Episodes
Monday Nov 21, 2022
Ep 146 - TSSM Takes a Break
Monday Nov 21, 2022
Monday Nov 21, 2022
- The 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 confidence that faith and reason can grow together as essentials for problem-solving wisdom, and a desire to honor the Church a central source of guidance and continuing growth.
- Our first episode was posted on April 2, 2018, more than four-and-a-half years ago. We have welcomed a long list of well-known guests with expertise in a variety of fields, seizing the opportunity for rigorous but highly accessible, interdisciplinary and inspirational, conversations that transcend silos of specialization. We are grateful for the grand adventure of pursuing truth and reality, both visible and invisible, with the scholars and thought-leaders who shared their insights.
- That’s So Second Millennium was the first podcast to provide structured news coverage and commentary on the conferences and lectures of the Society of Catholic Scientists, and we interviewed a number of SCS members. Both Paul and Bill have been members of the growing, international organization.
- Paul, who holds a PhD in Geology from the University of Notre Dame, presented a lecture on uranium and nuclear power at the SCS 2022 conference in Chicago.
- In this episode, we made references to Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” and to “Sing God a Simple Song”—from Leonard Bernstein’s
- We talked about Wyoming Catholic College, where Paul is on the faculty, and we talked Holy Cross College, where Bill taught as an adjunct professor for three semesters before moving from South Bend, IN, to Troy, NY, in 2022. Both solidly Catholic colleges, we agreed, excel in their efforts to integrate the different aspects of our humanity and the various forms of knowledge within the hearts and minds of students.
- Paul and Bill are inveterate Catholic communicators and educators. Learn more about Paul’s background in teaching, consulting, and public service. Learn more about Bill’s life as writer-editor, broadcaster-blogger, and author.
- Here are some of the people we have been privileged to interview: SCS president Stephen Barr; planetary scientist Jonathan Lunine; astrophysicist and astronomer Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ; theologian Paul Seongh Chung; Magis Center president and EWTN series host Father Robert Spitzer, SJ; astrochemist Karin Oberg; neurobiologist Maureen Condic; speaker-evangelist Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers; pro-life experts Richard Doerflinger and Christopher Bell; geologist Anne Hofmeister; cybersecurity expert Michael Cloud; psychologist Darcia Narvaez; business professor-author Anjan Thakor; and soul and spiritual musician Micki Miller. Learn more about them in the show notes accompanying their TSSM episodes. Thanks also to our friend, composer and performer Vin Marquardt, for writing our podcast’s closing theme for a long time, “Igneous Grok.”
Monday Oct 17, 2022
Ep 145 - Faith Journeys That Make a World of Difference: Paul Seungoh Chung
Monday Oct 17, 2022
Monday Oct 17, 2022
- Paul 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 hopeful message: When two persons seeking God along different paths find a crossroads where they can share key ideas, how do they take the next steps to pursue meaning and purpose through further spiritual and intellectual inquiry? The crossroads “sets the frame to start the journey,” he explained in our interview.
- Dr. Chung holds a Ph.D. in the philosophy of religion from Fuller Theological Seminary. He earned a Master of Religion degree from Wycliffe College, an evangelical graduate school rooted in the Anglican tradition at the University of Toronto. As an undergraduate at the University of Toronto – University of Trinity College, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology and philosophy.
- He has served as a pastor at local churches in Toronto and has worked with a mission organization, Canada Mosaic Christian Alliance.
- Dr. Chung’s references during our conversation included the philosophical insights of Alasdair MacIntyre at the University of Notre Dame, the concept of “paradigm shifts” described by philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn, and the atheistic argumentation of physicist Stephen Hawking.
Thursday Jun 30, 2022
Ep 141 - Louis Albarran and the Faith of Real People
Thursday Jun 30, 2022
Thursday Jun 30, 2022
- Paul 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 culture. He referred to Thank You, St. Jude, written by Robert Orsi. [Paul cannot help adding a reference to St. Jude by Brian Setzer.]
- Currently reading: Making Culture by Andy Crouch.
- The annual “Saints and Scholars” summer program for high school students on the Holy Cross College campus is directed by Albarran.
- Peter Kreeft and Christopher Baglow offer notable perspectives on the compatibility of science and religion.
- Holy Cross College’s Moreau College Initiative grants degrees to prisoners.
- William Cavanaugh wrote about the wars of religion and the rise of the nation-state. Peter Kreeft wrote a condensed Catholic catechism. Kenneth Miller wrote Finding Darwin’s God. Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World.
Monday Feb 28, 2022
Ep 137 - Francis Bacon and the New Organon
Monday Feb 28, 2022
Monday Feb 28, 2022
As 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 Neoplatonists, were already progressing beyond those foundations in the thirteenth century. On the other hand, painting and sculpture may not have outstripped the Greeks and Romans until the nineteenth century.
In any case, the seventeenth century would be the one in which Greek mathematics and Aristotelian natural philosophy gave way precipitously to new approaches. Algebra, lurking in the background of Greek thought and poking its head above the canopy in Arabian and Italian mathematics, would finally spawn analytic geometry and calculus. The focus and methods of natural philosophy would shift in many ways, including the use of mathematics and a great increase in the number of people collecting observations and conducting experiments and discussing their results with others. The existing sciences of astronomy, mechanics, botany, and zoology would be transformed, and chemistry and geology would be born outright. Inventions like the telescope and microscope would begin to reveal unsuspected layers of richness in the universe.
-Bacon: bio and politics
-The Reformation had to attack Scholastic *theology* but the universities continued to be heavily Aristotelian
-Aristotle and the distinction between philosophy and science that would be inverted by the 19th century
-Aristotle's focus on deduction and Bacon's polemical critique of the syllogism: "The New Organon"
-The role of induction and statistical reasoning; Bacon's blind spot for mathematics and his tables
Image: Francis Bacon by Paul van Somer, courtesy Wikimedia (By Paul van Somer I - pl.pinterest.com, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19958108)
Tuesday Oct 05, 2021
Episode 133 - Cybersecurity Education as a Vocation with Matthew Cloud
Tuesday Oct 05, 2021
Tuesday Oct 05, 2021
- Paul 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 working within the Holy Cross College science department to grow a distinctive undergraduate program in computer science. Through a different understanding of essential skills and characteristics, such a program could increase access to meaningful information technology careers among students with more diverse backgrounds of knowledge, training, interests, socio-economic resources, etc. Increasing the access to such positions offers advantages to the students, to companies with growing IT and cybersecurity needs, and to the safety and sustainability of societies. You can go to cyberseek.org and get the latest estimates of how many US cybersecurity jobs are currently open, waiting for applicants. Prof. Cloud says that number has been hovering around 500,000.
- One of the multi-school projects he is helping to lead is funded by a grant from the National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity. His focus on a win-win balance between the demand for tomorrow’s computing/AI/cybersecurity/data science professionals and the supply of motivated, well-trained students pursuing these fields takes the form of several partnerships funded by prestigious grants.
- The goal of attracting more US students, of all backgrounds, into computer-related studies, whether they be focused on engineering or on different fields of study (including the liberal arts, philosophy, and more), is being pursued by many institutions. You can visit http://code.org to see one approach for encouraging young people to consider a computer-related career.
Monday Jul 26, 2021
Bonus Episode July 2021
Monday Jul 26, 2021
Monday Jul 26, 2021
Paul 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.
Monday May 31, 2021
Episode 126 - Society of Catholic Sciences Preview with Stephen Barr
Monday May 31, 2021
Monday May 31, 2021
- Paul 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 conference, which is titled “Extraterrestrials, AI, and Minds Beyond the Human.” See details of the conference The SCS has posted an announcement about live-streaming of conference talks for those who have not registered to attend in-person.
- The talks will be livestreamed at https://catholicscientists.org/conference2021. The schedule of talks can be found HERE. During the talks, questions for the speakers can be emailed in to questionsSCS2021@gmail.com. As time permits, some questions will be selected from those emailed in and posed to the speakers during the Q&A sessions.
- Barr gave an overview of the event and the speakers.
- One of the speakers, Prof. Lawrence Principe, Ph.D., will also be the recipient of the Society’s Saint Albert Award. The award, bestowed annually, is named for St. Albert the Great, patron saint of the natural sciences. Dr. Principe, a historian of science at Johns Hopkins University, has been a leading voice in dispelling the myth of a historical conflict between science and religion, Dr. Barr pointed out. A course titled “Science and Religion” is offered by Principe through the “Great Courses” organization and is available online.
- The conference’s keynote speaker is Christopher Baglow, Ph.D., director of the Science & Religion Initiative in the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Baglow, whose unique high school textbook Faith, Science, and Reason: Theology on the Cutting Edge has now been published in a second edition, was a guest on a previous episode of the TSSM podcast.
- Barr pointed out that, although the Society did not hold a conference in 2020, it greatly expanded its website, which now includes instructional materials about science and religion. One feature is a curated historical collection of concise bibliographies about important scientists who were practicing Catholics. Barr thanked his collaborator Andrew Kassebaum for that content, which is more authoritative than other online lists of “Catholic scientists.”
- The SCS continues to work to expand its services to teachers and students. The SCS website, at org, already contains numerous videos of talks from past conferences. Dr. Barr said the Society’s goals include facilitating wide-ranging intellectual and spiritual fellowship for Catholic scientists and helping to evangelize a secular culture that is infused with thoughts and messages prioritizing science and technology. The work of spreading the faith through science will increasingly use new media.
- Another form of evangelization is the Society’s support for Church celebrations of “Gold Masses” in numerous localities in the United States and elsewhere. Gold Masses, often planned as Votive Masses in honor of St. Albert the Great, are celebrated for members of the science professions. The Masses are part of the effort to increase the Society’s grass-roots activities through local and campus chapters.
Tuesday May 11, 2021
Episode 125 - Chris Baglow and Jay Martin (rerun, full episode)
Tuesday May 11, 2021
Tuesday May 11, 2021
- 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 of the Society of Catholic Scientists, scheduled for June 4–6 in Washington, DC. Find information about the conference
- We also spoke with Jay Martin, Ph.D., a scholar in systematic theology who was the Science & Religion Initiative’s assistant director and is now Assistant Teaching Professor in Notre Dame’s Department of Theology.
- The initiative, with support from the Templeton Foundation, encourages a coordinated approach to educating young Catholics, helping them to avoid the trap of a focus on science as an exclusive source of truth and “real” knowledge. Such a focus can drive students away from the Catholic Church’s wisdom and values if it dismisses religious faith as meaningless—not worth serious engagement in their minds and hearts.
Monday Mar 08, 2021
Episode 121 - Megan Levis, full interview (rerun)
Monday Mar 08, 2021
Monday Mar 08, 2021
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 research, invites important ethical considerations. Levis has found resources at and through Notre Dame for deeper study of the responsibilities entailed in such research. She has worked with the John J. Reilly Center on science, technology and values. She has also been part of the Leadership Advancing Socially Engaged Research (LASER) program within the Graduate School.
- Levis participated in an NSF-supported workshop on engineering design principles of multicellular living systems. Such workshops reflect a growing nationwide interest in the ethical and societal ramifications of rapidly developing technology related to systems of living things. The interest is prompting collaboration among philosophers, scientists, ethicists and engineers.
- It’s a false dichotomy to separate faith and engineering. Levis said her advisor [Jeremiah Zartman] has been supportive of integrating values-related concerns, and that integration has made her research better. Now that there is an increased focus in bioengineering on the transfer, or translation, of knowledge from the lab bench to hospitals and clinical practice, the assessment of ethical implications is even more important.
- Organoids are systems built from human cells that begin to look like an organ. In this new field, it’s important to create room for philosophical understanding, but right now the field is dominated by engineers and scientists largely using terms that sound like clunky jargon. Philosophy tells us we need to define our terms better, Levis said. We need better ways to describe what’s going on in accessible ways that allow for ethical thinking. Engineers tend to look at every component in its specifics, but there is value in seeing how one thing is similar to something else so both may come under similar ethical principles.
- This is the second half of TSSM’s interview with Megan Levis. We talked at greater length about this graduate student’s research and its good fit with values-informed thought, with the Society of Catholic Scientists, and even literature. The Society held its third annual conference at the University of Notre Dame a few months ago.
- In Megan’s presentation to the scientists at the SCS annual conference, she posed the question: How do you distinguish and exercise ethical responsibilities when something like brain organoids are “made in the image and likeness of man rather than the image and likeness of God.” Organoids are multicellular systems built from brain tissue. Are they just cell cultures or something so akin to the human being—particularly when they are brain organoids—that ethical duties arise out of respect for human dignity? This is a relatively new field where the scientific understanding and moral consideration still must develop in tandem, she explained. A New York Times article touched on some of the questions being raised.
- Megan’s own main research project as part of her graduate studies at Notre Dame deals with microfluidics. They are devices, a kind of miniature bio-reactor, in which researchers can grow cells and small organs. Her goal is to make it easier and less expensive to make microfluidics that can be used in future research. Here are resources on microfluidics from the journal Nature.
- Her collaborations in this area came about from her meeting with a leader in microfluidics technology, Dr. Fernando Ontiveros, while they were both attending a previous SCS conference. His team is exploring new applications for microfluidics, such as the growing of organoids.
- At what point should moral concerns tied to the dignity of the human person “kick in” when dealing with the brain and brain organoids? Where do you as a person reside in the body? The existence of a capacity for rational thought is a conventional scientific benchmark for the existence of personhood, Megan said. There are many theories of the complex brain-mind-body connection with personhood. The human person is a complex creature, not reducible to the brain or body alone. Here’s an exploration of some insights from National Geographic.
- There is a real role for literature in helping us to explore the many questions that combine operational questions of engineering and more abstract, integrated thinking about persons, Megan says. She recommends renowned author Walker Percy, who explored such subjects in Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book. He comments that being a human is inevitably an uncomfortable process involving tensions within our nature. Our culture tends to look to science for answers to the big questions of human nature, but literature and art are pathways to answers too; literature allows us to think without predispositions and suppositions, to discover truths about ourselves and the world that transcend scientifically measurable parts. As Megan put it, the ability to wonder about the world is a gift that is transmitted sometimes through engineering and sometimes through literature and art.
- Megan has been able to work with Ontiveros while he has done research and prepared journal articles at Notre Dame. With the support of mentors and advisors, she has embraced opportunities at Notre Dame and elsewhere to spend time thinking about faith and science in relationship. She attended a conference with like-minded graduate students interested in these connections. She has appreciated the insights of SCS president Stephen Barr and microbiologist Fr. Nicanor Austriaco, OP, a speaker at this year’s SCS conference. Barr is the author of Modern Physics and Ancient Faith.
- Austriaco has recorded a podcast available through the Thomistic Institute titled The Science and Practice of Christian Prayer.
- What does Megan recommend for graduate students and others who want to advance in their bioengineering studies while staying informed and mindful about the faith-related aspects? She highlights the power of community, building friendships and conversations over time with a diverse range of people on similar journeys, including philosophy and science. One can attend relevant lectures and conferences, such as those sponsored by Notre Dame’s De Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. She recommends the resources of the Collegium Institute. Building and updating such mindfulness is a long-term process requiring persistence, she adds.
Monday Feb 22, 2021
Episode 120 - Wyoming Catholic College
Monday Feb 22, 2021
Monday Feb 22, 2021
This 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 called these days, Johnny behind the Rocks.