John Pohl

A Review of My New Book is Out!

A friend of mine sent me a short article regarding how scientific research is having problems in the United States (if not worldwide). I need to write my opinions on that well-written article soon. As an academic physician, I see such problems frequently. This article will probably be discussed in my next post. However, aContinue reading “A Review of My New Book is Out!”

My New Book Is Out!

After a few years of being an adult learner and while working full time, I was able to recently complete a DThM (Doctor of Theology and Ministry) degree at Northwind Theological Seminary. It was super exciting to get this degree which has been a long-standing goal of ine. However, even more exciting was my abilityContinue reading “My New Book Is Out!”

Minor Meditating in Nature

My spouse and I spent this Labor Day weekend hiking around Great Basin National Park. This national park is huge and is often overlooked by tourists due to its lack of accesibility. I am a terrible at meditating. I have been told that such an intervention is helpful. My wife is great at it. I,Continue reading “Minor Meditating in Nature”

Statistics (Can We Add It to that Old-Time Religion?)

The Economist posted an article this week titled “The trial of Lucy Letby has shocked British statisticians“. Great read. My take on the article is not that statistics may have been poorly performed in the setting of a murder trial while also stating that statistics are poorly understood in general. In the United States, scienceContinue reading “Statistics (Can We Add It to that Old-Time Religion?)”

Academics: The Issues (Well, at Least in Medicine) *and Maybe Theology

A little about me (see my blog home page)… As soon as I entered medical school, I learned that medicine could have an academic track. I was a first-generation physician so the field was very opaque to me. In fact, I had NO IDEA what a fellow was. For the audience, a fellow is aContinue reading “Academics: The Issues (Well, at Least in Medicine) *and Maybe Theology”

Reading Some Gould This Weekend…

Stephen Jay Gould is one of my heroes for many reasons. I love thinking about evolution (I’ve done some prior work looking at founder effects in humans), and Gould has some many interesting ideas in the field of evolutionary science. More importantly, I love his writing style. If I could emulate him in terms ofContinue reading “Reading Some Gould This Weekend…”

Creativity in Nature

Recently, I have been reading “A Purpose for Everything” by Charles Birch. He is a geneticist, and importantly (to me), he is a proponent of process philosophy / process theology. I have been reading his book very slowly. Hey, I’m a pediatric gastroenterologist with a busy schedule! Anyway, P. 38 (Twenty-Third Publishing version) made anContinue reading “Creativity in Nature”

Listening to Francis Collins

I was able to attend an on-line meeting of the American Scientific Affiliation this weekend. The ASA is a wonderful organization for Christians who work in the sciences. I have been a member for many years. Francis Collins was the guest speaker, and I think about 30+ people attended. On a personal note, I sentContinue reading “Listening to Francis Collins”

Panexperientialism

Ahh, now to the most difficult of the three “p“s of Naturalismppp — panexperientialism. It is actually not that difficult, but it kind of runs into the realm of woo spirituality / New Age thinking if taken into silly realms. Panexperientialism basically means that every entity has “experience”. Lots of thoughts here, but let usContinue reading “Panexperientialism”

Panentheism

In my continuation of explaining the 3 “p“s of natural theology, the second p of Naturalismppp is panentheism. This term is often mistaken for “pantheism.” There is nothing wrong with a word like pantheism. It simply means God or gods are in every natural thing. “Panentheism”, on the other hand, simply means all are inContinue reading “Panentheism”