Join Hugh Ross and Thomas Bieler as they discuss new discoveries taking place at the frontiers of science that have theological and philosophical implications, including the reality of God’s existence.

Cheaper Clean Energy

Scientists define “clean energy” as electricity for sustaining human civilization and technology that is not derived from the burning of fossil fuels. It is clean in that no particulates or greenhouse gases are injected into the atmosphere. Remarkably, in just twelve years, solar power and battery-based power storage costs have fallen by a factor of eight times. In a few more years, clean energy production will be cheaper than burning fossil fuels to produce electricity. Therefore, economic incentives alone will be adequate to restore climate stability within the time constraints needed to avoid ecological and climatic calamities.

Can Atoms Think?

 What we think about atoms is intimately entwined with what we think about God, matter, energy, life, and chaos. Atoms are at the heart of the epic drama that underlies the tensions between theism, atheism, and science that simultaneously inform how we think about our culture, ourselves, our relationships with others, and our purpose in life.

Links and Resources:

• Energy

Join astrophysicist Jeff Zweerink and technology ethicist Jason Thacker as they discuss new discoveries taking place at the frontiers of science that have theological and philosophical implications, including the reality of God’s existence.

What Does It Mean to Be Human in the Age of AI?

From ChatGPT and generative AI to algorithms and automation, we live in an age of unprecedented technological innovations. Despite the many benefits and conveniences these technologies provide, they are fundamentally challenging what we’ve long assumed it means to be human. How does Christian philosophy and ethics help us to better understand what’s unique about being human in a digital world? And how do we develop wisdom in navigating the challenges before us as a society?

Links and Resources: 

• ChatGPT and Christian Ethics: An Interview with Technology Ethicist Jason Thacker

Join Fazale “Fuz” Rana and Chris Cirucci as they discuss new discoveries taking place at the frontiers of science that have theological and philosophical implications, including the reality of God’s existence.

Obstetrics Dilemma

Many skeptics point to the difficulties and dangers of the human birthing process as a flawed biological design, best explained as the product of human evolutionary history. This problem is exemplified by the obstetrics dilemma—a concept that sees the origin of the human birthing process as a compromise between two evolutionary pressures: (1) the shift of our knuckle-walking ape-like ancestor to a bipedal hominin and (2) the increased size of the human head. These two influences restricted the size of the human birth canal and made the passage of the human neonate with a large head through the birth canal difficult. In this episode, Fuz Rana discusses recent insights from an evolutionary perspective into the origin of the human birthing process (and the obstetrics dilemma) and then offers an explanation for the obstetrics dilemma from a creation model/design perspective.

Abortion Pill Reversal

When a woman decides to undergo a chemical abortion, she takes two medications: mifepristone on the first day, followed 24–48 hours later by misoprostol. What if she changes her mind after taking the first abortion pill? Is there any hope to save her unborn child? Can chemical abortion be reversed? Or is abortion pill reversal “junk science” as some would contend?

Links and Resources:

• Dynamic Finite-Element Simulations Reveal Early Origin of Complex Human Birth Pattern

Steno Institute—Life-Affirming Research

Join Fazale “Fuz” Rana and Sy Garte as they discuss new discoveries taking place at the frontiers of science that have theological and philosophical implications, including the reality of God’s existence.

Cellular Replication and Abiogenesis

Living cells are the only things we know of that replicate themselves with very high accuracy. Evolution requires such high replication fidelity to allow for natural selection to operate. Researcher Sy Garte used a statistical simulation model to determine how self-replication fidelity could evolve in early life. The model revealed a phase transition from nonliving chemical complexity to evolving living creatures. This illustrates the necessary noncontinuity of any process, including natural selection, that could lead to the origin of evolving life.

Links and Resources: 

• Evidence for Phase Transitions in Replication Fidelity and Survival Probability at the Origin of Life

Join Hugh Ross and Fazale “Fuz” Rana as they discuss new discoveries taking place at the frontiers of science that have theological and philosophical implications, including the reality of God’s existence.

Bison & Grass Diversity

A three-decade long field study in the Flint Hills ecoregion in Eastern Kansas shows that reintroducing bison to tallgrass prairie increased grassland species diversity by more than 100% compared to ungrazed areas and by more than 50% compared to areas grazed by domesticated cattle. In tallgrass prairie grazed by bison, researchers observed a continual increase in native plant species richness. Unlike domesticated cattle, bison engage in frequent wallowing, which increases habitat heterogeneity. Researchers noted that long-term, year-round grazing by bison resulted in plant communities that were resilient to the two-year severe drought that occurred from 2011–2012. The researchers concluded that “rewilding native megafauna could help to restore grassland biodiversity” worldwide.

Animal Smarts & God’s Image

Animals are intelligent and display remarkable skills that reflect the ability to plan and problem solve. Some life scientists interpret this behavior as evidence that animal intelligence is closer to human intelligence than we might have initially thought. This claim seems to challenge the view that human beings are exceptional. According to Scripture, human beings stand apart from all other creatures because we bear God’s image. But if, in essence, human beings are no different from animals, it’s challenging to maintain that we are the crown of creation, as Scripture teaches. Yet, recent work by biologist Johan Lind from Stockholm University indicates that animals engage in behavior that resembles flexible planning through a different process: associative learning. In this episode, biochemist Fuz Rana explores the scientific and theological implications of Lind’s insight.

Links and Resources: 

• What Can Associative Learning Do for Planning?

Join Hugh Ross and Kevin Birdwell as they discuss new discoveries taking place at the frontiers of science that have theological and philosophical implications, including the reality of God’s existence.

Rebounding from an Ice Age

Earth has undergone approximately 25 ice age cycles over the last several million years, with 85 to 90% of that time spent in conditions much colder than the present warm period. Yet, every cold glacial period thus far has ended with a warm “interglacial” period similar to the present global climate. But why does this happen? What allows an Earth with a much higher percentage of ice and snow cover to recover from cold temperatures associated with the deep glacial periods of our recent past?

Links and Resources:

• The Last Glacial Termination

Join Hugh Ross and Jeff Zweerink as they discuss new discoveries taking place at the frontiers of science that have theological and philosophical implications, including the reality of God’s existence.

Green Logging

Eleven environmentalists have developed new techniques for determining forest ecosystem health based on the energetics of plants, trees, birds, mammals, and insects living within tropical forests in Malaysian Borneo. They compared measurements from five old-growth, unlogged forests with those from four selectively logged forests and one palm oil plantation. These environmentalists found that wise selective logging of forests maximizes possible lumbering income while simultaneously optimizing the forest ecosystem and maximizing global warming mitigation.

Our Rare Galaxy

Our Milky Way galaxy is not unusual when it comes to size, but astronomers continue to find ways that it’s unlike the vast majority of other galaxies in the universe. The latest example relates to how large the Milky Way is when accounting for the unusually small velocity dispersion of galaxies in our local neighborhood. Simulations reveal that we have to look outside a box nearly 600 million light-years on a side to expect another galaxy matching the Milky Way’s size and velocity dispersion.

Links and Resources:

• Logged Tropical Forests Have Amplified and Diverse Ecosystem Energetics

Join Hugh Ross and Jeff Zweerink as they discuss new discoveries taking place at the frontiers of science that have theological and philosophical implications, including the reality of God’s existence.

Fifth Force and Creation

Some scientists have speculated that a possible fifth force of physics might provide a loophole permitting them to escape the theistic implications of cosmological and origin-of-life research findings. In that scenario stars would possess larger diameters and masses than a universe with only four physical forces. However, observations of stars and ongoing analysis of helioseismic measures put stringent limits on a speculative fifth force. These limits significantly strengthen the case for biblical creation models.

AI and Work and Value

Ongoing work in artificial intelligence (AI) repeatedly generates AI systems capable of doing things once thought only possible by humans. Starting with chess in the 1990s, AIs now outperform humans in many arenas—the latest examples include the games Stratego and Diplomacy, and even writing computer code. As AIs continue to encroach on humanity’s domain, we would be wise to consider the proper way to think about human value and the importance of work—two ideas that the Bible clearly addresses.

Links and Resources: 

• Mastering the Game of Stratego with Model-Free Multiagent Reinforcement Learning

Join Hugh Ross and Fazale “Fuz” Rana as they discuss new discoveries taking place at the frontiers of science that have theological and philosophical implications, including the reality of God’s existence.

Bioinspired Flying Robots

Drones the size of tiny flies could be sent en masse to inspect and diagnose hazardous sites, or fly through piles of rubble to find and determine the condition of trapped victims, or released from spacecraft to assist in exploration. By meticulously copying the designs in fruit flies and gnats, scientists used miniaturized, high-power density piezoelectric devices to develop the equivalent of flight muscles. They then copied the biological gyroscope in bees to make a gyroscope that weighs only 15 milligrams. These achievements show that copying God’s designs in his creatures enables us to build machines to help us fulfill our God-given mandate to manage Earth’s resources for our benefit and the benefit of all life.

Leprosy & God’s Providence

Researchers have discovered that the mechanisms that M. leprae—the bacterium that causes leprosy—uses to spread within the human host are the same mechanisms that biomedical researchers may one day leverage to regenerate livers and, possibly, other organs. This discovery highlights God’s providential care for humanity.

Links and Resources: 

• A Gyroscope-Free Visual-Inertial Flight Control and Wind Sensing System for 10-mg Robots

Join Fazale “Fuz” Rana and Jeff Zweerink as they discuss new discoveries taking place at the frontiers of science that have theological and philosophical implications, including the reality of God’s existence.

The Design of ERVs

For many people, the shared ERV sequences in the human and great ape genomes evince common ancestry and an evolutionary origin for humanity. Yet, new discoveries about the physiological role of ERVs—such as their contribution to the innate immune system—makes possible another interpretation of ERVs in the human genome. In this episode biochemist Fuz Rana discusses the latest insight into ERV molecular biology, exemplified by the ERV-encoded protein supressyn, and explores the question: “Can a creation model explain the occurrence of ERV sequences in the human genome?”

AI, Optimism, and Long Life

In an era where AI developments show great potential and great peril, ongoing research indicates that optimism plays an important role in increased longevity and health. These results affirm a repeated refrain from Scripture that we are to rejoice, be content, and have hope in all situations. We will discuss the studies leading to this conclusion as well as make the important biblical connections.

Links and Resources: 

• Evolution and Antiviral Activity of a Human Protein of Retroviral Origin