Several years ago, I was given a script by an incredibly talented artist named Christopher Stout. It was for a short film that explored sexual abuse in children and its negative effects on sexuality in later years, and he was looking for investors to help make the film a reality. I immediately fell in love with the story, but since I was not at all familiar with such issues, I decided to get a second opinion. I gave the script to someone who is very, very dear to me who experienced sexual abuse as a child, and I asked her to read it. When she said that she loved the story, I knew it was time to invest.
The film was completed in 2005, and I was fortunate enough to attend the premier. The audience loved it, and I was both proud and honored to have played a small role in such a wonderful work of art. Recently, the author decided to release it on Vimeo to be viewed for free, and I want to share it with my readers.
I have filed this post in my “Christian Drama” category, although the film is not overly Christian in any way. However, I consider it a Christian film because while the main character is romantically in love with the leading lady, he models the relentless, unconditional love that Christ has for all of us. The healing that you see in the film is the same kind of healing that Christ’s love can accomplish.
Before you view this film, I would like to offer a word of warning. While the film would probably not even earn an “PG” rating in today’s film rating system, it does deal with sexual issues, specifically those that result from sexual abuse. Thus, it might not be appropriate for all viewers.
James Joule, one of the 19th century’s most important physicists.Over the past few years, I have been writing a series of elementary science courses for home educated students. Since the courses discuss scientific concepts in chronological order, I have spent a lot of time learning the history of science. In the process, I have found that a lot of what I was taught in school (including university) about how science developed is simply false. I have also become acquainted with the views of many great scientists from the past, which has allowed me to learn from them. I want to discuss one of those great scientists in order to share something I have learned.
James Joule was born in 1818. Because his father was a successful brewer, chemistry was in his blood. He was taught at home for many years, and then his father sent him to study under John Dalton, the founder of modern atomic theory. Dalton suffered a stroke two years later, but his influence on Joule continued long after he stopped teaching. Even though Joule ended up taking over the family brewery, he spent a lot of time doing experiments, mostly focused on trying to explain electricity and magnetism in terms of Dalton’s new atomic theory.
However, the more experiments he performed, the more interested he became in the heat that was generated in electrical systems. As he studied heat, he eventually demonstrated that he could convert mechanical energy into heat. This allowed him to argue that heat is just another form of energy, which went against the scientific consensus of his day. Of course, today we know he was correct, and because of that, the standard unit for measuring energy is named after him (the Joule).
This forest contains Norway spruce and larch, two of the trees studied in the experiment that is being described. (click for credit)
Ever since I learned about it, the phenomenon of mutualism has fascinated me (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). If you aren’t familiar with the term, it refers to a situation in which two or more organisms of different species work together so that each receives a benefit. One of the most common examples of this kind of relationship is found among fungi and plants (see here and here). The fungi (called mycorrhiza) extract nutrients from the plants, but in exchange, they provide the plants with critical nitrogen- and phosphorus-based chemicals that the plants have a hard time extracting from the soil. As a result of this relationship, both the plants and the fungi thrive. It is not surprising, then, that the vast majority of plants in nature form relationships with mycorrhiza.
Swiss researchers were recently studying trees in a forest, and they learned something rather surprising about these mycorrhiza. They facilitate the exchange of nutrients between different trees in a forest, even trees of different species!1 Why is this so surprising? Well, it is thought that trees in a forest are in constant competition with one another. They compete to expose their leaves to the sunlight so they can produce more food via photosynthesis. They compete for the nitrogen- and phosphorus-based chemicals that they must absorb from the surrounding soil. They even compete for the water in the soil. Despite this perceived competition, however, there seems to be at least some cooperation as well.
Me with a family whose eldest is about to finish an MD/PhD program.
I have probably harped on Bill Nye’s errors far too much (see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). Partly, this is because he continues to make them, when even a small amount of self-education would fix that problem. Partly, it is because some of his errors are so incredibly egregious. This post is a result of the latter situation.
In his error-riddled book, Undeniable, Nye makes the following statement:1
Inherent in this rejection of evolution is the idea that your curiosity about the world is misplaced and your common sense is wrong. This attack on reason is an attack on all of us. Children who accept this ludicrous perspective will find themselves opposed to progress. They will become society’s burdens rather than its producers, a prospect that I find very troubling. Not only that, these kids will never feel the joy of discovery that science brings. They will have to suppress the basic human curiosity that leads to asking questions, exploring the world around them, and making discoveries. They will miss out on countless exciting adventures. We’re robbing them of basic knowledge about their world and the joy that comes with it. It breaks my heart. (emphasis mine)
This is one of the most egregiously false things that Mr. Nye has claimed, and that’s saying a lot, given that it took me twelve pages to detail all of the errors I found in his book. I want to give you some idea of how egregiously wrong that statement is by just highlighting a few people I have met over the past six weeks.
Let’s start with the family pictured with me at the top of this post. The woman in the picture is a homeschooling mother. She has two young ones with her, but she wanted to tell me about her eldest son, who is in the fifth year of his MD/PhD program. Why is he getting two advanced degrees? Because he wants to do cancer research. To treat patients, you typically need an MD. Being trained to do original research typically involves getting a PhD. Thus, those who want to do original research in medicine often get both an MD and a PhD so they have all of the relevant training they need.
This mother’s son demonstrates in no uncertain terms how wrong Bill Nye is. I met her in Peoria, Illinois this past Friday, when I spoke at the APACHE homeschool convention. She came up to me at my publisher’s booth and told me that her son had asked her to inform me of two things: First, my science courses encouraged him to pursue medical research as a career. Second, they helped him excel at university so he could get accepted into medical school.
I am not telling you this to “toot my own horn,” even though a former pastor of mine says I play that particular instrument very well.* I am telling you this because my courses are young-earth creationist courses, and this mother gave her son a young-earth creationist education. Far from suppressing “the basic human curiosity that leads to asking questions,” this young man’s creationist education encouraged him to continue to ask questions, explore the world around him, and make discoveries. He has, most certainly, already felt “the joy of discovery that science brings.” Indeed, I suspect he will be experiencing that joy for the rest of his career.
Now, if this justifiably-proud mother were the only person I met recently who demonstrated Mr. Nye to be wrong, I probably wouldn’t have posted about her and her son. However, the Lord has led several such people to me recently, and I want to introduce a few of them to you!
A diagram showing how a stem cell in bone marrow becomes different types of blood cells. (click for credit)
In a 2003 speech, John Kerry complained about the Bush administration, saying:
Nothing illustrates this administration’s anti-science attitude better than George Bush’s cynical decision to limit research on embryonic stem cells.
During the heat of the “stem cell wars,” this was a common refrain. Life-saving treatments could be produced with embryonic stem cells, and anyone who questioned whether or not it was morally acceptable to destroy one life in order to experiment with saving another was “anti-science.” Never mind that there are stem cells in everyone’s body, commonly called adult stem cells, and those stem cells also have the potential to cure illnesses. Everyone “knew” that using embryonic stem cells would be better.
What’s the difference between embryonic stem cells and adult stems cells? Well, most of the cells in your body have specific tasks. Your skin cells perform one set of tasks, while your muscle cells perform another set of tasks, your liver cells another set of tasks, etc., etc. These cells have all “specialized” so they can perform their tasks efficiently. A stem cell, by contrast, is a cell that hasn’t yet “specialized.” It can develop into many different cells, depending on your body’s needs.
Embryonic stem cells end up developing into all the cells that make up the body, so they are thought to be very, very flexible when it comes to what they can develop into. However, to get those stem cells, you have to kill the embryo. Adult stem cells, on the other hand have already specialized to some degree. For example, the drawing at the top of this post shows how an adult stem cell found in bone marrow can develop into various different blood cells. While that shows some serious flexibility, bone marrow stem cells don’t normally develop into wildly different cells, like skin cells. As a result, it is thought that adult stem cells aren’t as flexible as embryonic stem cells. On the positive side, however, you don’t have to kill anything to get adult stem cells.
A promotional banner for the film “The Day After Tomorrow.” (click for credit)
The Day After Tomorrow was a 2004 film co-written, directed, and produced by Roland Emmerich. It depicted the destruction of a good fraction of the United States by a terrible weather calamity that had been brought about by global warming. While it was widely recognized as being scientifically inaccurate, it supposedly had a scientific premise. The idea was that global warming had caused so much polar ice to melt that it interrupted the North Atlantic current that transports heat around the world. As a result, outbreaks of violent weather occurred, causing terrible destruction. The media discussed the film a lot back then, and even Al Gore said that while it was fiction, it was a good starting point for a debate about climate change.
While no scientist would ever suggest that such a thing could happen as depicted in the movie (the timescale was way too short, for example), a study was published last year that suggested global warming has started disrupting ocean currents.1 In particular, the paper suggested that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) was slowing down. Since the AMOC is a “conveyor belt” of currents that move heat around the globe, the study got the media once again talking about the 2004 film.
Much like the science in The Day After Tomorrow, however, the science in last year’s study was (at best) speculative. It relied mostly on computer models as well as some “reconstructions” of surface temperatures that went back to 900 AD. Using these speculative tools, the authors claimed that their study
suggests that the AMOC weakness after 1975 is an unprecedented event in the past millennium. [emphasis mine]
Not surprisingly, a study that suggested something “unprecedented” received quite a bit of media attention. Equally unsurprising, a recent paper demonstrates that actual measurements of the AMOC indicate that there is no evidence for any kind of weakness.
