October 2020 Newsletter
In this Clergy Letter Project update you’ll find the following nine items:
- Evolution Weekend 2021: Time to Sign Up;
- Astrobiology News for October 2020: Salt Water on Mars;
- The Great Work of Clergy Letter Project Members;
- A Moving Summary of The Clergy Letter Project’s Efforts;
- The Climate Crisis Letter;
- A Great Letter: The Compatibility of Religion and Science;
- Many Fascinating Pieces;
- Dr. Francis Collins: Harmony – Life at the Intersection of Science & Faith; and
- Discovery Institute Humor.
1. Evolution Weekend 2021: Time to Sign Up
It’s time! Please take this opportunity to sign up to participate in Evolution Weekend 2021 (12-14 February 2021). As you know, membership voted overwhelmingly to adopt Religion and Science in a Time of Denial: Neither will be Denied as the theme for this year’s event.
Please let your voice and that of your congregation be heard on this critical topic. As I’ve said so often, participation can come in any form that’s “right” for your congregation (or other group) – as long as it does something to promote the idea of the compatibility of religion and science. You can deliver a sermon, host a speaker, discuss a book, have a Zoom dialogue over lunch, offer a class for children or simply put a note in your weekly bulletin. And you can participate on the exact weekend set aside for Evolution Weekend or you can participate any time in the temporal vicinity if that particular weekend doesn’t work for you.
What’s important is that we continue the dialogue about the compatibility of religion and science and we do so in a way that is engaging, civil and provocative. I hope you agree and sign up now.
_____ I love the choice of a theme so, yes, I plan to participate in Evolution Weekend 2021 (12-14 February 2021). Please sign us up!
Congregation (or related group):
Location:
Your Name:
2. Astrobiology News for October 2020: Salt Water on Mars
In this month’s Astrobiology News Grace Wolf-Chase, Senior Scientist and Senior Education & Communication Specialist at the Planetary Science Institute as well as a Clergy Letter Project consultant, explores the exciting possibility that water exists on Mars in a form that could be a potentially habitable niche for life.
No, I’m not talking about oceans where you might think of investing in beach-front property on Mars (akin to the old aphorism, “If you believe that one, I have some swampland in Florida to sell you!”). I’m talking about an interesting finding by one of my colleagues at the Planetary Science Institute, Norbert Schorghofer. Dr. Schorghofer is a Senior Scientist whose many research interests include field work on Earth as well as theoretical modeling of conditions on asteroids, the Moon, and Mars. A paper he published earlier this year considers whether there are any environments on Mars’ surface where liquid water could subsist, even briefly.(1) The important question of liquid water on present-day Mars has been debated for decades!
Although Dr. Schorghofer’s models are extremely detailed, a couple of general concepts are probably familiar from science class or to anyone who has driven a car on icy roads in the winter. First, water tends to sublimate (change directly from ice to vapor) on the surface of Mars, due to Mars’ low atmospheric pressure, which is actually close to the minimum pressure necessary for liquid water to exist. Ice is either present in the cold regions or absent in warm regions on Mars - it’s very difficult to find icy regions on Mars where the temperature rises above the melting point! Second, salt lowers the freezing point of water. (Those of us who live in cold climates are very familiar with the trucks that salt the roads!)
So might there be a “sweet spot” on Mars where water might hang around, at least for a few hours? Dr. Schorghofer’s research indicates there just might be! Picture a large boulder in the mid-latitude range on Mars that casts a shadow in winter. Water ice accumulates in the boulder’s shadow during winter, but temperatures rise from a frigid minus 125 degrees Celsius to near the melting point of zero degrees Celsius in just a few hours, as the ice is exposed in spring! Over such a short period, not all of the ice sublimates. In fact, on salt-rich ground, water ice melts at minus 10 degrees Celsius and briny (salty) water will form until all the ice has melted or sublimated. Pockets of briny water are a potentially habitable niche for life on present-day Mars - at least, perhaps, for microbes!
Like Mars? There are currently at least two active “Planet Four” projects(2) on the Zooniverse citizen-science platform that could really use your help! Candice Hansen of the Planetary Science Institute is a member of both research teams. Once again, if you use the Zooniverse platform, either individually, as a family, or as part of a group or class project, would you mind taking just a few minutes to fill out a pre-participation(3) and/or post-participation(4) survey if you haven’t done so already? These will help us evaluate and improve the Zooniverse experience for everyone! If you’d like to learn more about Zooniverse and how citizen science invites everyone “into the scientist’s land,” but you missed my webinar to the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS) last month, you can still check it out - it’s archived on the IRAS website.(5)
Until next month,
Grace Wolf-Chase (gwolfchase@gmail.com)
Senior Scientist and Senior Education & Communication Specialist, Planetary Science Institute (http://www.psi.edu)
Vice President, Center for Advanced Study in Religion and Science (CASIRAS: http://www.casiras.org)
1. https://www.psi.edu/news/marsliquidwater
2. See https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/mschwamb/planet-four & https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/mschwamb/planet-four-ridges
3. Pre-survey: https://forms.gle/x5TezWJEqAZnLb39A
4. Post-survey: https://forms.gle/opYzTKSxK3PFJtv9A
5. https://www.iras.org/
3. The Great Work of Clergy Letter Project Members
A piece I wrote entitled “Clergy embracing science – and making the world a safer, greener and better-informed place” just appeared in Covalence Magazine published by the Lutheran Alliance for Faith, Science and Technology. It discusses the great work that all of you have been doing over the past 15 years. Thank you!
4. A Moving Summary of The Clergy Letter Project’s Efforts
The Rev. Bob Carr, a long-time member of The Clergy Letter Project, has written a wonderful essay entitled “The Clergy Letter Project: Bringing Together Science and Faith.” Please join me in thanking him and please take a look at what he has to say.
5. The Climate Crisis Letter
Even as we enter an extremely dangerous phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is worth keeping in mind that the impact of climate change will have an even greater impact on the Earth and human communities. If you haven’t yet done so, please add your signature to our Climate Crisis Letter. While the response to our request for signatures has been truly gratifying, I know that many of you who voted in favor of having such a letter created have not yet added your signature to it. (If you’re not certain whether you’ve signed the letter or not, please click here and search for your signature.) To add your name, simply respond to this note and I’ll do the rest!
_____ Yes, by all means, please add my signature to the Climate Crisis Letter
Name:
Congregation/Denomination/Religion (optional)
City, State, Country
Additionally, I hope you check out the page we created for clergy members to add personal statements in addition to their signatures. I trust you’ll agree with me that many of our colleagues have written impressive statements. If you’d like your voice to be added, just let me know and I’ll get it posted.
_____ Yes, please add my personal statement to the Climate Crisis Letter:
6. A Great Letter: The Compatibility of Religion and Science
Dr. Frank Price, a member of The Clergy Letter Project’s list of scientific consultants and a retired professor of biology at Hamilton College, has written a great op-ed piece in his local newspaper in response to a letter attacking evolution. His essay, entitled “Darwin’s Theory is true and consistent with religion,” makes a number of important points and draws heavily on the work of The Clergy Letter Project. It deserves to be read and shared. I hope you agree.
7. Many Fascinating Pieces
In case you’re not familiar with the quarterly publication that our good friends at the National Center for Science Education produce, I’m taking this opportunity to introduce you to it. The latest edition has just appeared and it has some wonderful pieces in it. Here’s how NCSE has introduced it:
NCSE is pleased to announce that the latest issue of Reports of the National Center for Science Education — volume 40, number 4 — is now available online.
Featured are Eugenie C. Scott's discussion of Kitzmiller v. Dover, the 2005 trial in which the presentation of "intelligent design" in the public schools was found to be unconstitutional; Glenn Branch's interview of the historian Edward J. Larson, the author of Summer for the Gods; Spencer Weart's explanation of how the IPCC reached the conclusion that "the balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate" in 1995; Paul Oh's description of NCSE's newly launched five-part teaching unit on the nature of science; Kate Carter's report on the importance of grants to NCSE's graduate student outreach fellows; and Jason Rosenhouse's review of the film We Believe in Dinosaurs.
The entire issue is freely available on NCSE's website, as are select articles.
8. Dr. Francis Collins: Harmony – Life at the Intersection of Science & Faith
In their recent newsletter, our good friends at WesleyNexus brought a short video featuring Dr. Francis Collins, a member of The Clergy Letter Project’s list of scientific consultants, to my attention. Here’s what they had to say:
Explore the inspiring life and work of physician and geneticist Dr. Francis S. Collins, 2020 Templeton Prize Winner and Director of the National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Collins is the Director of the National Institutes of Health and led the Human Genome Project to its successful completion in 2003. Throughout his career, he has advocated for the integration of faith and reason.
In his scientific leadership, public speaking, and popular writing, including his bestselling 2006 book, The Language of God, Collins has demonstrated how religious faith can motivate and inspire rigorous scientific research. He endeavors to encourage religious communities to embrace the latest discoveries of genetics and the biomedical sciences as insights to enrich and enlarge their faith.
9. Discovery Institute Humor
I trust that many of you are familiar with The Babylon Bee. For those of you who aren’t, here’s how Wikipedia describes it: "The Babylon Bee is a news satire website that publishes satirical articles on religion, politics, current events, and well-known public figures. With intentional irony, the site describes itself as ‘the world’s best satire site, totally inerrant in all its truth claims.’ It has been referred to in the media as the Christian version of The Onion.”
With that in mind, you might want to take a look at a piece The Babylon Bee recently ran “explaining” the differences between creationism and evolution. The oddest part of all of this is the fact that the piece was sponsored by The Discovery Institute, an anti-evolution organization. Weird!
Concluding Thoughts
I hope all of you, your families, and your communities are healthy and safe and that you are particularly careful as we enter this next deadly phase of the Covid-19 pandemic. If you haven’t yet done so, I encourage all of you to get a flu shot and, if you’re a US citizen, to vote in the presidential election. Please do so safely and, if possible, early!
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 one of our Clergy Letters 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