Strongly prefer summer.

EricW,
A lemur? In New York? I knew it…we all descend from animals at the Bronx Zoo. I have been to the Bronx…I have seen things….

Just in time for your class (if it’s not a hoax):

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Missing-Link-Scientists-In-New-York-Unveil-Fossil-Of-Lemur-Monkey-Hailed-As-Mans-Earliest-Ancestor/Article/200905315284582?lpos=World_News_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15284582_Missing_Link%3A_Scientists_In_New_York_Unveil_Fossil_Of_Lemur_Monkey_Hailed_As_Mans_Earliest_Ancestor

Scientists Unveil Missing Link In Evolution
Alex Watts, Sky News Online

Scientists have unveiled a 47-million-year-old fossilised skeleton of a monkey hailed as the missing link in human evolution.

This 95%-complete ‘lemur monkey’ is described as the “eighth wonder of the world”

The search for a direct connection between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom has taken 200 years – but it was presented to the world today at a special news conference in New York.

The discovery of the 95%-complete ‘lemur monkey’ – dubbed Ida – is described by experts as the “eighth wonder of the world”.

They say its impact on the world of palaeontology will be “somewhat like an asteroid falling down to Earth”.

Researchers say proof of this transitional species finally confirms Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, and the then radical, outlandish ideas he came up with during his time aboard the Beagle.

Sir David Attenborough said Darwin “would have been thrilled” to have seen the fossil – and says it tells us who we are and where we came from.

“This little creature is going to show us our connection with the rest of the mammals. This is the one that connects us directly with them,” he said.

“Now people can say ‘okay we are primates, show us the link’. The link they would have said up to now is missing – well it’s no longer missing.”

A team of the world’s leading fossil experts, led by Professor Jorn Hurum, of Norway’s National History Museum, have been secretly researching the 1ft 9in-tall young female monkey for the past two years.

And now it has been transported to New York under high security, and unveiled to the world during the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth.

Later this month, it will be exhibited for one day only at the Natural History Museum in London before being returned to Oslo.

Scientists say Ida – squashed to the thickness of a beer mat by the immense passage of time – is the most complete primate fossil ever found.

With her human-like nails instead of claws, and opposable big toes, she is placed at the very root of human evolution when early primates first developed features that would eventually develop into our own.

Another important discovery is the shape of the talus bone in her foot, which humans still have in their feet an incredible 70 million lifetimes later.

Ida was unearthed by an amateur fossil-hunter some 25 years ago in Messel pit, an ancient crater lake near Frankfurt, Germany, famous for its fossils.

She was cleaned and set in polyester resin – and incredibly, was hung on a mystery German collector’s wall for 20 years. (click link for entire article)

Michael,

I think summer would be perfect (at least for those individuals who go to school during the Fall; I for one simply wouldn’t have the time to do it once school began).

Here would be the questions I would “want” answered from in a course like this:

1) What do I do when I see science and the Bible conflict?

2) What are pratical ways of showing or at least “leading” an individual (in this case it would probably be a Christian) to see that they are creating a dangerous false dilemna when they are piting science against God (and vice versa).

3) What does ID “give me” as a Christian? As far as I’ve understood the position all it simlpy is, is a beefed of Paley’s arguement. It says,noting of a theistic God, but is simply an apologetic against naturalistic philosophy and presuppositions.

4) Associated with ID; what are the defing attributes of “design”. In other words what is the critera for determining if something is designed or not?

5) The relationship between miracles/supernatural and science and (this is one that I have recieved from one of my secular professors): “Why insert metaphysical elements (i.e. God) into explanations when there are naturalistic explanations that are better.” In other words (and this is the sort of illustration my prof gave), if my car doesn’t start this morning, my intial thought isn’t “an fairy or a gnome came and meddled with my car to cause it to not start. My first thought is to check the battery, gas, etc to see if there is a problem with it. I am not going to call my local wizard or sorceress to bring some potion or enchantation to fix my car, I am going to call a mechanic or someone who knows how to fix it.” Then he would go on to say, “why do Christians insert God (the metaphysical componet) where science can simply explain in a more pratical and tangible way?” In other words, the reason he is a naturalist is because “it just works, it produces results” (i.e. the mechanic has and will continue to fix my car, the wizard may or may not, but given my experience [or lack there of] with them it seems laughable to think that they could).

Hopefully those questions made sense.

I look forward to the class and I hope I will have to time to enroll and particpate in it.

Thanks for being a blessing and making this avaliable to so many people.

Your brother in Christ.

-Josh

Sorry, perhaps I should be more clear: I can’t tell where you saw a “false explanation of cause and effect” in what I said.

Yes, Kara, I hope I could. My point has been that science and the Bible have many other tensions besides origins.

Summer would be better for me since I am still trying to catch up with the last three courses I need for my degree in Theology conferred by the one and only-GREAT Michael Patton.

It was the “false explanation” part that threw me for a loop.

I’m not the one who suggested God’s sovereignty as an explanation for the mildew in Canaan. Sorry if I understood something.

Perhaps Rayner has a spiritual understanding of mold and mildew or he is fascinated about it. Either way I suppose he could learn what he needs to know about it in the class.