Category Archives: News

News

William Lane Craig answers: how can the four gospels be independent sources?

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Previously, I blogged about the historical criteria that historians use to evaluate documents. One of the criteria is “multiple independent sources”. If a story is reported in multiple independent sources, then historians are more likely to evaluate it as historically accurate. But how about the four gospels? Are they independent sources? The answer might not be what you expect.

Here’s how the question was put to Dr. Craig:

The latest video, “Did Jesus Rise From the Dead,” is especially compelling, but I had a question about it. In the part one video, you cite as evidence, the Gospels plus Acts and First Corinthians and you refer to them as “independent” and “unconnected” sources. But this isn’t exactly true, is it? After all, two of these books were written by the same author, Luke, and so Luke and Acts are connected by authorship. Furthermore, isn’t it true that much information relayed in Matthew and Luke were taken from Mark? This two facts would make it untrue to call the Gospels “independent” and “unconnected” would they not?

Here’s the video he’s talking about:

Dr. Craig answers the question in his latest question of the week. I think this answer is important for those who aren’t aware of how the gospels are organized.

He writes:

The objection is based on a simple misunderstanding. It assumes that the sources I’m referring to are the books of the New Testament.  But that’s not what I’m talking about.

New Testament critics have identified a number of sources behind the New Testament, sources on which the New Testament authors drew. For example, Matthew and Luke drew not only upon Mark as a source but also upon a source which scholars designate “Q,” which appears to have been a source containing Jesus’ sayings or teachings. Thus, if you could show that a saying in Matthew or Luke appears in both Mark and Q, that would count as multiple, independent attestation.

What does this mean? It means that although there is overlap between Matthew and Luke, called “Q”, there are actually three independent sources there: Matthew’s source, called M. Luke’s source, called L. And the material common to Matthew and Luke, which therefore PRE-DATES Matthew and Luke, called Q.

Dr. Craig lists out several independent sources in his full reply:

  1. the pre-Markan Passion story used by Mark
  2. the rest of the gospel of Mark has a source
  3. Matthew’s source (M)
  4. Luke’s source (L)
  5. John’s gospel which is very different from Mark, Luke and Matthew
  6. the sermons in Acts have a source
  7. the early creed found in Paul’s 1 Corinthians 15

So if you are trying to lay out something from the New Testament, and you can find it in two of these sources, and at least one of them is very early, you’re in pretty good shape.

You can watch more of Dr. Craig’s videos in his playlist, here. These are especially useful for people who want to get the overall scope of the battlefield before deciding where to focus in study. Everybody should know about all of these arguments regardless of where you choose to specialize.

News

Evidence for design in living systems is changing the way scientists work

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If you look over in the right column of the blog, you’ll see that I am reading “The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith”. It’s a collection of short essays intended for laymen to explain all aspects of the design debate. I’m actually listening to the audio book version, and just looking in the book for diagrams. I wanted to talk about a few resources that are similar to what I’m seeing in the book.

First, there’s this excellent post from Evolution News, where Dr. Casey Luskin (who recently appeared on the Apologetics 315 podcast) lists out all the areas where intelligent design is fruitful for studying living systems.

Here is his list:

  • Protein science
  • Physics and cosmology
  • Information theory
  • Pharmacology
  • Evolutionary computation
  • Anatomy and physiology
  • Bioinformatics
  • Molecular machines
  • Cell biology
  • Systematics
  • Paleontology
  • Genetics

These are all good, but I’m going to focus on some of them that are interesting to me coming from a software engineering background.

Information theory: ID leads scientists to understand intelligence as a cause of biological complexity, capable of being scientifically studied, and to understand the types of information it generates.

I looked into this one when naturalists were trying to argue that specified complexity was just the same as Shannon information. Shannon information is just concerned with the complexity, or information carrying capacity, of strings. But specified complexity is a step further, where certain strings have meaning or purpose, because they conform to a pattern. A random set of characters the same length as this blog post is complex (like Shannon information), but it’s not specified. What makes my letter sequences specified is that it conforms to the English language, and conveys meaning.

Here’s another:

Evolutionary computation: ID produces theoretical research into the information-generative powers of Darwinian searches, leading to the discovery that the search abilities of Darwinian processes are limited, which has practical implications for the viability of using genetic algorithms to solve problems.

When I was in grad school, there were courses on using “genetic algorithms” to solve problems. But thanks to the work of ID proponents like William Dembski, we now know that these algorithms only work if constraints are put on the search algorithm up front. As such, they don’t support undirected evolution at all.

Bioinformatics: ID has helped scientists develop proper measures of biological information, leading to concepts like complex and specified information or functional sequence complexity. This allows us to better quantify complexity and understand what features are, or are not, within the reach of Darwinian evolution.

Before ID came along, people weren’t really interested in calculating the probability of sequencing amino acids into a protein by chance. They just wanted to assume that it happened, because what else could have happened? Sometimes, you make better decisions when you listen to both sides of a debate. Now we have two sides to the debate on origins, and it helps both sides to defend their views.

Molecular machines: ID encourages scientists to reverse-engineer molecular machines — like the bacterial flagellum — to understand their function like machines, and to understand how the machine-like properties of life allow biological systems to function.

I’ve blogged before about how human inventors are regularly reverse-engineering natural designs in order to come up with designs for man-made machines.

Genetics: ID has inspired scientists to investigate the computer-like properties of DNA and the genome in the hopes of better understanding genetics and the origin of biological systems.15 ID has also inspired scientists to seek function for noncoding junk-DNA, allowing us to understand development and cellular biology.

By now, everybody has heard about the predictions by Darwinists about the “uselessness” of junk DNA. That all went out the window with the data from the ENCODE project, that found that the so-called junk DNA was almost all useful. Another Darwinian prediction falsified by the progress of science.

A 40-minute lecture

I saw a nice lecture from the recent Science & Faith conference that was held in Dallas this year. The speaker was Dr. Brian Miller:

Dr. Miller is Research Coordinator at Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. He holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Duke University.

More about him and the articles he has written can be found here: https://www.discovery.org/p/miller/

The video talks about all the areas where evidence for design is changing the way that scientists look at living systems.

The talk was very cutting edge, with a lot of new stuff I had not seen before. It’s worth the time to watch it. There were also a couple of prior lectures from the conference. One from Eric Hedin, where he talked about being “canceled” by Darwinists for teaching both sides of origins issues at Ball State University. Another from Stephen C. Meyer talks about the Judeo-Christian origins of modern science. I’ve only watched the Miller lecture so far, but that’s what Saturdays are for! Watching lectures and debates.

News

How is single-payer government-run healthcare working for Canada in 2023?

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I always get excited when the annual report on Canadian healthcare comes out. A lot of people in my office love single payer healthcare. Except they don’t know how it works in countries that have tried it. They imagine that it works well. They love the idea that healthcare will be free for them. But when I get my hands on a good study, it means a lot of fools are about to get a beat down.

Here’s the latest from the Fraser Institute, reported by True North:

Canadians are waiting longer than ever to see a healthcare specialist and receive treatment in 2023, according to a recent Fraser Institute report.

The Fraser Institute polled physicians from 12 specialties and ten provinces for almost three decades.

This year, the data collected from January to June consisted of 1,269 physicians responses. The report, titled Waiting Your Turn: Wait Times for Health Care in Canada, 2023 Report, showed the results of this year’s survey.

A median wait time of 27.7 weeks between referral from a general practitioner and receipt of treatment was reported in 2023. This is longer than the 27.4 weeks reported in 2022. This year’s wait time is the longest recorded in the survey’s history and is 198% longer than the 9.3-week wait time documented in 1993.

The 27.7 week number is the total of two different delays. The delays to get referred to a specialist, and the delay to get actual treatment:

The 27.7-week total was broken down into two segments – a referral by a general practitioner to consultation with a specialist takes 14.6 weeks, followed by consultation with a specialist and receiving treatment, which takes 13.1 weeks.

Well, there’s a saying in business. You can have a product or a service fast, or you can have it good, or you can have it cheap. Pick two out of 3. So, Maybe Canadian healthcare is not fast, but maybe it’s good, and maybe it’s cheap.

Cost of Single Payer Health Care in Canada per Household
Cost of Single Payer Health Care in Canada per Household

Let’s turn to the Fraser Institute again:

  • Canadians often misunderstand the true cost of our public health care system. This occurs partly because Canadians do not incur direct expenses for their use of health care, and partly because Canadians cannot readily determine the value of their contribution to public health care insurance.

  • In 2023, preliminary estimates suggest the average payment for public health care insurance ranges from $5,373 to $17,039 for six common Canadian family types, depending on the type of family.

  • Between 1997 and 2023, the cost of public health care insurance for the average Canadian family increased 4.2 times as fast as the cost of clothing, 2.1 times as fast as the cost of food, 1.8 times as fast as the cost of shelter, and 1.7 times as fast as the average income.

  • The 10 percent of Canadian families with the lowest incomes will pay an average of about $644 for public health care insurance in 2023. The 10 percent of Canadian families who earn an average income of $80,946 will pay an average of $7,715 for public health care insurance, and the families among the top 10 percent of income earners in Canada will pay $44,314.

OK, so Canadians aren’t getting healthcare fast, and they’re not getting healthcare cheap. Maybe they’re getting really really good healthcare, though.

Here are the numbers from a new study from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute, in partnership with the Canadian Medical Association:

  • Most Canadians believe health care has worsened in the country over the last decade. Currently, 68 per cent of Canadians believe this, an increase from the 42 per cent who said the same in 2015.
  • The Angus Reid Institute’s Health Care Access Index, first created one year ago, finds three-in-ten (29%) facing Chronic Difficulty accessing the health care they say they need. One-in-three (34%) are facing fewer, but still some, barriers, while just one-in-six (16%) have little trouble with finding and receiving care from Canada’s health system.
  • Half of Canadians either don’t have a family doctor (19%) or struggle to see the one they have (29%).
  • Persistent problems in the health care system have left seven-in-ten (68%) pessimistic there will be improvements to the system in the next two years and more than half (56%) doubtful things will change for the better even five years down the line.
  • Those who believe their province does a poor or terrible job measuring health care performance (68%) significantly outnumber those who instead believe their provincial government is doing great or good on this front (24%). Two-thirds (67%) believe health care performance would be improved by their province making key health care performance indicators publicly available.

I know that a some Americans like to pick political leaders and policies based on their feelings. They want to feel good. They want to be liked. People who like single payer tend to be people with enormous student loan balances for worthless non-STEM degrees. They work in easy jobs in the public sector. They join labor unions because they’re scared of competition and accountability. Many of them work in daycare or they teach little children, because they don’t want to be challenged by adults. When you look at the numbers on healthcare in different countries, it’s very clear what works and what doesn’t work. Americans need to be smarter than Canadians. We have to vote based on reason and evidence.