Shows
The Green Dragon PodcastWhat Wasn't Redacted - Dr. Paul Giesting | The GDP | Ep. 119It was a pleasure to have Dr. Giesting join us again on the 'cast. We were chatting about his new position at a company, but unfortunately we can't share information about his work or projects. So, our chat covers a wide selection of other topics that we think you'll enjoy learning about. Resources: Dr. Giesting's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-giesting-4845825/ Green Dragon MediaWebsite: https://lifelineusa.store/gdmFollow on Instagram, Tik Tok, and X @greendragonpod LifeLineUSA2025-04-081h 49
The Green Dragon PodcastNukes, Clicks, and Water Balloons - Ft. Dr. Paul Giesting | The GDP | Ep. 80We welcome Dr. Giesting back for another episode on the Green Dragon! We go everywhere with this episode. From talking about the difference between fusion and fission nuclear power, to the warring tribes in China that were called clicks, to water balloons–you’re going to find this conversation very fun to listen to!
Resources:
Oswald Ripening: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostwald_ripening
The Network State: https://thenetworkstate.com/
Dr. Giesting’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-giesting-4845825/
Green Dragon Channels:
Sp...2024-08-031h 57
That's So Second MillenniumEp 147 - Daniel Shields on Nature and Nature’s GodPaul felt it was important to put Daniel's book title in the episode title, but Bill's suggested title is too good not to place somewhere:
TSSM: NEW BOOK EXPLORES MEANING IN MOTION
In this new episode of the “That’s So Second Millennium” podcast, your host Paul Giesting, assistant professor of mathematics and sciences at Wyoming Catholic College, interviews his faculty colleague, Dr. Daniel Shields, assistant professor of philosophy. Shields’s book, Nature and Nature’s God: A Philosophical and Scientific Defense of Aquinas’s Unmoved Mover Argument, has just been released by Catholic University of America Pres...2023-06-301h 02That's So Second MillenniumEp 146 - TSSM Takes a BreakThe co-hosts announce that the TSSM podcast, now posting our 146th episode, will begin a hiatus, but all programs and show notes will continue to be archived and accessible.
This episode allows Dr. Paul Giesting and Bill Schmitt to look back on their four-and-a-half years of interviews and discussions seeking a greater synthesis of knowledge: an exploration of science and religion, philosophy and spirituality, neuroscience and quantum physics, policies and principles, history and the future, to better understand ourselves and the values and virtues in our lives. Our curiosity and concerns are grounded in our experiences as cradle Catholics, a...2022-11-2240 minThat's So Second MillenniumEp 145 - Faith Journeys That Make a World of Difference: Paul Seungoh ChungPaul and Bill welcomed Paul Seungoh Chung to discuss how people can converse constructively about God despite their different backgrounds and different faith journeys. Dr. Chung, who has taught Christianity and science courses at the University of Toronto, is the author of God at the Crossroads of Worldviews: Toward a Different Debate about the Existence of God (University of Notre Dame Press, 2016).
He also produces a podcast, “What Do You Mean God Speaks?”—a presentation of his ongoing research and reflection for a second manuscript. His compelling comments, citing Bible stories and other resources, aim to follow up on the book’s...2022-10-181h 11That's So Second MillenniumEp 144 - Matthew & Chantal of 5th Place on Emotional FitnessThis month's episode focuses on the psychology of emotions and the need to respect them. On the one hand we do not want to be controlled by negative emotions, but on the other, we cannot simply will them away. Further, we need positive emotions in order to live rich and loving lives; we cannot simply force our way forward forever.
Not respecting our emotions leads them to hijack us in many ways. A notable example is compulsive behavior or obsessions. The extreme versions of these we call addictions.
Matthew and Chantal developed their emotional fitness...2022-09-2349 minThat's So Second MillenniumEp 143 - Scott Gazzoli and Spirit over ShowFor August Paul interviewed Scott Gazzoli of the Causing the Effect podcast. He's a wealth manager in Brooklyn who has been through a long and harsh spiritual journey. We touch on fitness and the psychology of achievement and spend the most time talking about the deceptiveness of material goals--money, sex, physical pleasure--how spiritually and psychologically they turn out to be deceptive and destructive.
Be sure to check out:
Scott: Causing the Effect Podcast, on YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram
Our interview
Scott's recommended read, Mindfulness in Plain English
2022-08-3039 minThat's So Second MillenniumEp 142 - Matt Swaim: Symbols and Substance, in Faith and Online
Matt Swaim is the co-host of the Son Rise Morning Show, heard Monday through Friday 6-8 am on hundreds of stations in the nationwide EWTN Catholic radio network. He is also the outreach manager for the Coming Home Network, an apostolate that helps non-Catholic Christians who desire to learn more about, and consider entrance into, the Catholic Church. He co-hosts a podcast, “On the Journey,” for that organization.
Paul and Bill talked with Matt largely about the challenges in understanding, and then catechizing and evangelizing about, the Real Presence of Christ’s body and blood, soul and divini...2022-08-011h 18That's So Second MillenniumEp 141 - Louis Albarran and the Faith of Real PeoplePaul and Bill spoke with Louis Albarran, associate professor of theology at Holy Cross College in Notre Dame, IN. Albarran holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Dayton, and he specializes in the connection of religion, culture, and the physicality of devotional practices, with a focus on the Latino Catholic culture.
Albarran spoke of the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe, as told by the Aztec people in their own language. The name of this narrative is Nican Mopohua.
Albarran spoke of the Dayton school of thought regarding the meaning of Catholic devotions for cu...2022-06-3055 minThat's So Second MillenniumBonus - Society of Catholic Scientists 2022Quick hit running down the SCS Conference for 2022 at Mundelein Seminary outside Chicago. The conference theme was the environment.
Info on the conference
SCS YouTube channel with videos of talks
Link to the slides for Paul's talk on uranium and nuclear power
2022-06-0604 minThat's So Second MillenniumEp 140 - Chris Bell – Views from a Pro-Life LifetimeChristopher Bell, president and executive director of Good Counsel Homes, is “on the frontline of the pro-life movement,” as The Catholic World Report wrote in a 2021 profile. Chris and TSSM co-host Bill Schmitt have been friends since their college years, when they were both studying journalism. Co-host Paul Giesting joined the two native Long Islanders for a discussion of Catholic values in the abortion debate shortly after the leak of a draft US Supreme Court decision which pointed toward a Court decision overruling Roe v Wade.
In 1985, Bell co-founded Good Counsel with Father Benedict Groeschel, who was a much-loved voice in C...2022-06-011h 01That's So Second MillenniumEp 139 - Pondering Big Issues Powered by Uranium
In this episode, Paul and Bill situate themselves geographically, updating each other on their latest activities and changes in locale. Paul is on a medical mission to Billings, Montana, at the moment. Bill has moved from South Bend, where he was an adjunct professor at Holy Cross College, to Troy, NY, the hometown of his wife.
Uranium mining is on Paul’s mind during his brief departure from Wyoming Catholic College in the small town of Lander. As a PhD geologist, Paul will make a presentation on the modern-day considerations of uranium mining and nuclear power at th...2022-05-011h 06That's So Second MillenniumEp 138 - Darcia Narvaez, Insights About Humanity for a Suffering World
Darcia Narvaez, who holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Minnesota, is a prolific public intellectual who uses many tools of multimedia communication to do research and to address needs of everyday people. Her work enhances and taps deeply rooted wisdom about human nature so that it can be applied in everday tasks, such as parenting.
She is a Professor of Psychology Emerita at the University of Notre Dame. Links to much of her work can be found at her personal website, as well as her Notre Dame faculty site.
A capstone of Prof. Narvaez’s i...2022-03-2836 minThat's So Second MillenniumEp 137 - Francis Bacon and the New OrganonAs the emcee noted at a concert here in Lander, a Musical History Tour, the Renaissance--the period when Europe revived its intellectual life by re-evaluating the writings of the Hellenistic past--ends around the year 1600, give or take. By that time, the focus had shifted toward going beyond the ancients instead of merely revisiting their achievements. This shift in focus happened on a different schedule in different fields, to be certain. Music may have been well ahead of the ancients already in the high medieval period. The Scholastics, and indeed their Arabian predecessors, while firmly rooted in Aristotle and the...2022-02-2841 minThat's So Second MillenniumEp 136 - Deacon Harold: Life Rich in Reality, Reality Rich in LifeDeacon Harold Burke-Sivers (deaconharold.com) is a Catholic deacon and public speaker. Bill and I had the privilege of interviewing him earlier this month.
Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers is one of the most incisive and authentic Catholic speakers and authors who have arisen to serve the New Evangelization, including an outreach to the younger generations who hunger to combine secular reality and meaningful Church values.
Paul and Bill know Deacon Harold through our connections to the University of Notre Dame. But the Deacon’s reputation has spread internationally; as a scholar and a presenter nicknamed “the Dyna...2022-02-0145 minThat's So Second MillenniumEp 135 - A Visit to the Universe of Fr. Robert Spitzer, SJPaul and Bill were privileged to talk with Father Robert Spitzer, SJ, the founding director of the Magis Center in Orange County, California.
Father Spitzer’s biography includes service as the president of Gonzaga University and the authorship of numerous books about various aspects of theology, philosophy, spirituality, apologetics, happiness and the meaning of life, and much more.
He has produced a huge collection of materials for online use. His main websites are the Magis Center site, com, and PurposefulUniverse.com. In this interview, he describes the sites and how our listeners can select and use materials that may be pa...2021-12-2053 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 133 - Cybersecurity Education as a Vocation with Matthew CloudPaul and Bill discussed computer education and cyber-security with Matthew Cloud, professor of the practice in the computer science program at Holy Cross College in Notre Dame, IN.
Cloud has extensive experience in education, not only through classroom teaching at schools including Indiana’s Ivy Tech network of community colleges, but also through project management, curriculum development, and strategic collaborations with other a range of colleges and universities. Cloud holds a bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M University and a master’s degree in biomedical engineering granted jointly by the University of Texas and the UT Southwestern Medical Center.
He is...2021-10-0652 minThat's So Second MillenniumEp 132 – The Long Road to Mathematical PhysicsA solo episode from Paul today inspired by the content of Wyoming Catholic College’s Deductive Reasoning in Science course (SCI 301).
Greek arithmetic and the Pythagoreans
The crisis of incommensurables (irrational numbers)
The triumph of geometry over arithmetic
Emphasis on axiomatic systems and proofs: Euclid
Archimedes: physics within the Euclidean paradigm
Aristotle and the medieval: qualitative and categorical accounts of motion
The long reach of ancient methods and paradigms
Galileo and his big ideas, shaky proofs, and tedious Euclidean methodology
16th century algebra and the need for negative numbers to simplify the cubic equation
Galileo’s multiple cases of p...2021-09-1327 minThat's So Second MillenniumEp 131 - Jordan Wales and the Moral Theology of AIJordan Wales, PhD, who teaches theology at Hillsdale College in Michigan, spoke with Paul and Bill about his research at the intersection of robotics and religion.
He discussed a compelling concern in the future relationship between human beings and technology. In particular, the concern, about which he spoke at the 2021 conference of the Society of Catholic Scientists, dealt with the interaction between individuals and the entities Wales calls “apparently personal artificial intelligence” (APAI).
APAI products are already becoming commonplace in the world of commerce, as this BBC article discusses. People will be increasingly able to purchase, and interact with, virtual frie...2021-08-2350 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 130 - Natasha Toghramadjian’s Research into Earth-Shaking ImpactsWelcome to this 130th episode of our podcast. Here’s a lively conversation between two geoscientists—testifying to the opportunities for Society of Catholic Scientists (SCS) members to enjoy discussions which are at once elevated by their personal values and grounded in their diverse, expert explorations of God’s creation.
Paul spoke with Natasha Toghramadjian, a Ph.D. student in geophysics—and seismology in particular—at Harvard University. She performs wide-ranging research on earthquake dynamics and risks in California and around the world. She spent a year in Armenia on a US Fulbright research grant to design a study on future ear...2021-08-1035 minThat's So Second MillenniumBonus Episode July 2021Paul gives an update on his move to Wyoming to take a faculty position at Wyoming Catholic College. We are looking forward to bringing you more Society of Catholic Scientists conference speaker interviews in August.
2021-07-2616 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 129 - Economics of Higher Purpose with Anjan ThakorAn intriguing interview with a business school professor from Paul's alma mater, Anjan Thakor of the Washington University in St. Louis Olin Business School. The point of departure for this episode is Prof. Thakor's book of the same title written with Dr. Bob Quinn, and the book was launched as an analysis of why Dr. Quinn left a prestigious faculty position at the University of Michigan to go start a church in Australia.
The book and our interview discuss what seems as if it should be common sense: people perform better when they believe what they're doing...2021-07-1246 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 128 - Radio Astronomer Signals Wonderment of ET LifePaul and Bill interviewed Timothy Dolch, Ph.D., assistant professor of physics at Hillsdale College. Dr. Dolch is a member of the Society of Catholic Scientists, and he spoke in June at the Society’s 2021 conference, titled, “Extraterrestrials, AI, and Minds Beyond the Human.”
His talk, “The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: An Overview,” offered his perspectives as an astrophysicist with expertise in radio astronomy. The talk, alongside others from the conference’s Saturday session, can be viewed here.
Here are some links to terms used during the conversation. What is a parsec? What are the transient luminous events known as red sprites...2021-06-281h 14That's So Second MillenniumEpisode 127 - SCS Meeting 2021Paul and Bill provide an on the scene review of the Society of Catholic Scientists Conference 2021 at the Washington, D.C. Hilton. The themes were Extraterrestrial Life, Artificial Intelligence, and Minds beyond the Human.
As an added service, here are some links provided by the after dinner speaker, Jennifer Wiseman, to works and groups dedicated to faith - science dialogue:
Book: "The Book of the Cosmos: Imagining the Universe from Heraclitus to
Hawking" (Editor Prof. Dennis Danielson, UBC; Perseus, 2000)
Book: "The Language of God", by Francis Collins (Director of the U.S...2021-06-0814 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 126 - Society of Catholic Sciences Preview with Stephen BarrPaul and Bill welcomed Stephen Barr, Ph.D., president of the Society of Catholic Scientists (SCS), for a return visit to TSSM. Dr. Barr, a theoretical particle physicist, is emeritus professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Delaware. We talked with him about the Society of Catholic Scientists and the organization’s fourth annual conference, scheduled June 4-6, 2021, in Washington, DC.
The growing membership of SCS now totals about 1,500 in multiple countries. The organization was founded in 2016 by Dr. Barr and five other scientists. Barr, author of Modern Physics and Ancient Faith, described the upcoming co...2021-05-311h 10That's So Second MillenniumEpisode 125 - Chris Baglow and Jay Martin (rerun, full episode)Paul and Bill are proud to present this encore episode featuring the Science and Religion Initiative featuring the Science & Religion Initiative program conducted by the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame. In 2019, we interviewed Chris Baglow, Ph.D., director of the program, which equips Catholic high school educators with big-picture insights and detailed tools to communicate effectively regarding the complementarity of faith and reason, science and religion.
We spoke with Prof. Baglow about topics covered in his recently published book, the second edition of Faith, Science, & Reason. He will be keynote speaker at the 2021 conference...2021-05-1258 min
Ave ExploresRecognizing How Small We Are with Paul GiestingGeologist Paul Giesting discusses how working as an environmental regulator has helped him to contemplate mankind's tiny place in the colossal universe. Giesting says studying the planet through its geology has expanded his faith and given him a deeper appreciation of God's power.Links:Follow Ave Maria Press on InstagramCheck out Paul Giesting's Podcast2021-04-3035 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 124 - Geology of the Holy LandPaul and Bill discuss the basic geological features of the Holy Land, like its geomorphology and tectonics, or translated into lay terms, the reasons why its landscape takes the form that it does and why it suffers a lot of earthquakes. Paul discusses the need for a book bringing together the best geologists and the best textual experts to collaborate and discuss the possible relationships between the texts of the Old Testament and other ancient Near Eastern writings and the geologic record of the Holocene. If that book already exists, let us know in the comments!
2021-04-2627 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 123 - Jean-Pierre Isbouts Brings Us Down to Earth with Jesus of NazarethBill and I are excited to bring you an episode about the archeology and secular history of the time when Jesus was born, grew up, and preached. Fuller notes to come on our episode with Dr. Jean-Pierre Isbouts, author of In the Footsteps of Jesus.
Jean-Pierre Isbouts, Ph.D., is a best-selling author, historian, and filmmaker who has invested decades of work in to understand and explain the Biblical foundations of Christian faith from an interdisciplinary perspective. His career as a humanities scholar began with his doctoral degree from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. He is...2021-04-1235 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 122 - Original Sin and Mental UnhealthPaul and Bill discuss some of the ways in which human minds go wrong. Paul wonders aloud whether the state of spiritual disconnection called "original sin" is specifically manifested in the ways parents relate, or don't relate, to children and the problems that follow from that for the rest of our lives. We discuss Henri Nouwen (a little) and Eckhart Tolle (a little more) and his ideas on how enlightenment has cropped up here and there throughout history but gets suffocated by social conformism.
Paul and Bill discussed a number of resources for pondering the nature of sin...2021-03-2243 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 121 - Megan Levis, full interview (rerun)Life is pretty intense for Paul these days. We present this interview with Megan Levis from the 2019 Society of Catholic Scientists archives, every bit as relevant now as it was then. It was originally presented as two episodes.
Megan Levis is a fifth-year graduate student in bioengineering at the University of Notre Dame. The topic of her talk at the annual conference of the Society of Catholic Scientists was “Created in the Image and Likeness of Man.” She described the University’s bioengineering program.
Growing what can be deemed the beginnings of a human brain, for purposes of resear...2021-03-0853 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 120 - Wyoming Catholic CollegeThis episode had to be rushed in due to Paul's travel schedule. He got to visit a location peculiarly dear to his heart, Lander, Wyoming, and give a talk at Wyoming Catholic College. It's just Paul's cut of the raw audio, bonus-episode style, since we had to record it Sunday afternoon. Paul and Bill discuss the visit and the substance of his field exercise, including how the ideas of our friend Nicolaus Steno and the 18th century James Hutton play out in a live outdoor setting: Derby Dome in the Wind River Basin, or as it is most often...2021-02-2226 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 119 - Evolution in Christianity and Geology (rerun)A rerun of Episode 6.
Do not blame Morgan for the sound quality of this episode! All complaints should be directed to Paul at the email link at https://www.thatssosecondmillennium.net.
Bill and I hope to be back in action soon.
2021-02-0837 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 118 - "I Know What You're Thinking"Paul and Bill talk here about a mix of psychology and societal dilemmas in light of Catholic values.
Twelve-step programs have experience with an interpersonal phenomenon often called “taking someone else’s inventory,” Paul points out. This entails one individual assessing another through a facile psychological analysis of supposed characteristics underlying comments made or behavior shown; it can be prone toward unfortunate intimations of contempt, based on emotional reaction. This has gotten worse in these days of snap judgments which assume the worst, not the best, about complex people in complex situations.
Often, people fail to make a distinction between the ac...2021-01-2735 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 116 - Paying Attention or Paying a PriceIn this last episode of 2020, Bill and I discuss how attention, focus, and distraction are shaping us and being engineered in our media-saturated culture. We can't pay attention to everything, and in this environment, it seems that censorship is becoming a politically acceptable option for tech companies, as the Trump election corruption allegations became forbidden topics on many platforms.
Co-hosts Paul and Bill agreed that the film—and Broadway play—called “Network” shows foresight in its reflections about human dignity and corporate values in competition on an individual and global scale.
Pope Damasus changed the dominant language of the (Rom...2020-12-281h 00That's So Second MillenniumEpisode 114 - Aida Ramos and A Church Where Economics Counts—For People
Paul and Bill spoke with Aida Ramos, Ph.D., an associate professor of economics at the University of Dallas. Prof. Ramos’ research and teaching at that private Catholic university include topics in economic development and Catholic Social Thought and their implications for public policy. She is the author of a book (Shifting Capital: Mercantilism and the Economics of the Act of Union of 1707 ) in the “Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thought” series.
The Vatican’s first direct foray into issues of justice in economics and the relationship of capital and labor came from Pope Leo XIII in...2020-11-2330 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 113 - US Election 2020Your TSSM coverage of the 2020 US election with the unique perspective Bill and Paul provide. Be sure to let us know your ideas for the presidential hopeful cage match reality show that we clearly need to augment or replace the primary election system here in the 21st century... hit us up with your proposed names and formats using the links to the right. As always, God bless America (all of it, not just the US...).
2020-11-0956 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 112 – A Happy Medium: By What Means?
Paul and Bill focused on the 2020 elections as a point of tragically little focus in discourse or reasoning—but a good starting point for wide-ranging conversation about humanity’s desperate search for balance, hope, and sustainability in our hearts and minds. The desire for a higher wisdom—a happy medium, a golden mean—has always been complicated by our focus on ourselves and our temptation to believe that we know best, the co-hosts pointed out. Bill pointed out that “fake news” was said to have made its first appearance in the Garden of Eden, courtesy of the serpent; that comment was...2020-10-2843 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 111 - A Catholic Teacher – Dear Old Golden Rule DaysBrad Stalcup joins Paul and Bill in this episode to talk about his recent entry into the world of Catholic education. He began teaching religion to high school freshmen and sophomores in this fall semester of 2020—a time that Paul describes as a “baptism of fire” because of Covid-19 and today’s unusual circumstances overall.
The vast majority of the approximately 120 students in Brad’s various classes is learning in-person, but there are several who are “live-streamers,” participating in the courses through distance-learning. The school is located in the region around Cleveland, OH.
It’s a labor of love, not overwhelming, and...2020-10-1229 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 110 - To Solve Big Problems: Let’s Get Small!
In this episode, Paul and Bill are back together for a conversation that catches up on past episodes which pondered big problems in science, government, the economy, personal well-being, and more. The pondering focused on solutions as matters of step-by-step processes, but as our conversation starts, we’re feeling a bit overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems, their quantity and complexity. Society relies more and more on government, which has proven it does not perform long-term planning very well. And it doesn’t really have the needed resources and insights it claims to have.
Ultimately, the solu...2020-09-2950 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 109 - Psychology & Spirituality of CrisisA solo episode from Paul. These are the notes I used... the audio is balanced differently.
Insight by Bernard Lonergan and 20/20 hindsight.
What else (besides the coronavirus and similar epidemics) are we not preparing for? Can we? We can't know all the unknowns, and it is somewhere between difficult and impossible to quantify the risks even for the things we can anticipate. Yet quantification is reasonable and laudable because individual lives do matter... the 1,000,001st victim of a tragedy just as much as the first.
Problem areas:
Education and the bureaucratic...2020-09-1432 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 108 - Masks, Science, Novelty, and Conservatismor Paving Paradise and the Parking Lots
Bill and Paul discuss attitudes toward masks, and then consider why the science wasn't more settled on the subject long before Covid-19. We discuss the obsession of modern society with all things novel and consider how this plays out in science, politics, and our individual lives and families.
1. A discussion of masks as defenses against the pandemic led Paul and Bill to ponder how scientific knowledge about the functionality of these masks for the common good is not always viewed as a fundamental, enduring value. In our media, the...2020-08-2527 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 106 - Beyond Heisenberg, the Principal Uncertainty...or as Paul wanted to put it, "Lies, D--d lies, and p-values."
This episode contains a conversation between Paul and Bill in which you’ll learn new things about their experience in particular fields—geology and journalism, respectively—and where their zeal to harvest and connect information bumps up against troublesome uncertainty. You’re accustomed to hearing us as podcast co-hosts, sharing our opinions and our interviews with experts to explore insights at the intersection of science, everyday human experience, and the values of theology and philosophy. We welcome an audience that, like us, hungers to understand the details t...2020-07-2742 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 105 – Dick Garrett: The Kids Are Smart EnoughPaul and Bill welcomed Dick Garrett to our podcast. Find an overview of his distinguished career in this story about Dick’s zeal for researching and promoting education reform. (The story was written for Purdue’s College of Engineering by Bill last year.)
Dick’s book, The Kids Are Smart Enough, So What’s the Problem?, traces his growing concerns about problems in public elementary education. Those concerns led to extensive research from a business executive’s perspective, applying systems analysis skills from his background in engineering. Our interview probed not only the findings from that research, but even more current kn...2020-07-1325 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 104 - Scraping Facts Online: If You Can’t Beat ’Em, DatumAt the time of this taping, Paul was in the middle of the Metis “bootcamp” program learning the capabilities, tools, and insights of data science. This conversation ranged widely in the realm of data analysis and management, examining its relevance to Paul’s field of geology but also exploring the world’s immersion in what Bill would call a data ecology: It seems every datum is connected, or connectable, to every other datum That word is the original singular form of the plural word “data.”
The growing plethora of data has to be tracked and organized, even though today’s computer hardw...2020-06-2232 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 102 - Diverse Isolation Stories Could Bring Us TogetherPaul and Bill discussed autism—a subject that arose in Paul’s discussion with Pat Flynn in his own podcast.
John Ratey, popular psychologist, talks about how our sensory apparatus affects how we function in everyday life.
Paul’s comments on the subject of autism connect candidly with recollections from his early life.
Hilaire Belloc, a legendary British author of the early 20th century who wrote on many topics, famously was a friend and Catholic “fellow traveler” with G.K. Chesterton.
“Never waste a good crisis.” Bill says crises in our polity and soc...2020-05-2524 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 101 - Pandemics as a Science Problem; Skepticism in a Diseased WorldPart 2 of a three part conversation between Paul and Bill, where the main themes are skepticism, Catholic education, the mysterious absence of the Spanish Flu from our historical consciousness prior to 2020, and the philosophical conundrums of materialism, transgenderism, and scientism.
Paul and Bill continued their conversation about skepticism toward science and religion. They touched on several examples of science failing to show that it “knows everything” or gets everything right. There must be a constant push for additional inquiry and knowledge. Bill said the teaching of religion in K-12 Catholic schools needs to express the hunger to learn more...2020-05-1128 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 100 - Hemispheres Playing GodIn this episode we begin with an unscheduled excursion into the realm of the neurobiology of the two hemispheres of the brain and the psychology of reparenting (with nods to our past conversations with Darcia Narvaez, and about codependency and Twelve Step work).
We discussed the questions related to whether psychology based on a right-brain/left-brain dichotomy provides meaningful tools to increase self-understanding. Paul described his experience with opposite-hand-writing for self-discovery. One interpretation of this kind of experience—a reference for which this writer can provide no validated recommendation or criticism—was found here as an example of the approach, than...2020-04-2721 min
The Pat Flynn ShowBONUS: Dr. Paul Giesting on the Interplay of Science, Philosophy, and ReligionDr. Paul Giesting joins the Pat Flynn show to share his experience as a professional scientist (geology) and devout religious person and the deep compatibility between the two. Also, Pat and Paul explore the intersection between science and philosophy. This was a very fun conversation! ... The Pat Flynn Show If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world to me if you could subscribe to, and leave a review for, The Pat Flynn show on iTunes HERE or Stitcher HERE. Reading your reviews and hearing your feedback is what keeps me...2020-04-111h 26That's So Second MillenniumEpisode 098 - Uncertainty Principles, Principled Uncertainty, and Science in Times of CatastropheIn this episode, Bill and Paul discuss the coronavirus, economics and risk, and the L'Aquila earthquake trial.
Paul and Bill continued a discussion that began in the previous episode. They allowed the sense of gravitas they felt in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic to push them along a path through many uncertainties—where it’s tempting to rely on one’s GPS guidance system and, if possible, an autonomous (self-driving) vehicle. But should human beings relieve themselves of all responsibilities for self-guidance, and if not, how should they accept and address those responsibilities?
Underlying this discussion was the pe...2020-03-3034 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 097 - Social Distancing and Loners in the American PsycheBill and Paul discuss the topic on everyone's mind, the coronavirus and social distancing, through the lens of social polarization and isolation that already so characterized American, Western, and modern society in general.
One should not assume that “social distancing” breaks connections. Paul and Bill got together to talk about the subject and found that it connects to many other things, at least as an intellectual exercise. But also with many emotional, spiritual and sociological implications.
Bill said that, upon first hearing about “social distancing,” he instinctively connected it to a phenomenon he ponders and writes about a lot—the...2020-03-2332 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 096 - How a Strong Nest Can Lift Society Higher, with Darcia NarvaezWe welcome Darcia Narvaez, Ph.D., to the microphone. She is a professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame, specializing in developmental cognition, the human brain, and behavior.
She has authored or edited numerous books, including Indigenous Sustainable Wisdom: First Nation Know-how for Global Flourishing (2019); Basic needs, wellbeing and morality: Fulfilling human potential (2018); and Developing the virtues: Integrating perspectives (2016).
A cornerstone of her research, Neurobiology and the development of human morality: Evolution, culture and wisdom (2014), received the Expanded Reason Award from University Francisco de Vitoria and the Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation. The award recognizes innovation in scie...2020-03-0938 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 095 - Bridges Built by Song, with musician Micki MillerWhere can the search for connections between faith and science (that is, between the deeper sense of meaning in life we all crave and the tangible experiences that our five senses tell us are “real”) take us? Our podcast series today receives inspirational guidance from community-builder and up-and-coming recording artist Micki Miller. She helped us explore one universe of answers where no TSSM episode has gone before. That’s the realm of music.
Micki Miller, born to pastors in South Bend, Indiana, writes, sings, and produces R&B and soul music that touches people’s hearts. You might say her work, wh...2020-02-2414 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 093 - The Great Divorce between Philosophy and ScienceBill and Paul are both losing their minds with stress this week, so we're glad to just get the episode out. It takes in a bit of philosophy and Paul manages to use some illustrative points from the history of geometry and geology if that's your thing.
I didn't get her credited in the outro, but Morgan Burkart produced the audio for this episode. Like her style? Let us know in a review and look her up at Ball State University.
2020-01-2736 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 092 - Scientists and Religion with Dr. Tom RybaDr. Thomas Ryba is a senior lecturer and adjunct professor teaching philosophy and religious studies at the School of Interdisciplinary Studies in Purdue University’s College of Arts. He also holds the title of Notre Dame Theologian-in-Residence for the Aquinas Educational Foundation, offering instruction and guidance on staff at the Saint Thomas Aquinas Catholic Center at Purdue.
Ryba kindly adjusted his schedule to meet with Paul and Bill in December 2019 for an interview about themes central to his 30 years of teaching in service to students and faculty and his enduring interest in the connections between the learning of science and re...2020-01-1333 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 090 - Deacons and CommunicationIn this episode, Bill and Paul discuss the role of deacons and others filling the role of "elder" in the Catholic Church, and the need for parishes to work hard at learning how to communicate with each other in this new technologically mediated cultural world. Bill mentions new work by the McGrath Institute to help parishes with this task.
Photo: a deacon wearing a dalmatic, from Test Everything.
2019-12-1612 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 089 - What Could We Do?Paul, still missing his Watson Bill, opens up a discussion about questions of economics and political science, ranging from rural U.S. parishes to the geopolitics of an ideal future.
This podcast's title and logo were inspired by the "What Should I Do?" discernment retreat put on by the Indy Catholic young adult ministry this past weekend.
2019-12-0919 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 088 - The End of the World (As We Know It)For my money, it's harder to believe in the Christian Last Things of life after death, judgment, and the end of the world than it is to believe in the "First Things" of creation and providence. The prophetic and apocalyptic literature of the Bible predict, or seem to predict amid very strange language, some very difficult things to square with our expectations both for the physical universe and for human technology:
- What could this "new heavens and a new earth" possibly be?
- How could Jesus appear in the heavens at the end of time...2019-12-0217 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 087 - Fr. Robert Spitzer and Intellectual Culture (rerun)Unfortunately, this week Paul got deathly ill and that prevented us from recording the promised "end of the world" episode. Here instead is a re-edited version of Bill's interview with Fr. Robert Spitzer from August 2018 (originally run as Episode 20). One of our earliest interviews and still, amid all the great guests who have given time to this little podcast, one of the best.
2019-11-2636 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 086 - Indianapolis Gold MassToday's episode is a rundown of the Indianapolis Gold Mass, followed by a short selection of readings from Scripture and a bit about Albert the Great specifically, with a scrap of meditation on the vocation of a scientist.
Gold Masses for those in the natural sciences were celebrated in a dozen cities on Nov. 15, the feast day of St. Albert the Great, who is the patron saint of natural scientists. One of those Masses, as described by TSSM co-host Dr. Paul Giesting, took place in Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.
The Society of...2019-11-1825 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 085 - Albert the Great, the Medieval Synthesis, and a Faith That WorksToday's episode is getting recorded in a tight slot on Sunday night. Bill is out of town at a workshop on self-publishing and Paul has spent an awful lot of time over the last three days peering into the engine bay of a 1987 Jeep Wrangler and screwing and unscrewing things.
Robert Barron and Brandon Vogt pulled excerpts from the Joe Rogen - Dawkins interview and spent two weeks rebutting them. That's one point of departure for today's episode. The other, of course, is that the feast of Albert the Great is this coming Friday, meaning Gold Mass season is at...2019-11-1122 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 084 - Gold Masses, Politics As Religion, Jordan PetersonThis week Bill prods Paul along as he recovers from a massive proposal hangover. This week's episode is the end of a much longer conversation that may or may not otherwise remain on the cutting room floor about Jordan Peterson and other topics as far afield as Homestar Runner.
We run down the list of Gold Masses that have been publicly announced to take place this coming month--featuring such highlights as a Mass celebrated by the Bishop of Bismarck, ND and a talk at Benedictine University in Lisle, IL on "The Mystery of Faith: from the Gold Mass to Gravity...2019-11-0424 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 079 - Conversion and Witness with Jonathan LunineDr. Jonathan Lunine is the David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Science and chair of the Department of Astronomy at Cornell University. He is also the vice president and a co-founder of the Society of Catholic Scientists.
Here is information about the Vatican Observatory. It was one of the starting points for Lunine’s exploration of the compatibility between science and the Catholic faith.
He met Stephen Barr in 2014, and this led to their discussions about establishing the Society of Catholic Scientists. Here is a talk given by Barr at the University of Chicago.
Here is a talk by Lu...2019-09-3037 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 078 - Fr. John HollowellFather John Hollowell is a priest of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. He is well-known for his blog, “On This Rock.” His pastoral duties include parish leadership and chaplain roles at DePauw University and the Putnamville Correctional Faciltiy.
Fr. Hollowell spoke with Paul Giesting about the number of priests throughout history who have also been active as scientists. Here is one list of priest-scientists provided by National Catholic Register.
Pope John Paul II created a commission to review the Galileo Affair, and this resulted in documents officially apologizing for the Catholic Church’s historic, and hyperbolized dispute against Galileo’s statements.
Here is...2019-09-2328 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 077Paul here. A short episode this week. We're taking a little time off to celebrate the milestone of releasing our last SCS 2019 conference speaker interview with Megan Levis last week.
The pace of interviews is likely to slow a bit, but we have several that we're looking forward to. Next week we have Fr John Hollowell, an engaging priest, campus minister, prison chaplain, blogger and social media personality here in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. We will be talking to Jonathan Lunine again soon to further explore his fascinating perspective. Bill is in discussions with John Cavadini, theologian...2019-09-1609 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 074 - Karin ObergKarin Öberg is Professor of Astronomy and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Astronomy at Harvard University. Planetary formation—or stars and stellar evolution—is a focus of her research. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Society of Catholic Scientists. See her CV here.
Öberg spoke of her first academic route to astronomy being via chemistry rather than physics. She discovered the field of astrochemistry while an undergraduate at the California Institute of Technology. She earned her PhD in astrophysics at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
She joined the faculty at the University of Vir...2019-08-2629 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 069 - Fr. Lawrence Machia OSB and Daniel vanden Berk, part IIFor background on Fr. Machia and Dr. Vanden Berk and this interview, see the show notes for Episode 68.
In Episode 69, we mentioned approvingly one of the many books about Galileo, who was central to Fr. Machia’s talk at the conference. The book is Galileo’s Daughter. Contrary to a still-commonplace assumption in popular culture and the average person’s understanding of history, Galileo did not see his life as one centered on conflict with the Catholic Church.
People’s instincts to see a huge conflict between science and religion in our own time deserve to be taken seriously. Co-host Paul poi...2019-07-2216 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 067 - Maureen Condic, part III
The conversation involving Dr. Condic, Dr. Giesting and Schmitt turned to the complexities of the nation’s debate about abortion. That debate engages a mix of biological facts (which may or may not be probed in the full context of updated knowledge), personal experiences, and deeply held principles, positions, and emotions including authentic sympathy for the circumstances in which pregnant women find themselves. Although providing scientific insights is a crucial advancement of the debate because people deserve to have comprehensive information, the laying out of certain biological facts alone will not necessarily change minds, Condic said.
In ma...2019-07-0835 minThat's So Second MillenniumBonus - Quick Hits - SCS 2019Paul and Bill do a quick rundown of the highlights of the SCS Conference. Look for our panel discussion and interviews with conference speakers starting tomorrow!
The audio quality is definitely off on this one. Maybe a hardware issue.
2019-06-1014 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 062 - Jonathan Lunine SCS Conference PreviewWe had more insane audio problems on this episode; Paul's audio from Zencastr was unusable. I had to record a new introduction and first question, then splice in our backup recording from Zoom.
Jonathan Lunine is a prominent planetary scientist. He teaches at Cornell and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences; he has won a Urey award and holds a number of other academic distinctions. He worked with the radar and other instruments on the Cassini mission to Saturn and is co-investigator on the Juno mission now in orbit at Jupiter as well as...2019-06-0318 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 061 – Preview of SCS Conference 2019Bill and Paul discuss the upcoming SCS conference at Notre Dame, June 7-9, on “What Does It Mean To Be Human?”
Themes we discussed:
The question of human origins:
from the natural theology perspective… when did consciousness, qualia, free will appear?
From the perspective of Judeo-Christian revelation… how do the origin stories in Genesis compare to contemporary archeology and anthropology?
The question of evolution and its significance in a universe with divine providence.
The question of human modification through bio- and electronic technology.
2019-05-2726 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 058 – Let’s Act Like We’re on the Winning Side (Since We Are)This ended up being an emergency episode Paul recorded solo, since Zencastr ate all but a few minutes at the beginning of each recording. There seem to be serious problems with Zencastr since Paul’s MacBook died and he had to resurrect his Windows laptop.
The Big Bang; cosmology seems to require a beginning, uncaused cause
Problems of mind; intellect / qualia, possibility of free will.
There is no materialist explanation of human intellect, only assertions of dogma and crude shufflings of the feet.
Ongoing occurrence of miracles, Lour...2019-05-0634 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 057 – The Best Thing Out There Apologies for the sound quality today; Zencastr wasn’t working, so we recorded on Zoom, and even then there were problems with the audio especially in the latter half of the podcast.
The question we take up at the beginning of the Easter season is this: Why has Western society gone to such pains to throw away the best thing going, intellectually and otherwise?
In his ongoing podcast research, Paul has come across the Pat Flynn Show, and listened to some really good interviews with Fr. Robert Spitzer (a TSSM interviewee) and Ed Feser (whose talk...2019-04-2919 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 042 - TSSM in 2019, part 2What sense can we make of the ancient and medieval idea that "the soul is the form of the body" in the light of contemporary neuroscience and psychology?
Highlight this idea's differences from Platonic and Cartesian dualism.
History of psychology as a discipline. Psychology has not evolved (a) master paradigm(s) that compel the bulk of the field to adhere to them the way that plate tectonics did for geology, Newtonian classical physics and then quantum and relativity did for physics, etc.
Peace of Soul (Fulton Sheen) remark that psychology has been furtively...2019-01-1454 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 041 - TSSM in 2019Themes we'd like to grapple with in the Year of Our Lord, 2019, and beyond:
Last year was largely about the intellectual challenge leveled by many against religion, and we will continue talking about that as the podcast moves forward.
Paul's mission this year to work through Road to Reality
This year we also want to broaden the scope to include places where religion and faith converge, which means we're going to discuss psychology.
Looking forward to the SCS conference topic for this coming year: what it is, and has b...2019-01-0740 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 035 - Anne Hofmeister Shakes Up Earth ScienceTSSM goes heavy: hard-hitting journalism from one of science's great controversialists, Anne Hofmeister. Intrigued? Disagree? Write me an email (giesting@alumni.nd.edu) or look her up at Washington University in St. Louis' EPS department website.
The times below are keyed to the start of the interview and ignore my opening (just over 2 min).
0:00 Introduction
1:00 Anne's background (sorry, this part Anne was talking so quietly that I can't seem to fix it with Audacity, but bear with us; we moved the microphone and figured some things out and it gets better)
2:00...2018-11-2628 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 033 - Stephen Barr on Lemaitre-Hubble Law and the Society of Catholic ScientistsMinute Comment
0:00 Paul introduces
1:00 Bill: Lemaitre announcement
2:00 Lemaitre: faith & science not opposed
3:00 Barr: Lemaitre announcement
4:00 Ignorance of Lemaitre
5:00 Ignorance of the Christian, Catholic origin of science & famous Catholic scientists
6:00 Barr: late 19th century critical period for the forging of the myth of Church as anti-science
7:00 Science only professionalized in the late 19th century, looking for influence
8:00 More famous Catholic scientists
9:00 Mission of the Society of Catholic Scientists; religious people looking askance at scientists, 10:00 Scientists timid about showing their faith...2018-11-1224 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 032 - Science and SaintsIntro: Nobel Prize announcements
Donna Strickland
Nadia Murad
Segue: Lemaitre press release
Transition: the early 20th century golden age from Chesterton to Fulton Sheen
Theme: All Saints Day
Augustine
Isidore
Albert the Great
Roger Bacon
Nicolaus Steno
Gregor Mendel
Georges Lemaitre
Please leave us feedback here by hitting the "Email Paul" link or using the "Facebook" link and commenting or messaging us there.
Image: Braulio of Saragossa and Isidore of Seville...2018-11-0539 minThat's So Second MillenniumRequest for FeedbackWe hope you've enjoyed the podcast so far, and in particular our last two episodes with Guy Consolmagno.
TSSM has been running for over six months now, and we would love to get your feedback on how to make it better:
What topics or approaches have you liked and want more of?
Whom should we seek out for interviews? We definitely are cooking up our own lists, but you can influence us!
What should we do less of?
What about the audio works or bothers you?
Volume (too low, too high, not consistent enough?)
Quality (noise...2018-10-2901 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 031 - Br. Guy Consolmagno: Teaching Science and Human NaturePaul moves from popular books to Br. Guy's 1990s planetary science textbook, Worlds Apart which Paul switched to in 2015, despite its age, precisely because of Br. Guy's explicit acknowledgment that "students want to learn about THE PLANETS." The chapters of the book therefore start with a saga of some planet, and then focus in on some process that is well exemplified on that planet. Other textbooks try to focus on processes and lose ME, let alone my students, most of whom were headed toward high school teaching.
Br. Guy goes on from the subject of his books...2018-10-2929 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 030 - Br. Guy Consolmagno: Galileo and Carl SaganBr. Guy starts with a brief bio of himself as the meteorite curator and now director of the Vatican Observatory. If you aren't familiar with his life and career, I cannot suggest strongly enough to go find a copy of Brother Astronomer. Paul takes the opportunity to geek out a bit about the VO's collection of Martian meteorites, which includes pieces of varying size of the three flagship members of the three great classes of Martian meteorites: Chassigny, Shergotty, and Nakhla. We discuss the romance and suspense of finding meteorites in the dry deserts.
Paul then poses...2018-10-2228 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 029 - Geological AweFor a change of pace, we discuss emotions and aesthetics and the sense of awe at the scale of the universe and the planet that we inhabit. Paul discusses the "billion year contacts" at his old stomping grounds in the St Francois Mountains of southeast Missouri and the lost world of the earliest visible life in the Burgess Shale. Paul and Bill close with a reflection on how the awe that we feel at comtemplating the enormous scale of space and time of the created world ought to make us better appreciate the audacity of the Christian claim that...2018-10-1529 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 028 - Absolute Geologic DatingIn this episode we continue into the next logical topic, absolute dating, which is done via measurement of radioactive parent and daughter isotopes. Thus we move from the 19th century and classical physics into yet another way in which 20th century physics has revolutionized science.
Paul gives a rundown, with many apologies for the exact data of isotope numbers and half-life lengths he has managed to forget, of the theory of radioactive decay. Bill, our proxy for the man on the street, starts us off with a common notion of half-life. From there we cover s...2018-10-0830 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 027 - Relative Geologic DatingIn this episode Paul lays out in a more systematic way the methods used in geology since the late 18th century to erect the detailed stratigraphic history of the Earth. Lithostratigraphy, which works via Steno's Laws, can be used on all the rocks in any outcrop. Its shortcoming is that it cannot be extended beyond a regional scale, at best--say, the state of Wyoming, or Wales and Corwall, etc. Biostratigraphy, the use of fossils, which includes the selection of specially suitable index fossils, allows correlation of strata across continental, oceanic, and worldwide scales. However, not every rock--not even every...2018-10-0134 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 023 - Clericalism, Sex Abuse, Addiction, and HopeDiscussion notes:
We start to discuss what everyone in the Catholic Church has been discussing for over a month now, which is the new storm of revelations about sexual abuse of children, youths, and seminarians by priests and bishops.
Parallels between modern day and the 17th century. Nicolaus Steno (the subject of our last podcast) lived in a tumultuous time, and many of his contemporary churchmen, Protestant and Catholic both, do not cut an inspiring figure on the stage of history. Steno tried to live a better life, but it's easy to see his heroic...2018-09-0452 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 020 - Bill and Father Spitzer Talk Intellectual Culture and EducationToday was just one of those days where I needed a script to get through a three minute intro. I summarize the interview afterward.
Paul: "Welcome to Episode 20 of That's So Second Millennium.
"I'm Paul Giesting, a geologist, researcher, consultant, writer, and your co-host on this journey through the beautiful frontier country between science, philosophy, and religion as they stand here at the beginning of the third millennium. My opposite number is Bill Schmitt, a journalist, radio personality, and dab hand with the accordion.
"This week Bill managed to snag an interview with...2018-08-1338 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 017 - Aaron Schurger at SCSC: Fifty Years Without Free WillIt's a short one this week. We discuss the talk at the Society of Catholic Scientists Conference by Aaron Schurger with the delightfully provocative title "Fifty Years Without Free Will." (Those of you who are similiarly obsessive about grammar will appreciate my deep feeling of conflict about capitalizing the preposition "without"...one is not supposed to capitalize prepositions, yet it looks awful to have a seven letter word not capitalized. It's not capitalized in my notes, but it was in the program.)
Notes I took during the talk, which for this podcast pretty closely follows the drift...2018-07-2312 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 012 - Society of Catholic ScientistsNot to be confused with the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, although one would understand the mistake.
Bill interviews Paul about his experience and observations at the Society of Catholic Scientists conference that took place June 8-10 at the campus of Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
The SCS is a very young organization. Its first president is Stephen Barr, a physicist at the University of Delaware. Its first conference was in April 2017 in Chicago. The theme of the 2018 conference was "The Human Mind and Physicalism"--physicalism being a somewhat more precisely defined term...2018-06-1831 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 011 - Intellectual Citizenship (part 2)We start off unpacking the climate change example further and provide some additional context from political science and seismology. The point is to use climate change as an object lesson in how to break down a big issue at least a little bit, which is what a good intellectual citizen needs to do.
That still leaves us with a picture of intellectual citizenship as a really, frighteningly large responsibility for all of us to try to bear. We spend some time discussing the other side of the issue: we either live in a universe with no loving...2018-06-1129 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 010 - Intellectual Citizenship (part 1)Bill and Paul dive into a very simple question posed by Bill over email: "Please describe more what is intellectual citizenship?" That of course opens up a question that lurks behind every issue we discuss, and any philosophical or religious question touches upon, which is what we owe the universe, its Creator if it has one, and each other. We can't learn everything about everything, and we must make choices what to spend our time on.
In the political system we inhabit, in the U.S. and other contemporary representative democracies, we choose whom to trust to...2018-06-0431 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 009 – Ways to Think of Science and Religion as ParallelBill’s introductory question: Would there be a quick curriculum in basic philosophical principles, including the philosophy of science, that could discourage people from assuming that science and religion are at incompatibly opposite ends of the spectrum of “how to think about things”?
We discuss the difficulty of canning a “curriculum” or “program” to address anything, let alone a problem as nuanced as this is, before plunging ahead and taking our chances.
Paul argues that there are actually significant parallels between the religious, and specifically Christian, concepts of “mystery” and “dogma” and inescapable aspects of thinking about and doi...2018-05-2836 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 008 - Paradigm Shifts in Science and ReligionResuming the cliffhanger: the breakdown of classical physics
Shift from the classical to the quantum paradigm
Light is in individual packets of energy whose size is keyed to the frequency of the light.
This is the solution to the blackbody problem: the mathematics of emission of quanta of light energy produces the well-behaved curve with a peak at a given color that we see for hot objects, whether the Sun, iron in a forge, or a light bulb filament
It is also the solution to the photoelectric effect: light of high...2018-05-2130 minThat's So Second MillenniumBonus Episode - Science, Scholarship, and University TeachingBill prods Paul into discussing how the mindset of the saying, "Science progresses, funeral by funeral" and its attitude of constantly discarding the past in favor of the new has taken over the academy. It isn't the right mindset for, say, literature, or even for undergraduate teaching, but because of the prestige (and funding) accorded to science research in the modern university, other disciplines have begun to imitate it. Top researchers often do not make the best teachers, either...
2018-05-1707 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 006 - Evolution in Christianity and GeologyWe follow up on last episode's promise to talk a little more about evolution. Evolution literally comes from the Latin "to turn outward" and had a huge meaning cloud. One classic image it might evoke is that of a flower bud opening and the petals turning outward to reveal the whole flower.
This is not an alien concept to religion, and certainly not to Christianity. The moment you take the Christian scriptures as a set of texts written by real people scattered across over a millennium of history, you have to accept that God's revelation has unfolded...2018-05-0735 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 005 - Evolution in Biology, Physics, and FaithBill asks about whether evolution and the randomness it seems to imply are problematic for faith. Paul discusses the difference between evolution in biology (with a succession of species) and physics (where new laws layer on top of old laws without destroying them). We talk about the mindsets of physicists and biologists, and tangle more with that problematic phrase "shades of gray." Bill confronts Paul with Einstein's comment that "God does not play dice," and Paul responds with commentary mostly from Harvey Brown and Steven Barr about the alternative interpretations of quantum theory: hidden variables and determinism, or the...2018-05-0142 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 004 - Complexity, Cosmic Evolution, Change and CertaintyPaul elaborates on how the hylomorphic principle, if anything, fits quantum physics better than it fit the world the medievals knew. Bill asks whether the worldview of people of faith is too rigid, while that of the secular masses is too loose. Paul wonders what "shades of gray" really means, and points out that even though the materialist worldview has become harder and more dogmatic, 20th century physics really exploded its scientific foundation. This epsiode brought to you by Arthur Compton's Freedom of Man and Stephen Barr's Modern Physics and Ancient Faith.
2018-04-2340 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 003 - Metaphysics and the Divorce between Science and PhilosophyBill and Paul talk about whether the old convention of hylomorphism at least initially seems to describe the world of quantum physics, the medieval dispute over plurality of forms, and the degree to which science and philosophy became delinked in the late second millennium.
2018-04-1636 minThat's So Second MillenniumEpisode 002 - Is Your Metaphysics Up for This?What is metaphysics, and is it any more relevant to modern life than Casper the Friendly Ghost? Paul discusses how the ancient metaphysical framework of matter and form (hylomorphism) involves some tricky terms for us moderns but can still make sense of some examples of scientific issues from mineralogy and zoology. Next week we see if it can cope with undergrad quantum physics...
2018-04-0929 minThat's So Second MillenniumBonus Episode - PaulPaul (Giesting!) describes his intellectual and spiritual journey and why he's part of That's So Second Millennium.
2018-03-2708 minThat's So Second MillenniumTSSM - TrailerIs it really true that science and religion are polar opposites? Must one be true and the other false? What must the universe be like if BOTH are true at the same time? Join Bill and Paul, a Catholic journalist and scientist, as we explore intellectual ground millennia old and cutting edge, from the realms of physics, philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, geology, and more from the perspective of people who take their faith AND their science seriously.
2018-03-2700 min