Reasons to Believe Podcast

Clear Thinking | Apologetics 101: Defending the Faith, Part 2

Stars, Cells, and God | Nature-Inspired Designs

Join Fazale “Fuz” Rana and guest Casey Luskin 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.

Nature-Inspired Designs

One of the most exciting areas of science and engineering is biomimetics and bioinspiration. Scientists and engineers working in this field develop new technology and solve engineering problems by studying and copying biological designs. In this episode biochemist Fuz Rana and special guest Casey Luskin, associate director of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, discuss recent findings in biomimetics and bioinspiration and explore the implications of this work for the design argument.

Links & Resources:

• Effect of Schooling on Flow Generated Sounds from Carangiform Swimmers
• Bioinspired Multiscale Adaptive Suction on Complex Dry Surfaces Enhanced by Regulated Water Secretion
• Geometric Design of Antireflective Leafhopper Brochosomes
• Spider Silk Inspires New Technology and the Case for a Creator

Clear Thinking | Apologetics 101: Defending the Faith, Part 1

Stars, Cells, and God | A New Organelle? Atmospheric Oxygenation

Join Fazale “Fuz” Rana and Hugh Ross 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.

A New Organelle?

A team of life scientists has claimed to discover a new organelle (called a nitroplast) that fixes nitrogen. It looks like this organelle evolved from an endosymbiont that assumed permanent residence in a eukaryotic cell. If so, this discovery provides support for the endosymbiont hypothesis, challenging the notion that a Creator is responsible for life’s origin and design. In this episode, biochemist Fuz Rana describes this work and its significance to life’s history, and offers a critical assessment of the study’s conclusion.

Atmospheric Oxygenation

An international team of 17 scientists has proposed that a dramatic weakening of Earth’s magnetic field caused an oxygen level jump 575 million years ago. They showed that a much weaker magnetic field would cause solar particles to split apart water molecules in Earth’s atmosphere into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen would escape to interplanetary space, leaving the oxygen to accumulate in Earth’s atmosphere. They demonstrated that that the magnetic field decline is sufficient to explain most of the rapid oxygen rise (from 2% to 8%) that occurred at the time of the Avalon explosion, which marked the first appearance of macroscopic animals. In this episode, Hugh Ross explains that the transition of Earth’s core from being 100% liquid to where a solid inner core begins to form would explain the dramatic weakening of Earth’s magnetic field—and the minimum oxygen level needed for complex life—that occurred 0.6 million years ago.     

Links & Resources: 

• Nitrogen-Fixing Organelle in a Marine Alga
• Mitochondrial Protein Import Advances the Case for Creation
• Near-Collapse of the Geomagnetic Field May Have Contributed to Atmospheric Oxygenation and Animal Radiation in the Ediacaran Period
• Designed to the Core, 183–197  

Stars, Cells, and God | Human Brain Tissue Controls Robot | News of the Day

Join Fazale “Fuz” Rana in this breaking News of the Day episode of Stars, Cells, and God. Fuz reports on the work by a research team from Tianjin University in China, who, recently stole headlines when they announced that they developed a chip that used human brain tissue to control a robotics system. This remarkable breakthrough (called organoid intelligence) generates excitement and also raises some profound ethical and theological questions.

In this episode Fuz explains:

• How this technology works
• Why researchers are pursuing the development of biocomputing and organoid intelligence
• Ethical concerns associated with this work
• Christian perspective on organoid intelligence

Links & Resources:

• Lab-Grown Human Brain Tissue Used to Control Robot
• Organoid Intelligence (OI): The New Frontier in Biocomputing and Intelligence-in-a Dish
• A Christian Perspective on Living Electrodes
• Brain Organoids Cultivate the Case for Human Exceptionalism

Clear Thinking | Bookishness in 25 Points, Part 2

Stars, Cells, and God | News of the Day | Do Early Supermassive Black Holes Refute the Big Bang?

Join Hugh Ross in this breaking News of the Day episode of Stars, Cells, and God. Hugh describes the discovery of four fully-formed supermassive black holes that existed just 410–760 million years after the cosmic creation event.

Do Early Supermassive Black Holes Refute the Big Bang?

• Quasar J1120+0641, seen 760 million years after the cosmic beginning, has a supermassive black hole (SMBH) weighing 1.52 billion solar masses.
• Quasar J1342+0928, seen 700 million years after the beginning, has a SMBH weighing 0.78 billion solar masses.
• Quasar J0313-1806, seen 690 million years after the beginning, has a SMBH of 1.6 billion solar masses.
• The most distantly detected SMBH belongs to GN-z11. Just 410 million after the beginning, its SMBH weighs 0.002 billion solar masses.
• There are three ways such SMBHs can form so early in a big bang universe: through 1) very aggressive early gas accretion by the BHs; 2) mergers of the BHs arising from many 500+ solar-mass first generation stars; and 3) mergers of 10,000+ solar-mass gas clouds that collapse into black holes without forming stars.
• The discovery of many more cosmic dawn SMBHs will determine which one, of more, of the three ways explains the SMBHs. 

Links & Resources

• A Mature Quasar at Cosmic Dawn Revealed by JWST Rest-Frame Infrared Spectroscopy
• Black Holes as Evidence of God’s Care

Stars, Cells, and God | Smart Dams and Malicious AIs

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.

Smart Dams

More than 58,000 dams that are built higher than 15 meters (50 feet) exist on nearly all the world’s rivers. Consequently, migratory fish stocks have declined by 76% since 1970 and populations of “megafish” have declined by 94%. Two water resource engineers combined fish migratory taxonomy data with migratory fish life cycle and dam impact models to determine the best fish rescue strategies for five flagship fish species residing in the 12 large dams on the Yangtze River in China. They identified six major misjudgments in China’s fish rescue programs and concluded that large, effective fishways are essential for maintaining robust fish stocks.

Malicious AIs

The quest for more powerful and capable AIs inevitably involves making more sophisticated training algorithms and models with a larger number of parameters. While pursuing this quest, AI developers are also investigating how to align AIs with the values and behaviors we want. Recent research demonstrated that those two goals currently stand in opposition to one another. Specifically, making larger, more sophisticated models results in AIs that effectively resist training to eliminate malicious behavior—regardless of whether the malicious behavior was intentionally programmed or an unintended consequence. Such results provide additional evidence that we humans need to build godly character in ourselves so that we can wisely and responsibly develop and use these powerful AI tools.

Links & Resources:

• Dams Trigger Exponential Population Declines of Migratory Fish 
• The Evaluation of a Definite Integral by the Method of Brackets Illustrating Its Flexibility

 

Stars, Cells, and God | Bolide Airbursts Trigger Recent Global Cooling Event | News of the Day

Join Hugh Ross in this breaking News of the Day episode of Stars, Cells, and God. Hugh describes the discovery of microspherules and meltglass at three North American sites, consistent with low-altitude airbursts from a disintegrating comet, that explain the Younger Dryas cooling onset 12,800 years ago.

Bolide Airbursts Trigger Recent Global Cooling Event

• During the younger Dryas (12,800–11,700 years ago), global mean temperatures plummeted by 10–15°C. This cooling event, in part, explains the unprecedented climate stability that persisted from 9,500 to 75 years ago.
• Geologists had cited the Hiawatha Impact Crater in northwestern Greenland as evidence for an asteroid impact that caused the younger Dryas cooling event.
• Recently, physicists disputed the claimed 12,800 years ago date for the Hiawatha Crater, citing argon-argon and uranium-lead dating of zircon crystals that yielded a melt date of 57.99±0.54 million years ago.
• 26 scientists report their discovery of microspherules, meltglass, nanodiamonds, and combustion aerosols, consistent with them being caused by low-altitude airbursts, at sites in New Jersey, Maryland, and South Carolina.
• The microspherules, meltglass, and nanodiamonds all have radiocarbon dates of 12,835—12,735 years ago. The implied melt temperatures range from 1,250°C to 3,053°C.
• The high-temperature, high-pressure shock waves generated by low-altitude airbursts from a disintegrating comet would explain the Younger Dryas Cooling Event and the accompanying multi-continent megafaunal extinctions but would not necessarily leave behind any discoverable impact craters.

Links & Resources: 

• Platinum, Shock-Fractured Quartz, Microspherules, and Meltglass Widely Distributed in Eastern USA at the Younger Dryas Onset (12.8 ka)
• Hugh Ross, Weathering Climate Change (Covina, CA: RTB Press, 2020): 149–161, 187–191.

Stars, Cells, and God | Neanderthal with Down’s Syndrome | News of the Day

Join Fazale “Fuz” Rana in this breaking News of the Day episode of Stars, Cells, and God. Fuz discusses work by a team of anthropologists from Spain who maintain that analysis of a partial skull fossil indicates that Neanderthals provided compassionate care for a Neanderthal child with Down syndrome.

Neanderthal with Down’s Syndrome

• Does this discovery mean that Neanderthals were just like us?
• In light of this find, can humans be regarded as exceptional and unique?
• If Neanderthals were like us, can the biblical claim that humans solely bear God’s image remain valid?

Links & Resources

• The Child Who Lived: Down’s Syndrome Among Neanderthals?
• An Observation of a Severely Disabled Infant Chimpanzee in the Wild and Her Interactions with Her Mother
• Primates and Disability: Behavioral Flexibility and Implications for Resilience to Environmental Change
• Key Difference in Developing Human and Neanderthals Brains
• Should Chimpanzee Behavior Challenge Human Exceptionalism?

Clear Thinking | Bookishness in 25 Points, Part 1

Stars, Cells, and God | Dark Matter Particles? | News of the Day

Join Hugh Ross in this breaking News of the Day episode of Stars, Cells, and God. Hugh describes stars at our galaxy’s center showing their luminosities are augmented by the annihilation of dark matter particles in their cores. This could be the first direct discovery of dark matter particles.

Dark Matter Particles?

• Dark matter makes up 24.5% of the universe.
• Neutrinos are the only dark matter particles detected so far and comprise <1% of dark matter.
• Three astronomers produced a mock stellar population that evolves both with and without energy from dark matter particle annihilation.
• High-mass stars that gain much of their luminosities from dark matter particle annihilation can shine brightly for >10 billion years rather than <100 million years. They shine as brightly as young stars, spectroscopically measure to be old, and have lower temperatures.
• Density of dark matter in our galaxy is extremely high within one light-year of its supermassive black hole (SMBH).
• Stars within one light-year of our galaxy’s SMBH have the distinct properties of stars whose luminosities are augmented by dark matter particle annihilation.
• Observations by 30-meter telescopes will find enough stars within a light-year of our galaxy’s SMBH to make possible an indisputable detection of dark matter particles.

Links & Resources: 

• Dark Branches of Immortal Stars at the Galactic Center
• Black Holes as Evidence of God’s Care

Clear Thinking | A Culture of Men without Chests, Part 2

Stars, Cells, and God | Primordial Black Holes Resolve Dark Matter Mystery? | News of the Day

Join Hugh Ross in this breaking News of the Day episode of Stars, Cells, and God. Hugh describes a discovery that may resolve a long-standing mystery about dark matter.

Primordial Black Holes Resolve Dark Matter Mystery?

• Dark matter is matter that doesn’t interact with light or interacts at an extremely weak level.
• The quantity of dark matter that exists and its locations in the universe are not mysteries.
• Dark matter’s composition is a mystery that has stymied astronomers and physicists for 5 decades.
• Leading candidates for dark matter’s composition are axions and sterile neutrinos, but neither of these particles has been detected.
• Physicists Elba Alonso-Monsalve and David Kaiser propose that primordial black holes (PBHs) could make up all or a large fraction of dark matter if they formed previous to a tenth of a quadrillionth of a second after the cosmic creation event.
• These PBHs would take two forms: atom-sized bodies with masses equal to that Deimos and Phobos; bodies a ten thousandth the diameter of a proton with masses equal to a ton, with only the first form possibly existing to the present time.
• Observable tests for these PBHs include the degree to which they would 1) shift the balance between protons and neutrons, 2) cause ripples in the cosmic spacetime fabric, and 3) affect the amount of helium produced during the universe’s first 3 minutes.

Resources: 

Primordial Black Holes with QCD Color Change

Quantum Gravity Constraints Affirm Cosmic Creator

Clear Thinking | A Culture of Men without Chests, Part 1