I’ve often wished that I could put my head on my pillow at the end of a long day and then wake up many hours later feeling rested and ready to take on the world again. Unfortunately that never seems to be the case.
I’m aware that I wake up a few times during the night and I have to admit to being a little concerned that I’m missing much needed sleep.
The Good News
Today I discovered just how normal that sleep pattern is for most people. Thanks to an article titled ‘Normal sleep’ a mystery to some, I’ve found that waking through the night is pretty much what’s meant to happen. I’m normal. Well at least my sleep is somewhat normal.
Lead researcher Professor Dorothy Bruck says the study shows the disconnect between the science of sleep and community expectations.
This lack of understanding about normal sleep patterns can also create a Catch 22 situation, she says, where people become anxious because they wake up and then can’t get back to sleep.
“In fact, normal sleep is a roller coaster cycle of deep sleep, light sleep and brief awakenings repeated several times in the night,” says Bruck.
She says better education and understanding of this cycle could literally help Australians rest easier.
How well do you sleep? Are you aware of waking and falling back to sleep throughout the night?
Is there anything you do to get a better night’s sleep?
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Are science and faith mutually exclusive? Can someone hold to scientific discoveries while still believing what’s in the Bible?
We’ve been told that faith is anti-science but is that really true?
I recently heard an atheist say that he lost his belief that there is a God when his girlfriend pointed out a sign at the Grand Canyon which talks about how the popular tourist attraction was formed. Really? That stopped him believing that God exists?
If I make you a meal and you work out how I prepared it do I cease to exist? If we discover some of the methods that God used to create some of the things we see around us, how does that suddenly make him vanish?
Christianity hasn’t stifled science. Christianity has been its driving force and, for hundreds of years, virtually its only significant contributor. Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Pascal, Descartes, Newton, Kelvin, Mendel, Boyle — all devout Christians. You want to remove your science from my religion? Fine. But we’re keeping these dudes. You can have Richard Dawkins and his tales of “mild pedophilia.” Enjoy.
Father Steno was a priest. Geologists call him “father,” but for none religious reasons: he’s considered the father of modern geology.
The Basilica of San Petronio is a beautiful church. It was also, for many years, one of the most sophisticated solar observatories in the world.
The Jesuits helped contribute to the development of clocks, barometers, microscopes and telescopes. They theorized about things like human flight, the moon and the tides, and blood circulation. They observed certain astronomical phenomena before anyone else. They did these things as an aspect of their religious pursuits, not in competition with it.
In fact, for five or six centuries no institution funded and supported the sciences more than the Church. They don’t teach that in school, which yet again demonstrates the danger of mixing atheism and education. Atheism has to hide from so much, deny so much, and twist and manipulate so much, because its existence is always jeopardized by the scorching light of truth. To paraphrase CS Lewis, an atheist has to be careful about what he reads and which facts he encounters. There are traps everywhere.
When western scientific knowledge came to places like China and India in the 1600?s, it came by way of Christians and their science-hating Christianity. You’d be hard pressed to find a single bit of modern scientific knowledge that wasn’t discovered, or heavily influenced by, the work of devout Christians.
My regular Wednesday morning guest on 98five Sonshine FM is Rev Dr Ross Clifford who is the Principal of Morling College in New South Wales. Each week we chat about a range of issues relating to spirituality and belief.
This morning we talked about whole debate of science and faith. Ross had some great points to make. You can hear our discussion by clicking the play button on the audio player below.
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I’m often amazed at some of the research that is carried out around the world. I’m even more amazed that someone is putting up money for some of the studies that get reported in our media.
How do our stomachs digest animal bones?
Why do Bedouins wear black in the desert?
Does relaxing make you fatter?
Do ethicists steal more books?
These are just some of the questions that have caused research projects to be undertaken. You have to ask the question, did we really need a study to discover that under money strains, some older adults will turn to alcohol? Was it really necessary to run research just to find out that traumatic brain injury frequently causes headaches? Apparently that’s just what we needed.
I love the fact that the University of Chicago made the important announcement some time back that ‘big’, ‘tall’, ‘little’, and ‘tiny’ are all words that promote important spatial skills. That was part of a study of the cognitive development of 1 to 4-year olds.
Did you know that dog fleas can jump higher than cat fleas? It’s true. Research proves it. How about the research proven fact that rats can’t always tell the difference between Japanese spoken backwards and Dutch spoken backwards? Do you know that there’s even been research to discover why woodpeckers don’t get headaches?
My Research Project
So here’s the deal. I’ve just started two weeks leave. While I enjoy my job I really, really enjoy annual leave.
I would like to conduct some research to discover whether working 4 weeks a year and having 48 weeks a year as annual leave, instead of the other way around, would increase productivity. Now, don’t jump to any conclusions. The results aren’t in yet.
I need to find a scientific body or government department to fund my research. They would need to cover my wage for the weeks away from work as well as expenses. I would need to travel overseas with my family for much of the year to get the true vacation experience. I will then be more than happy to write up my research and travel to science conferences around the world to present the findings. Anyone know of any decent funding bodies?
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Today for your viewing pleasure, a science lesson.
Have you ever wondered what would happen if you put liquid nitrogen in a bottle, put the bottle in a bin of warm water, and then threw in 1500 ping pong balls? No? Neither had I but I’m glad that someone wondered about it enough to find out.
This is a great video. There’s a fairly long lead up to the final result but it’s worth it to know what’s going on. If you’re impatient and just want the action shot, go 3:50 into the video.
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OK, so it’s not an overwhelming majority but it is a majority, which is certainly not what some people want us to believe.
The Los Angeles Times is telling us that while the science community is less likely than the general public to believe in God or a higher power, there is still just over half their number who think there’s more to life than that which can be verified scientifically. Surveys of the general public show a 95% belief in God or higher power.
According to a survey of members of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science, conducted by the Pew Research Center in May and June this year, a majority of scientists (51%) say they believe in God or a higher power, while 41% say they do not.
You might think that most of those admitting to a belief in God or a higher power would be leaning towards the higher power end of the spectrum when in fact 42% of scientists say that they believe in a personal God.
The research doesn’t show that those who believe in God necessarily believe that he created the world in which we live.
Today, a century and a half after Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,” the overwhelming majority of scientists in the United States accept Darwinian evolution as the basis for understanding how life on Earth developed. But although evolutionary theory is often portrayed as antithetical to religion, it has not destroyed the religious faith of the scientific community.
But what would Darwin have said if he was surveyed on his beliefs? Charles Darwin’s original choice of career was to be a village vicar but it’s said that he lost his faith because it didn’t fit with his thoughts on evolution.
As for Darwin, his letters indicate that he was probably an agnostic who lost his faith not because his groundbreaking theory was incompatible with religion, but because of his grief after the 1851 death of his favorite child, his 10-year-old daughter, Annie. And even then, he may not have completely rejected the idea of a higher power. The concluding sentence of “Origin of Species” speaks of a “Creator” breathing life “into a few forms or into one.” The passage raises at least a little doubt as to how the father of modern evolutionary theory might have responded to the question on belief in Pew’s recent survey of scientists.
What do you think? How would you respond to the question? Is there a God or higher power watching over us? Did that God or higher power create this world or even set the process in motion? I’d love to get your thoughts in the comments section below.
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