Science and Technology
Items related to technology and science
Lennox on Dawkins
Tue 14 Nov 2006 by TTF Staff
Senior Fellow John Lennox has a downloadable audio lecture and seminar discussing Richard Dawkins and his views on God, religion, and science.
The 2005 lecture is an MP3 hosted at bethinking.org. It’s 29 MB and runs over two hours, including questions and answers.
Speaking of Civility
Thu 20 Jul 2006 by Peter Edman
Speaking of the tone of the stem cell debate, Senior Fellow Joseph Loconte has a piece in today’s National Review Online on the topic.
He manages to find an opponent of the President’s decision that is speaking responsibly—a sharp and depressing contrast with most of their fellows on this issue.
Perspective, Perspective
Thu 20 Jul 2006 by Peter Edman
I am struck by the tone of the arguments over the stem cell veto by President Bush. Others have said most of what needs to be said, but I do want to link to this post on the weblog of Ignatius Press, publisher of the books of Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI.
After Carl Olson summarizes the one-sided and utterly histrionic (or else cynical) rhetoric of Mr. Bush’s critics, he refers us to a book by then-Cardinal Ratzinger, which has a quote on technology that is definitely going into a future revision of the technology curriculum (so many books, so little time). The quote below is from Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures.
Romano Guardini on Technology
Thu 13 Jul 2006 • Responses: 1 • by Peter Edman
One of the books that we read that didn’t make it into the Technology curriculum is Letters from Lake Como, by Romano Guardini.
It’s a profound and reflective book, written conversationally. He’s got a useful opening section on the need to welcome technological innovation, but not naively so. There is a place for moral action, he argues; the future is not inevitable.
We must take our place, each at the right point. We must not oppose what is new and try to preserve a beautiful world that is inevitably perishing. Nor should we try to build a new world of the creative imagination that will show none of the damage of what is actually evolving. Rather, we must transform what is coming to be. But we can do this only if we honestly say yes to it and yet with incorruptible hearts remain aware of all that is destructive and nonhuman in it. Our age has been given to us as the soil on which to stand and the task to master.
Irony
Mon 19 Jun 2006 • Responses: 1 • by Peter Edman
A quick comment here on a situation of high irony. I’ve been tangentially aware of a debate going on between Kevin Kelly and John Updike.
I have sympathies with both sides of this argument on print versus pixels, but I find it seriously ironic that now that we have reached a point where technology via the Web permits us to say what needs to be said regardless of length and without concerns for the costs of printing and distribution, we must access it via technologies that most people seem to find uncomfortable for extended reading.
In the case of our website, I’ve tried to pick colors that are easy on the eye, and I have also created a stylesheet that should allow you to print out any of our articles to your own printer at a convenient type size. Try it out.
The Connecticut Yankee Is Dead
Wed 17 May 2006 by Peter L. Edman
Long Live the Connecticut Yankee . . .
Trinity Forum Director of Research Peter Edman discusses some of the themes in our new curriculum on technology, Children of Prometheus. When we think about technology, it’s also important to think about human nature, for while our technology changes, our nature is more constant. He introduces several books and ideas that deserve your attention and will provide a taste for the Prometheus curriculum.
Control. Fear. Hope.
Mon 24 Apr 2006 by Peter Edman
I just ran across a headline about how many leaders around the world are suffering from low popularity. It reminded me of a favorite book of mine.
Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch has been out for a few years now. It’s one of his Discworld series of fantasy novels, but don’t let that stop you: this is the novel that got critic Michael Dirda to compare Pratchett to Chaucer. The book is that good. What makes it so, at least for me, is the way it helps you think through the limits of leadership and what we can really control. Sometimes things are just complicated.
The World Is Information
Tue 14 Mar 2006 by Peter Edman
I mentioned Kevin Kelly in an earlier post, and he just popped up again as the editor of an interesting interview in the current issue of Wired. He’s talking with the author of a new book on quantum mechanics who is arguing that the universe is one giant computer (as the Wired editors say in the blurb for the article, thank God it doesn’t run Windows). “The world is information,” says Seth Lloyd. “In the beginning was the Word,” says John. There’s a reason so many physicists are theologians.
Why the Sea Is Salt
Mon 06 Mar 2006 by Peter Edman
Now that our curriculum on technology is off to the printer and finalized for the moment as we get ready for the spring Forums, I’ve been finding all sorts of articles and resources that would have made great boxes or readings. I take some comfort in the fact that our framework seems to be able to fit each of them in—in this case, the tendency of technology to do its job, even if you don’t want it anymore; the need to be careful with overpromising technology; and the critical need for a wider purpose for technology than mere blind “progress.” I’m also excited to have the website now, so I can document these items that are useful thinking and talking points for a conversation about technology and the good life.
Item one is the Scandinavian fairy tale, “Why the Sea is Salt,” retold in Andrew Lang’s Blue Fairy Book among many other places (executive summary here). Seems people in the past occasionally took advantage of those long cold dark winter nights to think things through. The wonderful mill—which keeps doing what it is asked to do until stopped, but the user doesn’t know how to stop it—is a great metaphor for technology.
On Technology
Thu 16 Feb 2006 by Peter Edman
These are some of the resources we found useful in considering how to respond to technology as we were compiling our new curriculum, Children of Prometheus: Technology and the Good Life, directed by Dan Russ (and afterwards as well).
