News from The Christian Neuroscience Society

Whale 'missing link' discovered
Posted: Dec 20, 2007
Kashmir, BBC
The whale is descended from a deer-like animal that lived 48 million years ago, according to fossil evidence.

What Your Brain Looks Like on Faith
Posted: Dec 14, 2007
Los Angeles, CA Time Magazine
Sam Harris is best known for his barn-burning 2004 attack on religion, The End of Faith, which spent 33 weeks on the New York Times best-seller List. The book's sequel, Letter to a Christian Nation also came out in editions totalling hundreds of thousands. Last Monday, however, the combative Californian produced a shorter (seven pages) and seemingly calmer publication that will be a hit if it reaches 10,000 readers: "Functional Neuroimaging of Belief, Disbelief and Uncertainty." It appears in the respected journal Annals of Neurology.

Different Areas Of The Brain Respond To Belief, Disbelief And Uncertainty
Posted: Dec 13, 2007
Los Angeles, CA Science Daily
Sam Harris, a UCLA graduate student in the lab of Mark Cohen, a professor of psychiatry at the UCLA Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and a study co-author, and Sameer Sheth of Massachusetts General Hospital, report that functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) reveals clear differences in the areas of the brain involved in belief, disbelief and uncertainty..

Lawsuit claims job tied to faith in natural selection
Posted: Dec 8, 2007
Medford, OR WND
Researcher sues over dismissal because he didn't 'believe'.

Intelligent design theory influenced ISU tenure vote
Posted: Dec 1, 2007
Ames, IA DesMoines Register
Iowa State University professor Guillermo Gonzalez's support of the theory of intelligent design damaged his prospects for tenure long before his peers voted on the job promotion, according to e-mails from at least one professor in his department to those who decided Gonzalez's tenure request.

Does the ghost in the machine have a soul?
Posted: Nov 18, 2007
San Francisco, CA SFC
We have shown, in other words, that materialism is wrong, and contrary to its dogmatic assertion, there is a ghost in the machine, which we may for convenience term the soul.

Professor: 'Religion' behind tenure dispute
Posted: Jul 13, 2007
Ames, IA WND
A scientist who believes the theory of intelligent design helps explain life's origins is appealing to state officials to save his job at Iowa State University, where his tenure was rejected because of his "personal religious and ideological beliefs."

Pro-Intelligent Design Astronomer Denied Tenure Ranks Top in His Department According to Smithsonian/NASA Database
Posted: May 18, 2007
Ames, IA Discovery
Guillermo Gonzalez, the pro-intelligent design astronomer recently denied tenure by Iowa State University (ISU), ranks the highest in his department according to a key measure of the scientific impact of his work calculated using the Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS), a widely used database tracking published scientific research in astronomy.

Collins: Why this scientist believes in God
Posted: Apr 4, 2007
Rockville, MD CNN
Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., is the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. His most recent book is "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief."

Call for ‘neuroethics’ as science races ahead
Posted: Feb 14, 2007
Paris, France Reuters
Neuroscientists are making such rapid progress in unlocking the brain's secrets that some are urging colleagues to debate the ethics of their work before it can be misused by governments, lawyers or advertisers.