Category Archives: Videos

Videos

Walter Bradley presents the fine-tuning argument at UCSB

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Walter Bradley is one of my favorite lecturers in the whole universe!

Here’s a 5-minute sample of the lecture he presented at the University of California (Santa Barbara).

And if you like it, you can watch the whole lecture here on Vimeo.

Here’s a bio from his faculty page at Baylor University:

Walter Bradley (B.S., Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin) is Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Baylor. He comes to Baylor from Texas A&M University where he helped develop a nationally recognized program in polymeric composite materials. At Texas A&M, he served as director of the Polymer Technology Center for 10 years and as Department Head of Mechanical Engineering, a department of 67 professors that was ranked as high as 12th nationally during his tenure. Bradley has authored over 150 refereed research publications including book chapters, articles in archival journals such as the Journal of Material Science, Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites, Mechanics of Time-Dependent Materials, Journal of Composites Technology and Research, Composite Science and Technology, Journal of Metals, Polymer Engineering and Science, and Journal of Materials Science, and refereed conference proceedings.

Dr. Bradley has secured over $5.0 million in research funding from NSF grants (15 yrs.), AFOSR (10 years), NASA grants (10 years), and DOE (3 years). He has also received research grants or contracts from many Fortune 500 companies, including Alcoa, Dow Chemical, DuPont, 3M, Shell, Exxon, Boeing, and Phillips.

He co-authored The Mystery of Life Origin: Reassessing Current Theories and has written 10 book chapters dealing with various faith science issues, a topic on which he speaks widely.

He has received 5 research awards at Texas A&M University and 1 national research award. He has also received two teaching awards. He is an Elected Fellow of the American Society for Materials and the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA), the largest organization of Christians in Science and Technology in the world. He is President elect of the ASA and will serve his term in 2008.

You can read more about his recent research on how to use coconuts to make car parts in this article from Science Daily.

My favorite lecture of all

My favorite lecture of all is “Giants in the Land”.

He delivered that lecture at the University of Georgia in 1997.

Videos

Who is better at handling wars and natural disasters? Bush or Obama?

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Here’s the poll from Louisiana voters described in the leftist LA Times.

Excerpt:

Former President George W. Bush showed more leadership in dealing with the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina than President Obama has shown in handling the oil calamity in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a poll of Louisianans released Friday.

Obama, who will make his 10th trip to the gulf when he travels to New Orleans on Sunday, will seek to reassure residents that he remains committed to rebuilding a region still feeling the effects from Katrina’s deadly landfall and flooding. Obama will also reassert his administration’s commitment to the cleanup from the BP oil well leak, the nation’s worst oil environmental disaster.

But a poll of Louisianans by Public Policy Polling shows those reassurances may have a hard time. Just 32% give Obama good marks for his actions in the aftermath of the spill, while 61% disapprove.

By contrast, those polled said that Bush’s leadership on Katrina was better than Obama’s on the spill. A majority,  54%, said that Bush did the better job of helping Louisiana through the hurricane crisis compared to the 33% who chose Obama, PPP said on Friday.

That 21-point spread was more than when PPP asked the same question in June and found Bush ahead by 15 points.

Louisiana is a purple state – half red and half blue. They’ve been trending red lately under the governance of the highly competent Bobby Jindal, but they still have a ton of Democrats in high positions.

Who was right about Iraq? Bush or Obama?

Here’s a video that shows who wanted the surge, and who opposed the surge. (H/T Hot Air)

The surge worked. We won. Our troops are coming home. The total cost for both wars (about 700 billion) was far less than the 3 trillion dollars in deficits that Obama has run up since he was elected. And remember, Obama spent that money on studying Chinese prostitutes and on building tunnels for turtles, and similar projects to reward the people who voted for him. That’s why unemployment is still so high.

My previous post showing (with videos) who was responsible for the housing bubble recession, and who tried to stop the recession.

Who’s really extreme?

I found this video at Peter Sean Bradley’s blog.

Remember in November!

UPDATE: Gallup poll finds that more Iraqis approved of US leadership under Bush than under Obama.

UPDATE: More fatalities in Afghanistan under two years of Obama than under eight years of Bush.

Videos

William Lane Craig on whether there were guards at the tomb of Jesus

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I was sort of playing around in the John Ankerberg channel on YouTube looking at all the stuff they’ve posting and I found some Bill Craig videos. And suddenly I found a video that I thought was worth posting. The question from John Ankerberg was on whether there were guards at the tomb described in Matthew.

Now, everybody who has seen a Bill Craig debate knows that he uses 4 minimal facts in order to infer that the resurrection happened. He chooses these facts because they pass certain historical criteria. For example, he can only uses a fact that is present in early sources, and in multiple sources. It also helps if the reported fact is embarrassing to the early church or the message they were trying to get accepted by other people. Anything reported by an enemy is more likely to be historical. And a fact is less historical if it was used by the early church as an apologetic to defend against opposition from some group. And so on.

So, I thought it would be fun for you to see that there are some facts that you SHOULD NOT USE in your minimal set.

Here’s one that you should not use – the guard at the tomb:

Notice how forthright and honest Craig is? The guard at the tomb is probably toughest thing to defend in the whole New Testament. Why? Because it’s late – Matthew is later than Mark! Because it’s only in one source – Matthew! And because it seems to be an apologetic against the idea that the disciples stole the body – which means most people will say it was invented for that purpose.

So, what do we learn? It means that when you watch all those Craig debates, you have to keep in mind that he isn’t just a pastor sort of using the text like a pastor would. He had to do a PhD to find out which verses are more and less strongly historical based on the normal criteria that historians use on historical biographies. No one is treating the New Testament any differently than any other book when you argue in a debate. He only uses the parts that are the strongest, and that’s why he’s always winning these debates. If he had to defend the guard at the tomb, he’d have a much tougher job! Whereas something like the crucifixion is admitted by every single scholar across the board, even the atheists.

Sometimes, it’s fun to explain to non-Christians how you argue for the resurrection by contrasting a solid fact, like the appearances, which are in 1 Cor 15:3-7, and the guard at the tomb, which is only in Matthew. I think they think that we are doing faith, when we are really doing history, then trusting in what the historical investigation reveals.