Past to Understand the Future;
- Common Mistakes When Interpreting the Bible;
- Explore Faith and Encounter Truth;
- Science and Bible Interpretations;
- Only a Theory Revisited;
- Twists and Turns in Teaching Evolution;
- NASA’s Visualization of CO2 Being Spewed in the Atmosphere;
- Life on Mars?;
- Renewable Energy Beats Fossil Fuels in Europe;
- 22 July 2024: Hottest Day in 100,000 Years;
- Future Climate Map;
- (Non)Separation of Church and State in Texas;
- How JD Vance’s Catholic Faith Influenced His Politics;
- The Last Supper at the Olympics; and
- Why Historical Science is the Best Science.
1. Final Vote for Religion and Science Weekend’s 2025 Theme
Thank you to all who took the time to vote in our first round of selecting a theme for Religion and Science Weekend 2025. Here are the three themes garnering the largest number of votes:
*Religion and Science: Living in Awe
*Finding Common Ground
*Pursuit of Truth—a Necessity in a Healthy Society
Whether you voted or not in the first round, please vote now. Simply reply to this note and let me know which theme you prefer. I’ll share the results and our 2025 theme in next month's newsletter.
Additionally, if you’ve not yet indicated that you plan to participate in Religion and Science Weekend 2025, please do so now.
_____ Yes, I’m very excited about Religion and Science Weekend 2025. Please sign me up as a participant.
Name of Congregation (or other group):
Location:
Your Name:
2. Across the Cosmos for August 2024: Up PERYSCOPE
In this month’s essay, Grace Wolf-Chase, Senior Scientist and Senior Education & Communication Specialist at the Planetary Science Institute as well as a Clergy Letter Project consultant, discusses an exciting new program that enables students and amateur astronomers to participate in meaningful astronomical research will learning important concepts. This is very exciting!
This month, I’d like to announce a project that I’ll be discussing at the upcoming annual Planetary Science Institute(1) retreat, which will be held in Tucson from 13-17 August. This project may be of interest to any of you who are amateur astronomers, or are, or may know, astronomy educators at the college or high-school level. My colleagues and I developed People Enabling Research: a Yellowball Survey of the Colors of Protostellar Environments (aka PERYSCOPE) to enable introductory astronomy students, who may or may not be interested in pursuing STEM careers, to participate in our research while learning critical concepts in astronomy. PERYSCOPE(2) bridges research experiences of relatively low complexity that enlist huge numbers of volunteers (such as those available on the Zooniverse(3) platform) and experiences of high complexity that are available only to a few advanced participants (such as student research assistants).
Measuring the amount of light emitted by astronomical objects, known as “photometry,” is a critical first step in uncovering their properties. In the case of young star-forming regions, most of this light is emitted in the infrared part of the spectrum. My research group has developed a web-based Python code that students use to conduct infrared photometry on young star-forming regions (known as “yellowballs” or “YBs”) that were discovered by volunteers who participated in the Milky Way Project(4) on the Zooniverse platform. We provide a curriculum guide to connect the students’ work to fundamental astronomy course topics such as blackbody radiation, Herzsprung-Russell diagrams, and star formation.
Students and teachers do NOT need to know Python to use the code. The code enables students to plot their photometry results using scatter diagrams and histograms, and our student guide helps them analyze their data. The activities take about 2-3 lecture class periods or about one lab session to complete. Students have the option (are not compelled!) to contribute their results to our ongoing study of star formation for acknowledgment and possible interviews or press releases.
To express interest in participating, or simply to learn more about our research project, please go to the PERYSCOPE site.(5) Although PERYSCOPE is primarily focused on formal education, my colleagues and I are also gathering expressions of interest from individuals such as amateur astronomers, who might want to participate in doing the photometry without the curriculum activities.
Until next month,
Grace
Grace Wolf-Chase (she/her/hers) (gwolfchase@gmail.com)
Senior Scientist & Senior Education & Communication Specialist, Planetary Science Institute (www.psi.edu/about/staffpage/gwchase)
Vice President, Center for Advanced Study in Religion and Science (CASIRAS: www.casiras.org)2. https://sites.google.com/view/peryscope/home/
3. https://www.zooniverse.org/
4. https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/povich/milky-way-project
5. https://sites.google.com/view/peryscope/home
3. Support for Creationism Shrinking
I’m delighted to say that there has been some good news on the creationism front! Our good friends at the National Center for Science Education report that a recent Gallup poll showed that acceptance of creationism in the United States is now a minority position, with “only” about 37 percent of the population – a new low. And yet that’s over a third of the population, and often a very vocal third at that. Our work, while successful, is far from over.
4. Studying the Past to Understand the Future
In last month's newsletter, I presented a short piece about paleotempestology, a field in which practitioners attempt to use geological and geospatial information to determine the history of storms in a region. In response to that item David Kopaska-Merkel, a geologist and member of The Clergy Letter Project’s list of scientific consultants, wrote to me and shared an experience he had in Utah studying fossils. As you’ll see from his short piece, we “can improve predictions about future climatic changes” by studying the past. He enthuses that “It is a remarkable feeling to stand on a layer about 6 inches (15 cm) thick that was laid down by a single event over a period of hours, more than 500 million years ago.”
5. Common Mistakes When Interpreting the Bible
Our good friends at BioLogos just published an essay by John Walton, an emeritus professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College, entitled "Interpreting the Bible: Common Mistakes.” In his essay, Professor Walton addresses such critical questions as Can we look to Scripture for a biblical view on everything? Does it speak to modern issues of science? How can we interpret faithfully?
6. Explore Faith and Encounter Truth
Our good friends at Science for the Church recently interviewed Len Tang, pastor of Missio Community Church in Pasadena, CA and a holder of an engineering degree from UC Berkeley. The interview is entitled “Explore Faith and Encounter Truth.” I suspect that you’ll find much of interest in the piece.
7. Science and Bible Interpretations
Lorence Collins and Andrew Petto, two good friends of The Clergy Letter Project and members of our list of scientific advisors, have just released a short paper entitled “Science and Bible Interpretations.” While their thesis, that the Bible should be taken as a theological rather than a scientific text, is not new, they do provide an interesting presentation.
8. Only a Theory Revisited
The National Center for Science Education reports that Blake Touche, a science dducation specialist with NCSE, appeared in two episodes of the popular Evolution Talk podcast, hosted by Rick Coste, to discuss the misconception that evolution is "only a theory" (part 1) and to recommend ways for evolution educators to resolve the misconception (part 2). Both are well worth your time.
9. Twists and Turns in Teaching Evolution
Glenn Branch, Deputy Director of the National Center for Science Education, recently gave a talk entitled "Twists and Turns in Teaching Evolution" for Skeptical Inquirer Presents. You won’t want to miss this.
10. NASA’s Visualization of CO2 Being Spewed in the Atmosphere
A picture is worth 1,000 words, so I’ll not say much about this visualization created by NASA of CO2 being spewed into the atmosphere daily from US cities. Do take a look – and think about how much work we have to cut back on these emissions.
11. Life on Mars?
How important was the recent discovery on Mars? Was it evidence of past life on Mars? If what was found on Mars was found on Earth, it would be indicative of biological activity in the past. This gift article from The Washington Post explains what we know so far and notes that the plans to retrieve the evidence might well be held up in cost overruns in the retrieval mission.
12. Renewable Energy Beats Fossil Fuels in Europe
At least there was a bit of good climate change news this past month. As you can see from this graph, wind and solar energy generation exceeded that of fossil fuels in the European Union over the first half of 2024. There’s still a long way to go, but at least this represents a start.
13. 22 July 2024: Hottest Day in 100,000 Years
The temperature on this past 22 July has received a great deal of attention since it was the hottest day on Earth over the past 100,000 years. Here’s a gift article from The Washington Post explaining what it all means.
14. Future Climate Map
Are you worried, or perhaps just curious, about what the climate might be like where you live sixty years into the future? Just type your location in on this map and you’ll get a preview. Of course, if we take impressive steps to combat climate change, things might be different!
15. (Non)Separation of Church and State in Texas
The Texas Tribune, in a recent article, discussed the implications of the move in Texas to incorporate religion, or to be more precise, one narrow version of religion, into public schools throughout the state. The article’s headline, “Texas’ Christian-influenced curriculum spurs worries about bullying, church-state separation,” explains some of the concerns.
16. How JD Vance’s Catholic Faith Influenced His Politics
Religion Unplugged recently ran a story discussing how JD Vance’s faith has influenced his politics – and how both have changed over the course of his life. The piece provides a bit of insight into the vice-presidential candidate.
17. The Last Supper at the Olympics
I suspect that most of you have seen the depiction that some have said was of the Last Supper while others have argued that it was a depiction of The Feast of the Gods by Giovanni Bellini. Regardless of what it was meant to be, I think you’ll be impressed by these thoughts by Pastor Jacob Whitehead.
18. Why Historical Science is the Best Science
Creationists often, erroneously, argue that historical science, science about past events when humans were not present, isn’t really science. Paul Braterman, a member of The Clergy Letter Project’s list of scientific consultants, takes on this ridiculous claim in a clear and concise blog post, and he shows how the creationists’ conclusions are remarkably far from reality.
Concluding Thoughts
While there’s still much more to be done integrating science and religion, it was refreshing to be able to include much good news on the evolution and the climate change front in this month’s newsletter. Let’s keep making progress together!
Finally, 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 one of our Clergy Letters simply by dropping me a note at mz@theclergyletterproject.org. Spread the word; change the world. Together we are making a difference.
Michael
Michael Zimmerman
Founder and Executive Director
The Clergy Letter Project
www.theclergyletterproject.org
mz@theclergyletterproject.org