https://www.spreaker.com/show/down-the-wormholeenReligion & SpiritualityCopyright Rev Zack Jacksonhttps://d3wo5wojvuv7l.cloudfront.net/t_rss_itunes_square_1400/images.spreaker.com/original/5246043d1802ddaccd28c3a7b709580b.jpghttps://www.spreaker.com/show/down-the-wormholeWed, 24 May 2023 08:23:06 +0000Rev Zack JacksonRev Zack Jacksonfeeds@spreaker.comExamining the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion.cleanepisodichttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/discovering-dino-tissue-with-mary-schweihttps://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/528742de-fb0e-388f-9710-201719c770f9Wed, 24 May 2023 08:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 119 Today, we are joined by paleontologist, Dr. Mary Schweitzer. She is professor in the department of biological sciences at North Carolina State University. She is also a research curator for paleontology at the North Carolina Museum of...https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>2950clean125fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/elevating-the-discourse-with-vikki-gaskihttps://www.downthewormhole.com/e/womanist-psychology-of-religion-with-rev-dr-vikki-gaskin-butler/   Also be sure to check out her podcast and all her other work here... https://www.drvikki.org/     Sinai and Synapses - https://sinaiandsynapses.org/   Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/8a84f3a0-8c24-3512-b612-394bd66a9ad8Thu, 09 Mar 2023 09:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 118 In part 20 of our Sinai and Synapses interview series, we are talking with the Rev Dr Vikki Gaskin-Butler.    She is a licensed psychologist (clinical and health psychology) and ordained clergy person. She received her bachelor’s degree in...https://www.downthewormhole.com/e/womanist-psychology-of-religion-with-rev-dr-vikki-gaskin-butler/   Also be sure to check out her podcast and all her other work here... https://www.drvikki.org/     Sinai and Synapses - https://sinaiandsynapses.org/   Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>2882clean124fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/life-on-mars-and-heaven-on-earth-with-pahttps://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/fc86a6b8-6cef-34ee-a151-bb6b39badb70Wed, 01 Mar 2023 09:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 117 Today, we are joined by the one and only Rev. Dr. Pamela Conrad. is the rector of St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Glen Burnie, Maryland. She’s also an astrobiologist and planetary scientist specializing in understanding how planets do or...https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>3692clean123fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/elevating-the-discourse-with-emily-gerdihttps://sinaiandsynapses.org/   Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/a3785d3f-5d87-3fd0-82ba-1a6bb65093baWed, 22 Feb 2023 09:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 116 In part 19 of our Sinai and Synapses interview series, we are talking with Emily Gerdin. She was raised in two faiths growing up (Judaism & Protestantism), and her interfaith upbringing inspired her to study how minds are shaped by...https://sinaiandsynapses.org/   Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>2991clean122fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/elevating-the-discourse-with-stephen-burhttps://sinaiandsynapses.org/   Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/3a52ce7f-3808-3b0e-9b7c-afda59094f36Wed, 18 Jan 2023 09:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 115 In part 18 of our Sinai and Synapses interview series, we are talking with Dr Stephen Burgin. He is an associate professor of secondary science education at the University of Arkansas. His research interests focus on the authentic...https://sinaiandsynapses.org/   Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>2821clean121fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/elevating-the-discourse-with-tyler-j-fulhttps://sinaiandsynapses.org/   Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/6e77ec7b-c438-3003-a56c-08e730615816Wed, 14 Dec 2022 09:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 114 In part 17 of our Sinai and Synapses interview series, we are talking with Tyler J Fuller. Tyler is a Ph.D. student in the Graduate Program in Religion at Boston University. He is a sociologist of religion and a health educator. His...https://sinaiandsynapses.org/   Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>2765clean120fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/gazing-into-eternity-with-guy-consolmagnhttps://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/98e91ac0-1bdd-3295-946d-ff4ddd8ca98eWed, 07 Dec 2022 09:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 113 Today, we are joined by astronomer, author, speaker, and Director of the Vatican Observatory, Guy Consolmagno! We talk about asteroid mining, the ethics of renewable energy, alien spirituality, and why the Vatican has an observatory in...https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>3596clean119fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/elevating-the-discourse-with-richard-midhttps://jrichardmiddleton.com/   Sinai and Synapses - https://sinaiandsynapses.org/   Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/20a2a32b-a835-314d-915c-9656492cae25Wed, 09 Nov 2022 09:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 112 In part 16 of our Sinai and Synapses interview series, we are talking with Dr. Richard Middleton. Dr. Middleton is Professor of Biblical Worldview and Exegesis at Northeastern Seminary in Rochester, NY. He is past president of the Canadian...https://jrichardmiddleton.com/   Sinai and Synapses - https://sinaiandsynapses.org/   Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>3010clean118fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/infinite-doubt-with-dr-andrew-newberghttps://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/a36f6182-e0b5-350a-bf17-b6fa312d05f9Wed, 02 Nov 2022 08:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 111 We're back! After an unannounced and unexpected hiatus, we are back with new episodes, interviews, and surprises. Today, we sit down with neurotheologian, research scientist, and best-selling author Dr. Andrew Newberg. We talk about the...https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>3580clean117fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/james-webb-space-telescope-specialhttps://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages   Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/fdf8ccaf-aecc-33e3-90f4-052d80ba73bfWed, 20 Jul 2022 08:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 110 Let's all geek out about the James Webb Space telescope!!! If you haven't seen the first five pictures that NASA released from Webb, make sure you check them out here... https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages   Support this podcast on...https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages   Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>3403clean116fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/healing-part-3-healing-vs-curinghttps://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/3fa1efc0-8d4d-3b09-bb4e-5be26261365cWed, 29 Jun 2022 08:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 109 Do prayers for healing work? Do "thoughts and prayers" actually have a measurable effect on a sick person? What should we be praying for anyway, and are we missing unique opportunities for spiritual growth? Rachael is our guide this week...https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>3445clean115fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/elevating-the-discourse-with-joseph-shanhttps://sinaiandsynapses.org/   Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/d67e1b41-16eb-3195-bebc-c0d57dab8be6Thu, 16 Jun 2022 08:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 108 In part 15 of our Sinai and Synapses interview series, we are talking with Dr. Joseph Shane. He teaches us how to navigate contentious spaces, how to communicate across the pews, and how to have a more gentle existential crisis. My...https://sinaiandsynapses.org/   Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>2812clean114fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/healing-part-2-nature-is-healinghttps://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/943ed4fa-f9de-3903-ab03-2220992ce255Wed, 08 Jun 2022 15:31:24 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 107 Do you remember that brief "anthropause" in 2020 when billions of people stayed inside due to COVID? Do you remember seeing dolphins in Venice and wolves wandering the streets of NYC? Most of those stories were fake, but they were so...https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>3954clean113fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/re-wilding-christianity-with-brian-mclar"Do I Stay Christian?: A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed, and the Disillusioned" is an absolute must-read for any Christian struggling to make sense of things in this crazy world we live in. We talk about creating hope, fighting white supremacy, re-wilding Christianity, and the playful joy of reimagining religion.  Speaking of reimagining religion, have you checked out Zack's new podcast with his wife Nichole, "Reimagining Faith with the Pastors Jackson"? If you enjoy DtW (and of course you do), then you should check it out!    Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors. Zack Jackson 00:04 You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. Our guest today is an author, speaker, activist and public theologian. He is the author of over 15 books including faith after doubt, a generous orthodoxy and a new kind of Christian which got me in a whole lot of trouble at my home church 20 years ago, his new book do I stay Christian, a guide for the doubters, the disappointed and the disillusioned is an absolute must read for any Christian struggling to make sense of things in this crazy world we live in is an absolute joy and honor to welcome to the podcast, Brian McLaren. Oh, joy   Brian McLaren 00:45 and honor for me to be with you guys. So, so glad to be here.   Zack Jackson 00:49 Yes, I was thrilled to death to get that the email confirming that you had time in your very busy schedule to be with us today. We're all big fans, and I'm sure a lot of folks on the of our listenership likewise.   Brian McLaren 01:03 Well, hey, and I gotta say, now that I know about you guys, I'm your fan as well. And, you know, this subject of the inner interaction between faith and science, my goodness, so important these days. So really happy to be in this conference. Yes, thank you.   Zack Jackson 01:21 I love the way that you weave these two things together in your writings, by the way, and I've noticed it really in the past 10 years worth of books are so it seems, it seems almost effortless that every once in a while you're just gonna get some reference in there to evolution, some reference in there to the cosmic origins of the universe, it just seems like it is. It is always somewhere in the back of your mind.   Brian McLaren 01:45 Well, it's Yeah. And maybe I could say it this way. Without science. I don't think I could be a Christian. So. So yeah, I can't imagine how anyone would want to have a faith that were they had to keep their faith in one compartment. And then everything else. Another compartment compartments, right. Yeah.   Zack Jackson 02:10 Well, that's a sound clip that I'll definitely Absolutely. So Ian and I have been talking a lot recently about your new book, which when the time this podcast launches will have been released yesterday, so available to all of your major retailers. So this book, which is just so helpfully entitled, do I stay Christian? answers that question, which I think a lot of folks have had over the past couple of years, especially. But it's it's very helpfully organized into three sections, the answer that question that? No, I will not stay Christian. And here's why. Yes, I will stick it out and stay Christian. And the last section is how, which of those sections is taking up the most real estate in your mind? And in your day to day life?   Brian McLaren 03:03 Well, let's see. I think all of them jostle for the top position. But I think actually, the writing of this book propelled the third question up in importance. Because in the writing of this book, I realized it's just inevitable. Some people cannot stay Christian, the religion is killing them. It's damaging them, they need to get away at least for a time. And, and other people will stay Christian, it's who they are, and how could they deny who they are? And, and then what I realized is, even whatever you decide on staying Christian, you have to wake up the next morning, and ask what kind of a human being am I going to be? And that I hope that the Reading of the book helps lift the importance of that question up for everybody.   Ian Binns 04:02 Well, and I, you know, Brian, I really appreciated that aspect of the book. And as I said, Before recording, I absolutely loved the book, you know, so for me, I don't have the kind of historical experiences that I know, Brian, you talk about in your books, and that Zach has had and talked about before, the feeling I needed to leave, like, deconstruct and then come back or anything like that. But one of the things that I've always struggled with, is and you you do so well, in the first several chapters, when the answer to your question is no, you know, those chapters explaining No, just really stood out for me. And so but sorry, I know, I'm rambling. This is normal for me. But at the end, I loved as you just said, to connect it back to what kind of human do we want to be? You know, I tell people a lot when they question, my faith, because I'm open with my doubts and questions and the idea of a literal resurrection. I think those are all questions and doubts I have. And I don't know if I'll ever be able to resolve them yet. But I think I prefer to think of it as that I want to live my life, fighting for what Jesus fought for,   Brian McLaren 05:12 what a great way to what a great way to sit.   Ian Binns 05:15 Right? And so if it's more of that's the way I live, I don't have to stand on a rooftop and scream, everyone be a Christian. It's more of a this is the life I want to live. And I love that you did that.   Brian McLaren 05:26 And isn't it ironic that major sectors of the Christian religion are really uninterested, whether you want to fight for the things Jesus fought for, they're really interested in whether you will check certain boxes, agreeing with their authority figures about what you're supposed to say about Jesus. So I just can't help but think that Jesus would be happier with someone who's ready to join him in the struggle with his word for that was follow me, then then have certain opinions about me. In fact, you know, there's that password thing in the Gospels where he says, You know, I really don't care if you call Me Lord, Lord, I mean, what difference does that make the words you use about me? If you don't do what I say so?   Ian Binns 06:10 All right. Well, and in this book, and also to in your podcast, learning how to see, you start off talking about something that was very close to me. So I got my PhD from the University of Virginia. And so I was in my wife and I were in Charlottesville was the first place we really lived as a young married couple. Were there for 208. And so when the the situation happened in Charlottesville in August of 2017, that was very challenging for us, because the grounds of UVA are places I spent four years of my life that we love that town. And so that was very challenging for us. And then hearing you on your podcast and Reading this book. I would love to, if you could talk more about that experience. Because I didn't realize you were there. And so I just curious if you can kind of talk about that. Yeah.   Brian McLaren 07:04 Well, the story of how I ended up there was kind of interesting, I had introduced this couple to each other who ended up getting married, and both were seminary graduates. And so they were a ministry couple in Charlottesville, and they contacted me and they said, Look, Brian, we you may not have even heard about this. And I hadn't it it turns out, you know, before, was it August 10. I forgotten the date now. Whatever the date was, in August, they'd had a series of Ku Klux Klan rallies, it was like it. A lot of people don't know this. But there is a group of people who are planning for a civil war. And they want to make Charlottesville the capital of the new Confederacy.   Ian Binns 07:46 I did not know that part.   Brian McLaren 07:48 Yeah, it's scary. And it's crazy stuff. But and, and yet very disturbing. And they said, so a really big one is coming in August. And we're we're trying to get clergy to come support us, and to stand with us. And they said, we're finding a lot of clergy of color. And we're finding a lot of women, clergy who will come we're really finding it hard to get white male clergy to come. And of course, there's a big supply of them, but they just couldn't get them to come. So they said it. They said, Is there any chance you could come you need to know it's going to be dangerous, there going to be a lot of guns there. Several militia have already signed up to be there. And they'll all come heavily armed. And I said, I'm not going to tell that last part to my wife. But yes, I would be honored to be there. Actually, she knew that there would be some danger. And she made me make certain promises to her about what I would do and not to when I was there, but it was just an experience I'll never forget first seeing how organized these folks were. They were super, super highly organized. I was invited into a meeting an Antifa meeting of people who were]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/65cb7b1e-5e7e-33ee-917f-e073f7ada12dWed, 25 May 2022 08:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 106 We are thrilled to be joined today by author, speaker, and public theologian, Brian McLaren. His new book, https://amzn.to/3MLla1b is an absolute must-read for any Christian struggling to make sense of things in this crazy world we live..."Do I Stay Christian?: A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed, and the Disillusioned" is an absolute must-read for any Christian struggling to make sense of things in this crazy world we live in. We talk about creating hope, fighting white supremacy, re-wilding Christianity, and the playful joy of reimagining religion.  Speaking of reimagining religion, have you checked out Zack's new podcast with his wife Nichole, "Reimagining Faith with the Pastors Jackson"? If you enjoy DtW (and of course you do), then you should check it out!    Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors. Zack Jackson 00:04 You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. Our guest today is an author, speaker, activist and public theologian. He is the author of over 15 books including faith after doubt, a generous orthodoxy and a new kind of Christian which got me in a whole lot of trouble at my home church 20 years ago, his new book do I stay Christian, a guide for the doubters, the disappointed and the disillusioned is an absolute must read for any Christian struggling to make sense of things in this crazy world we live in is an absolute joy and honor to welcome to the podcast, Brian McLaren. Oh, joy   Brian McLaren 00:45 and honor for me to be with you guys. So, so glad to be here.   Zack Jackson 00:49 Yes, I was thrilled to death to get that the email confirming that you had time in your very busy schedule to be with us today. We're all big fans, and I'm sure a lot of folks on the of our listenership likewise.   Brian McLaren 01:03 Well, hey, and I gotta say, now that I know about you guys, I'm your fan as well. And, you know, this subject of the inner interaction between faith and science, my goodness, so important these days. So really happy to be in this conference. Yes, thank you.   Zack Jackson 01:21 I love the way that you weave these two things together in your writings, by the way, and I've noticed it really in the past 10 years worth of books are so it seems, it seems almost effortless that every once in a while you're just gonna get some reference in there to evolution, some reference in there to the cosmic origins of the universe, it just seems like it is. It is always somewhere in the back of your mind.   Brian McLaren 01:45 Well, it's Yeah. And maybe I could say it this way. Without science. I don't think I could be a Christian. So. So yeah, I can't imagine how anyone would want to have a faith that were they had to keep their faith in one compartment. And then everything else. Another compartment compartments, right. Yeah.   Zack Jackson 02:10 Well, that's a sound clip that I'll definitely Absolutely. So Ian and I have been talking a lot recently about your new book, which when the time this podcast launches will have been released yesterday, so available to all of your major retailers. So this book, which is just so helpfully entitled, do I stay Christian? answers that question, which I think a lot of folks have had over the past couple of years, especially. But...]]>3410clean112fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/healing-part-1-the-return-of-the-maggotshttps://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors.   Zack Jackson 00:04 You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. This week our hosts are   Kendra Holt-Moore 00:14 Kendra Holt-Moore, assistant professor of religion at Bethany College, and my most recent ailment was a concussion from a snowboarding fall,   Zack Jackson 00:28 Zack Jackson, UCC pasture and Reading, Pennsylvania, and my most recent ailment was COVID.   Rachael Jackson 00:36 Rachel Jackson, Rabbi Agoudas, Israel congregation Hendersonville, North Carolina, my most recent ailment is real, pretty bland, but irritating nonetheless. It's just a headache. But it was one of those headaches that I couldn't get rid of a headache for no reason. And I felt like oh my god, I'm just old, I now just get headaches.   Ian Binns 01:01 And Ben's Associate Professor of elementary science education at UNC Charlotte. And my most recent ailment is arthritis in my right hand, where this part is where the thumb comes down and connects to the wrist. It is definitely confirmed no longer early onset arthritis. So yeah, that was fun.   01:26 Why did you why did you ask her this question?   Ian Binns 01:29 For two reasons. One, because we just passed your birthday, Rachel. So celebration.   Rachael Jackson 01:38 Your old everything hurts. Just adding the parenthetical aside, Everybody Hurts from REM is an amazing song from 1992. And it's younger than   Ian Binns 01:50 I am interested. No, yeah, no, that was out before? No. When were you born again, Kendra. 1991. See, so   01:58 nothing hurt, then. I was fresh.   Ian Binns 02:05 The second reason that we're asking this question is because we're starting our new mini series, our next mini series on healing. So for today, I'm gonna give a just a very quick crash course, in kind of the history of healing from a science perspective. And I will let our listeners know that my background and understanding this is definitely more than the western science. So please, if anyone hears this and says, hey, you've left out some cultures, historical cultures that I do apologize for that. But as I said, this is gonna be very brief. So we could do several episodes just on the history of medicine. But so anyway, so I kind of wanted to just give some general, interesting things that have occurred over time. And then we wanted us to be able to get into a conversation about, like medical treatments, for different ailments, as well. But some of our understanding of the history of medicine goes all the way back to prehistoric times. And this is where I think it will come into play throughout our series as well, of how different cultures used to attribute different types of magic or religion to ailments, you know, maybe it was something to do with evil spirits or something like that. But you know, supernatural origin versus more of a natural origin of reason for different ailments. But one of the things that we know from the discovery of different prehistoric skulls is that they would actually drill a hole into the skull of the victim, because they believe that that the speculation is and then we actually see this occurred in more recent human history that it would release the disease. And so that was one thanks, you mean patient? Did I sit victim, you get saved. Because you know, if   Zack Jackson 03:54 you're going to your show, and your hands   Ian Binns 03:56 are gonna drill during prehistoric times, and you're gonna knock a hole into the person's skull, they may end up being the victim. Right? So, so yeah, there you go. And then now we were going to jump ahead to ancient Egypt, when we start actually seeing some evidence of written evidence of different types of treatments and medicine. One examples from the what was called the Smith Papyrus, written in 1600 BCE, right around there. But it was actually we believe it was a copy of a text from much earlier, so roughly 3000 BCE, but in that particular Papyrus, that's now I think, in New York. It contained 48 case studies. There was no theory for anything, but it was an observation and kind of a recording of what it is that they knew. So the case studies were all written, same way, the title, the examination, so what they're observing, and then the diagnosis, and then the treatment, and then they will have a glossary for terms. But again, they were still be speculation about what role Old Evil forces or spirits play in the cause of diseases. And then we're gonna jump ahead more to ancient Greece. And this is where many people may have heard of Hippocrates, of Coase Brahm, circa BCE, or for 20 BC, he was one of the first people who kind of focused on natural explanations trying to move away from supernatural explanations. And he was one of the people who came up with the idea of the four humors, which those are blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. And if you are healthy, that means the four humors are in balance, if you were not healthy, that means something was off, one of the humors was off. And so this is where we start getting the idea of bloodletting. So for example, if someone had a fever, it was due to an abundance of blood. And so they would do bloodletting as a way to cure the fever. But still, at this time, and again, I'm skipping over a lot of people. They learned different things with anatomy, but they were only allowed to dissect animals, because at the time, it was illegal to dissect humans. At which time, still 420 BCE. So this is still the BCE era, ancient,   Zack Jackson 06:13 ancient really, that sounds more like a Christian hang up than agree. Yeah. Well, and actually to   Ian Binns 06:17 this, and trying to prepare for today's episode, I did see in some of the more ancient eastern cultures of like Hinduism, and from the early early stages of that, that they were also not allowed to cut into the human body and dissect human bodies either. So this is not just in that area. But yeah, you're right, because, Zack, as you just said, that we see that all the way up into the 1500s that they weren't supposed to be dissecting humans in in Europe, for example, but they did not necessarily figure out the reason or the causes of the different parts of the body that they were removing from the body. So when it came to anatomy, who the Egyptians from my from my understanding, or my off on that, which I find that's   Zack Jackson 07:01 fine, it depends. The the Ebers papyrus and again, all these papyrus papyrus papyrus Pappa Ria, I don't know if the plural is. The Papyrus is they are named after the the hippopotami Yes, sorry. They're all happy to discover they're all named there. No, not the Discover. They're named after the white guys who bought it at auction and then brought it back to their country. So, you know, all of Egyptian treasures are in Europe or America somewhere instead of where they belong. But anyway,   Ian Binns 07:35 yeah, the Smith Paul Bader is probably wasn't named for a guy named Smith all that back then.   Zack Jackson 07:40 Right now Pharaoh Smith. No, that's not really an Egyptian name. But the Ebers papyrus was in 1550 BCE, and it had a really detailed explanation of the heart and the entire circulatory system. It was a bit wrong in some of the ways in that they thought that the the heart pumps all fluids. So that includes urine and semen as well as as blood, but they understood the purpose of of the blood going through the muscles and the veins and the arteries and all of that they actually also had some psychiatric conditions that were tied up in conditions of the heart. And they mentioned like dementia and depression, which were problems of the heart because they would dissect people after they died and look at the quality of their ventricles and all of that. So they didn't know what the brain was. They thought that was garbage. But the heart was the center of   Ian Binns 08:37 all thank you for correcting me, Zack, I forgot about that Papyrus. Papyrus? popularized by Bob Yes, go ahead, Rachel.   Zack Jackson 08:46 Papyrus hippopotami   Rachael Jackson 08:47 I was just going to add that because things are because things are so ancient, we tend to forget that there was we say Egyptian. We're looking at 1000s and 1000s of years when we say Ancient Egypt, so 1500 BCE is kind of the middle right? Middle late kingdom, right? This is the these are the new kingdoms. Were this is not, these are not the ones that built those giant pyramids. That's 1000 years earlier that they did that. So I think when we when we talk about that we should do a little bit of justice and say, hey, it would sort of be like saying, hey, all Englanders life for all time, right? Well, that's just been 2000 years like it's at some point. So just to add to that piece and same thing with the the Greek piece or the ancient Greek has been around for a very long time. That's that's the history not the   Zack Jackson 09:45 speaking of the history piece to in about in the 1200s or so BCE, there was this mysterious Bronze Age collapse in which these massive societies, the a]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/5cb9b402-3a06-3ef5-a116-caf22354a363Wed, 18 May 2022 08:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 105 Maggots! Bloodletting! Graverobbers! Decapitated ducks! Cornflakes! This episode has it all! Join us on this wild ride through the history of Western Medicine as we look at the breakthroughs, setbacks, prejudices, and methodology behind...https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors.   Zack Jackson 00:04 You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. This week our hosts are   Kendra Holt-Moore 00:14 Kendra Holt-Moore, assistant professor of religion at Bethany College, and my most recent ailment was a concussion from a snowboarding fall,   Zack Jackson 00:28 Zack Jackson, UCC pasture and Reading, Pennsylvania, and my most recent ailment was COVID.   Rachael Jackson 00:36 Rachel Jackson, Rabbi Agoudas, Israel congregation Hendersonville, North Carolina, my most recent ailment is real, pretty bland, but irritating nonetheless. It's just a headache. But it was one of those headaches that I couldn't get rid of a headache for no reason. And I felt like oh my god, I'm just old, I now just get headaches.   Ian Binns 01:01 And Ben's Associate Professor of elementary science education at UNC Charlotte. And my most recent ailment is arthritis in my right hand, where this part is where the thumb comes down and connects to the wrist. It is definitely confirmed no longer early onset arthritis. So yeah, that was fun.   01:26 Why did you why did you ask her this question?   Ian Binns 01:29 For two reasons. One, because we just passed your birthday, Rachel. So celebration.   Rachael Jackson 01:38 Your old everything hurts. Just adding the parenthetical aside, Everybody Hurts from REM is an amazing song from 1992. And it's younger than   Ian Binns 01:50 I am interested. No, yeah, no, that was out before? No. When were you born again, Kendra. 1991. See, so   01:58 nothing hurt, then. I was fresh.   Ian Binns 02:05 The second reason that we're asking this question is because we're starting our new mini series, our next mini series on healing. So for today, I'm gonna give a just a very quick crash course, in kind of the history of healing from a science perspective. And I will let our listeners know that my background and understanding this is definitely more than the western science. So please, if anyone hears this and says, hey, you've left out some cultures, historical cultures that I do apologize for that. But as I said, this is gonna be very brief. So we could do several episodes just on the history of medicine. But so anyway, so I kind of wanted to just give some general, interesting things that have occurred over time. And then we wanted us to be able to get into a conversation about, like medical treatments, for different ailments, as well. But some of our understanding of the history of medicine goes all the way back to prehistoric times. And this is where I think it will come into play throughout our series as well, of how different cultures used to attribute different types of magic or religion to ailments, you know, maybe it was something to do with evil spirits or something like that. But you know, supernatural origin versus more of a natural origin of reason for different ailments. But one of the things that we know from the discovery of different prehistoric skulls is that they would actually drill a hole into the skull of the victim,...]]>3679clean111fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/life-the-universe-and-everything-with-dahttps://www.eclasproject.org/ Reid, Lydia and Wilkinson, David. (2021.) ‘Building Enthusiasm and Overcoming Fear: Engaging with Christian Leaders in an Age of Science’, Zygon 56 (4). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14679744/2021/56/4   Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Check out Zack and Nichole's new podcast "Reimagining Faith with the Pastors Jackson" here... https://www.patreon.com/reimaginingfaithhttps://reimaginingfaith.podbean.com/   Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors.   Zack Jackson 00:00 Hey there, Zack here. Before we get to today's episode, which is so good, by the way, I wanted to let you know that my wife, Nicole, and I just launched a new podcast called reimagining faith with the pastor's Jackson. I haven't really shared a whole lot about this on the podcast yet. But we both just quit our church jobs, and are in the process of planting a new faith community called Open Table United Church of Christ. At this new faith community were committed to being theologically progressive, locally minded with Jesus at the center. We're starting from scratch. And we are rethinking every part about what it means to be a community of faith in this particular moment in history. We are really excited about the ways that the Spirit is moving among our little team. And we wanted a way to share that with you all as well. Hence, the reimagining faith podcast, we'll be posting new episodes every week, delving into our particular convictions, telling stories, interviewing difference makers and giving you an inside peek into the messy and ridiculous process of planting a church that is not quite a church, but it's also kind of a church, but not really, you know, it'll probably make a lot more sense after you hear a few episodes of it. So why don't you just go ahead and subscribe. Just search for reimagining faith with the pastor's Jackson wherever it is that you get your podcasts. And if you want to help us expand to this work, you can support us at patreon.com/reimagining faith. And now, on to the podcast. You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. Our guest today is the current principal of St. John's College Durham and a professor in the Department of theology and religion. He has PhDs in both theoretical astrophysics and systematic theology, having served as both a Methodist minister and an academic professor. He's also the project director of equipping Christian leadership in an age of science, which is a project whose goals are near and dear to my heart. And I'm sure many of yours as well. It is my privilege to introduce the Reverend David Wilkinson. Welcome to the podcast. Thank   David Wilkinson 02:19 you, Zack, it's so lovely to be here. Lovely to talk to you.   Zack Jackson 02:24 Yes, I'm so glad that we were able to coordinate across the ocean, get our time zones correct and, and that you're able to be with us today I am fascinated by just the breadth of the work that you have done and that you are doing with the organizations that you're associated with. And so, again, it's an honor to have you here with us. So I mentioned in that that introduction, equipping Christian leadership in an age of science, or EC L A s do you do pronounce the acronym when when you're in a company,   David Wilkinson 03:01 about team pronounces it in class, and part of our team pronounces it at class. And we haven't come to agreement on what the correct pronunciation is. So I'm happy with the project.   Zack Jackson 03:15 Did any of you consider switching the acronym the words around so it would spell something like Eclair or something that well,   David Wilkinson 03:22 as you can see, remember and see from me, I'm very open to a close and as many as possible, probably too many for me. But, I mean, you know, sometimes theology and science is dominated by some of these acronyms. I think what we've been concerned about has been that sense of equipping Christian leadership. And about almost 10 years ago, my friend and colleague Tom McLeish, who's a theoretical physicist and a lay theologian, and I were speculating about what happened when senior Christian leaders, such as bishops, or leaders of other denominations, or leaders of parachurch organizations, those organizations that span different churches, were asked about science. And one of the things that we noticed was that senior church leaders often responded with fear, or negativity, or silence. And the problem with that is that then those who serve as Christian leaders under them, if they come from a scientific background, if your senior leader responds with fear or negativity or silence, then that doesn't really affirm what you're bringing to ministry, in terms of your interest or passion about science. And then that ripples down into congregations, where disciples who live out their lives with a vocation to be scientists, technologists are in Engineers, they're not affirmed in their vocation. And of course, that then ripples out to reinforce this very dominant model of relationship between science and religion, that conflict model of science and religion or independence, that the two have to be separated. And so we thought, Is there a project to be done where we can equip Christian leaders to engage with science with joy, with humility, with confidence with excitement? And that would have a ripple down effect throughout the church?   Zack Jackson 05:36 Yes, I mentioned I resonate with this. This is the this is the project that I'm working on for my doctrine ministry program right now, creating resources for pastors to engage, to equip them to have these conversations because it is just so important. So in what ways have since you started this program? How have you been able to start equipping leaders,   David Wilkinson 06:00 one of the things we first realized sack was the importance of personal relationships and conversations. And so we started with, with conferences, where we would invite a small group of senior leaders, intentionally inviting them to come here to Durham. And we would take them into science departments, where we introduce them to world class scientists. Now, sometimes, in this work, organizations will choose a scientist who happens to be a Christian. We didn't do that. We just went for world class scientists, whatever their religious backgrounds, and we threw the bishops into their labs. And we got these people to talk about their own science and their work. And it was just terrific from cosmology and simulating universes through to biology, genetics, we even had one wonderful incident where we took 30 bishops into one of our engineering labs here in Durham, where we have small robots, six of them, artificial intelligent robots, humanoid robots, and the bishops were kind of pressed against the wall. Worried about this, these little robots who are wandering round, and the robots went up to the bishops, and started to talk to them. And suddenly the bishops move towards the center of the room, as they started conversing with these robots. And I wish I'd had a video camera to show you. And in a sense, we start with with bishops who are a little worried about science. And slowly they move into the center. And part of that is talking to research students, and talking with professors, and actually seeing that these folk work in science, because they're passionate about finding out about the universe, or they're passionate about helping society and other people, that some of the the big, bad images of science are not quite true when you meet scientists themselves. And we brought into that conversation, then theologians into the conference, to help decode some of the issues of play within the interplay of science and theology. And so this bringing together of people to talk together, and what we found, was after the sessions, the bishops were thrilled to have encountered science. And the scientists were thrilled to encounter bishops, and other senior church leaders who took science seriously. And many of the scientists without any Christian commitment turned up at the bar later on in the conference, to talk more with the bishops. I think there's something really important about that kind of interaction of people, that]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/0d0045ac-b384-392d-a17b-db725776be0fThu, 05 May 2022 10:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 104 Today we welcome the Rev Dr David Wilkinson all the way from Durham, England. Dr Wilkinson is an ordained Methodist minister with PhDs in Systematic Theology and Theoretical Astrophysics. In addition to working for St John's College, he is...https://www.eclasproject.org/ Reid, Lydia and Wilkinson, David. (2021.) ‘Building Enthusiasm and Overcoming Fear: Engaging with Christian Leaders in an Age of Science’, Zygon 56 (4). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14679744/2021/56/4   Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Check out Zack and Nichole's new podcast "Reimagining Faith with the Pastors Jackson" here... https://www.patreon.com/reimaginingfaithhttps://reimaginingfaith.podbean.com/   Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors.   Zack Jackson 00:00 Hey there, Zack here. Before we get to today's episode, which is so good, by the way, I wanted to let you know that my wife, Nicole, and I just launched a new podcast called reimagining faith with the pastor's Jackson. I haven't really shared a whole lot about this on the podcast yet. But we both just quit our church jobs, and are in the process of planting a new faith community called Open Table United Church of Christ. At this new faith community were committed to being theologically progressive, locally minded with Jesus at the center. We're starting from scratch. And we are rethinking every part about what it means to be a community of faith in this particular moment in history. We are really excited about the ways that the Spirit is moving among our little team. And we wanted a way to share that with you all as well. Hence, the reimagining faith podcast, we'll be posting new episodes every week, delving into our particular convictions, telling stories, interviewing difference makers and giving you an inside peek into the messy and ridiculous process of planting a church that is not quite a church, but it's also kind of a church, but not really, you know, it'll probably make a lot more sense after you hear a few episodes of it. So why don't you just go ahead and subscribe. Just search for reimagining faith with the pastor's Jackson wherever it is that you get your podcasts. And if you want to help us expand to this work, you can support us at patreon.com/reimagining faith. And now, on to the podcast. You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. Our guest today is the current principal of St. John's College Durham and a professor in the Department of theology and religion. He has...]]>3023clean110fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/talking-biologos-with-jim-stumphttps://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors.   Zack Jackson 00:04 You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. Our guest today is the vice president of programs at BioLogos. And host of the podcast the language of God is a passionate speaker, author and organizer in the field of science and religion. He's also the author of four views of creation, evolution and intelligent design, science and Christianity in Introduction to the issues, how I changed my mind about evolution, and the Blackwell companion to science and Christianity. We are so excited to welcome Jim stump to the podcast today. Welcome.   Jim Stump 00:42 Thanks, Zack. Good to be here. Thank you, Ian.   Zack Jackson 00:44 Yeah. And thank you so much for taking this time out of your day. I know that there's so much going on right now with BioLogos. We were just talking before the podcast started about the conference that you have just a couple of days, which, unfortunately, by the time that this podcast airs will be over. So   Jim Stump 01:02 there will be virtual recordings available to see if you're interested in that sort of thing. Yeah.   Zack Jackson 01:08 Oh, excellent. That was gonna be my first question. So for the folks who did not register, because they are just hearing about it after the fact, they can go watch   Jim Stump 01:17 those. So I think the way it works is you can register for the online portion. And it's a pay what you can kind of thing, and those are going to be available for three months after after the conference. And then there may be free versions that that come out. Don't hold me to that. I'm not entirely sure about that. But I think that's the way it works.   Zack Jackson 01:40 Excellent, wonderful. So you heard it here. First, folks. Actually, you probably already here last point. So for those of our listeners who are not all that familiar with BioLogos, could you take a minute here and explain a little bit about what it is that you that you all   Jim Stump 01:57 sure the BioLogos elevator speech. We are a nonprofit organization, founded by Francis Collins, who was the leader of the Human Genome Project, and then became the director of the NIH is currently the President's science advisor. He wrote a book in 2006, called the language of God after which our podcast was named. And in it, he shared about how he is this world class scientist, he didn't call himself a world class scientist. He's too humble for that. But he is a world class scientist, and how he came to understand these scientific things about the world, but then also how as an adult, he came to faith in Christ, and tried to show how those two things fit together in his own life. And after the publication of that book, he got lots and lots of questions, emails, even letters at the time, from people asking follow up questions. And he quickly got overwhelmed with all of that and put together a group of people to write out answers to frequently asked questions and they put it on a podcast or sorry, they this is a podcast, they put it on a website and call it BioLogos. And that's how biologists got started, it was answers to frequently asked questions about primarily science and evolution at the time, just after that podcast, after that website went live was when he was tapped by President Obama to become the director of the NIH and had to separate himself from bio logo. So it became a little more organized and incorporated and started having things like conferences and doing a blog and writing some other books and those kinds of things. And so here we are, 12 years later, or so that we're now a staff of 1414 people. We have a speaker's bureau, we have this podcast, you mentioned the website is still kind of the main hub of what we do. We had over 2 million unique visitors to the website last year, lots of them interesting, interestingly enough, still landing on these pages of frequently asked questions that Milo has gotten started with. So somebody does a Google search on something related to human beings and Adam and Eve and evolution or these days, we also talked about climate change and vaccines and those kinds of topics as well. And I think it's fair to say we've become a pretty trusted organization within the Christian community for people who are trying to take their faith seriously, but also want to take the findings of contemporary science seriously.   Ian Binns 04:35 Yeah, yeah. So   Zack Jackson 04:36 you've been with them since 2013. Or so I   Jim Stump 04:39 started in 2013. Half time I was a philosophy professor and split my time between BioLogos and the college I was teaching at for a couple of years and then went full time starting in 2015.   Zack Jackson 04:55 But what about your trajectory of your life led you to that point to the place.   Jim Stump 05:00 So I did a PhD in philosophy and was always interested in science. My undergrad degree was in science education II and I would have had you as a professor somewhere along the, along the route. And my father was was trained originally as like a middle school science teacher, he eventually became, became an administrator. But I, and we grew up in a Christian family, a very conservative Midwest Christian community. And so I was always interested in these two things and was never really forced into the kinds of positions you hear lots of people from conservative Christian families were creation science or young earth creationism or something we I was never forced into those kinds of positions, and was always encouraged to investigate and ask questions and look at the natural world as a good place, and was always interested how that fit with the Christian commitments that I had. And so I did this undergrad degree in math and science education, thought I might become a high school or middle school math and science teacher. And then immediately after college, my wife and I went to Africa actually to teach in a mission school for a while. And there I started Reading, Reading books more seriously than I did as a math major and in college. And so it was primarily the 19th century fiction shelf in the library in this little school way out in the middle of, of the jungle, actually. And somewhere in that conjunction between the math and science analytical training I had and then Reading 19th century fiction like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and Melville and some of these great ideas that came out somewhere in the conjunction of those two things out pop philosophy, and I'm not the first person I've heard to say that, that they were attracted to philosophy through literature, but came back from there and went to grad school and philosophy, wanted to do something related to science and religion in a philosophy PhD, but was said no, you can't really do that in this department. But you could do science and, and metaphysics science and philosophy more generally. So I did a I did a dissertation that was kind of historical in nature, the scientific revolution, how the advancing scientific theories interacted with, with the advancing philosophical theories of the time, and how these two disciplines interacted with each other, all with an eye toward how does this affect science and religion. And so then started teaching in a small Christian liberal arts school where you teach about everything and don't have too much time to research yourself. But I got a fellowship one year through the Templeton Foundation to go to Oxford, for to do some projects in science and religion. And that was where I was introduced more specifically to the academic discipline of science and religion and really liked it, and started doing some things there. In 2013, BioLogos had a new president who was from Grand Rapids, Michigan, the BioLogos offices were previously in San Diego, the the past president was a professor at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. But when Deb haarsma became president, she said, I'm in need to move the headquarters to where I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and only two of the staff wanted to move from San Diego to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Surprise, surprise. And so she put out a call looking for some new staff. And in particularly, she wanted somebody in philosophy and theology that could help to curate some of the resources for the website, and so on. So I responded to that saying, I am really interested in this and the work BioLogos is doing. And I think I could help in, in what you need, but I'm not ready to quit my full time, full professor tenured position to do that, can we work out some other deal? And to my surprise, she said, Yeah, let's do this. So for two years, by oligos, bought out part of my faculty contracts so that I could do each]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/044226c3-ec09-3033-ab71-078d1978986dWed, 20 Apr 2022 10:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 103 We are so excited to welcome Dr James Stump to the podcast today. Jim is the Vice President of Programs at BioLogos and hosts the podcast, Language of God. He is a passionate speaker, author, and organizer in the field of science and...https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors.   Zack Jackson 00:04 You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. Our guest today is the vice president of programs at BioLogos. And host of the podcast the language of God is a passionate speaker, author and organizer in the field of science and religion. He's also the author of four views of creation, evolution and intelligent design, science and Christianity in Introduction to the issues, how I changed my mind about evolution, and the Blackwell companion to science and Christianity. We are so excited to welcome Jim stump to the podcast today. Welcome.   Jim Stump 00:42 Thanks, Zack. Good to be here. Thank you, Ian.   Zack Jackson 00:44 Yeah. And thank you so much for taking this time out of your day. I know that there's so much going on right now with BioLogos. We were just talking before the podcast started about the conference that you have just a couple of days, which, unfortunately, by the time that this podcast airs will be over. So   Jim Stump 01:02 there will be virtual recordings available to see if you're interested in that sort of thing. Yeah.   Zack Jackson 01:08 Oh, excellent. That was gonna be my first question. So for the folks who did not register, because they are just hearing about it after the fact, they can go watch   Jim Stump 01:17 those. So I think the way it works is you can register for the online portion. And it's a pay what you can kind of thing, and those are going to be available for three months after after the conference. And then there may be free versions that that come out. Don't hold me to that. I'm not entirely sure about that. But I think that's the way it works.   Zack Jackson 01:40 Excellent, wonderful. So you heard it here. First, folks. Actually, you probably already here last point. So for those of our listeners who are not all that familiar with BioLogos, could you take a minute here and explain a little bit about what it is that you that you all   Jim Stump 01:57 sure the BioLogos elevator speech. We are a nonprofit organization, founded by Francis Collins, who was the leader of the Human Genome Project, and then became the director of the NIH is currently the President's science advisor. He wrote a book in 2006, called the language of God after which our podcast was named. And in it, he shared about how he is this world class scientist, he didn't call himself a world class scientist. He's too humble for that. But he is a world class scientist, and how he came to understand these scientific things about the world, but then also how as an adult, he came to faith in Christ, and tried to show how those two things fit together in his own life. And after the publication...]]>3597clean109fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/time-part-4-when-is-hanukkahhttps://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors.   Zack Jackson 00:05 You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. This week our hosts are   Kendra Holt-Moore 00:15 Kendra Holt, more assistant professor of religion at Bethany college and my favorite TV show all time is Avatar The Last Airbender   Zack Jackson 00:25 Zack Jackson, UCC pastor and Reading Pennsylvania and my favorite TV show of all time is Dr. Joe   Ian Binns 00:31 Ian Binns Associate Professor of elementary science education at UNC Charlotte. And I got a lot of TV shows that kept popping up, but the one that just keeps coming to mind right now, I would say is probably Ted LA. So   Rachael Jackson 00:45 Rachel Jackson, Rabbi Agoudas, Israel, congregation Hendersonville, North Carolina and favorite TV show of all time is the Big Bang Theory. Yeah, that's a good one is a good one. And this question is sort of a, you know, a little bit of an in and an intro to what we're talking about today, because it's our favorite TV show of all time. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. Thanks, like,   Zack Jackson 01:15 I segue. I like that even smoother.   Rachael Jackson 01:23 So we are talking about time. And unlike the the last two episodes, where we actually I think at this point, we'll have three episodes where we've talked about time, I wanted to talk about more of a corporeal human time and the experience and really just add the Jewish lens to this. We are saying before we really started recording that. Wow, I love being Jewish, and I have no problems talking about it and sharing it. I don't use that and present that as the lens. But that's really where my focus is going to be today. Because that's how I really understand time and its meaning. And so I'm going to give several examples of what that's going to look like. But I want to start with sort of a poetic read. This comes from reformed judaism.org. They have a blog series, and this comes from almost 10 years ago, but time doesn't matter. And words like this, get held thanks to social media and the internet. We can listen to them 10 years from now or 10 years from when it was written till now. So, but just giving it a little bit of a frame, this was written by Stacy's does Robinson, Zoho Nam live Aha. So she died. Not too not too long ago, and she died of COVID, unfortunately. But she's an incredible author and incredible poet. And so this is what she tells us. When my son was born, I cradled him against my heart, arms wrapped to gently get surely around his small and fragile body, I would stand holding him. Our breaths mingles our hearts beating in an elegant call and response, one beat to the next. And I would sway a slow and gentle side to side rock that lasted for the eternity, that exists between heartbeats, I could feel his body relax into the motion, like oceans, like drifting, like peace, above the simplicity of that rhythm, the warmth of him the smell of his newness and his infinite possibilities. As he drifted as he gem told my own body would react in kind, and I followed him, these moments became our own Fibonacci sequence, the delicate curve of our bodies in motion at rest, in motion again, twined in an eternal spiral, more intimate than a lover's kiss repeated again and again. And again. There's so much time that passes. Now, this is me, that is the end of what I'm going to share of hers for now at least verbatim. But I'll reference a little bit that too. There's so much time that passes in a heartbeat. If you ask someone, how long does this take? There cannot possibly be a single answer. It depends. But what were you how are you getting there? How old were you? How long has COVID lasted Technically speaking, technically, I can remember March of 2020. March 9, we did Perot, I, this is how I'm wound in Jewish time right now. So we did Param. And we had these Inklings. And there was something happening to the west to the east of us and something in a different country. And we weren't quite sure what was happening. And we did Param. And then we didn't come back to the sanctuary for 15 months, but in open the building for 15 months. And that's still been, that was still nine months ago. And here we are. My son, seven years old, finally got vaccinated in December. And there's still people here on this podcast and here who are listening, whose children have not yet been able to be vaccinated. So how long is this pandemic is still going on param for us is in three weeks. We'll be back in our sanctuary together. And we'll be wearing our masks, because that's what perm is about wearing masks. The problem is we'll be wearing two masks, the ones over our nose in our mouth and the one over our eyes, the ones that is a custom and the one that is for protection. So how long is COVID My son was in kindergarten when he got sent home. And he was at home in first grade. And he did virtual in second grade. And when I went and saw him this morning for STEM week show Intel he was in his classroom, five feet away from all the other students still wearing his mask, just like they all did. Not having any playdates. Because it's COVID. So how long is COVID for him? His whole life. He doesn't know times before COVID existed. That wasn't part of his memory. How long is COVID for me? A very, very long time. But something that I can see a life before and a life after. Because time, while quantifiable is meaningless. If we only use a clock, we have to use a relative understanding of time and how we relate to it. And in Judaism, it's I find it so beautiful. That we create time. So let me ask you, the three of you. When is Hanukkah   Ian Binns 07:49 right before Christmas.   Rachael Jackson 07:51 Right before Christmas.   Ian Binns 07:55 The winter season?   Rachael Jackson 07:57 Winter season.   Ian Binns 07:59 Typically when What's the date?   Kendra Holt-Moore 08:02 Is this a trick question?   Zack Jackson 08:03 No. It's never the same day all the time. What if we lived every day like it was   Rachael Jackson 08:15 a miracle. Clean up your stuff, rededicate yourself to your people and your God   Zack Jackson 08:22 and slaughter some solutions and   Rachael Jackson 08:25 don't forget to pick up the pig guts. Like that's just messy. Could we not? That's right. Yeah. So what is Hanukkah?   Ian Binns 08:33 December actual real   Rachael Jackson 08:35 true. When   Zack Jackson 08:36 I mean, it's different every year, right? It's the lunar calendar.   Rachael Jackson 08:40 The 25th of Kislev. You're giving me What's this? 25th of Kislev? Ah, that's the same every year the 25th of Kislev. It doesn't change. I know exactly when it is. But   Zack Jackson 08:54 does it change according it only changes from my perspective,   Rachael Jackson 08:57 right? It only changes from our calendar because the majority of our calendar is the Gregorian calendar, not the Jewish calendar. So when is Hanukkah in December, ish this last year, it was in November this coming year, it's going to overlap with Christmas and if we thought it was bad last year where there was nothing Hanukkah, nothing's gonna happen this year because Christmas will win out. There will be not even inkling of Hanukkah wrapping paper. That is what it is. Yeah. So when is it? Well, it depends whose perspective you're asking. And it depends how excited you are. I don't really care that much about Hanukkah. It's kind of a tiny little nothing holiday I only get excited because I have a child. We have the same question of when is Passover? When is Purim when is Rosh Hashanah, I have an exact date for when those things are. But that's not how I live my life. When is Shabbat? The Israeli calendar is marvelous. I love it. So Jews are terrible at naming things like absolutely terrible. Imagine if all of our holidays in America were named similar to July 4. Like if you didn't know, and you came into America and everyone's like, Whoa, it's July 4. And you have no idea what that means. It is just a date on the calendar. Right? It doesn't tell you Oh, it's independence day. It's Memorial Day. It's Veterans Day. It's Presidents Day. You know what the day is? Almost all of the Jewish holidays are to Shabbat of the ninth of have to have the 15th of have to be Shabbat, the 15th of the month of Shabbat like this is not helpful. Except for some biblical holidays. Where, you know, Rosh Hashanah isn't actually called Rosh Hashanah. Yom true on the day of the sounding it's the day you get to go make noise with the kazoo marvelous. So when we name the days of the week, we don't use Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, right? Those are Greek and Roman gods. Those are not the days of the week. It's yom, Yom Sheni, Yom slushy, Yom obra, day one, day two, day three, day four, day five, day six and Shabbat. We don't say Yom seven, we don't say the seventh day we say Shabbat. It is different in and of itself. Because our frame of reference is not that it's Saturday, our frame of reference is that this day is comp]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/13c6d001-8b82-33ef-86d2-733b4625541fWed, 30 Mar 2022 10:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 102 How do we mark the passage of time, and how do we encounter the divine within it? From Shabbat to the Eucharist, our religious rituals play with time in unexpected ways. Take some time with us and explore the many ways that you can create...https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors.   Zack Jackson 00:05 You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. This week our hosts are   Kendra Holt-Moore 00:15 Kendra Holt, more assistant professor of religion at Bethany college and my favorite TV show all time is Avatar The Last Airbender   Zack Jackson 00:25 Zack Jackson, UCC pastor and Reading Pennsylvania and my favorite TV show of all time is Dr. Joe   Ian Binns 00:31 Ian Binns Associate Professor of elementary science education at UNC Charlotte. And I got a lot of TV shows that kept popping up, but the one that just keeps coming to mind right now, I would say is probably Ted LA. So   Rachael Jackson 00:45 Rachel Jackson, Rabbi Agoudas, Israel, congregation Hendersonville, North Carolina and favorite TV show of all time is the Big Bang Theory. Yeah, that's a good one is a good one. And this question is sort of a, you know, a little bit of an in and an intro to what we're talking about today, because it's our favorite TV show of all time. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. Thanks, like,   Zack Jackson 01:15 I segue. I like that even smoother.   Rachael Jackson 01:23 So we are talking about time. And unlike the the last two episodes, where we actually I think at this point, we'll have three episodes where we've talked about time, I wanted to talk about more of a corporeal human time and the experience and really just add the Jewish lens to this. We are saying before we really started recording that. Wow, I love being Jewish, and I have no problems talking about it and sharing it. I don't use that and present that as the lens. But that's really where my focus is going to be today. Because that's how I really understand time and its meaning. And so I'm going to give several examples of what that's going to look like. But I want to start with sort of a poetic read. This comes from reformed judaism.org. They have a blog series, and this comes from almost 10 years ago, but time doesn't matter. And words like this, get held thanks to social media and the internet. We can listen to them 10 years from now or 10 years from when it was written till now. So, but just giving it a little bit of a frame, this was written by Stacy's does Robinson, Zoho Nam live Aha. So she died. Not too not too long ago, and she died of COVID, unfortunately. But she's an incredible author and incredible poet. And so this is what she tells us. When my son was born, I cradled him against my heart, arms wrapped to gently get surely around his small and fragile body, I would stand holding him. Our breaths mingles our hearts beating in an elegant call and response, one beat to the next. And I would sway a slow and gentle side to side rock that lasted for the eternity, that exists between heartbeats, I could feel his body relax into the motion, like oceans, like drifting, like peace, above the simplicity of that rhythm, the warmth of him the smell of his newness and his infinite possibilities. As he drifted as he gem...]]>3790clean108fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/time-part-3-the-shape-of-timehttps://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors.   Zack Jackson 00:04 You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. This week our hosts are Zack Jackson, UCC pastor and Reading Pennsylvania and I am most productive when everyone else is asleep at night,   Ian Binns 00:22 Ian Binns Associate Professor of elementary science education at UNC Charlotte, my most productive time of the day, sadly varies. Because of my ADD, I cannot pick a particular time and say that's it. It just says that it happens. And when it does I get really frustrated if people get me out of that moment, because it takes hours to get into it. So, yeah,   Kendra Holt-Moore 00:51 Kendra Holt, more assistant professor of religion at Bethany College in Lindsborg Kansas. And I used to be able to say, I was most productive at night, because I am a night owl, but the older I get, the more that varies. And I also don't feel like there is a particular time that works best if you just let the Spirit lead.   Zack Jackson 01:15 Just tired all the time. Yeah.   Kendra Holt-Moore 01:19 Constant exhaustion, and just snippets of bursts of energy. So why high? You ask?   Zack Jackson 01:38 I was asking, I was asking it very hard in my head. Anticipating that why, why Kendra answer? Why, why?   Kendra Holt-Moore 01:48 Why? Why ever? Why? Well, let me tell you, I have an answer for you. Oh, thank God. So we, we thought that today, we would talk about shapes of time, who. So shapes of time. So just to kind of start out so whenever I teach students, typically it's in like a world religions or an intro to religion class this semester. It was a world religions class, but when I'm having a conversation, in a classroom with students about different, you know, religious traditions, and how, like, what are some of the things that we can compare safely without sort of centralizing religious traditions. And one fun conversation I like to start with somewhere near the beginning of the semester, is to talk about shapes of time. And what I mean by that is, you know, cyclical versus linear conceptions of time, or, you know, some might argue also, like spiral shapes of time. And so the way this looks when I bring it up to my students is I, I typically use for my examples, Hinduism, or Buddhism, and Christianity. And I draw up on the board, just, you know, a simple like circle, and a simple, like, horizontal line, as just like two examples of shapes the circle and this horizontal line. And I talked about how, you know, time is something that we sort of take take for granted, as it's just sort of permeates everything, but we don't, we're not always like thinking about how our understanding of time, you know, like, really impacts us necessarily, or maybe I shouldn't speak for you all, but I don't always think about how time itself is like impacting my day to day, except when I'm trying very hard to get something done. And time is just slipping away that moment, or I become conscious of time, but on a grand scale. It's something that's sort of taken as just the way things are. And the way that we think about time, is I think we kind of it's easy to sort of assume, that are sort of grand notions of time and how time unfolds, that that there's nothing too complicated or like interesting about that necessarily. And, and so when I draw up this like circle and line on the board for my students, one of the conversations that I'm trying to get started is how we across like, religious and cultural traditions, we actually have very different understandings of, of of time. Time and by time I'm not not talking in this moment necessarily about like, scientific like theory of relativity, you know, kind of technical explanations of like space time. But like, cultural and social understandings of like what will happen, what has happened, what is happening and what will happen to us socially and culturally. And, and so, the circle on the board then is what I offer as like a Hindu or Buddhist example of cycles of time with regards to reincarnation and how, you know, the human soul if we're talking about Hinduism, but not not really a soul, if we're talking about Buddhism, but the the person, and the person's existence, moves through a cycle of time that is stuck in this cycle of reincarnation, of, of birth, life, death, rebirth, and that this is, the circle is, is known as samsara, if you're using a Hindu terminology and conceptions of time in samsara, is a cycle that you want to get out of. So samsara is like the way things are, from a Hindu or Buddhist perspective, in terms of thinking about time and how we exist in time, but samsara is not desirable, there are ways that you can build up better karma and be reincarnated in a way that is better or worse, contingent upon, like what kind of karma you built in your current life. But ultimately, the goal in in that version of cyclical time is to get out of the cycle to be released from the cycle. But the cycle can go on and on and on. And you can have, you know, hundreds and hundreds of reincarnations, and there's no like you, you have to there are certain practices and things you have to do in order to be released from the cycle. And, and so, you know, one of the we can put this in the show notes, but there's an article that has like some helpful kind of visuals, but I want to just kind of talk about, like, the way that this cycle of time for Buddhism is represented. And it's the Buddhist wheel of life. And you there are a lot of different I mean, if you just Google that, like, you'll find all kinds of really colorful, vibrant images that come up of this wheel of life. But the wheel of life, you can see like there are different realms, in the Buddhist wheel of life. And those are sort of the possibilities for how you reincarnate into the cycle of samsara. And so you can see like, why now, hopefully, like there's this distinction between like a cycle versus linear time, because there's not, there's not like one specific end goal that is clear to you, from the perspective of your current life, if you have the cyclical notion of time. I mean, yes, like ultimate release from it, you can see that as an end goal, but like the reincarnation cycle, it means that you, you will, again, experience what you have already experienced, you will again, experience birth, which is something that you already have experienced in the past, you will again experience you know, life insofar as you have experienced it, and you know, death will happen again and again. And again, it's not a single kind of destination point until you have achieved the right tools and practices to get out of that cycle. And so you can kind of think about like, how that might inform a person to like navigate through life itself. The other so like the linear line on the board, I uses Christianity, but I think it also applies pretty well to like the Abrahamic traditions in general of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, but I use Christianity in particular, because there's so much that has been written about Christian like apocalyptic. You know, eschatology, which is a fancy word meaning, like, study of in things, or you know, like end of time, and, and another, there are some images that we can also share, I think in the show notes of this version of Christian eschatology called Christian dispensationalism. There are different ways to kind of label this to like you may have heard Christian primo lineal dispensationalism, post millennial dispensationalism, however you slice it, it is a mouthful of a thing to say dispensationalism. But there are images, we can share that kind of show that in this version of Christian eschatology, it's not how everyone sees the end of time. But in this version of Christian eschatology that's popular in, especially some circles of like, Christian, like fundamentalism, types of theology or, you know, like some evangelical theologies, there are seven dispensations of time, and that time moves in a linear fashion. And a dispensation is just like a stage of time, I think that's the way I would describe it more simply because dispensation is also kind of a buzzy word. In this context, but there are, you know, like stages of time, that kind of unfold in this linear fashion, but the point is that we're not moving in a cycle with this conception of time, we're moving towards an end point that is the apocalyptic end of time. And after the end of time, eternity unfolds forever and ever. And it just kind of goes on in this linear, like, one, one way, there's a path a direction, and we move in that direction. And it's kind of inevitable, like, you can't really stop it from unfolding it's going to happen. And, you know, the some of these dispensations for Christian dispensationalism you have, like, the age of innocence, and that's, like, you know, Adam and Eve, you have you go up through like, 234567. But if the, I mean, I could like list all of those, but I'm, kind of move quickly. I'm timing myself this time, so that I'm not going like way over.   Zack Jackson 11:5]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/54ccd251-1a27-396a-ae79-129932d38f42Wed, 16 Mar 2022 10:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 101 Let's talk about reincarnation, end times prophecies, and the shapes of our stories today. Kendra helps us to think deeply about how the shape of time informs the shape of our story and the ways that we make meaning in the universe.   ...https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors.   Zack Jackson 00:04 You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. This week our hosts are Zack Jackson, UCC pastor and Reading Pennsylvania and I am most productive when everyone else is asleep at night,   Ian Binns 00:22 Ian Binns Associate Professor of elementary science education at UNC Charlotte, my most productive time of the day, sadly varies. Because of my ADD, I cannot pick a particular time and say that's it. It just says that it happens. And when it does I get really frustrated if people get me out of that moment, because it takes hours to get into it. So, yeah,   Kendra Holt-Moore 00:51 Kendra Holt, more assistant professor of religion at Bethany College in Lindsborg Kansas. And I used to be able to say, I was most productive at night, because I am a night owl, but the older I get, the more that varies. And I also don't feel like there is a particular time that works best if you just let the Spirit lead.   Zack Jackson 01:15 Just tired all the time. Yeah.   Kendra Holt-Moore 01:19 Constant exhaustion, and just snippets of bursts of energy. So why high? You ask?   Zack Jackson 01:38 I was asking, I was asking it very hard in my head. Anticipating that why, why Kendra answer? Why, why?   Kendra Holt-Moore 01:48 Why? Why ever? Why? Well, let me tell you, I have an answer for you. Oh, thank God. So we, we thought that today, we would talk about shapes of time, who. So shapes of time. So just to kind of start out so whenever I teach students, typically it's in like a world religions or an intro to religion class this semester. It was a world religions class, but when I'm having a conversation, in a classroom with students about different, you know, religious traditions, and how, like, what are some of the things that we can compare safely without sort of centralizing religious traditions. And one fun conversation I like to start with somewhere near the beginning of the semester, is to talk about shapes of time. And what I mean by that is, you know, cyclical versus linear conceptions of time, or, you know, some might argue also, like spiral shapes of time. And so the way this looks when I bring it up to my students is I, I typically use for my examples, Hinduism, or Buddhism, and Christianity. And I draw up on the board, just, you know, a simple like circle, and a simple, like, horizontal line, as just like two examples of shapes the circle and this horizontal line. And I talked about how, you know, time is something that we sort of take take for granted, as it's just sort of permeates everything, but we don't, we're not always like thinking about how our understanding of time, you know, like, really impacts us necessarily, or maybe I shouldn't speak for you all, but I don't always think about how time itself is like impacting my day to day, except when I'm trying very hard to get something done. And time is just slipping away that moment, or I become conscious of time, but on a grand scale. It's something that's sort of taken as just the way things...]]>3752clean107fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/100th-episode-extravaganzahttps://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors. Zack Jackson  00:05 You are listening to the Down the wormhole podcast, exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. This is our 100th episode. Oh Ray, which is why we're doing it live and not pre recorded. I mean, it's always done live. But you know what I mean, that clip of me at the beginning, which is why it's so unpolished here at the beginning, but it's our 100th episode, and we're super excited. And we're doing something totally different today. So everyone, just say your name as fast as possible at the same time, okay. Hurray, well, so after 100 episodes, hopefully you know who we are at this point. Today is going to be totally different instead of taking a topic and going into it, we are all coming here today with a fun fact or story or something that has filled our hearts with joy or wonder in the past. I don't know, I was gonna say in the past couple of months, but time makes no sense. In the world of COVID We have all been living in a wormhole for the past two years or maybe 12 years or who knows. So. So does anybody want to start? Or? Or do you want me to start? Ian Binns  01:27 Kendra razor 01:28 Andrew wants to start, Kendra Holt-Moore  01:28 I can start. But if you want to start back then No, go ahead. Just anything. Zack Jackson  01:35 Tell me go ahead Rachael Jackson  01:37 and wait, go ahead needles here. Zack Jackson  01:40 What happens when we don't schedule, Kendra Holt-Moore  01:43 I am really excited to share this because I I love Radiolab it's my other one of my favorite podcasts. And I recently learned on one of their recent episodes, that a scientist for years have been, you know, in the forest, they pay a lot of attention to like what's happening on the forest floor. And for many years, scientists didn't like put in a lot of effort, or they just didn't think that it was as important to be observing, studying what's happening up in the canopy of the trees. And, you know, in in recent years, like, there's a lot more stuff that you can like, read about and, you know, we know more about the canopy of trees, but scientists were like, you know, we were we're on the ground, we're closer to the dirt and the roots and the trunks. And so that's where a lot of that like early work was taking place. But I learned in this episode that there is a scientist, I can't remember her name, but she basically was one of the first people to discover that there is there are trees that grow in the canopy of trees. It's not turtles all the way down, it's trees all the way up. Zack Jackson  03:08 There are trees growing in. Kendra Holt-Moore  03:11 And, and that's how Radiolab put it up, not turtles all the way down, but trees all the way up. And I really love that I was thinking it's also kind of like the men and black conclusion of the world inside of a marble, or the Dr. Seuss story of a dandelion that has like a world living inside of the dandelion. Like we're just, you know, it's it's a great alternative of like the multiple worlds hypothesis. There's just trees living in their own ecosystem in the canopy of the forest, because there's dirt that gets trapped up in the canopy, like in between, like tree branches. And so one of the scientists she had proposed, I think it was for her dissertation to, to do work until like study the canopy. And her advisors were like, Okay, if you want to do that fine, but they weren't like super excited about it. And so she started, you know, doing her fieldwork and would climb up into the trees. And the first time that she noticed this, like other ecosystem in the canopy, she like was able to reach her hand into dirt up in the canopy, like she's up off the ground, but putting her hand in dirt. That was like putting your hand in dirt that's down on the literal ground. And I just think that is so cool. I didn't know that maybe maybe y'all are more informed about tree canopies than I am but I just found that to be a really cool thing because especially if you think about like really dense, dense like tropical forests where you you can't actually see what's going on up at the canopy like you have to, you have to go up in it to get perspective So it makes sense why we would not be super aware of the the canopy ecosystem or like the canopy soil. But it it's a somehow dirt. I mean, it makes sense to some degree like the way that wind, wind blowing through the forest and the density of the canopy, like trapping a lot of stuff. But dirt is one of those things. And so there's stuff that grows up there. And we just don't even know Zack Jackson  05:34 I have that happening in my front yard, we're just noticing that there's a, there's a tree, and like the branches come out. And there's like a little, I don't know, pocket area where they're their branch away, and that the ants had eaten away in that little spot there. And so all like the decomposed ant poop or whatever, had made just like little thing of dirt. And there was a tiny sapling growing out of there. And I pulled it out, because I was like, that's gonna kill my tree. But I'm just I didn't realize that was happening, like Ian Binns  06:05 another tree to save a tree. Kendra Holt-Moore  06:09 Way to go, wow, Zack Jackson  06:11 there's some ethical implications there. Kendra Holt-Moore  06:14 Wow, that's cool, though. Zack Jackson  06:16 That's pretty amazing. Ian Binns  06:18 Tree murder. Zack Jackson  06:19 Hey, Kendra, that reminds me of the do you know about the like the insect jet stream? That's up there. Like, very far Rachael Jackson  06:30 up. I do love the bug. Kendra Holt-Moore  06:32 I think I do know about Zack Jackson  06:34 I do love books. It's true. Kendra Holt-Moore  06:37 It's not well, like, oh, go ahead, Zack Jackson  06:40 be flying airplanes in the early days of aviation. And they're like, why are there bugs on our windshield? Aren't we very hot 1000s of feet up in the air? Like, I mean, like 5000 feet up in the air and there's insects. I saw what estimate that like, How much was it, like somewhere between three to 6 billion insects are flying over your head up in like the jet stream all summer. They'll they'll get like caught up in updrafts. And then the wind is just blowing constantly up there. And so they'll just like travel. And they'll just fly around up there. Until they get they fall down to earth. And they're so light that, you know, it doesn't hurt them. And these aren't just like flying insects, you'll have like ants and stuff thrown around. Kendra Holt-Moore  07:25 That's really cool. I wonder if it's the same path, or like trajectory that other things will get like caught up in those high air streams to like sand. Like I think this is like part of how the dirt gets in the cannabis. There's sand from, you know, deserts that will kick up and travel from, you know, like Africa to the Brazilian rainforest. And the tiny organisms that live on those pieces of sand, nourish the soil, and nourish the ocean, like provide sustenance, like in places that you wouldn't expect that sand to end up. Like, you might not even think that sand travels. But I wonder if it's a shared sort of trajectory of the insects and sand. It's just like, it's crazy. It's in the world. unaccessible inaccessible to our everyday experiences, but it's just one big one big ecosystem. Zack Jackson  08:26 Yeah, every time I'm up there, there, the windows are closed. So I don't Ian Binns  08:33 you don't know if the sands gonna pull you in the face and Zack Jackson  08:36 Nope, never done it. So my story I wanted to share. Well, first of all, I'm six foot three. How tall is everyone else? Ian Binns  08:45 5656 511 and three quarters. Zack Jackson  08:52 Okay, so all of you are children. Adam Pryor  08:56 But I'm five, nine. Zack Jackson  08:59 Girl about to do with five inches tall on my screen. Well, did you know that that on average, we in our generation are three inches taller than people were 100 years ago. might have heard that. It's true. And one of the reasons is because of German submarines. Rachael Jackson  09:21 Okay, that's gonna need some explanation. Yeah, Kendra Holt-Moore  09:25 I'm so glad. So technically, she didn't ask she's like demanded mark that Zack Jackson  09:36 I'm into it either way. So in the early 19 hundred's, people didn't eat a whole lot of meat. Right, because they didn't have modern refrigeration, meats expensive. It's expensive to raise them to all of that stuff. And so when people did eat meat, it was usually like canned sardines. That was the most commonly used meat in thos]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/a52a6b33-a4f7-311c-8fca-6088459c8d14Wed, 23 Feb 2022 11:06:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 100 Episode number 100! Can you believe it?! It seems like only yesterday, we were nervously launching this podcast, wondering if anyone would listen, and here we are with 51,000 downloads, dozens of incredible guests, and so much more planned...https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors. Zack Jackson  00:05 You are listening to the Down the wormhole podcast, exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. This is our 100th episode. Oh Ray, which is why we're doing it live and not pre recorded. I mean, it's always done live. But you know what I mean, that clip of me at the beginning, which is why it's so unpolished here at the beginning, but it's our 100th episode, and we're super excited. And we're doing something totally different today. So everyone, just say your name as fast as possible at the same time, okay. Hurray, well, so after 100 episodes, hopefully you know who we are at this point. Today is going to be totally different instead of taking a topic and going into it, we are all coming here today with a fun fact or story or something that has filled our hearts with joy or wonder in the past. I don't know, I was gonna say in the past couple of months, but time makes no sense. In the world of COVID We have all been living in a wormhole for the past two years or maybe 12 years or who knows. So. So does anybody want to start? Or? Or do you want me to start? Ian Binns  01:27 Kendra razor 01:28 Andrew wants to start, Kendra Holt-Moore  01:28 I can start. But if you want to start back then No, go ahead. Just anything. Zack Jackson  01:35 Tell me go ahead Rachael Jackson  01:37 and wait, go ahead needles here. Zack Jackson  01:40 What happens when we don't schedule, Kendra Holt-Moore  01:43 I am really excited to share this because I I love Radiolab it's my other one of my favorite podcasts. And I recently learned on one of their recent episodes, that a scientist for years have been, you know, in the forest, they pay a lot of attention to like what's happening on the forest floor. And for many years, scientists didn't like put in a lot of effort, or they just didn't think that it was as important to be observing, studying what's happening up in the canopy of the trees. And, you know, in in recent years, like, there's a lot more stuff that you can like, read about and, you know, we know more about the canopy of trees, but scientists were like, you know, we were we're on the ground, we're closer to the dirt and the roots and the trunks. And so that's where a lot of that like early work was taking place. But I learned in this episode that there is a scientist, I can't remember her name, but she basically was one of the first people to discover that there is there are trees that grow in the canopy of trees. It's not turtles all the way down, it's trees all the way up. Zack Jackson...]]>3537clean106fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/time-part-2-with-dr-timothy-manesshttps://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors.     Zack Jackson 00:06 You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. Our guest today is an incredible scholar of science and religion whose recent dissertation which he is currently adapting into a book discusses ways of reconciling relativistic physics with a flowing model of time, in which past, present and future are really distinct from one another. It also explores how a relativistic theory of flowing time can complement Abrahamic theology, and serve as the basis for a view of existence centered on personhood, here to unpack what all of that means, and more is our good friend, Dr. Timothy Maness. Welcome to the podcast. Tim.   Tim Maness 00:50 Hi. It's great to be here. Yeah, I've been I've been a regular listener. And I've been I've been wanting to get on for quite some time.   Zack Jackson 00:57 I have been, we have been talking about having you on since almost the beginning of the podcast. So I do apologize.   Tim Maness 01:03 I know you guys have had a lot of things to talk about to, to clarify for our listeners, the wonderful Sinai and Synapses fellowship that is, is run by the the Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, the the same cohort of fellows were the hosts of the podcast met, I also had the privilege of meeting them as well. So we were we were all friends in that, that fellowship. So we've known each other for a while now. It was   Zack Jackson 01:33 a very good cohort. And the very first time that I met him, I remember us standing awkwardly as people do when they first meet, maybe nibbling on a bagel or something and saying, What are you doing? And of course, I felt completely out of place. Because, you know, I'm a, I'm a pastor who likes science, and I'm in a room filled with people with advanced degrees and understandings of things that are beyond my, my understanding, and that, you know that what do they call it? That imposter syndrome that everyone? You know, everyone will? I do? Say everyone, because we all think we're imposters, right? Yep, yep. Yeah, I was really feeling it. And I was all I had done some work in seminary on on relativistic time, and theology and our understanding of God and salvation. And so when I asked him, What is he was working on. And he said, he explained some of his dissertation and how it was exactly what I had been working on, I got so excited, I said, we need to talk, I need to read this, I need to, we need to hear it. And then when he started explaining it, to me, it went so far over my head, I realized how much I still had to learn. And I have and he's been really helpful in helping me to understand some things and inspiring me to learn more and to dig deeper into the things I thought I knew, and the implications that I thought were there. And so it's, it's, it's really nice to have you here to help unpack and open up some of this stuff. I think it was St. Augustine that said, I understand time fully until you asked me to explain it. I,   Tim Maness 03:07 that's that's one of my go to quotations, I think might be the introduction of my dissertation starts with that.   Zack Jackson 03:15 Oh, well, there you go. That's, that'd be fun to defend, I would imagine, where you just start off by saying, I can't explain any of this stuff.   Tim Maness 03:24 Yeah, yeah. But one of the things I want to argue is that is that you know, the average person, but But you, dear listener, understand time in you that you have in an important understanding of time, that, that you that ought to be taken into account. And that one of the ways that, that a lot of the philosophy of time over the past, you know, century and a bit has has failed, is in failing to take our everyday experience of time into account. So, I think that, you know, I want to be careful about trying about about going over people's heads. I think it was Einstein, who said that, if that happens is that one of the things that that's a sign of is that the person who is explaining doesn't understand their subject as well as they should.   Zack Jackson 04:25 So yeah, that's the, that's what sets like Jesus's teachings apart is that you can say a whole lot in a little bit because you really get it or Mr. Rogers. Yeah. So maybe you can help us to understand a little bit, you mentioned that we have an experience of time. I think that kind of goes without saying that the past is what you did. The present is what you're doing in the future is what you will do, and they're all connected causally. But that's about it. Right? You know, and that there's a static flow of time like a conveyor belt, almost Right, but that's not, that's not exactly how things panned out in the early 1900s.   Tim Maness 05:06 Yes, that's true. There are these these three modes of time, these three sort of general tenses, you might say there, if you get into the grammar, but you can come up with more that, that constitute our relationship with time. The, the philosopher, Immanuel Kant talked about PILOTs, one of the categories of our experience, you know, this thing that sort of gives shape to, to the way we experience the world. And, you know, we experienced that the past is accessed through through memory, that's the past is, is this set thing that we, that we, that we know, of, it's definite for us. To some extent, it's definite, but we forget things as well. But it's it's set, it has its own existence, and the future doesn't exist yet. It's some, it's the, the domain of, of sort of planning and also guesswork. It's, it's there to be defined, and the present is where those two things come together. But it's also more than that. It's, it's the, it's the way of, of the mode of times existence in which we can act, in which we make decisions, and, and do things. And it's those decisions, that that shape, the future. And all of those things are, are, are deeply tied in to our way of living in the world as human beings. Right, you know, that's all of those have a very sort of narrative kind of character to them. That it's like, it's like a story, right? That we talked about having a beginning and a middle and an ending. And even before Einstein, a lot of philosophers and scientists were kind of suspicious about that way of talking about time, precisely because it was so human. So, you know, the, the great philosopher, Bertrand Russell, who, you know, contributed so much to the philosophy of mathematics, among other things. Writing before Einstein said that, basically, the fact that this way of thinking about time has so much of the human in it has so much of our subjective, personal way of, of experiencing things into it, that, but there must be something wrong with it. Basically, that in order to be really scientific, where a scientific, you know, is considered to mean the same thing as rigorous. And, you know, and well thought out, then, a way of thinking also has to be objective, it can't rely on any particular point of view. And so Rafal, among others, thought it was better to imagine that that time, was I didn't really have this, this past present future character, that the differences among these three ways of, of experiencing time, were just an illusion, that are brought on by by some, some weird thing about human consciousness or another. And that, in reality, all events in time, exist in the same kind of way. In my work, and in the work of a lot of philosophers of time, we draw on the A category that got set up by this, this philosopher named James McTaggart, who wrote about sort of two ways that we have of talking about time, the A Series and the B series, like many philosophers, he was not really great at creative names. And so the A Series is, is it involves differences in past and present and future in that way that we talked about, imagines that, that the time flows, you might say that, that an event is, is in the future, and then it's in the present, and then it's in the past. And it has all of these different characteristics of past present and future as time goes on. And then on the other hand, there is the B series, and in the B Series events don't have the past, present and future relationships. All they have are the relationships with earlier and later on So for instance, if you can imagine looking at like a history textbook, and you see events on a timeline, where, you know, pen 66, the, the, the Norman invasion of England happens. And, you know, there's in, in this month of that year, this happens. And then a later]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/64bd510a-a40e-3861-82f8-6c5561d0da02Wed, 09 Feb 2022 16:29:27 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 99 Last time, we talked about relativistic time and its implications for faith in a theistic god. That conversation was... heady to say the least. So, here to help us further understand what all that means is our good friend Dr. Timothy...https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors.     Zack Jackson 00:06 You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. Our guest today is an incredible scholar of science and religion whose recent dissertation which he is currently adapting into a book discusses ways of reconciling relativistic physics with a flowing model of time, in which past, present and future are really distinct from one another. It also explores how a relativistic theory of flowing time can complement Abrahamic theology, and serve as the basis for a view of existence centered on personhood, here to unpack what all of that means, and more is our good friend, Dr. Timothy Maness. Welcome to the podcast. Tim.   Tim Maness 00:50 Hi. It's great to be here. Yeah, I've been I've been a regular listener. And I've been I've been wanting to get on for quite some time.   Zack Jackson 00:57 I have been, we have been talking about having you on since almost the beginning of the podcast. So I do apologize.   Tim Maness 01:03 I know you guys have had a lot of things to talk about to, to clarify for our listeners, the wonderful Sinai and Synapses fellowship that is, is run by the the Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, the the same cohort of fellows were the hosts of the podcast met, I also had the privilege of meeting them as well. So we were we were all friends in that, that fellowship. So we've known each other for a while now. It was   Zack Jackson 01:33 a very good cohort. And the very first time that I met him, I remember us standing awkwardly as people do when they first meet, maybe nibbling on a bagel or something and saying, What are you doing? And of course, I felt completely out of place. Because, you know, I'm a, I'm a pastor who likes science, and I'm in a room filled with people with advanced degrees and understandings of things that are beyond my, my understanding, and that, you know that what do they call it? That imposter syndrome that everyone? You know, everyone will? I do? Say everyone, because we all think we're imposters, right? Yep, yep. Yeah, I was really feeling it. And I was all I had done some work in seminary on on relativistic time, and theology and our understanding of God and salvation. And so when I asked him, What is he was working on. And he said, he explained some of his dissertation and how it was exactly what I had been working on, I got so excited, I said, we need to talk, I need to read this, I need to, we need to hear it. And then when he started explaining it,...]]>3888clean105fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/time-part-1-it-s-all-relativehttps://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors. Zack Jackson 00:05 You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. This week our hosts are   Kendra Holt-Moore 00:14 Kendra Holt-Moore, assistant professor of religion at Bethany college. And the thing I'm looking forward to in the next year is not being a first time first year Professor anymore, because the first year of teaching is really hard.   Rachael Jackson 00:34 Rachael Jackson, Rabbi at Agoudas, Israel congregation Hendersonville, North Carolina. And the thing I am looking forward to in this coming year, is first a nine week sabbatical and the ability to travel because of vaccines.   Ian Binns 00:56 Ian Binns Associate Professor of elementary science education at UNC Charlotte, the first thing that popped my mind when thinking about what I'm looking forward to is going to see Rob Bell speak in Dallas, with my good buddy mark. February in February,   Zack Jackson 01:14 Zack Jackson UCC pastor in Redding, Pennsylvania, and I am super excited for the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, which I don't want to, I don't want to say that it's going to happen in a couple of days, because this episode is supposed to launch like three days before it's supposed to launch. Because I don't know, it was originally supposed to launch in 2007. So it's had a couple of delays. But it's going to make the Hubble look like a like a pair of binoculars, it is going to be able to show all kinds of super exciting things from the very beginning of the universe. And I cannot wait to see that. So I mentioned James Webb as well, because I think satellites are super cool, in general. And so I want to I want to start today with a story about a satellite, a very famous satellite, you may have heard of it. Its name was Sputnik. It was the very first human satellite we ever put up there. And back way back in 1957, the Soviets kind of surprised everyone and was like, hey, look, we've got the technology. And we did it. And everyone in the world kind of freaked out because they weren't sure if there was going to be nukes or anything like that, and alien technology or whatever. And because they it had never been done before. They had to prove to people that it actually was happening. And not that they were just making the whole thing up. And so they equipped Sputnik with a radio pulse. So it would go around the earth and be like me, beep, beep, beep, beep, so anyone on Earth could listen in and be like, Oh, look at that. It is up there. It's beeping at me. That's really neat. And so at the at Johns Hopkins, couple days later, October 7 1957, a couple of junior physicists were sitting around at lunch talking. And these two guys, these buddies, William Guyer, and George weissenbach, they were just talking with their friends. And we're really surprised to learn that no one at Johns Hopkins had bothered to listen for it, using their radio technology. Like, honestly, that seems like something that divino fancy scientists people should do. So wife and Bach was working on microwave radiation for his Ph. D. Program at the time. And so he had a decent radio in his office. And so the two of them went upstairs and just start messing around with it, waiting for Sputnik to crossover. And there was Beep, beep, beep, beep. And they had the clarity of mind to be like, hey, this seems like it might be a historical event, we should grab a cassette tape. And we should take this thing, just, you know, so we can show our kids, this is what Sputnik sounded like. And so they did, and they recorded it. And then the next day, they were like, I wonder if we can we can get this a little clearer. And so they they messed with the frequencies and got it so they could hear it really clearly. And one of the things that they noticed was that just like, you know, when you're when you're standing on the side of the street and a car is coming, and it goes and it kind of like the sound goes up and then it goes down. That's called the Doppler effect. That has to do with things that are emitting sound or light that is also moving in relationship to you. And so like if it's moving towards you, the sound waves or the the waves of light, they get compressed, because it's moving towards you. If it's moving away from you, they get spread out. So the sound would sound higher or lower as it's going. Same is true with like radio waves. So the sound coming from the radio waves, if you looked at it from like, the, the wave perspective was kind of doing b, b be, though wouldn't made that sound. And so they were like, Oh, this is really interesting, hey, Johns Hopkins, can we use your supercomputer for a minute, which I say supercomputer, it probably has had the computing power of like a ti 83. Now, it was one of the very first digital computers in the world. And so they used it to do some really complicated math. And were able to calculate Sputnik's orbit, and their look at its location, and where it was going. And were able to predict when and where it would come back, using just the what we call the Doppler shift of the the width of the radio waves. And that was kind of a novel thing to do. When they released their information. The Russians were like, what, come on, guys, we have this one thing, and you had to go and top US that was so rude. I think that's what the Soviet said, I don't speak Russian. So that was fun. And then Sputnik burned out. And that was no more. But then the next May, their boss came to them, and called called them into his office, which is always a good thing and said, Hey, remember that thing you did was Sputnik? Do you think it's possible to do that backwards? Could you do that in reverse? Like, if we had satellites, where we knew where they were, at the time in orbit, sending a pulse down to earth? Would you be able to calculate where the receiver is, if we knew where the satellites were? And they were like, well, I guess the math is kind of the same, it's just backwards. And thus, the transit system was born, the very first satellite navigation system, because the Navy had this problem where they had these nuclear submarines that had the nuke nuclear missiles on them in the Arctic, which is waiting to blow up Russia. But the, they were supposed to be secret. And so they couldn't use the traditional means of navigation because they didn't want to give away their location. And so they kind of were getting lost up there in the Arctic. And so the, the Air Force sent up an array of five satellites orbiting the Arctic, and every couple of hours, it would pass overhead. And then they could get a ping on their location. And they could correct their maps, and they would know where they were. And that was great. And that was wonderful. And then we thought, I wonder what else we can use this technology for? And so the global positioning satellite system started to get dreamed up together, like, what if we took that, and we made a whole array of satellites, up in orbit, all sending pings down to earth, and we could triangulate, given the pings and the locations of a couple of them, and be able to tell where all kinds of things are airplanes. And, and, and, and like troops. And this is the military, they're always thinking about war stuff. And so what they would need to have a real time local navigation system was that the clocks on Earth would need to be synced with the clocks in the satellite. That would be real important if we're going to do real time navigation. So they have these really, really accurate atomic clocks, that one is in on Earth, and one is in orbit. And that was great. Except for one problem. There was this guy, you may have heard of him. He's kind of a big deal name is Albert Einstein. And about 60 years beforehand, he had proposed this crazy thing called general relativity, after his theory of special relativity, which suggested that Isaac Newton's laws, which had worked very well, by the way for the past, like 300 years, which were the laws, which helped them to get the satellites in orbit in the first place, it didn't work so well, when you were talking about the effects of gravity. So in a larger level, Newton's Laws kind of stop working, in particular, his theory of time, and the way that time moves]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/69fa79cf-6735-3569-8ba0-67d954c51bfeWed, 26 Jan 2022 11:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 98 This episode was originally recorded in early November and was set to be released at the end of December, but here we are at the end of January instead because time is a funny thing, isn't it? The moment you think you have a firm grasp on...https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors. Zack Jackson 00:05 You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. This week our hosts are   Kendra Holt-Moore 00:14 Kendra Holt-Moore, assistant professor of religion at Bethany college. And the thing I'm looking forward to in the next year is not being a first time first year Professor anymore, because the first year of teaching is really hard.   Rachael Jackson 00:34 Rachael Jackson, Rabbi at Agoudas, Israel congregation Hendersonville, North Carolina. And the thing I am looking forward to in this coming year, is first a nine week sabbatical and the ability to travel because of vaccines.   Ian Binns 00:56 Ian Binns Associate Professor of elementary science education at UNC Charlotte, the first thing that popped my mind when thinking about what I'm looking forward to is going to see Rob Bell speak in Dallas, with my good buddy mark. February in February,   Zack Jackson 01:14 Zack Jackson UCC pastor in Redding, Pennsylvania, and I am super excited for the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, which I don't want to, I don't want to say that it's going to happen in a couple of days, because this episode is supposed to launch like three days before it's supposed to launch. Because I don't know, it was originally supposed to launch in 2007. So it's had a couple of delays. But it's going to make the Hubble look like a like a pair of binoculars, it is going to be able to show all kinds of super exciting things from the very beginning of the universe. And I cannot wait to see that. So I mentioned James Webb as well, because I think satellites are super cool, in general. And so I want to I want to start today with a story about a satellite, a very famous satellite, you may have heard of it. Its name was Sputnik. It was the very first human satellite we ever put up there. And back way back in 1957, the Soviets kind of surprised everyone and was like, hey, look, we've got the technology. And we did it. And everyone in the world kind of freaked out because they weren't sure if there was going to be nukes or anything like that, and alien technology or whatever. And because they it had never been done before. They had to prove to people that it actually was happening. And not that they...]]>3180clean104fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/womanist-psychology-of-religion-with-revhttps://anchor.fm/vikki-gaskin-butler   Rev. Dr. Vikki Gaskin-Butler is a licensed psychologist (clinical and health psychology) and ordained clergy person. She received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Spelman College and her Master of Science and Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Florida. She also received a Master of Divinity degree from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Today’s guest has served as a psychologist in university counseling centers, clinic director in an interfaith-based counseling center, and as director of a university psychology clinic. She has supervised numerous students in pursuit of psychology, mental health counseling, and social work degrees. She has led clergy consultation groups and served as a consultant with church/church-affiliated and secular organizations. In addition, she has served as a minister of education and an associate pastor in local churches. Our guest draws on her knowledge of human potential from her experience as a psychologist and ordained clergy person to support the psychological, spiritual, and physical well-being of all people. Through her first-hand knowledge of life as a wife, mother, musician, professor, clinician, and minister, she has the insight to support the needs of adults, including performing artists, clergy, and health professionals. In her words:  "My passion is to constantly move toward my own divine potential. Throughout this journey, I have experienced struggle, doubt, grief, joy, peace, and all of the emotions that make us human. These emotions and the experiences connected with them have made me more whole as I followed the thread of healing to freedom. These emotional experiences have also created within me a deep well of compassion for others as they journey on their paths to health and wholeness."   Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors.   Zack Jackson 00:04 You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion.   Ian Binns 00:12 Our guest today is a licensed psychologist, both clinical and health psychology and ordained clergy person. She received her bachelor's degree in psychology from Spelman College and her Master of Science and PhD in Psychology from the University of Florida. She also received a master of divinity degree degree from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Today's guests who served as a psychologist in University Counseling Centers clinical director and interfaith based Counseling Center, and as director of a university psychology clinic. In addition, she has served as a minister of education and associate pastor in local churches. Our guests are all in her knowledge of human potential from her experience as a psychologist, an ordained clergy person to support the psychological, spiritual and physical well being of all people through her firsthand knowledge of life as a wife, mother, musician, Professor, clinician and minister. She has the insight to support the needs of adults, including performing artists, clergy and health professionals. We're very excited to welcome to the show Dr. Vicki T. Gaskin, Butler.   Vikki Gaskin-Butler 01:15 Thank you. I'm so excited about being here. Welcome.   Ian Binns 01:18 Welcome. Welcome. Okay, so I've done my part. You guys. Go ahead. What? Zack, you have to edit that out.   Zack Jackson 01:28 Oh, yeah. Mike drop. He hands down. He's gonna go home now. Oh, you are home?   Kendra Holt-Moore 01:35 Yes. Oh, yeah. It's nice to have you at this Vicki. Um, do you and he in one or both of you want to share a little bit about like your connection? How did you meet? And how did we get, you know, how, how did we get to this moment where we get to have you on to talk to you and ask you about, you know, the work that you do.   Vikki Gaskin-Butler 02:02 Okay, so I can tell you my said, and I think Ian should tell you his side as well.   Ian Binns 02:09 Sounds good.   Vikki Gaskin-Butler 02:10 My husband introduced me to Ian via email. But before that, he told me about Ian. And he said, She's really cool. And he's doing some really cool stuff. And I know you'll be interested in it. And so he told me about your podcast, and you told me about the fellowship you had. And so then I started being nosy and looking around and try to find out who Ian was. And my husband said, Yeah, I told him about you. And y'all should get in touch. And I think you'll he'll, he'll be a good guest on your podcast, which I thought was great, because now I want all of you to be guest on my podcast, just just so you know. And   Zack Jackson 03:04 on your podcast. You want to plug your podcast,   Vikki Gaskin-Butler 03:09 I just started it's called Healing the human spirit. And it covers any topic, literally any topic that's salient for human beings. Because I I've said this a million times, but for me, as a psychologist and a clergy person. I use my dad's phrase that I heard him say when I was like in high school and middle school, inextricably intertwined. Psychology and religion for me, and spirituality are inextricably intertwined. And so the podcast is really about all kinds of things that affect our human spirit and how we can use any occurrences in our lives to help us heal. Whether those things are quote unquote, labeled as good things, bad things or in between.   Kendra Holt-Moore 04:06 When When could people expect the first episode?   Vikki Gaskin-Butler 04:11 Actually, the first episode happened a month ago because I launched before I was ready. And my husband was my first guest and he we talked about gosh, we talked about the Coronavirus, science, the Coronavirus and religion. So we talked about those three topics because he is a science educator and undergraduate degree in physics. So, we have lots of interesting conversations around,   Kendra Holt-Moore 04:42 I bet. And it's so fun to talk to people who cast those wide nets, which sounds like that's exactly what you're doing in your work and what the podcast is like, everything that matters for human beings and human flourishing, let's just tackle it all. So that's great.   Vikki Gaskin-Butler 05:06 My topic though, is science and religion. So I'm gonna try not to be too heavy on that. science, religion and spirituality, oh,   Kendra Holt-Moore 05:16 we invite that.   Zack Jackson 05:18 I mean, heavy. I'm gonna jump right into that. That is literally what this podcast is about.   Vikki Gaskin-Butler 05:25 So, I want to I do want to cover lots of other things, but that, as you can see, I'm here today with you. It's my favorite.   Kendra Holt-Moore 05:35 No, I'm excited to hear more about that. Um, and was there anything that you wanted to share about your meeting?   Ian Binns 05:43 Yeah, so, um, Vicki's husband, Malcolm and I have known each other for several years, since we're both science educators. And we got to know each other in one of our professional conferences, and just would stay in touch. And every time we see each other, we'd sit down and hang out and just talk and catch up and stuff. And then he became or was one of the finalists for the Dean position for my college, college education, and ended up getting the job. And when he came on the interview, I was actually we were going to be recording an episode while he was there. And he was really interested in the podcast again, because he knew about it. And then that's when he told me about Vicki and said, I think y'all need to meet because you guys have similar interests. And so when Vicki and I met, and we've only met like this one time, and, you know, I remember after I hung up, my wife was another room, and she knew that I was meeting Vicki, and she's like, Wow, you guys hit it off beautifully. I was like, Yeah, that was a lot of fun. So, um, so I knew we had to get her on. And yeah, as I said, Before, we were recording I think Vicki and I, once they move up here in a couple months are going to become good friends, because she just has a lot to   Zack Jackson 06:59 offer. Yeah, Ian texted all of us almost immediately. And like, like he had just met the president or something. And he's like, yeah, oh, my gosh, you have to meet this person. She's a wonderful.   Ian Binns 07:11 Now, so I was sharing some of the things you mentioned. And everyone was like, Oh, well, amen. We got to do this. And so. So yeah, and it was just neat. It was fun for me, you know, with Malcolm getting hired. And, you know, as my next Dean, to have a science educator, as the dean, but then to realize, you know, and I know that Malcolm is a person of faith as well. But then when he introduced me to Vicki, and your areas of interest and expertise, I just knew right away, we would get along. Well, so]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/ec5d28cb-8fa9-3849-86df-5c001cae5d48Wed, 05 Jan 2022 11:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 97 Today we are joined by psychologist, pastor, professor, podcaster, and the most interesting person you will meet today, the Rev. Dr. Vikki Gaskin-Butler. We talk about how womanism and what the psychology of religion has to offer at the...https://anchor.fm/vikki-gaskin-butler   Rev. Dr. Vikki Gaskin-Butler is a licensed psychologist (clinical and health psychology) and ordained clergy person. She received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Spelman College and her Master of Science and Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Florida. She also received a Master of Divinity degree from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Today’s guest has served as a psychologist in university counseling centers, clinic director in an interfaith-based counseling center, and as director of a university psychology clinic. She has supervised numerous students in pursuit of psychology, mental health counseling, and social work degrees. She has led clergy consultation groups and served as a consultant with church/church-affiliated and secular organizations. In addition, she has served as a minister of education and an associate pastor in local churches. Our guest draws on her knowledge of human potential from her experience as a psychologist and ordained clergy person to support the psychological, spiritual, and physical well-being of all people. Through her first-hand knowledge of life as a wife, mother, musician, professor, clinician, and minister, she has the insight to support the needs of adults, including performing artists, clergy, and health professionals. In her words:  "My passion is to constantly move toward my own divine potential. Throughout this journey, I have experienced struggle, doubt, grief, joy, peace, and all of the emotions that make us human. These emotions and the experiences connected with them have made me more whole as I followed the thread of healing to freedom. These emotional experiences have also created within me a deep well of compassion for others as they journey on their paths to health and wholeness."   Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors.   Zack Jackson 00:04 You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion.   Ian Binns 00:12 Our guest today is a licensed psychologist, both clinical and health psychology and ordained clergy person. She received her bachelor's degree in psychology from Spelman College and her Master of Science and PhD in Psychology from the University of Florida. She also received a master of divinity degree degree from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Today's guests who served as a psychologist in University Counseling Centers clinical director and interfaith based Counseling Center, and as director of a university psychology clinic. In addition, she has served as a minister of education and associate pastor in local churches. Our guests are all in her knowledge of human potential from her...]]>3943clean103fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/faith-astronomy-and-space-telescopes-withttps://sciencereligiondialogue.org/https://hubblesite.org/https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/      Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors. Zack Jackson 00:05 You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion.   Ian Binns 00:13 Our guest today is the director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science program of dialogue on science, ethics and religion, also known as dozer. She is also an astrophysicist studying the formation of stars and planetary systems using radio, optical and infrared telescopes. She studied physics for her bachelor's degree at MIT discovering comet Wiseman Skiff in 1987. After earning her PhD in astronomy from Harvard University in 1995, she continued her research as the Jansky fellow at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, and as a Hubble Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University. She also has an interest in national science policy and has served as an American Physical Society congressional science fellow. She has worked with several major observatories, and is currently a senior astrophysicist at the Goddard Space Flight Center. She's also a public speaker and author and enjoys giving talks and inspiration of astronomy and scientific discovery to schools, youth and church groups, and civic organizations. She's a fellow of the American scientific affiliation, and a former Counselor of the American Astronomical Society. We're very excited to welcome Dr. Jennifer Wiseman to the show today.   Jennifer Wiseman 01:22 Thank you, it's my pleasure to join you.   Ian Binns 01:25 So, um, Jennifer, again, thank you for agreeing to come and talk, we just, you know, we've met you and I met several years ago, I know that you and Zach know each other as well. And so we kind of wanted to start off with what got you into astronomy. And then how did that grow to include your science and religion work as well,   Jennifer Wiseman 01:47 I grew up out in a rural area in Arkansas, on a family farm. And so I was just surrounded by nature growing up, we lived in a pretty area that had nearby lakes and rivers. So I enjoyed everything about the natural world, I thought we had animals of our own livestock and pets, but also lots of wildlife that I enjoyed seeing. And then I also enjoy just wandering around meadows and the streams and, you know, swimming, and kayaking, and all those kinds of things. And that made me appreciate the natural world, we also had dark night skies when I was growing up. So we could go out at night and see stars from horizon to horizon. And that is such a rare treat these days, most people live in cities or suburbs and have stray light from parking lots and stores and streets that create a glow in the sky and really drown out a lot of the beauty of seeing stars, unfortunately. But I was able to see the night sky, we would go on evening walks my parents and dogs and and I would enjoy these these regular walks. And I would imagine what it was like to, to go up where the stars are. And I would I was curious. So I think that started me out just being naturally curious about nature. And then science was a kind of a natural affinity then because science is basically the formal study of how nature works. And I had good teachers in my public schools who encouraged me in all kinds of subjects, science, mathematics, but also humanities and music. But all of that together, I think was the foundation and then Pair that with as I was growing up, there was a lot of flurry of interest about space exploration, the Voyager spacecraft, were just sending the first images back to earth, of moons around planets in our solar system, close up views we've never had before. I just thought this was fascinating. And you know, a lot of science fiction like Star Wars movies and things were starting to come out in the late 70s and 80s. And I was caught up in that too. So there was a lot of social interest in space, as well as my own natural affinity for nature. And all of that together, I think set the foundation for my interest in doing something related to the space program, but I didn't have a clue as to how to get involved in it. But thankfully, I had teachers and encouraging family and church that just encouraged me to go on and try anything I wanted. So I went on to study science.   Zack Jackson 04:42 That's beautiful.   Ian Binns 04:43 Yeah, there's a lot to take away from that. One of the things I love the most is you referred to Star Wars and Star Wars fans. Thank you for that.   Zack Jackson 04:53 genre that we've we've spent quite some time on this podcast talking about the value of science fiction and how it implants This sorts of love of cosmos in love of the world into people into children's minds. And so they grow up to great things. Yeah, that's so sorry. Go ahead. Sorry, I'm walking all over you. So I'm, I hear you say that there was a lot of support from family from, from friends and teachers and even church. Did you get any of that? That sort of feeling that science and and God are at odds that so many young Christians did as they're growing up? Did you taste any of that? Or was it all supportive?   Jennifer Wiseman 05:36 I never had any sense that there should be some kind of conflict between science and faith. In fact, quite the opposite. I grew up again, in a in a place where nature just surrounded us, it was a rural area where people had farms or they enjoy recreation on the lakes and rivers, and it was pretty and so we just naturally correlated the beauty of the natural world with our faith and our love for God, because we understood that God is the Creator, and God is responsible for the creation and called it good. So I think at a very basic level there, there really wasn't any sense of conflict, quite the opposite that science was the study of God's handiwork. And we should be grateful for that. Now, when it came to the particulars, like how do you interpret the opening verses of the biblical book of Genesis, that seems to stipulate that all of creation came into being in a few literal days and those kinds of things? You know, I think we, we probably took that rather literally in church and so forth. We didn't have any reason not to. But I think I was also given a sense of humility that our pastors and things would would tell us that God doesn't give us all the details in in Scripture that, that He's given us just enough for what we need to know to have a relationship with God, but but he's also given us mines and other tools and giving us more knowledge as time goes on. And so I think, even though I was probably schooled in a more literalistic view of Scripture growing up, I was also given a sense of humility, that there might be more to it than just what is more two more information that that God will give us than just what's written in Scripture. So I think that enabled me as I began to learn more about the scientific picture of the vast size and age of the universe and the development of life, I was able to correlate that with a humble view of scripture that God didn't give us all these details in Scripture, but delights in us using scientific knowledge to learn some of these rich details, and wow, are they Rich, I mean, the universe is not small. It's enormous, beyond our wildest imaginations, both in space and time. And I think that's something that fascinates me the most about astronomy is that it is a time machine, we can use tele]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/96c4624c-6d43-30af-9aee-70719af75383Wed, 22 Dec 2021 11:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 96 We are beyond thrilled to welcome Dr Jennifer Wiseman to the podcast today. We talk about her faith journey as well as her work in astronomy as she helps us to understand why the James Webb Space Telescope (launching this week), is going to...https://sciencereligiondialogue.org/https://hubblesite.org/https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/      Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors. Zack Jackson 00:05 You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion.   Ian Binns 00:13 Our guest today is the director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science program of dialogue on science, ethics and religion, also known as dozer. She is also an astrophysicist studying the formation of stars and planetary systems using radio, optical and infrared telescopes. She studied physics for her bachelor's degree at MIT discovering comet Wiseman Skiff in 1987. After earning her PhD in astronomy from Harvard University in 1995, she continued her research as the Jansky fellow at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, and as a Hubble Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University. She also has an interest in national science policy and has served as an American Physical Society congressional science fellow. She has worked with several major observatories, and is currently a senior astrophysicist at the Goddard Space Flight Center. She's also a public speaker and author and enjoys giving talks and inspiration of astronomy and scientific discovery to schools, youth and church groups, and civic organizations. She's a fellow of the American scientific affiliation, and a former Counselor of the American Astronomical Society. We're very excited to...]]>3679clean102fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/special-omicron-variant-update-with-dr-dColby T Ford, Denis Jacob Machado, Daniel A JaniesPredictions of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Variant (B.1.1.529) Spike Protein Receptor-Binding Domain Structure and Neutralizing Antibody Interactions   Jacob Machado, D., White, R., Kofsky, J., & Janies, D. (2021). Fundamentals of genomic epidemiology, lessons learned from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, and new directions. Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare Epidemiology, 1(1), E60. doi:10.1017/ash.2021.222     -------------------------   Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors.      Ian Binns 00:06 So, today we are welcoming back up a frequent guest, our resident expert, all things COVID. He is the University North Carolina or is that UNC Charlotte with me, and he's the Carolina greatness, Belk Distinguished Professor of bioinformatics and genomics. And we are really excited to welcome back to the show, Dr. Daniel Janis. So thank you for joining us again, Dan, we're excited to have you as we are continuing to navigate all of this changing world of COVID. Yeah, thanks for having me. You know, we reached out to you right away of just, Hey, there's this new variant out there. And so we wanted to kind of pick your brain a little bit of what is the Omicron variant? I know, there's been other variants that have emerged, some that emerged that there was nothing about it and others like delta, but what is it about this one that raised concerns that you know, who classified it as something special, I can't remember their categorization but something a variant of concern? So what does that was that mean? Can you what can you tell us?   Dan Janies 01:06 What's interesting about Omicron is it contains 60 mutations with respect to Wuhan virus that emerged late 2019, in Delta contains 46. And what was interesting about Alpha through delta is that you could see them in in a lineage and, you know, nested set of mutations, building, and each one was, you know, incrementally more efficient than the other. What's different about Omicron is, we don't know where it came from. And it's not really in those lineages. And of those 60 mutations. 37 of them are in the spike protein, which is the protein that the virus uses to interact with human cells. So there's a lot of open questions with respect to those, especially those 37 mutations in the spike protein.   Ian Binns 02:04 So like, what, what kinds of questions I mean, what is it that when you saw this and your team and other teams around the world, I mean, what what kinds of things just popped in your head right away of what what you needed to study or questions you want to answer?   Dan Janies 02:17 The main thing is like, what did those mutations do to the conformation of the virus with respect to the antibodies that your body produces, after vaccination and or after infection, and in our early computational predictions, we predict that the antibodies produced by vaccination will be much less efficient in their ability to neutralize Omicron. need   Ian Binns 02:51 exactly what we want to hear.   Dan Janies 02:52 We've already seen this, you know, with with Delta, hence the, you know, the breakthrough in factions. And we, it's so it's, it's, it's more of the same, I mean, we expect more breakthrough infection. We don't know that much about transmissibility yet. What's interesting about Omicron is one of the key mutations that allowed delta to be so much more transmissible in outcompete previous variants is also in our con, but it's in a little bit different. It's in the same position, but a little bit different amino acid change. So the remains to be seen what that means, early data very early data out of South Africa, where this has been going on since mid November shows that Omicron is starting to outcompete Delta, but it's so early that epidemiological data will take some time to know to come in and numbers.   Zack Jackson 03:52 Is there any indication yet of how virulent it is? how dangerous it is?   Dan Janies 03:59 That the South African doctors are saying it's in the vaccinated, you know, they are seeing breakthrough infections, but they're mild cases, just like, you know, Delta, you know, sort of summer cold, so to speak, and hospitalizations, that data even lags, you know, even more, but hopple hospitalizations are not yet up for the unvaccinated. It couldn't be much more severe. We just, we just don't know.   Zack Jackson 04:24 Do you see that as the the eventual trajectory of COVID in general, is it going to go the way of becoming more transmissible but less deadly, so it just kind of settles in our population? Some   Dan Janies 04:36 people think that's the case. It's hard to predict how many more variants there are, since this one was not incremental, so to speak on the others in terms of its evolution, there might be a lot more space, you know, available for code to vary in that the problem is is that we have the tools now you know, least in the in the developed world. Anybody who wants to vaccination can, or two or three can get one. And B, we're not accepting it. So that leaves a pocket of people that delta, or Omicron, in this case, can use to infect and replicate itself and produce new variants. So that's a situation we really found ourselves in.   Ian Binns 05:20 If I, if I may, I'm just curious. I was something I heard the other day on, on someone else was speaking about this. And so I'm curious. The first SARS that was detected, you know, it spread but not wildly around the world like this. Right. And I know we talked in our original episode, we had you on the distinctions here between SARS cov. One SARS, cov. Two. But one of the things I think that the person said, and I can I can't remember the name right now, but what he said was, is that when a virus is more deadly, what that may be one reason why it doesn't spread so much is because orphan acts very quickly and kills a host quickly that doesn't have the opportunity to spread, like one that is not as deadly. Does that make sense?   Dan Janies 06:09 Yeah, yeah. So you're talking about SARS. cov. Oh, some people say SARS cov. One to distinguish it from SARS cov. Two, which we're experiencing now, there was only about 800 cases. And you know, it was much more deadly, but spread less efficiently leaving SARS cov. Two, and that's one of the things one of the Harbinger's of Delta's that it is out competing other viruses, because when it infects you, it's replicating itself so much faster, and it's getting out faster. And it's not causing symptoms as it's getting out of people as people are shedding it. And so people are even walking around more than spreading it more often. It's making so many more copies of it than its predecessors to.   Ian Binns 06:55 Okay, and so that's, that's what makes this one, just SARS, cov. Two in general, from the very beginning, there's one of the reasons why it spreads so quickly is because we don't know we have it in that, right. I mean, if we go back to   Dan Janies 07:08 ever ever more with very nervous. I mean, that's that was good. And   Ian Binns 07:11 now that's even more   Dan Janies 07:12 that was how Delta became so successful is was spreading, what SARS cov, two was spreading naysmith eyston, dramatically, Delta ramped it up.   Ian Binns 07:24 So another question we have for you, is, you know, if if Omicron does indeed show to be a model, milder variant of the virus, you know, with less risk, someone was curious, or, you know, we reached out to listeners, and what they were curious about is that,]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/d6f14adb-9583-3495-ab7a-076c2b1111dbWed, 08 Dec 2021 11:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 95 As much of the US is caught in the grips of yet another wave of COVID-19 infections from the Delta variant, a new, sinister sounding mutation has been making news. The Omicron Variant. What is it? Why is it noteworthy? How is it different...Colby T Ford, Denis Jacob Machado, Daniel A JaniesPredictions of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Variant (B.1.1.529) Spike Protein Receptor-Binding Domain Structure and Neutralizing Antibody Interactions   Jacob Machado, D., White, R., Kofsky, J., & Janies, D. (2021). Fundamentals of genomic epidemiology, lessons learned from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, and new directions. Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare Epidemiology, 1(1), E60. doi:10.1017/ash.2021.222     -------------------------   Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors.      Ian Binns 00:06 So, today we are welcoming back up a frequent guest, our resident expert, all things COVID. He is the University North Carolina or is that UNC Charlotte with me, and he's the Carolina greatness, Belk Distinguished Professor of bioinformatics and genomics. And we are really excited to welcome back to the show, Dr. Daniel Janis. So thank you for joining us again, Dan, we're excited to have you as we are continuing to navigate all of this changing world of COVID. Yeah, thanks for having me. You know, we reached out to you right away of just, Hey, there's this new variant out there. And so we wanted to kind of pick your brain a little bit of what is the Omicron variant? I know, there's been other variants that have emerged, some that emerged that there was nothing about it and others like delta, but what is it about this one that raised concerns that you know, who classified it as something special, I can't remember their categorization but something a variant...]]>1984clean101fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/mental-health-part-5-traumatic-brain-injhttps://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors.     Zack Jackson  00:05 You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. This week our hosts are   Ian Binns  00:14 Ian Binns Associate Professor of elementary science education at UNC Charlotte, in my favorite brain character is crying from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.   Zack Jackson  00:27 Zack Jackson UCC pastor in Reading Pennsylvania and my favorite cartoon brain character is the brain from Arthur   Kendra Holt-Moore  00:36 Kendra Holt-Moore, assistant professor of religion at Bethany College in Lindsborg Kansas. And my favorite brain is the brain in those comics, I think they're like from PhD comics or something, but it's like a brain and a heart that are always talking. And the hearts like, I'm gonna go catch a butterfly and the brains like no, we need to work.   Rachael Jackson  01:06 Rachael Jackson, Rabbi at Agoudas, Israel, congregation Hendersonville, North Carolina, and my favorite cartoon brain, brain from pink in the brain, especially their line. What are we going to do tonight? The same thing we do every night Pinky try to take over the world. I use that when anyone in my family asks, What are we going to do? Because it turns out, they never actually take over the world. And this is for all y'all that watch this TV show in the 1990s kids WV in   Zack Jackson  01:44 the late 1900s.   Rachael Jackson  01:48 So if you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure you can find it somewhere. But I haven't looked yet. So pinky in the brain is awesome, because they're going to take over the world. But they never end up taking over the world. Because, well, the laboratory mice. So why are we asking this question? Why did we want to talk about our favorite brain characters. And that's because today I want to start us by talking about our actual brains. As much as we might enjoy the comics are cartoons of brains and the way that we anthropomorphize and frankly, anthropomorphize them, they are just a part of our bodies, like every other part of our bodies, except not at all, like every other part of our bodies, because they can troll the rest of our bodies. And we might have this inclination to think that our brains have, again, like the rest of our bodies, oh, well, if something happens to it, you know, me, you put it in a cast, right, you break out, you break a bone, you set it, you get a scrape, or cut, you sew it up. But what happens when your brain matter gets damaged, it also can bruise, it also can shrink and get cuts, it also has the ability to suffer physical damage. And one of the biggest things that happens when that when the brain itself is damaged, is that our personalities can change. Our emotions can change, which is why I really love what Kendra brought in as her example, that it's the heart and the brain, these comics, that for so long in our American culture, the emotions are kept in the heart. And the rational thought is kept in the brain. But we really know that that's not at all true. The heart has no emotions, the heart pumps blood and receives blood and recycles blood like it's that's all it does. Not that that's an all like   Zack Jackson  04:11 if there's any hearts out there, listen kind of sorry.   Rachael Jackson  04:15 I apologize if I hurt your feelings heart. But hearts don't have feelings. Right? Our feelings are all in our brains. Our personalities are all in our brains. And we forget that. And I want to bring in one of the most famous medical stories, people that they really started to understand this. So this was 19th century or so mid 19th century, and prior to this point, they had no idea where our personalities really came from and how they were formed. There's a whole lot of well, the shape of your skull dictates How Your personality is? Well, that's weird. Case. In case that needs to be said. I mean, it's almost it's almost as backwards as The Little Mermaid cartoon, right? The show or the movie, excuse me, The Little Mermaid. And the seagull goes up to the prince. And they say, Is he alive? And what does he do? The Seagull puts the ear to the man's foot. Oh, yeah, he's right. It's like, what that's really, that's not how your body works. And we know that and we can laugh at that. Because that's how absurd it is. Well, a couple 100 years ago, they didn't know how our personalities worked at all. So by saying, Well, it's the shape of your head that dictates your personality. Okay? Why not? We have these ideas that maybe again, prior to this, and to this day, maybe it's when you were born, that dictates your personality, right? We all it for a lot of people. It's it's mostly used as a funny thing, and less deeply integrated into who they are like, what's your sign? Right? Well, I'm a Pisces, oh, well, if you're a Pisces, and these planets were rising, that means your personality is xy and z. And for some, there's a lot of truth in that. And for others, it's just a way of connecting and be like, Oh, that's when my birthday is to how fun that we still don't know exactly how our personality works unless you're in that field. So going back to the mid 19th century, there is a person who's named is Phineas Gage Pei, or, excuse me, pah is how you start his name, Phineas Gage. And he is, well, the typical youth of the 19th century blue collar worker. And he's working hard, working hard. And he finally says, I'm going to get a good job. And he gets a good job building the railroad. right way back when when we needed railroads to move us from one side to another part of the country. And so here he is a strapping man because frankly, in order to you know, lay railroad ties and put this stuff in, you have to be physically fit. And people around him, his friends and letters and stuff, his own notes, said, you know, had some fun, kind, reverence, upstanding, you know, still rapidly Strapping Young Lad. And so he gets promoted through the railroad. And now he's the manager, and he's, you know, like 2324 years old, and he's the manager of this railroad. And what they did back then is you don't just lay the railroad ties and, and hammer them in, you actually have to make space for the railroad, right, the ground has to be flat, the ground has to be ready. And if you're going over a mountain pass, or or a molehill or something, like you have to actually make the ground ready. And the way they did that is with explosives. So what they do is they basically dig a hole, and they put some gunpowder or TNT or something like that inside the hole, you know, a couple of meter or so down. And they pack it in. And they use a tamping iron to tap it in, right, basically, and this thing is usually four inches in diameter, and about a meter or three feet long, right? This is this is a big thing. This is not a small, small stick. So as the manager Phineas Gage is tamping this stuff in and because he was so well liked, he's talking his other people. His mouth is open, and it precisely at that moment with his mouth open, it goes off it this explosive explodes, and it's such a forceful explosion. And his mouth is open that the tamping iron goes through his mouth exits his skull and lands several dozen feet away Thank you, Zach. Yes,   Ian Binns  09:41 that's yeah, so I'm sorry. I just I know you're talking sorry. You're good. Yeah, that was the part that I kept trying to figure out so it did exit his called they did not have to take it out.   09:52 No, no, it exit it like okay, it was   Ian Binns  09:56 Did it get stuck in there and then yeah, okay.   Rachael Jackson  09:59 No, no which is great. Yeah, but it didn't get stuck in there. Yeah, and so we're gonna, of course, put pictures and Wikipedia pages and medical journals, we're gonna put stuff like that in our show notes. Tangential aside, parenthetical aside, if I can remember to send them to Zach, so hopefully there'll be there. Anyway, so it exits his skull, and pupa. And he's still alive, and he's still breathing. And he's still walking. And people are like, Oh, my God, what do we do? Literally, this guy's head, like, his skull blew off?   Zack Jackson  10:40 What do we do?   Rachael Jackson  10:42 And so they take him to to his doctor, right? This is your just, it's just your run of the mill PCP. I don't know about you guys. But I don't think my PCP could handle this. So he goes to his PCP and the guy goes, okay, okay. Let's keep him alive. So we keep them alive. And they recognize, well, there is no skull fragment, so they can't capture the bone, they can't put the bone back, and his brain starts to swell. And it bleeds and so that's their number one, that's their number one focus is to stop the bleeding. Right? Because if you just bleed to death, well, there's nothing else to do. So if you're really interested in the medical part of this, again, I'll link I'll link the journal article that talks about it. So on and on,]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/0d9afd31-30b2-3d32-81d6-d481d0f9cfc9Wed, 01 Dec 2021 11:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 93 In part 5 of our mental health miniseries, we're talking about what makes us who we are. If our brain is the center of our personalities and identities, what happens when our brains get broken? Rachael tells us the curious story of Phineas...https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors.     Zack Jackson  00:05 You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. This week our hosts are   Ian Binns  00:14 Ian Binns Associate Professor of elementary science education at UNC Charlotte, in my favorite brain character is crying from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.   Zack Jackson  00:27 Zack Jackson UCC pastor in Reading Pennsylvania and my favorite cartoon brain character is the brain from Arthur   Kendra Holt-Moore  00:36 Kendra Holt-Moore, assistant professor of religion at Bethany College in Lindsborg Kansas. And my favorite brain is the brain in those comics, I think they're like from PhD comics or something, but it's like a brain and a heart that are always talking. And the hearts like, I'm gonna go catch a butterfly and the brains like no, we need to work.   Rachael Jackson  01:06 Rachael Jackson, Rabbi at Agoudas, Israel, congregation Hendersonville, North Carolina, and my favorite cartoon brain, brain from pink in the brain, especially their line. What are we going to do tonight? The same thing we do every night Pinky try to take over the world. I use that when anyone in my family asks, What are we going to do? Because it turns out, they never actually take over the world. And this is for all y'all that watch this TV show in the 1990s kids WV in   Zack Jackson  01:44 the late 1900s.   Rachael Jackson  01:48 So if you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure you can find it somewhere. But I haven't looked yet. So pinky in the brain is awesome, because they're going to take over the world. But they never end up taking over the world. Because, well, the laboratory mice. So why are we asking this question? Why did we want to talk about our favorite brain characters. And that's because today I want to start us by talking about our actual brains. As much as we might enjoy the comics are cartoons of brains and the way that we anthropomorphize and frankly, anthropomorphize them, they are just a part of our bodies, like every other part of our bodies, except not at all, like every other part of our bodies, because they can troll the rest of our bodies. And we might have this inclination to think that our brains have, again, like the rest of our bodies, oh, well, if something happens to it, you know, me, you put it in a cast, right, you break out, you break a bone, you set it, you get a scrape, or cut, you sew it up. But what happens when your brain matter gets damaged, it also can bruise, it also can shrink and get cuts, it also has the ability to suffer physical damage. And one of the biggest things that happens when that when the brain itself is damaged, is that our personalities can change. Our emotions can change, which is why I really love what Kendra brought in as her example, that it's the heart and the brain, these comics, that for so long in our American culture, the emotions are...]]>3264clean100fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/mental-health-part-4-schizophreniadownthewormhole.podbean.com/f557f398-8f10-3074-8de1-cc56ef222234Thu, 18 Nov 2021 11:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 93 In part 4 of our mental health miniseries, we talk about psychosis in general and schizophrenia in particular. Why does Hollywood continually misrepresent schizophrenia, and what does it actually mean to experience a psychotic break? Is it...4033clean99fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/mental-health-part-3-autism-spectrum-disdownthewormhole.podbean.com/01793bc0-3038-3c44-a349-be91bf496a77Wed, 03 Nov 2021 10:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 92 When is non-neurotypical behavior something to be 'cured', and when is it something to be celebrated? Is ASD a problem to be solved, or is society itself simply too inflexible to respond to that which does not easily conform? Have our...3644clean98fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/mental-health-part-2-anxietydownthewormhole.podbean.com/03013c3b-f858-3045-b64f-0f7bedff710fThu, 21 Oct 2021 10:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 91 In part 2 of our mental health miniseries, Ian leads us through an achingly vulnerable and well-research exploration of Anxiety. What is it and how is it different from fear? What about anxiety disorders? Can you meditate your way to happy...3981clean97fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/mental-health-part-1-depressiondownthewormhole.podbean.com/de2d8877-7626-3379-bd4c-d708ec706cc5Wed, 06 Oct 2021 13:42:05 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 90 Welcome back to the podcast! After a brief break, we're back with new episodes to usher in our third year of podcasting.  We're getting started on a personal note, delving into the science, spirituality, and personal experience living with...4139clean96fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/palmer-seminary-science-and-religion-symdownthewormhole.podbean.com/9873ca10-da7f-3901-b2eb-22242c6e1075Wed, 29 Sep 2021 17:02:15 +0000Rev Zack JacksonWe're back with new episodes starting next week, but in the meantime, we want to make sure that you are all aware of the incredible science and religion symposium that is happening this weekend at Palmer Seminary. Zack has put a lot of time and energy...169clean95fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/re-release-dtw-goes-to-the-movies-star-tdownthewormhole.podbean.com/0dd846eb-65cc-3520-951d-c2dbc088b61fWed, 08 Sep 2021 13:45:58 +0000Rev Zack JacksonWhile we are hard at work on the next season, we are re-releasing some of our favorite episodes. Way back at the beginning of this awful pandemic when everyone was stuck inside binging on Netflix, we did a series on some of our favorite movies. This...3607clean94fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/artificial-intelligence-part-3-my-robot-In Part 3 of our AI miniseries, we explore the new reality of digital learning. Computers, video, and algorithmic teaching aids are here to stay, so how can we make sure that they are used to help everyone, not just further the education gap? What exciting possibilities await for individual thriving? What hidden dangers lurk beneath the surface of our shiny new tech? Can gamification help you finally finish writing that book you've been meaning to write? Let's find out! 

 

Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast

 

More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/

 

produced by Zack Jackson
music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis 

 

Transcript
This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors. 

 

Zack Jackson 00:05

You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. This week our hosts are

 

Rachael Jackson 00:15

Rabbi Rachael Jackson, Rabbi at Agoudas, Israel congregation in Hendersonville, North Carolina. And if I had a robot do any chore, it would be cleaning up my child's bathroom.

 

Ian Binns 00:30

Ian Binns, associate professor of elementary science education at UNC Charlotte. And if I had to have a robot replace any chore, probably cleaning the showers.

 

Kendra Holt-Moore 00:45

Kendra Holt-Moore, PhD student at Boston University. And if I could have a robot, do my chores, I would definitely have a kitchen robot to do mostly dishes. And like, if they could cook, that would also be great. Just like kitchen in general, cover everything.

 

Zack Jackson 01:08

Zack Jackson UCC pastor in Reading, Pennsylvania, and I would get a robotic lawnmower, which is a real thing that actually exists, like a Roomba for your yard. And knowing myself, I'd probably get bored with it, and then modify it and try to turn it into a battle bot.

 

Ian Binns 01:32

That's very cool.

 

01:34

So, uh,

 

Ian Binns 01:36

today, we're going to talk about AI and education. And then let that go where it goes. Because as I said, yesterday, we're all educators in some form or fashion. So I thought it'd be kind of interesting to see what some people's take is on AI and education. And while looking for things to share with you. on just a couple things to read, I realized that I was being very picky, and not wanting to select things that were written prior to the start of the pandemic. Because I feel like things would be very different. I think I may have found one or two that were, but I was very surprised by some of the things that we found about AI and education that were written in October of last year. So in the heart of the pandemic, and teachers teaching from home or from school with students not in the classroom. So kind of wanted to just briefly talk about technology, in education and AI and how my experiences especially as a science educator with technology, in AI and in education, that and then obviously, please jump in as usual. One of the things that I've noticed with throughout my career with technology education is why I actually pulled away from doing research on technology is because of how fast the technology changes and rolls out that the ability to determine its effectiveness in a classroom takes significantly longer than the newest tool. Right. So. So I purposely pulled away from the technology because it just got to be too much too quickly. And, and not as well versed in the use of something simple like your iPhone, or smartphone as as others. And now I find myself getting excited every time I see a new app thinking Oh, yeah, let me use that. But then wondering, will it actually work or not? And so when you actually look up to see what are other educators, saying, you'd still have those two camps, ones who embrace it immediately. And then the others who are very hesitant, and then you may even have some who say no, don't use it at all. And so a few things I shared that I wanted to bring up is something from was at the Brookings Institute shared something about why we need to rethink education, artificial intelligence age, but actually we pull up something different real quick, sorry, is from this past October, written by a contributor for Forbes magazine, and his he's called the AI guy. And when talking about AI in education, this is the one where I said you may need the bleeper back because he referred to classrooms as the pedagogical Dark Ages, which made me really excited. And then he says, of all the areas of life where Intel artificial intelligence will have an impact, the biggest might well being education. This is because learning is so important. And also because current provision often leaves a lot to be desired. This is not generally the fault of teachers, which definitely aren't a big cue. There's one belief they are the active ingredient in today's education system, but they are expensive and not scalable, that are the second you. So in most countries, they're undervalued and burdened by absurd paperwork. They're also human, which means they are They are variable. Think back to your own school days, how many of your teachers were positively inspirational, as many as 10%? How many were unacceptable, that probably leaves the large majority, somewhere between okay and mediocre. One of the tragedies of modern education is that constructive feedback for teachers is rarely given or sought, there was the third view. So this is clearly someone who believes that AI will save the world of education at least. And, sorry, I'm gonna keep going on my tangents because this one really pissed

 

Rachael Jackson 05:37

me got under your skin. Whatever.

 

Ian Binns 05:39

They did it, I read it, the kids were sitting there watching cartoons last night while reading this, and I was looking at and I just kept mouthing it. And saying, I did say, very loudly, you know what, I really wish I could call them up and say, you know, what, why don't you come try? do this work, jackass. And John's goes to what is jack asked me

 

06:03

a teachable moment. Anyway, he

 

Ian Binns 06:04

does have a few few good things to share, like the idea of this whole notion of flipped classrooms where students get a watch, like the this is more for college, I believe, but you know, watching the lecture ahead of time, and then doing more work inside the class, hands on type work, and those things are good. You know, I like that. He talks a lot about online learning, which again, this was written in and October, right. So he was a little bit of critique about online learning, and then talked about those who are who are positioned to do it best. Which were already those companies and organizations who have the infrastructure there for it. But I think, you know, instead of me continuously go on my soapbox here, one of the things I'm just curious about is, you know, and others even refer to remote learning as a major challenge is how is it we could see AI being a positive force for things like education.

 

Rachael Jackson 06:59

So I can jump in here with two perspectives. One, that and I appreciate you saying that we're all educators. Because sometimes I, I teach a lot, but sometimes I forget to see myself in that role, or with that, that titling. So I do a lot of teaching. So that's one lens that I'm using, but also I have a child in first grade, and in public school. And so that's another place where I'm seeing it, which are two completely different educational worlds, frankly, in this way, when you're talking AI, specifically as separate from technology, it sounds like, how are you? Right? Because technology might just be like, right now, we are all, excuse me, goodness. We are all on a computer using a microphone, and a particular website. None of these things I would classify as a AI specifically, but as technology because it's not an artificial intelligence. I mean, someone certainly had to create these things. But it's not it is not dynamic. It's really these tools that we're using are very passive. And for me that passivity lends it to be a technology piece, rather than rather than an AI piece. So I think that in education we need to use and can use technology, way better than we are now. Right, that that I believe, how AI can be done. I really see that in terms of I don't want to use the word testing, assessing, though, right? How is this for you? Right? Is this fun for you? and using that, using those skills that AI can provide to react and learn from the user input? To say, Okay, this is where I think we're at, and they can be done in any way. I'm not saying that this needs to be a standardized test. But in a, let's play a game, and where is this game going to go, we can look at what strategy you can provide, or that can then be used in these quiet times, especially from a public school standpoint, where, from my perspective, both when I was a child, you know, 30 some years ago, and now it I, I would never want that job. Frankly, it just looks too hard, especially in elementary school, but it seems like that the teachers have to teach to the middle or the bottom third,

 

Ian Binns 09:38

at times it can,

 

Rachael Jackson 09:40

especially at these lower grades where there's a big there can be a big emotional difference in the lower grades. And so, from an educational standpoint, great so everyone has the free time. That can be the okay let's use AI as an individual so that the teacher can then work with the individuals or teach the whole class the concepts and then The individual can run with it using AI plus technology is how is one of those ways that I see that being used in public school and really elementary sized, or elementary aged? Sorry, I'm not being very clear today. So that']]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/d9291e2c-bdfa-38ed-add9-ab2db65f8ef4Wed, 07 Apr 2021 15:20:54 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 78 In Part 3 of our AI miniseries, we explore the new reality of digital learning. Computers, video, and algorithmic teaching aids are here to stay, so how can we make sure that they are used to help everyone, not just further the education...In Part 3 of our AI miniseries, we explore the new reality of digital learning. Computers, video, and algorithmic teaching aids are here to stay, so how can we make sure that they are used to help everyone, not just further the education gap? What exciting possibilities await for individual thriving? What hidden dangers lurk beneath the surface of our shiny new tech? Can gamification help you finally finish writing that book you've been meaning to write? Let's find out! 

 

Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast

 

More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/

 

produced by Zack Jackson
music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis 

 

Transcript
This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors. 

 

Zack Jackson 00:05

You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. This week our hosts are

 

Rachael Jackson 00:15

Rabbi Rachael Jackson, Rabbi at Agoudas, Israel congregation in Hendersonville, North Carolina. And if I had a robot do any chore, it would be cleaning up my child's bathroom.

 

Ian Binns 00:30

Ian Binns, associate professor of elementary science education at UNC Charlotte. And if I had to have a robot replace any chore, probably cleaning the showers.

 

Kendra Holt-Moore 00:45

Kendra Holt-Moore, PhD student at Boston University. And if I could have a robot, do my chores, I would definitely have a kitchen robot to do mostly dishes. And like, if they could cook, that would also be great. Just like kitchen in general, cover everything.

 

Zack Jackson 01:08

Zack Jackson UCC pastor in Reading, Pennsylvania, and I would get a robotic lawnmower, which is a real thing that actually exists, like a Roomba for your yard. And knowing myself, I'd probably get bored with it, and then modify it and try to turn it into a battle bot.

 

Ian Binns 01:32

That's very cool.

 

01:34

So, uh,

 

Ian Binns 01:36

today, we're going to talk about AI and education. And then let that go where it goes. Because as I said, yesterday, we're all educators in some form or fashion. So I thought it'd be kind of interesting to see what some people's take is on AI and education. And while looking for things to share with you. on just a couple things to read, I realized that I was being very picky, and not wanting to select things that were written prior to the start of the pandemic. Because I feel like things would be very different. I think I may have found one or two that were, but I was very surprised by some of the things that we found about AI and education that were written in October of last year. So in the heart of the pandemic, and teachers teaching from home or from school with students not in the classroom. So kind of wanted to just briefly talk about technology, in education and AI and how my experiences especially as a science educator with technology, in AI and in education, that and then obviously, please jump in as usual. One of the things that I've noticed with throughout my career with technology education is why I actually pulled away from doing research on technology is because of how fast the technology changes and rolls out that the ability to determine its effectiveness...]]>3156cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/artificial-intelligence-part-1-more-machIn our new miniseries, we are talking about artificial intelligence, machine ethics, transhumanism, and what it means to be a human. In our first episode, we're talking about cyborgs and why you already are one. Will technology make us less human and will we even realize that it's happening? Does AI deserve rights? Should we create machines that can feel pain and suffering? How can playing God with machines help us to become better humans today?
 
Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast
 
More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/
 
produced by Zack Jacksonmusic by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis 
 
Show Notes
Ship of Theseus - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
 
21 grams - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_grams_experiment
 
The pineal gland as the seat of the soul - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pineal-gland/
 
Adam’s Conversation about Cyborbs during Sinai and Synapses - https://sinaiandsynapses.org/multimedia-archive/superheroes-and-everyday-cyborgs/
 
Loebner Prize - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loebner_Prize
https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2020/05/predictive-text-systems-change-what-we-write
 
The Animatrix - https://www.amazon.com/Animatrix-Complete-First-Season/dp/B004G7W9IY
 
Cylon Psychology - https://www.battlestarwiki.org/Humanoid_Cylon#Physiology_and_Psychology
 
Siri's Position On Abortion? A Glitch, Not Conspiracy, Apple Says - https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2011/12/02/143067993/siris-anti-abortion-tendencies-a-result-of-technology-not-apple-conspiracy
 
The Algorithmic Justice League - https://www.ajl.org/]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/6b00354f-5ea5-3d5c-83f9-c111d30f3daeWed, 10 Mar 2021 16:10:24 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 74 In our new miniseries, we are talking about artificial intelligence, machine ethics, transhumanism, and what it means to be a human. In our first episode, we're talking about cyborgs and why you already are one. Will technology make us less...In our new miniseries, we are talking about artificial intelligence, machine ethics, transhumanism, and what it means to be a human. In our first episode, we're talking about cyborgs and why you already are one. Will technology make us less human and will we even realize that it's happening? Does AI deserve rights? Should we create machines that can feel pain and suffering? How can playing God with machines help us to become better humans today?
 
Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast
 
More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/
 
produced by Zack Jacksonmusic by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis 
 
Show Notes
Ship of Theseus - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
 
21 grams - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_grams_experiment
 
The pineal gland as the seat of the soul - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pineal-gland/
 
Adam’s Conversation about Cyborbs during Sinai and Synapses - https://sinaiandsynapses.org/multimedia-archive/superheroes-and-everyday-cyborgs/
 
Loebner Prize - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loebner_Prize
https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2020/05/predictive-text-systems-change-what-we-write
 
The Animatrix - https://www.amazon.com/Animatrix-Complete-First-Season/dp/B004G7W9IY
 
Cylon Psychology - https://www.battlestarwiki.org/Humanoid_Cylon#Physiology_and_Psychology
 
Siri's Position On Abortion? A Glitch, Not Conspiracy, Apple Says - https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2011/12/02/143067993/siris-anti-abortion-tendencies-a-result-of-technology-not-apple-conspiracy
 
The Algorithmic Justice League - https://www.ajl.org/]]>3573cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/space-part-5-home-sweet-marsIt's only a matter of time before human beings become an extra-terrestrial species. As people make plans for permanent settlements on the Moon, Mars, and beyond, what considerations are being made about what kind of society we want to create? How will we prevent our ancient tribalism from ripping us apart when we are one species on multiple planets? Will we even be the same species anymore? What will happen to future human DNA after multiple generations? Will religion still be a compelling force outside of our home planet? All those questions and several shameless plugs for "The Expanse" on the final episode of our space mini-series. 
 
Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast
 
More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/
 
produced by Zack Jacksonmusic by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis 
 
Show Notes 
 
Things to watch: 
The expanse (on Prime)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(TV_series) 
Away (Netflix)
https://www.netflix.com/title/80214512 

Things to read:
What Will Martians look like? - https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/the-big-questions/mars-colonists-might-evolve-entirely-new-type-human-n708636 
 
Roadmap to space settlements - https://space.nss.org/nss-roadmap-to-space-settlement-3rd-edition-2018-contents/
 
The Mars Society: https://www.marssociety.org/about/
 
Building a new society in space - https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20130318-building-a-new-society-in-space
 
NASA’s twin study - https://www.nasa.gov/twins-study/fun-facts-and-shareables 
 
Space chaplain Twitter https://twitter.com/ussf_hc 
 
Send artists to the Moon! https://dearmoon.earth/
 
Symphony for broken orchestra - http://symphonyforabrokenorchestra.org/ 
Violins of hope - https://www.violins-of-hope.com/]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/9ea379ad-988f-3145-b970-8c8bc02f56d3Wed, 24 Feb 2021 11:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 72 It's only a matter of time before human beings become an extra-terrestrial species. As people make plans for permanent settlements on the Moon, Mars, and beyond, what considerations are being made about what kind of society we want to...It's only a matter of time before human beings become an extra-terrestrial species. As people make plans for permanent settlements on the Moon, Mars, and beyond, what considerations are being made about what kind of society we want to create? How will we prevent our ancient tribalism from ripping us apart when we are one species on multiple planets? Will we even be the same species anymore? What will happen to future human DNA after multiple generations? Will religion still be a compelling force outside of our home planet? All those questions and several shameless plugs for "The Expanse" on the final episode of our space mini-series. 
 
Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast
 
More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/
 
produced by Zack Jacksonmusic by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis 
 
Show Notes 
 
Things to watch: 
The expanse (on Prime)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(TV_series) 
Away (Netflix)
https://www.netflix.com/title/80214512 

Things to read:
What Will Martians look like? - https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/the-big-questions/mars-colonists-might-evolve-entirely-new-type-human-n708636 
 
Roadmap to space settlements - https://space.nss.org/nss-roadmap-to-space-settlement-3rd-edition-2018-contents/
 
The Mars Society: https://www.marssociety.org/about/
 
Building a new society in space - https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20130318-building-a-new-society-in-space
 
NASA’s twin study - https://www.nasa.gov/twins-study/fun-facts-and-shareables 
 
Space chaplain Twitter https://twitter.com/ussf_hc 
 
Send artists to the Moon! https://dearmoon.earth/
 
Symphony for broken orchestra - http://symphonyforabrokenorchestra.org/ 
Violins of hope - https://www.violins-of-hope.com/]]>3287cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/elevating-the-discourse-with-casey-bien-In part 8 of our Sinai and Synapses interview series, we are talking with Rev Casey Bien-Aimé. She is the Spiritual Care Coordinator and Endowed Chair of Pastoral Care at Lankenau Medical Center. We talk about unleashing the power of ritual, how to create your own altar-space, and what NOT to say to someone who is grieving. Casey is like a never-endling well of calm compassion, and has some incredible important words for today.
 
Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast
 
More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/
 
produced by Zack Jacksonmusic by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/0f3d4a61-6218-32b1-b692-019c93ab339bWed, 10 Feb 2021 11:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 71 In part 8 of our Sinai and Synapses interview series, we are talking with Rev Casey Bien-Aimé. She is the Spiritual Care Coordinator and Endowed Chair of Pastoral Care at Lankenau Medical Center. We talk about unleashing the power of...In part 8 of our Sinai and Synapses interview series, we are talking with Rev Casey Bien-Aimé. She is the Spiritual Care Coordinator and Endowed Chair of Pastoral Care at Lankenau Medical Center. We talk about unleashing the power of ritual, how to create your own altar-space, and what NOT to say to someone who is grieving. Casey is like a never-endling well of calm compassion, and has some incredible important words for today.
 
Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast
 
More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/
 
produced by Zack Jacksonmusic by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>2799cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/space-part-4-space-junk-in-the-orbital-tThe U.S. Space Surveillance Network tracks over 23,000 pieces of debris the size of a soft ball or larger. An additional 500,000 objects larger than a centimeter also orbit Earth, and there are millions of even smaller fragments which we cannot trace. We stand on the edge of a potential technological disaster if our satellites are destroyed by our own garbage, and international space agencies are starting to take notice. Join us as we talk about the technical issues of space junk as well as the moral implications of littering uninhabited spaces. Why do we only seem to care about garbage when it affects living creatures? Do we have a moral responsibility to clean up our messes? Who is going to pay for all this? How can thinking about space junk make us better stewards of our own little corners of the world?
 
Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast
More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/
produced by Zack Jacksonmusic by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/dc188a36-fb1c-316c-bcb6-74190a05923eWed, 03 Feb 2021 17:36:18 +0000Rev Zack JacksonEpisode 70 The U.S. Space Surveillance Network tracks over 23,000 pieces of debris the size of a soft ball or larger. An additional 500,000 objects larger than a centimeter also orbit Earth, and there are millions of even smaller fragments which we...The U.S. Space Surveillance Network tracks over 23,000 pieces of debris the size of a soft ball or larger. An additional 500,000 objects larger than a centimeter also orbit Earth, and there are millions of even smaller fragments which we cannot trace. We stand on the edge of a potential technological disaster if our satellites are destroyed by our own garbage, and international space agencies are starting to take notice. Join us as we talk about the technical issues of space junk as well as the moral implications of littering uninhabited spaces. Why do we only seem to care about garbage when it affects living creatures? Do we have a moral responsibility to clean up our messes? Who is going to pay for all this? How can thinking about space junk make us better stewards of our own little corners of the world?
 
Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast
More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/
produced by Zack Jacksonmusic by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>3249cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/elevating-the-discourse-with-amanda-glaz 
Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast
 
More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/
 
produced by Zack Jacksonmusic by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/a64ed14d-8693-3935-ac39-9efc744065efWed, 27 Jan 2021 11:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonIn part 8 of our Sinai and Synapses interview series, we are talking with Dr. Amanda Glaze-Crampes. A self described "Facilitator of Magic", she teaches future teachers how to inspire the next generation of scientists. Her research centers on the... 
Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast
 
More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/
 
produced by Zack Jacksonmusic by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>2351cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11465778/space-part-3-living-with-tiny-aliens 
https://www.amazon.com/Living-Tiny-Aliens-Anthropocene-Groundworks/dp/0823287718
 
"Astrobiology is changing how we understand meaningful human existence. Living with Tiny Aliens seeks to imagine how an individuals’ meaningful existence persists when we are planetary creatures situated in deep time―not only on a blue planet burgeoning with life, but in a cosmos pregnant with living-possibilities. In doing so, it works to articulate an astrobiological humanities.
Working with a series of specific examples drawn from the study of extraterrestrial life, doctrinal reflection on the imago Dei, and reflections on the Anthropocene, Pryor reframes how human beings meaningfully dwell in the world and belong to it. To take seriously the geological significance of human agency is to understand the Earth as not only a living planet but an artful one. Consequently, Pryor reframes the imago Dei, rendering it a planetary system that opens up new possibilities for the flourishing of all creation by fostering technobiogeochemical cycles not subject to runaway, positive feedback. Such an account ensures the imago Dei is not something any one of us possesses, but that it is a symbol for what we live into together as a species in intra-action with the wider habitable environment."
 
 
Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast
 
More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/
 
produced by Zack Jacksonmusic by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>downthewormhole.podbean.com/c523e043-8984-3921-be69-ebdec9089109Wed, 20 Jan 2021 11:00:00 +0000Rev Zack JacksonLast Spring, Adam published a book called "Living with Tiny Aliens: The Image of God for the Anthropocene", and it's high time we talk about it! It is full of playful curiosity and deep interrogations of our theological frameworks. How can... 
https://www.amazon.com/Living-Tiny-Aliens-Anthropocene-Groundworks/dp/0823287718
 
"Astrobiology is changing how we understand meaningful human existence. Living with Tiny Aliens seeks to imagine how an individuals’ meaningful existence persists when we are planetary creatures situated in deep time―not only on a blue planet burgeoning with life, but in a cosmos pregnant with living-possibilities. In doing so, it works to articulate an astrobiological humanities.
Working with a series of specific examples drawn from the study of extraterrestrial life, doctrinal reflection on the imago Dei, and reflections on the Anthropocene, Pryor reframes how human beings meaningfully dwell in the world and belong to it. To take seriously the geological significance of human agency is to understand the Earth as not only a living planet but an artful one. Consequently, Pryor reframes the imago Dei, rendering it a planetary system that opens up new possibilities for the flourishing of all creation by fostering technobiogeochemical cycles not subject to runaway, positive feedback. Such an account ensures the imago Dei is not something any one of us possesses, but that it is a symbol for what we live into together as a species in intra-action with the wider habitable environment."
 
 
Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast
 
More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/
 
produced by Zack Jacksonmusic by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis ]]>2691cleanfull