Virtually all cells of every living thing (plants, animals, and humans) contain tiny strands of coded information called DNA. DNA directs the cell, telling it what to produce and when. Therefore, much of your appearance and personality is determined by DNA you inherited from your parents.

In human cells, the nucleus contains 99.5% of the DNA. Half of it came from the individuals mother and half from the father. Because both halves are shuffled together, it is difficult to identify which parent contributed any tiny segment. In other words, half of this DNA changes with each generation. However, outside the nucleus of each cell are thousands of little energy-producing components called mitochondria, each containing a circular strand of DNA. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) comes only from the mother. Where did she get hers? From her motherand so on. Normally, mtDNA does not change from generation to generation.

In 1987, a team at the University of California at Berkeley published a study comparing the mtDNA of 147 people from five of the worlds geographic locations.2 They concluded that all 147 had the same female ancestor. She is now called the mitochondrial Eve.

From a biblical perspective, do we know where Eve lived? Because the flood was so destructive, no one knows where the Garden of Eden was.4 However, Noahs three daughters-in-law, who lived only a dozen or so generations after Eve, began raising their families near Mount Ararat in eastern Turkeyvery near the common boundary of Asia, Africa, and Europe. (Each of us can claim one of Noahs daughters-in-law as our ever-so-great grandmother.) So it is not surprising that Asia, Africa, and Europe are candidate homes for mitochondrial Eve.

Likewise, when similar words, sounds, and grammar of the worlds most widely spoken languages are traced back in time, they also seem to originate near Ararat.5 Another convergence near eastern Turkey is found when one traces agriculture back in time.6

When did mitochondrial Eve live? To answer this, one must know how frequently mutations occur in mtDNA. Initial estimates were based on the following faulty reasoning: Humans and chimpanzees had a common ancestor about 5 million years ago. Because the mtDNA in humans and chimpanzees differ in 1,000 places, one mutation occurs about every 10,000 years. Another erroneous approach began by assuming that Australia was first populated 40,000 years ago. The average number of mitochondrial mutations among Australian aborigines divided by 40,000 years provided another extremely slow mutation rate for mtDNA. These estimated rates, based on evolution, led to the mistaken belief that mitochondrial Eve lived 100,000200,000 years ago.8 This surprised evolutionists who believe that our common ancestor was an apelike creature that lived 31/2 million years ago.9

A greater surprise, even disbelief, occurred in 1997, when it was announced that mutations in mtDNA occur 20 times more rapidly than had been estimated. Without assuming that humans and chimpanzees had a common ancestor 5 million years ago or that Australia was populated 40,000 years ago, mutation rates can now be determined directly by comparing the mtDNA of many mother-child pairs. Using the new, more accurate rate, mitochondrial Eve lived only about 6,500 years ago.10 Is there a genetic Adam? A man receives from his father a segment of DNA which lies on the Y chromosome; this makes him a male. Where did your father receive his segment? From his father. If we all descended from one man, all males should have the same Y chromosome segmentexcept for rare mutations.

A 1995 study of a worldwide sample of 38 men showed no changes in this segment of the Y chromosome that is always inherited from fathers. Had humans evolved and all men descended from one male who lived 500,000 years ago, each should carry about 19 mutations. Had he lived 150,000 years ago, 5.5 mutations would be expected.11 Because no changes were found, our common father probably lived only thousands of years ago. While Adam was father of all, our most recent common male ancestor was Noah.

Yes, new discoveries show that we carry traces of Adam and Eve in our cells. Furthermore, our common parents are probably removed from us by only 200300 generations. All humans have a common and recent bonda family bond. We are all cousins.

Continue reading here:
"SCIENTIFIC" Evidence of Adam & Eve's Existence (myth ...

The scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge.[1] To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.[2] The Oxford English Dictionary defines the scientific method as "a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses."[3]

The chief characteristic which distinguishes the scientific method from other methods of acquiring knowledge is that scientists seek to let reality speak for itself, supporting a theory when a theory's predictions are confirmed and challenging a theory when its predictions prove false. Although procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, identifiable features distinguish scientific inquiry from other methods of obtaining knowledge. Scientific researchers propose hypotheses as explanations of phenomena and design experimental studies to test these hypotheses via predictions which can be derived from them. These steps must be repeatable to guard against mistake or confusion in any particular experimenter. Theories that encompass wider domains of inquiry may bind many independently derived hypotheses together in a coherent, supportive structure. Theories, in turn, may help form new hypotheses or place groups of hypotheses into context.

Scientific inquiry is intended to be as objective as possible in order to minimize bias. Another basic expectation is the documentation, archiving and sharing of all data collected or produced and of the methodologies used so they may be available for careful scrutiny and attempts by other scientists to reproduce and verify them. This practice, known as full disclosure, also means that statistical measures of their reliability may be made.

The scientific method is the process by which science is carried out.[9] Because science builds on previous knowledge, it consistently improves our understanding of the world.[10] The scientific method also improves itself in the same way,[11][12] meaning that it gradually becomes more effective at generating new knowledge.[13][14] For example, the concept of falsification (first proposed in 1934) reduces confirmation bias by formalizing the attempt to disprove hypotheses rather than prove them.[15]

The overall process involves making conjectures (hypotheses), deriving predictions from them as logical consequences, and then carrying out experiments based on those predictions to determine whether the original conjecture was correct.[16] There are difficulties in a formulaic statement of method, however. Though the scientific method is often presented as a fixed sequence of steps, they are better considered as general principles.[17] Not all steps take place in every scientific inquiry (or to the same degree), and are not always in the same order. As noted by William Whewell (17941866), "invention, sagacity, [and] genius"[18] are required at every step:

This model underlies the scientific revolution.[22] One thousand years ago, Alhazen demonstrated the importance of forming questions and subsequently testing them,[23] an approach which was advocated by Galileo in 1638 with the publication of Two New Sciences.[24] The current method is based on a hypothetico-deductive model[25] formulated in the 20th century, although it has undergone significant revision since first proposed (for a more formal discussion, see below).

The discovery became the starting point for many further studies involving the genetic material, such as the field of molecular genetics, and it was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962. Each step of the example is examined in more detail later in the article.

The scientific method also includes other components required even when all the iterations of the steps above have been completed:[34]

The goal of a scientific inquiry is to obtain knowledge in the form of testable explanations that can predict the results of future experiments. This allows scientists to gain an understanding of reality, and later use that understanding to intervene in its causal mechanisms (such as to cure disease). The better an explanation is at making predictions, the more useful it is, and the more likely it is to be correct. The most successful explanations, which explain and make accurate predictions in a wide range of circumstances, are called scientific theories.

Most experimental results do not result in large changes in human understanding; improvements in theoretical scientific understanding is usually the result of a gradual synthesis of the results of different experiments, by various researchers, across different domains of science.[39] Scientific models vary in the extent to which they have been experimentally tested and for how long, and in their acceptance in the scientific community. In general, explanations become accepted by a scientific community as evidence in favor is presented, and as presumptions that are inconsistent with the evidence are falsified.

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Scientific method - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Feature Article of Friday, 30 May 2014

Columnist: Kwarteng, Francis

In 2002, under the auspices of the Zimbabwe International Book Fair Association, the Pan-African Booksellers Association, the African Publishers Network, Book Development Councils, African Writers Association, Library Associations, and the Pan-African Book Booksellers Association included Kwame Nkrumahs Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah in its comprehensive final list of Africas 100 Best Books of the 20th Century. It should be stressed here that the entire selection process was highly competitive. Moreover, members of the international jury tasked to vet this collection of highly influential writings apiece and to approve their inclusion in the final list, arguably, represented some of the worlds finest, most accomplished, and authoritative thinkers in their chosen fields of expertise.

As a matter of fact, the Information Services of Columbia Univeristy Library has this to say in connection with the rigorous selection process: Nominations were made based on the basis that the book has had a powerful, important or affecting influence on the nominator, as an individual, or on society. Nevertheless, there are many around the world who had equally wished Nkrumahs Consciencism: Philosophy and Ideology for Decolonization, one of his well-known scholarly works as well as of his most widely-read masterpieces, had made the final list as well, given that Consciencism represents one of the most sophisticated philosophical works ever penned by a renowned and respected 20th-Century thinker and scholar.

Quite apart from Nkrumahs Consciencism, Attoh Ahums The Gold Coast Nation and National Consciousness and Joseph E. Casely-Hayfords Ethiopia Unbound are consciously transformative?philosophically, culturally, and ideologically?as far as their cumulative intellectual seminality goes. Likewise, Dr. Theophile Obenga, one of the worlds leading Egyptologists, historians, philosophers, and linguists, has described Consciencism as a powerful, sophisticated philosophical treatise on African psycho-physical decolonization! But, generally, what is usually slurred over in the comprehensive valuation?by way of exegesis?of Nkrumahs corpus of written works by his enemies and supporters alike, in the areas of theory and practice, more importantly, is their intellectual or analytic failure to recognize the scientific infrastructure upon which Nkrumahs ideas are raised.

There is, therefore, a critical exegetical diastema in an otherwise interpretative continuum supposedly enjoyed by the extensive library of Nkrumahs revolutionary ideas, a fundamental question eloquently and vigorously raised and pursued by the polymathic Dr Kofi Kissi Dompere, a well-respected mathematician, economist, philosopher, statistician, historian, business analyst, radio programmer/host (WPFW Radio, 89.3 FM), operations researcher, and prolific author in the American Academy. Moreover, this view of scientific singularity presumptively secreted in the interpretive continuum of the far-reaching library of Nkrumahs provocative ideas enjoys ample support from the material locationality of his massive industrialization projects as well as from his progressive attempts at extenuating human suffering.

That made him, Kwame Nkrumah, an intellectual sophisticate and a redoubtable critical thinker to reckon with. That is, Nkrumah was, as it were, admittedly, a rationalist, empiricist, and pragmatist. What is more, much like the wide-ranging revolutionary ideas of Cheikh Anta Diops, Henri Poincares, Theophile Obengas, Martin Bernals, Albert Einsteins, Molefi Kete Asantes, Louis Leakeys, WEB Du Boiss, the experimental ideas of Kwame Nkrumahs have begun to gain intellectual currency, to acquire global exegetical character, as well as to incur the scientific approbation of investigators. Thus, Kwame Nkrumah pushed his thinking beyond the gibbous heliopause of theorizing to accommodate the galactic socio-political exigencies of praxis, the latter of which his practical legacy articulately represents today, ideally, both in the corporeality of infrastructure, namely, public capital, as well as in the ethereality of innovative ideas and institutions.

This is not surprising, however, for, Nkrumah, a highly-gifted, brilliant, and innovative African philosopher-president, came from an influential stemma of profound thinkers, of which the polymathic Imhotep easily comes to mind (See Robert Bauvals and Thomas Brophys Imhotep the African: Architect of the Cosmos; Molefi Kete Asantes The Egyptian Philosophers: Ancient African Voices from Imhotep to Akhenaten; Theophile Obengas African Philosophy: The Pharaonic Period: 2780-330 BC). Asante writes in this connection: Nkrumah is the single most important African politician of the past century. Almost all ideas that are vetted by contemporary leaders have appeared in Nkrumahs writing. He is the seminal African political philosopher. In fact, the epistemological strength of Nkrumahs intellectual sociality and philosophical culturalilty are incontestable hallmarks of a true genius.

Granted, these ideas Asante implicitly refers to are not merely package-insert questions of epistemology, culture, scientific socialism, political spirituality (decolonization of the African mind), but also of science, technology, development economics, modernization, humanism, political economy, and industrialization of Africa. Yet, Asantes precise synthesis invites another matricial preference from the epistemological coordinate-geometry of Nkrumahs innovative ideas, which is that of the spatial-locational cognate of Nkrumahs scientific philosophizing, the science or politics of pragmatism, that is.

Clearly, the logical carrefour of theory and praxis is inhumed in the formulaic instruments of rigorous scientific philosophization and experimentation, two ideas Dr. Dompere explores in his dynamic critique of Consciencism, though, much unlike Asantes vigorous critique of Du Boisian double consciousness via the epistemological institutionalization of the Theory of Afrocentricity or via the dethronement of Newtonian mechanics or Aristotelian physics (classical physics) by way of the proven experimental majesty of quantum and relativistic physics. The book Consciencism is so influential as to cause Lang T.K.A. Nubour, an author, to re-issue an abridged version of it, titled The Mind of Kwame Nkrumah: Manual for the Study of Consciencism, as the Center for Consciencist Studies and Analysis (CENCSA) notes:

Read more:
Dr. Kofi Dompere On Nkrumahs Scientific Thinking

I dont usually concern myself with questions of other peoples theology. Whether or not people believe in God and, if so, what they believe about that God arent really my business. In my capacity as a physician, sometimes I have to discuss a patients beliefs and spirituality, but for the most part those things dont really inform my interactions with the people who come to see me for medical care.

Thus, when I first read of Toni Braxtons revelation in a new book that she had had an abortion after becoming pregnant while taking the known teratogen Accutane and later came to believe God punished her with an autistic son as a result, the most pressing question that struck me was a theological one. However, as horrifying as I might personally find the belief in a God that would use one pregnancy to punish someone for the outcome of another, those issues are between Braxton, her pastor and the God she believes in herself.

But what of the claim itself? Did Braxtons earlier abortion cause developmental problems with her later pregnancy? Given that there is a certain strain of right-wing politics that will embrace the most flagrant pseudoscience if it comports with their belief that sex should be fraught with risk, particularly for women, it seems like a connection worth severing from a scientific point of view.

The trouble is that, unlike religious belief, medical science doesnt traffic in absolute certainties. Scientific data accumulate over time, steadily producing a body of evidence we use to take care of people the best way we can. But for any question, there is always the potential that new evidence will emerge that changes the way we answer it.

There are plenty of data that make a causal association between autism and abortion look pretty shaky. The U.S. abortion rate is at its lowest since the Roe v. Wade decision legalized it nationwide over 50 years ago, while the rate of new autism diagnoses continues to reach new records. While this isnt a conclusive refutation of a link between the two, it certainly undermines the notion that prior abortions alone can cause autism.

Unfortunately, pinning down what factors do lead to autism is incredibly difficult. It is unlikely that any single obstetric complication is the cause of the disorder. One review found a relationship between both advancing paternal and maternal age, for example. But that same review does reference two smaller studies (one of which is also cited by an antiabortion website) that seemed to show increased risk of autism following induced abortions. The review did not include it in its list of factors that are likely to have a significant effect on autism risk, but if you want to find citations there are a few out there.

Do I find a couple of studies anywhere close to a sufficient body of evidence to support a link between autism and abortion? No. I think that if there were a significant relationship between the two it would have been demonstrated far more conclusively and shown up in far more studies. Unlike with other purported causes of autism, however, I could not find any studies that specifically examined the link between abortion and autism in a later pregnancy, which makes it hard to speak with as much certainty as I can about other subjects. Whatever you may think of Braxtons theology, any scientific support for her belief is thin, at best.

For her part, it seems she has gone on to walk back the autism diagnosis and instead join the ranks of idiot celebrities who blame vaccines for childrens developmental problems. Maybe its just a coincidence that after my sons first MMR vaccine, I began to notice changes in him, she said in a later interview. There is no maybe about this one, no matter Braxtons post hoc suppositions. If medical science has built up a body of evidence about any one question, few are more solid than the one debunking any relationship between vaccines and autism. One recently released study included more than 1 million children and found no link between the two, which is far more sound than a couple of studies suggesting a link with abortion.

The role that God played in her sons developmental problems is one that does not really admit to scientific analysis. Im certainly skeptical. But as far as the roles her earlier abortion or decision to vaccinate him are concerned, I feel comfortable pinning them at negligible and nil, respectively. I dont know what shes hearing from her pastor, but I hope her sons doctor is telling her the same thing I would.

See the article here:
Toni Braxtons strange diagnosis: Checking the science on her autism claims

Now, thats the sort of knife-edge humour that makes any self-help pill easier to swallow. But alongside the one-liners The trouble with the gene pool is that theres no life guard and Remember, some small children are frightened by fireworks; another great way to scare them is ghost stories there are glittering gems of advice.

You only have to Be Brilliant for four minutes at a time for other people to tune into your brilliance, say the authors. If you convey a sense of happiness, positivity and passion, then those around you will have almost no choice, physiologically and psychologically, but to be positive, too.

Now, even the most miserable among us can surely manage four minutes of being fantastic the theory being that the feedback is so affirmative, and the endorphin rush so delightful, that well do it again and again, until being upbeat becomes a habit that reaps its own rewards.

The book, which follows on from The Art of Being Brilliant, has been written by a couple of home-grown happiness experts, who travel the country giving pep talks to blue-chip companies such as DHL, Waitrose, IKEA and Hewlett-Packard, as well as the pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, recently wooed in a take-over bid by Pfizer.

Were not trying to be the bloody Waltons here, sighs joint author Andy Whittaker. You cant turn negatives into positives, but you can try to go about dealing with setbacks in a positive way.

Whittaker, 40, is a former army mechanic turned holiday rep turned salesman, who turned his back on soul-sapping corporate life to do stand-up comedy and study mindfulness, spirituality and neuro-linguistic programming. Divorced with a teenage daughter, he asks, inscrutably deadpan: Can you put in that Im single, please? That would help me a lot. Dont worry about fielding the responses Im happy to take a load of phone calls from nutters just to find The One.

His co-author is Andy Cope, 47, from a small village in Derbyshire, whose bon-mots include: If I miss the bus there wont be another one until next Tuesday. Theres a life lesson in staying on top of things. Married with two children, Cope is an academic and childrens author, who has now passed volume 20 of his best-selling Spy Dog and Spy Cat series.

Cope provides the academic input, Whittaker brings in the laughs, making them strong contenders for being crowned the Morecambe and Wise of personal development, if there were such a title.

Im supposed to be the clever one because I got a degree in psychology, says Cope. But it was all about symptoms and syndromes and dwelling on the negatives. After university, I went into retail management and then adult education, but something drew me back to psychology, but of a more positive sort. He is currently completing a PhD at Loughborough University, looking at happiness in this country and investigating what he calls the two percenters, people who are genuinely happy, today and every day. Its a blessing, but also a skill that can be learnt.

We spend our lives deferring happiness, says Cope. When I pass my exams, Ill be happy, when I get my degree, Ill be happy; when I get my first job and buy a huge flat-screen telly, Ill be happy. But maybe being your Best Version of Yourself is what will make you happy?

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A very British way to get happy

Listen Where science and religion meet 38min 1sec -Book cover courtesy of publisher Amir Aczel: Mathematician, writer and research fellow at Boston University

In his latest book, Amir Aczel counters conventional wisdom often associated with the New Atheist movement and the existence of God.

In "Why Science Does Not Disprove God," Aczel says science and religion do not need to be at odds. His book takes a critical look at scientists like Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss who use science to disprove the existence of God.

"Science and spirituality are both integral parts of the human search for truth and meaning; they provide us possible paths of comprehending and appreciating the vast cosmos and our place in it," he writes.

In a Washington Post review of the book, MIT professor and physicist Alan Lightman said he used to find books like Aczel's "a terrible waste of calories," but he has changed his mind.

"I now believe that the discussions of science and religion, even the attempts of one side to disprove the other, are part of the continuing and restorative conversation of humanity with itself," he writes.

More from the review:

Aczel joins The Daily Circuit to discuss his book.

See the rest here:
Amir Aczel on how God and science can co-exist

Twelve individuals who have achieved distinction in their fields were awarded honorary degrees at Yale Universitys 2014 Commencement ceremony on May 19. Here are the citations that President Peter Salovey read as they received their degrees. Read their biographies.

Doctor of Engineering and Technology

As the creator of the World Wide Web, you have transformed our global village, revolutionized the flow of knowledge, and changed the way we live. Generous with your genius, you shared your invention without restrictions or royalties. By conceiving hypertext protocols for the Internet, you put the power of computing in the hands of almost anyone, with the goal of making the Web a universal medium. You have democratized access to information, and in so doing, have made the sum of human knowledge greater than its separate parts. You have woven the web that connects us all, and we are honored to name you Doctor of Engineering and Technology.

Doctor of Letters

For almost forty years, you have graced us with lyrical poetry that dances and sings off the page waltzing, lilting, bugling. Your poems capture and entwine a nations history and our inner lives with astute clarity, while your drama has startled audiences and readers into new visions of the past. As our youngest Poet Laureate, you have been a passionate advocate for cultural and literary diversity, and you have communicated your own love of books to others through your writing, your outreach, and your example. You have not kept quiet in noisy times, but rather have spoken out in clear and convincing verse, showing us the power of poetry to transform and transcend. We are pleased to bestow on you this degree of Doctor of Letters.

Doctor of Humanities

As a sage voice of progressive India, you are a leading public intellectual. Your work is brilliant and varied in its scope. You are an incisive essayist of your countrys vibrant and clamorous politics and society, arenowned historian of modern India, and the definitive biographer of Gandhi. Whether writing about cricket orcommenting on contemporary Indian life, you capture the spirit of your nation and its past, while opening newunderstandings of its present and the promise of its future. As a gifted teacher, you have shared your talents withus at Yale, and we are delighted to have you return to campus, this time asDoctor of Humanities.

Doctor of Social Science

You have devoted a lifetime to thinking about how we think, both fast and slow. From childhood you experienced the worst and the best of peoples actions, and your observations led you to understand that we are not always the rational beings we imagine ourselves to be. The field of behavioral economics was born from your scholarship, and your pathbreaking work has given psychologists and economists new tools with which to explore human behavior and cognition. Your noble accomplishments include teaching generations of students and influencing scholars across disciplines. We are honored to name you Doctor of Social Science.

Doctor of Science

Link:
Yale awards 12 honorary degrees at 2014 graduation

London (PRWEB) May 17, 2014

In his new book, Far More than We Think: Making Sense of Spirituality (published by Balboa Press), author Michael Angelo Le Houx offers readers a fusion of contemporary and ancient wisdom, scientific fact and personal experience to help prove that everyone is capable of far more than they think.

Le Houx delicately yet honestly addresses the challenges of his former life, through seven compelling sections that build to a conclusion that there is more to existence than may have been previously thought possible.

Far More than We Think is an intimate, informative book that helps readers from a variety of backgrounds to better understand the spiritual science behind the troubles that many face in life. Le Houx has given his audience a guide to quiet the mind so that spirit, love and true understanding can begin to shine through.

If anybody ever thought that there must be more to life than their current experience so far, then this book could mark an important turning point, Le Houx says.

Far More than We Think By Michael Angelo Le Houx Hardcover | 6 x 9 in | 360 pages | ISBN 9781452584904 Softcover | 6 x 9 in | 360 pages | ISBN 9781452584881 E-Book | ISBN 9781452584898 Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

About the Author Michael Angelo Le Houx is an accountant, former finance director and recovering alcoholic who is committed to helping others fulfill their true potential. He has tasted the elixir of success and achievement in his life and has also suffered the lonely despair of depression and alcoholism. His reflections on spirituality are well-researched and potentially of widespread significance. More information is available at http://youtu.be/cTPzKViET38.

Balboa Press, a division of Hay House, Inc. a leading provider in publishing products that specialize in self-help and the mind, body, and spirit genres. Through an alliance with indie book publishing leader Author Solutions, LLC, authors benefit from the leadership of Hay House Publishing and the speed-to-market advantages of the self-publishing model. For more information, visit balboapress.com. To start publishing your book with Balboa Press, call 877-407-4847 today. For the latest, follow @balboapress on Twitter. ###

Originally posted here:
Michael Angelo Le Houx Seeks to Simplify Everyday Problems Through Spirituality in New Book

Brattleboro, VT (PRWEB) May 13, 2014

ASEMC Press announces the release of a new book featuring multiple near-death experiences throughout an epic lifetime search for truth outside of religious doctrine. The hows and whys of near-death experiences and the meaning of life are explored in a new autobiography that reviewers are describing as a spiritual adventure story.

ForeWord Reviews stated in their five-star review: Nothing gets ones attention like ones imminent demise, writes Gene ONeil in 'An Upraised Chalice,' a book that chronicles the remarkable travels, adventures, and near-death experiences that have marked his quest to discover the meaning of life. ONeils practical insights, born of experience, cut across religious boundaries to convey a vibrant spirituality in plain, accessible language.

The May Day release of this controversial book poses the question, Do you consider yourself more spiritual than religious? According to J. Mahon of ASEMC Press Many have turned away from traditional, organized religions to explore their own relationship with the Divine. The author answers the question with his own intense story, while on a lifetime quest that takes him outside the realm of conventional religions. The scientific, real world background of the author who is among other things a family man, a builder as well as a flight instructor conveys a physically practical approach to living a spiritual lifestyle .

Denis Ouellette, the editor of Natural Life News stated in his review, Periodically a book comes along that is capable of changing peoples minds about Reality. The just-released An Upraised Chalice is one such book. It chronicles the world travels and the inner and outer experiences of the author that have marked his life, told in an engaging style, filled with pictures taken along the way, and ringing of the truth of experience. With other such books, such as Proof of Heaven and Heaven Is for Real (now a movie), it seems the tide is turning for the mainstreams acceptance of life after death.

An Upraised Chalice Adventures and Near-Death Encounters in My Search for the Brotherhood of Light and What It Can Mean for You ISBN 978-0-9912635-0-9 is now available around the world from Amazon and bookstores everywhere through Ingram's distribution network in both print and eBook formats.

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Multiple Near-Death Experiences, an Epic Lifetime Search for Truth Outside of Religious Doctrine are Subject of New ...

Tam Hunts new collection of essays, Eco, Ego, Eros: Essays in Philosophy, Spirituality and Science, was published in early 2014. It is available in paperback or Kindle onAmazon.com.

Kirkus Reviews positively reviewed this new collection: A beautifully designed, thoroughly stimulating new paradigm of scientific spiritualism. The rest of the Kirkus review is availablehere.

Christof Koch, formerly a tenured professor at CalTech and now Chief Scientific Officer at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, wrote the Foreword for Hunts book. Hestates:

By reading Eco, Ego, Eros, you are about to embark on a voyage of discovery that uses rational analysis by some of the greatest Western thinkers, combined with the experimental and theoretical investigation of nature, to make sense of the riddle of our existence. Authored by Tam Hunt, an environmental lawyer and philosopher, this series of short chapters, reflecting their origin in a regular online column, has a magnificent writ. Starting out with panpsychism, the ancient teaching that all creatures and, indeed, all matter, are to a smaller and larger extent conscious, the book covers quantum mechanics, relativity theory, evolution by natural selection, the origin of life, scholars from Descartes to contemporary philosophers of mind, Gdel and the limits of mathematics, Western, Hindu and Buddhist ideas about mind, and the authors own mystical experience when smoking dope in the PacificNorthwest.

Absent-minded science - the practice of todays mainstream science of ignoring, either intentionally or by oversight, the role of mind in nature - is the focus of this volume of essays by Tam Hunt. Hunt is a former columnist for the Santa Barbara Independent and this book contains the first three years of his columns, including a bonus detailed interview with Giulio Tononi, developer of the Integrated Information Theory of consciousness that is growing in popularity in recent years. Also included is an interview with Christof Koch, a neuroscientist and biophysicist who has outed himself as a panpsychist. Panpsychism, a theme that runs through most of Hunts essays, is the notion that matter and mind are two sides of the same coin, so where there is mind there is also matter and where there is matter there is also mind. Koch, Tononi and Hunt are part of a growing awareness that mind needs to be taken seriously in science as well as in philosophy. Mind is fundamental in any coherent ontology and this series of essays outlines a system that puts mind back where it should be: at the base of ourworldview.

Tam Hunt is a lawyer, philosopher and writer based in Santa Barbara, California. He is a Visiting Scholar in psychology at UC SantaBarbara.

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Press release for publication of Tam Hunts new book, Eco, Ego, Eros: Essays in Philosophy, Spirituality and Science