New Book Ties Engineering to Philosophy

Engineering and the Ultimate is the product of the Engineering and Metaphysics Conference held at Oral Roberts University in 2012. It seeks to open up new pathways for engineering to escape the intellectually stifling philosophy of pragmatism. They point out in the book that the classical and medieval engineers saw their work as pointing to a grander reality that they saw in nature. Their designs sought to reflect the beautiful design in nature. And they weren't ashamed to admit it. The book is of a definite Christian orientation (both Catholic and Protestant). Overall, it is friendly to Intelligent Design, however, one author, Alexander Sich, makes a scientific case against Intelligent Design [ID]. He instead argues that ID is a useful philosophy but should be treated as a scientific model. Many of his arguments have been refuted in the past. I refer the reader to Evolution News and Views for more information.

I only have one problem with the book. It has no bibliographic information for itself! In order to find it, I had to look through the bibliographic info of one of the author's papers. So, here it is in full: Bartlett, Jonathan, Dominic Halsmer, and Mark R. Hall. Engineering and the Ultimate: An Interdisciplinary Investigation of Order and Design in Nature and Craft. Broken Arrow, OK: Blyth Institute Press, 2014.

Other than that one minor issue, I personally found the book to be quite enlightening. Having little personal experience with engineering, I found it to be a good introduction to the interaction between engineering and philosophy. I highly recommend it, and I hope that the Blyth Institute Press continue to publish more solid scientific work!

A Response to Bill Nye

First of all, Mr. Nye, I was impressed by the fact that you agreed to debate Ken Ham in such a public arena. It was a thrilling debate to observe :). I want you to know, right up front, that I graduated from Pensacola Christian College with a Bachelor's degree in Science Education. Believe me, I'm all about science. I absolutely love it! But, like Mr. Ham, I'm also a Christian and a Young-Earth Creationist. This, however, does not hamper my view of  or interest in science. There were a few things said in the debate tonight that I wanted to address. I'm not an expert, but I have studied the origins issue for well over a decade (ever since I was about nine), and I have not limited myself to just creation science. I have read Peter Atkins, Paul Davies, John Barrow, Richard Feynman, David Berlinski--none of them Young-Earth Creationists. Please, bear with me as I address these issues.

The first is a question that Mr. Ham never answered (effectively, at least). You asked him to name some prediction (hint: future discovery) that creation science had successively made. He constantly mentioned past predictions (which I agreed with). However, one prediction kept coming to mind as you constantly asked: that of the strengths of planetary magnetic fields. D. Russell Humphreys, Ph.D. (retired from Sandia National Laboratories), predicted the strengths of the planetary magnetic fields in our Solar System based on the Genesis account. (Dr. Humphreys is known for his work in creation cosmology). He successfully predicted the magnetic field strengths. Here's the link.

You also talked about radioisotope dating. That problem was answered and totally debunked by the Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth Project (RATE). The project was 8 years in the undertaking, and the resultant research was published. The two volumes may be published at Christian Book Distributors (on sale!) for $52.99 at this link. I highly recommend that you acquire them. They are well worth the reading.

One problem that you mentioned with the creation model is that of biogeography (the kangaroos on their merry way to Australia). That is somewhat of a conundrum for creationists, but that doesn't mean we aren't working on it. Check out more here.

Once again, thank you so much for an intellectually stimulating debate regarding our origins. I really do hope that this will revive the old creation/evolution debates of the past.

Don't Miss It!

My readers may have heard about the debate coming up very shortly between Ken Ham and Bill Nye. It is scheduled for February 4, at 7 p.m. EST. They will be streaming it live through debatelive.org. Amazingly, all 900 tickets for the debate sold out two minutes after they were up for sale. This result clearly shows that Americans are still very interested in the conflicting theories of origins espoused by evolution and creation. For more information on the debate, you can find it at this link. The debate is not concerned with falsifying the theory of evolution (even though, Darwin's theory of evolution has been falsified many times over in the creation literature--check my favorite sites list for more info). These two men will be debating on the viability of creation science to explain the earth's origins.

Of course, there has been staunch opposition to this debate. Primarily, this opposition has arisen from the atheist camp. Even the prestigious Richard Dawkins has expressed his disapproval in this matter (Dawkins is notorious for refusing to debate creationists). Bill Nye has been urged to back down, yet he won't because he believes it to be a great opportunity to finally bury the creation issue in a public forum.

Surprisingly, a very small amount of support has come from the Intelligent Design camp. To clarify, ID does not necessarily endorse creationist views, and ID is DEFINITELY NOT some form of creationism (happy Mr. Klinghoffer :). Yet David Klinghoffer has expressed his desire to watch the debate. Why? Two reasons: 1) Bill Nye actually has the guts to debate someone who is anti-evolutionist; 2) Ken Ham may be able to finally clarify the differences between ID and creationism. We shall see.

Please pray for Ken Ham. He needs God's wisdom, strength and protection. And, who knows, maybe Bill Nye will get saved because of this. Wouldn't that be ironic!