This week some 150 members of the Discovery Society, including speakers and staff, have been finding that there is more to Alaska — even just the island expanses of Southeast Alaska — than can be covered, let alone explored, in seven days. The 2014 Discovery Society conference is taking place aboard a Holland America ship, the Westerdam, with participants hearing about various angles on the theme “Science & Faith: Friends or Foes” while visiting the ports of Juneau (the colorful state capital), Sitka (site of Russia’s original American capital in North America in the early 19th Century), and Ketchikan, along with Victoria, B.C. (flower gardens and butterflies) and Seattle.
Mixed in with whale sightings, bears, porcupines, spawning salmon, glaciers, and eagles, we’ve enjoyed lectures by such speakers as Oxford mathematician John Lennox, Discovery author (Darwin’s Doubt) and fellow Steve Meyer, biologist Paul Nelson, social historian John West, biologist Ray Bohlin, and others.
The claim is made that intelligent design is just religion parading as science. That’s false. But the connections between science and faith are fascinating, and our speakers are making them with the added piquancy of nature’s promptings.
Photo: St. Michael’s Cathedral, Sitka, Alaska.