Al Gore could not be reached for comment

Bundle up and sharpen the blades on your ice skates.

What may be the science story of the century is breaking this evening, as heavyweight US solar physicists announce that the Sun appears to be headed into a lengthy spell of low activity, which could mean that the Earth – far from facing a global warming problem – is actually headed into a mini Ice Age.

The announcement made on 14 June (18:00 UK time) comes from scientists at the US National Solar Observatory (NSO) and US Air Force Research Laboratory. Three different analyses of the Sun's recent behaviour all indicate that a period of unusually low solar activity may be about to begin.

The Sun normally follows an 11-year cycle of activity. The current cycle, Cycle 24, is now supposed to be ramping up towards maximum strength. Increased numbers of sunspots and other indications ought to be happening: but in fact results so far are most disappointing. Scientists at the NSO now suspect, based on data showing decades-long trends leading to this point, that Cycle 25 may not happen at all.

This could have major implications for the Earth's climate. According to a statement issued by the NSO, announcing the research:

An immediate question is whether this slowdown presages a second Maunder Minimum, a 70-year period with virtually no sunspots [which occurred] during 1645-1715.

As NASA notes:

Early records of sunspots indicate that the Sun went through a period of inactivity in the late 17th century. Very few sunspots were seen on the Sun from about 1645 to 1715. Although the observations were not as extensive as in later years, the Sun was in fact well observed during this time and this lack of sunspots is well documented. This period of solar inactivity also corresponds to a climatic period called the "Little Ice Age" when rivers that are normally ice-free froze and snow fields remained year-round at lower altitudes. There is evidence that the Sun has had similar periods of inactivity in the more distant past.

During the Maunder Minimum and for periods either side of it, many European rivers which are ice-free today – including the Thames – routinely froze over, allowing ice skating and even for armies to march across them in some cases.

"This is highly unusual and unexpected," says Dr Frank Hill of the NSO. "But the fact that three completely different views of the Sun point in the same direction is a powerful indicator that the sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation."

The brilliant scientist loses his brilliance: Life imitates art (sort of)

In high school, I had something of a reputation for being a video geek. Among my more or less memorable productions was a fast-paced farce whimsically titled, "The Brilliant Scientist Loses His Brilliance." It was, needless to say, a less than brilliant piece of cinematography. The "scientist" carries his "brilliance" around in a large briefcase (actually the carrying case for the bulky video camera which was, at the time, state of the art equipment) and "loses" it when a band of juvenile thieves mug him and make off with the booty in a go cart. In lieu of dialogue, the plot unfolds over the background music of Foreigner's early-80's rocker "Urgent," chosen for no particular reason other than the fact that the guitar riffs and Junior Walker saxophone solo matched well with the pace of the action.

I only mention this sordid chapter from my youth because I was reminded of it yesterday morning when I read the headline on Wade Burleson's blog, "When a Brilliant Scientist Sounds Brilliantly Stupid It's Both Bizarre and Sad." Like a number of Christian bloggers, Burleson was referring to Stephen Hawking's latest foray into the muddled milieu pseudo-philosophical scientific conjecture in which he makes the not so novel assertion that the universe essentially created itself without any assistance from some divine first mover, a.k.a. "God." 

"Brilliantly stupid" is a particularly appropriate term to describe Hawking's atheistic theory of "spontaneous creation" which requires, as Burleson says, "enormous, google-like faith." Several centuries after its first attempts to separate itself from religion and theology, "science" has come to this: a thoughtless exercise in dogmatism requiring maximum faith but minimum intelligence. Hawking, and those like him, including the "new atheists" who imagine themselves so intellectually superior to the ignorant masses, have become every bit the narrow-minded fundamentalists they so decry. It would be funny, if it weren't so tragic.

Going a step further, Greg Goebel explains how the "god" so often rejected by scientists is also the "god" rejected by classical theism.

The strange thing, to me, is the need for some scientist to debunk this miniature god of superstition. Why do they seem to refuse to actually try to understand and refute actual theistic belief? Theistic philosophers and theologians have long ago agreed with scientific theorists that god should not be invoked simply to avoid seeking to understand the mysteries of nature. And yet one wonders why Hawking and others are so driven to disprove this god? Why not simply seek to explain the or theorize the rise of organized, intelligent life through physical laws or patterns? One wonders if this need is driven by a religious zeal to convince the masses to disbelieve in the actual Christian God by substituting a lesser god as the punching bag.

Could the Christian God have organized the created world in such a way that it takes the shape which we now observe? Logically, the answer must be yes, even if one does not believe in the Christian God. The Christian God transcends our experience of the world and even of himself, and therefore cannot be observed in the same way that the universe itself can be. There is simply no scientific way to prove or disprove the Christian God. And if we take the scientific method seriously (what can be gained by observation and testing) we don’t even need to try to prove or disprove his existence. Its simply not a question that the scientific method was developed to address. At the point that a scientist begins to disprove the Christian God, he or she has moved into the realm of theology or philosophy, and is rightly addressed in philosophical or theological categories. You cannot have it both ways, calling a philosophy science but then rejecting philosophical responses to that philosophy. And yet the new atheism continues to debunk the “god of the gaps” and then claim victory for defeating “God”.

I wonder actually how many folks read these books or articles by the new atheism,which purport to be rational and scientific explanations of existence and meaning without God, and take them so seriously as to choose atheism. Ironically, people would then be accepting this worldview by faith, since atheism is at its core a philosophy or even a religion rather than a science (since God can neither be proven nor disproven by empirical study). At least religion calls faith what it is. The new atheism is not honest enough to speak of disbelieving in god as an act of trust in a philisophical construct which cannot be absolutely proven. And agnosticism is really not a “safe bet” which avoids either “extreme” as people are often wont to think. Instead, it is a faith based choice which puts the person in the position of rejecting the Christian God who calls humankind to believe in him. That is, to take the approach “no one can know for sure” is to adopt a faith based worldview, which denies other worldviews, especially the Christian worldview that God has revealed what we need to know of him in order to believe. There is no avoiding the question, and there is no way to turn the question of God into a strictly scientific one, whether to prove or disprove.

I think it takes a lot more faith to be an atheist or agnostic. If they are wrong, they are denying their creator. Contemplating that reality is enough to temper one’s confidence in one’s ability to know these things for sure, or should be. And observation of the complex organization of the universe or universes, to “look for god” or to “look for god’s fingerprints” assumes a certain kind of god. This assumption avoids the God who transcends nature, and in doing so requires a lot of faith that the universe is all there is. Instead, theism faces this aspect of our human awareness or even inherent sense that there is a creator or intelligent cause, asking what this creator must be like to have created a world or worlds such as this/these. The Christian answer to that question, of course, is found supremely in Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, and science was not designed to investigate that kind of claim. Therefore science is more limited than religion, requiring more faith in less resources.

Stephen Hawking could have been a brilliant testimony to the grace of God enabling a man to overcome suffering and disease to make a lasting contribution to the world of science. Instead, he has become just another illustration of the utter meaninglessness and increasing irrelevance of an outmoded modernity. The brilliant scientist has, indeed, lost his brilliance.

Is Stephen Hawking smarter than a 6th grader?

Two perspectives on Stephen Hawking's latest musings on alien life are worth reading. First, Gary DeMar at American Vision explores the logical inconsistency of the scientific community accepting the possibility, even likelihood, of advanced intelligent life beyond the cosmos while rejecting the existence of God.

Stephen Hawking’s brain is trapped in a body that can do little more than sit, and even with this he needs assistance. At 68, he has not slowed down even though he is almost completely paralyzed due to “a neuro-muscular dystrophy,” a degenerative neurological disease that is related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, Lou Gehrig’s Disease). His condition has worsened over the years. Even so, the theoretical physicist has not stopped working and thinking. He is a prolific author. His best seller A Brief History of Time stayed on the British Sunday Times bestseller list for 237 weeks.

His latest theoretical venture is the claim that the cosmos is alive with life. He will attempt to make his case in a new documentary series for the Discovery Channel beginning Sunday, May 9th.

I find this all very interesting. With no real empirical data, Hawking and other scientists are adamant that alien life, some of it far superior than our own, exists among the innumerable galaxies, but they are not willing to believe that God exists. Lord (Martin) Rees, the Astronomer Royal and President of the Royal Society, warned that aliens might prove to be beyond human understanding. “I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms we can’t conceive,” Rees said. “Just as a chimpanzee can’t understand quantum theory, it could be there are aspects of reality that are beyond the capacity of our brains.” It’s OK for scientists to postulate that unseen aliens may be beyond our understanding, but don’t ever let a scientist suggest that that a God who is beyond our understanding might exist. That wouldn’t be scientific! Long before Lord Rees postulated such a theory, the Bible describes God as far superior to us in a way that mocks know-it-all scientists:

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:8–9).

To believe what Lord Rees believes is science, but to suggest that there is a God who is beyond our understanding and has made Himself known to us is superstition.

We’re told that Hawking’s “logic” leads him to believe in a cosmos filled with aliens that sprung from nothing, but he and his less than superior scientists (given that alien life forms are probably more superior than us as they maintain) cannot logically formulate the belief that a Superior Being put life on this planet. They’re willing to believe that nothing gave rise to something, but they cannot conceive that God gave rise to everything.

Second, Terrell Clemons at Salvo recounts the delightful time he had watching an episode of Hawking's Discovery Channel documentary series with his young daughter and how it reminded him of the injustice done to our schoolchildren by the scientific education establishment.

The point I’d like to make is she’s a 6th grader, and she’s capable of thinking with a free mind, taking in competing theories about something, and, to a certain extent, analyzing them. This is how critical thinking skills are developed. But as this Crosshairs, also from Salvo 11, points out, wherever the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) gets its way, teachers are prohibited from informing students about competing scientific theories concerning the origin of life, including the one offered, though not by name, as a valid theory by no less a science luminary than Stephen Hawking. (The NCSE also opposes students being informed of different views concerning global warming, but that’s another issue for another post.)

Stephen Hawking is an amazing and inspiring man, and we enjoyed watching his show. I’d like to focus on that ideal of a free mind and note two things. First, the NCSE, by intentionally ignoring ID (and vehemently opposing it when active ignorance is no longer an option), limits free inquiry and hinders, rather than advances, science. They do our children a disservice.

Second, while Hawking does believe that alien life likely exists, including life of superior intelligence, he leaves no leeway for the possibility that that intelligence might be a supernatural being. In so doing, I suggest he limits himself and his scientifically brilliant mind more than he realizes. To limit experimental science to only those things which can be seen, heard, and touched is reasonable. To limit your mind and imagination after the same manner hinders free inquiry.

Even a 6th grader can understand that.

So, is Stephen Hawking smarter than a 6th grader, or are there some mysteries of the universe more comprehensible to a little child uninhibited by political correctness than to a scholar imprisoned by conventional scientific wisdom?