Michael Newton Keas

Senior Fellow, Center for Science and Culture

Archives

Kepler, Galileo, the Book of Nature, and the First Mathematician

Michael Newton Keas
March 18, 2019
On this episode of ID the Future, Andrew McDiarmid talks with science historian Michael Keas on pioneering mathematical astronomer Johannes Kepler, based on Keas’ new work from ISI Books, Unbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion. Kepler studied theology before turning to math and science, and it was his belief in God that guided his extraordinary discoveries. “Without an architect who created the world,” he said, “there is no … power in mathematics to make anything material.” Scientists, in his view of God, were thinking the thoughts or ideas that God himself had thought any time they discovered some law or deep pattern in nature. Kepler is just one of a long list of great early scientists, including Galileo, who saw a “book” of God’s …

The Actual, Nuanced Story of Galileo Galilei

Revisiting Galileo's and the Catholic Church's role in judging the Ptolemaic, Tychonic and Copernican Systems
Michael Newton Keas
March 7, 2019
The Galileo myth posits that the great astronomer’s story illustrates the near-inevitable conflict between science and religion — or “faith and fact.” As science historian Michael Keas explains, the story is actually more complicated, nuanced, and interesting than the myth would have it. In Unbelievable, Professor Keas explores seven myths about the history of science and faith. It’s a great read. In the case of Galileo, the scientific evidence available at the time was not at all a slam dunk for the Copernican view. His trial and house arrest by the Catholic Church were not simply a panicked religion fighting back against scientific truth. There were scientists and theologians on Galileo’s side and others against him. Unlike Giordano Bruno, Galileo was not burned. He …

Michael Keas on Atheism’s Futurist Myth

Michael Newton Keas
February 25, 2019
On this episode of ID the Future, host Andrew McDiarmid and historian of science Michael Keas turn from the past to the future. With Keas’ new ISI book Unbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion as a launching point, Keas describes the surprisingly religious role played by much modern-day atheistic science fiction. Despite some notable exceptions, especially C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy, “modern day atheism is becoming more and more indistinguishable from the occult, and science fiction is a part of that,” Keas tells us. And who are the gods of the new occult? Listen in and learn. …

Unbelievable: ET and the Futuristic Myth of a Material God

Michael Newton Keas
February 18, 2019
On this episode of ID the Future, Andrew McDiarmid continues his conversation with science historian Michael Keas on myths of science and religion, based on Keas’ new work from ISI Books, Unbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion. This time the myth comes not from the past but the future. That is, it’s the supposedly scientific belief that ET is coming, and when it comes, it will look just like a god to us. It will replace earthly religion with an advanced, more ethical alternative, and we’ll finally achieve enlightenment. It’s just as much a myth as any other, yet it’s shaping people’s worldviews anyway. Please consider donating to support the IDTF Podcast. …

Unbelievable: The Cosmic Copernican Demotion That Wasn’t

Michael Newton Keas
February 11, 2019
On this episode of ID the Future, Andrew McDiarmid again hears from science historian Michael Keas about another science myth exploded in Keas’ new ISI book Unbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion. This time it’s the belief that Copernicus’s sun-centered cosmos demoted humans from our privileged position at the center. As another pioneering early astronomer, Galileo, noted, under the old astronomy the center was no privileged place. Instead it was viewed as the bottom of the universe, the “sump where the universe’s filth and ephemera collect.” So Copernicus’s discovery, if anything, elevated Earth’s place in the cosmos. …

Unbelievable: Galileo Proved the Church’s Irrational Opposition to Science

Michael Newton Keas
February 6, 2019
On this episode of ID the Future, Andrew McDiarmid interviews science historian and author Michael Keas about Keas’ new ISI book Unbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion. The myth this time is that the Church tortured Galileo for opposing official teachings on the structure of what we now call the solar system.  In fact Galileo had found support for heliocentrism but hadn’t proved it scientifically; there were scientists and theologians both against him and for him; and he wasn’t tortured anyway. There’s plenty here for both scientists and theologians to learn — as well as anyone who thinks Galileo shows the Church was at war against science. …

The Flat Earth Myth

A Favorite myth of ID Critics
Michael Newton Keas
February 6, 2019
Critics of intelligent design think they’re clever when they draw comparisons between ID and belief in a flat Earth. Professor Jerry Coyne, for one, says that HarperCollins, publisher of Michael Behe’s forthcoming book, Darwin Devolves, “should be ashamed at itself for publishing the biology equivalent of flat-Earthism.” Professor Nathan Lents has ventilated a similar view. It’s not surprising since the myth of medieval belief in a flat Earth is widespread. So smart alecks, including biologist at major universities, naturally reach for it as a taunt. But the joke is on them. Science historian Michael Keas explains: “Medieval thinkers reasoned that the Earth is round not flat because, for one thing, the position of the North Star, Polaris, looks different …

Giordano Bruno: A Martyr, Yes, But Not for Science

Michael Newton Keas
January 30, 2019
On this episode of ID the Future, Andrew McDiarmid continues his conversation with historian of science Michael Keas about Keas’ new ISI book Unbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion. In chapter 4 of the work Keas explodes the myth that Giordano Bruno was a martyr for science, as science popularizers such as Neil DeGrasse Tyson make him out to be.  Bruno was indeed burned at the stake in 1600 for disagreeing with the Church — which Keas heartily agrees was a bad move on the Church’s part. But Bruno was executed not for his view that we live in a vast universe with vast numbers of planets. Rather, he was burned for his religious view that an infinite God had to make the universe that way — and that everyone’s soul …

Flat-Earth Faith in the “Dark Ages”: More Unbelievable Myths That Won’t Die

Michael Newton Keas
January 21, 2019
On this episode of ID the Future, Andrew McDiarmid continues his conversation with science historian Michael Keas on myths of science and religion, based on Keas’ new work from ISI Books, Unbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion. This time they tackle two golden oldies and a kicker: (1) that the West suffered a thousand-year “Dark Ages” after the fall of the Roman Empire, (2) that the Europeans from this period believed in a flat earth, and — the kicker! — that Christianity was responsible for both errors. Keas asks, if people are trying to use myths like this to attack religion’s track record on knowledge and education, shouldn’t they know more about what’s really true? …

New Book Unbelievable: No Bill Nye, a Big Cosmos Isn’t a Problem for Religion

Michael Newton Keas
January 16, 2019
On this episode of ID the Future host Andrew McDiarmid continues his series with science historian Michael Keas about Mike’s new work from ISI Books, Unbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion. Here they focus on the myth that a vast cosmos renders humanity insignificant, and in the process, discredits the Judeo-Christian worldview. As Keas notes, science popularizer Bill Nye recently dusted off this old saw, but the Old Testament itself, in the Psalms, depicts man and the earth as tiny in compared to a vast universe. Keas also discusses C.S. Lewis’s take on the matter. Lewis pointed out that atheists have argued that a universe where earth is the lone habitable planet argues against God. And they have argued that a universe filled with many habitable …

Unbelievable

7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion
Michael Newton Keas
January 7, 2019
Scientists love to tell stories about the quest to understand the universe — stories that often have profound implications for belief or disbelief in God. These accounts make their way into science textbooks and popular culture. But more often than not, the stories are nothing but myths. Unbelievable explodes seven of the most popular and pernicious myths about science and religion. Michael Newton Keas, a historian of science, lays out the facts to show how far the conventional wisdom departs from reality. He also shows how these myths have proliferated over the past four centuries and exert so much influence today. The seven myths, Keas shows, amount to little more than religion bashing — and especially Christianity bashing. Unbelievable reveals: Why the vastness of …

J. P. Moreland: This Moral Knowledge a Surer Bet than the Electron

Michael Newton Keas
December 10, 2018
On this episode of ID the Future, Biola philosopher J. P. Moreland concludes a four-part series with host Mike Keas on scientism (not to be confused with objective scientific investigation). Moreland calls scientism “the single most destructive idea on the stage of life today. … It’s evil and it’s everywhere.” Strong words! But he isn’t without hope. Moreland explains how moral knowledge can be stronger, more secure, than even much scientific knowledge, and far more secure than the self-defeating materialist ideology that is scientism. He’s distilling arguments from his new book Scientism and Secularism: Learning to Respond to a Dangerous Ideology. …

Out in November, New Book Debunks Myths of Science Versus Religion

Unbelievable: Debunking science and faith myths with Historian Mike Keas
Michael Newton Keas
August 30, 2018
Praising science as way to implicitly, or explicitly, club religion over the head is a familiar feature of our culture. It’s not new, either. Mike Keas examines the phenomenon in a forthcoming book, out in November, Unbelievable: Seven Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion. Rob Crowther chatted with Dr. Keas, a Discovery Institute Senior Fellow, at the recent Insiders Briefing down in Tacoma, a yearly event sponsored by the Center for Science & Culture. This way of pitting science against religion, through eagerly disseminated myths about history, is a subject that has cried out for documentation and analysis. You often get the sense that people who do it care a lot less about science per se than they do about sticking it to Christians and Christianity, in …

DNA as Clue: How Intelligence Detects Information, and Creates It

Michael Newton Keas
June 20, 2018
On this episode of ID the Future, attorney and engineer Eric Anderson continues his discussion hosted by Mike Keas on what it means that there’s information in DNA, and how this distinguishes it from most other physical objects. He talks about what intelligence really is and does — and why we know it’s involved in creating the unique information in DNA. And he recommends an answer we can give to those who “dig their heels in” and disagree on what information is about. Please consider donating to support the IDTF Podcast. …