Just look at our intense national confidence! Ergo, we are doing well as a nation! Not so fast, scientists have warned. There is actually an inverse relationship between one's own incompetence and one's awareness of one's incompetence. In a 2003 article entitled "Why People Fail to Recognize Their Own Incompetence," psychologists…
This new portrait of the United States by the British, as reported by The Daily Telegraph. People in Britain view the United States as a vulgar, crime-ridden society obsessed with money and led by an incompetent president whose Iraq policy is failing, according to a newspaper poll. The United…
We are all descended from kings, according to a recent MSNBC article about experts who have combined computer science and genealogy. Even without a documented connection to a notable forebear, experts say the odds are virtually 100 percent that every person on Earth is descended from one royal personage or another. "Millions…
At first, I scoffed at this ABC News headline: “Has Noah’s Ark Been Found? Christian Archaeology Team Believes It’s Found Biblical Remains?”
According to this recent story,
Texas archaeologists believe they may have located the remains of Noah’s Ark in Iran’s Elburz mountain range. “I can’t imagine what it could be if it is not the Ark,” said Arch Bonnema of the Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration (B.A.S.E) Institute, a Christian archeology organization dedicated to looking for biblical artifacts.
The Bible also describes the Ark’s dimensions as being 300 cubits by 50 cubits — about the size of a small aircraft carrier. The B.A.S.E. Institute’s discovery is similar in size and scale.
The story indicates that the B.A.S.E. Institute’s samples “are being examined at labs in Texas and Florida.” The story doesn’t mention whether the sample will be analyzed using secular methods or Bible methods. Choice of methodology might matter, though. According to the official website of BASE, here is the methodology used by BASE:
The BASE Institute employs a methodology that seeks to apply the best practices of many disciplines, while giving absolute priority to the Bible itself. While we do not discount the opinions of scholars, we do not place undue emphasis on them.
Here are the highlights of the BASE “methodology:
…
- We recognize the weakness of a “Premise + Proof” methodology.
- We recognize the strength of a “Possibilities + Problems” methodology.
- We recognize that the Bible is fully inspired (superintended by God) in its autographs (original
Check out Jay Rosen's eloquent piece on the power of blogs to empower formerly passive audiences: The people formerly known as the audience are those who were on the receiving end of a media system that ran one way, in a broadcasting pattern, with high entry fees and a few…