ASC and Heart Repair

We've seen a lot of applications of adult stem cells in treating various heart conditions. From Science Daily:

"The cardiogenic cocktail was then used to induce this signature in non-reparative patient stem cells to program their capacity to repair the heart. Mouse models with heart failure, injected with these cells, demonstrated significant heart function recovery along with improved survival rate after a year, compared to those treated with unguided stem cells or saline."

Also:

"The pre-clinical data reported in this seminal paper have cleared the way for safety and feasibility trials in humans, which were recently conducted in Europe."

The language here isn't 100% clear, but it seems that this may already be under way in humans (there is significant lag between collecting data and publishing it. So while preparing the paper on mouse results, human tests might have started.)

Pill Data

In a previous post, I mentioned that the pill can fail to prevent ovulation, and still prevent pregnancy by preventing implantation. This is effectively giving the new embryo a death sentence.

From Science Daily, a little data on how often this might happen:

"Of the 150 women who used the pill consistently, three of the 96 women with normal weight ovulated, as did one of the 54 women with obesity."

Not a huge sample, but 4 in 150 is almost 3%

That's fairly high. At once a month, that is one event every three years.

ASC and Parkinson's

A variant on a story I saw earlier, from Science Daily:

"Researchers in the Zeng lab used human iPSCs that were derived from skin and blood cells and coaxed them to become dopamine-producing neurons." (in rats)

(the earlier results were from a different group, using different starter cells, and mice)

The Secular View

(This got hung up in the queue, so it is way old)

It's a lot of fun to watch secular humanists spin.

You have a group of people dedicated to the destruction of everything humanists stand for (equality, freedom, rights). You have other people, who may not be actively participating, but who choose to identify visibly with that group.

Then, a humanists says the second group "makes him nervous" on national television. That's it. Not that he hates them, or wants to do away with them or restrict their rights. People who identify with those who want to eliminate his way of life make him nervous.

The response? Fire him.

Then we have Tavis Smiley (who I normally like).

I want to interpret that in the best way (1 Cor 13:7). I think he is saying Christians (people who call themselves Christians) do all sorts of things. I can see that.

The problem is:

1. Such people are, in all likelihood, not Christians (it is Christ who decides who is a Christian, not us)
2. They don't do such things because they are Christians
3. Other Christians do not approve

The Columbine blurb is just bizarre. Those were atheists (actually a lot of random shooters are...). Evidence is they targeted a couple of Christians, specifically because they were overtly Christian.

Biologos and Marcionism

In my previous post, I (snarkily) summarized the form of posts at Biologos. There is an interesting departure from this in the form of Dr. Karl Giberson's "Straw Men of Atheism" posts.

Giberson is not a fan of presuppositional apologetics. He uses an evidential form, and it is quite insightful (or inciteful?) to see the atheists tear him up in the comment sections.

In the fifth installment, Giberson actually manages to belittle the Bible and open himself to atheist scorn - actually going so far as to embrace Marcionism:

"In The God Delusion Dawkins eloquently skewers the tyrannical anthropomorphic deity of the Old Testament—the God that supposedly commanded the Jews to go on genocidal rampages and who occasionally went on his own rampages, flooding the planet or raining fire and brimstone on wicked cities. But who believes in this deity any more, besides those same fundamentalists who think the earth is 10,000 years old? Modern theology has moved past this view of God."

Biologos insists that evolution and Christianity are compatible. I guess it all depends on what you mean by "Christianity". Not Biblical Christianity, but the teachings of (modern) liberal theologians.

Creation as Jazz

Biologos seems to have (at least) three main categories:

1. Repeat "Evolution is true" mantra
2. Belittle the Bible
3. Poetry and art (proclaiming how beautiful the deist god is)

An example of the third is the recent post "Creation and Jazz Music".

It really speaks for itself:

"If God has shaped the world as it was from the beginning, the universe seems reduced to a mere puppet stage where God the Puppet Master pulls all the strings."

That's the treatment of the sovereign God of the Bible.

"Instead, God in his wisdom has provided a system in which creatures can make themselves." (emphasis added)

The important point in the creation debate is: "The creator makes the rules". If God created us, we are subject to His rules. If random chance creates us (or we create ourselves) - we are not subject to God's rules.

Finding Darwin's God

It took me a long time, but I finally waded through it!

I picked up this book after getting involved over at Biologos. Kenneth Miller is one of the writers there.

I am looking for a book that pairs a solid scientific understanding of evolution and an old earth with solid theology - this book is not it.

Miller approaches things from the scientific standpoint (he is a cell biologist and professor). His theology is fairly broad, although not well defended or deep. He adds nothing new to the scientific argument, repeating the "evolution is true" mantra repeatedly.

What interests me most is his theology.

The choice quote (you have to get far in to find it, out of 292 pages):

"He [God] wanted these creatures [us] to be free to choose Him or to reject Him" (page 251)

There are aspects of this earlier (and it is much repeated later), but this really captures the heart of Miller's theology.

He has raised human will to the level of God (hyper-Arminianism).

"Free choice" is so important that Miller is willing to sacrifice everything else - God's omnipotence, omniscience, creation, etc. Even the definition of good is up for grabs (for how is "nature, red in tooth and claw" good?).

It is also not surprising to find elements of Open Theism (which is a common failure mode for hyper-Arminians; although it appears Miller has not yet fallen so far):

"The freedom to act and choose enjoyed by each individual in the Western religious tradition requires that God allow the future of His creation to be left open." (p.238)

"Given evolution's ability to adapt,... sooner or later it would have given the Creator exactly what He was looking for - a creature who, like us, could know Him and love Him" (p.238-239)

This is not the God of the Bible. The God who plans and purposes before acting. This is not the God who is the man Jesus Christ, the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.

Given the course Biologos is taking, I doubt I will see reconciliation on these points. I have another book to try.