#bayesian-methods — Public Fediverse posts

Exploring the Foundations of the Scientific Revolution

Several notable and important people led to the modern Scientific Revolution. It grew from their faith rooted in a Christian worldview. These philosophers and scientists founded their beliefs on a rational knowable Creator believing He would leave this universe imbued with rational laws that do not change. As a result using a sound investigative method those laws might be discovered.

The initial start to the development of modern science was heavily influenced by two philosophers who taught and developed the methodology of scientific empiricism: Roger Bacon in the 13th century and Francis Bacon in the 16th/17th century.

Roger Bacon (c. 1219/20–1292), known as Doctor Mirabilis, was a medieval English Franciscan friar, philosopher, and polymath who is considered one of the earliest European advocates of the scientific method and empiricism.

His philosophical contributions include:

• Empirical Science: Bacon emphasized direct observation and controlled experiment as essential correctives to authority and tradition, influencing the addition of optics to the medieval university curriculum. 
• Major Works: In 1267, he submitted the Opus Majus to Pope Clement IV, a comprehensive encyclopedia covering grammar, logic, mathematics, optics, and moral philosophy. 
• Scientific Innovations: He was the first European to record the formula for gunpowder and made significant studies in geometrical optics, vision, and refraction, anticipating developments in lenses and spectacles. 
• Imprisonment: Between 1277 and 1279, Bacon was likely imprisoned or placed under house arrest by his Franciscan superiors due to his interest in astrology, alchemy, and “suspected novelties,” though modern scholars debate the historical accuracy of this event. 
• Legacy: While deeply rooted in medieval scholasticism and theology, his insistence on experimental science (scientia experimentalis) positions him as a precursor to modern scientific inquiry. 

However the next Bacon has had the greatest influence on the fundamentals of modern science.

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was an English philosopher and statesman widely regarded as the father of empiricism and a foundational figure in the development of the scientific method.  He argued that knowledge should be derived from inductive reasoning and careful observation of nature, rejecting the deductive Aristotelian logic that dominated his era.

His philosophical contributions include:

• The Baconian Method: A systematic approach to science emphasizing experimentation, data collection, and the elimination of biases (known as the “Idols”).
• Key Works: He authored Novum Organum (1620), which outlined his new logical framework, and The Advancement of Learning (1605), advocating for the practical application of science to benefit humanity. 
• Philosophy of Science: Bacon believed that “knowledge is power,” asserting that scientific inquiry should not only seek truth but also produce tangible improvements in human life. 
• Legacy: His ideas heavily influenced the founders of the Royal Society and helped usher in the Scientific Revolution, shifting natural philosophy toward empirical and experimental practices. 

Francis Bacon was a devout Anglican Christian who sought to reconcile his faith with the emerging scientific method.  He believed that studying nature through empirical observation was a way to understand God’s creation and that scientific progress served a spiritual duty to alleviate human suffering. 

While Bacon argued for keeping theology and natural philosophy in separate spheres to prevent religious dogma from hindering scientific inquiry, he remained critical of atheism.

Bacon famously stated that “a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion,” viewing the increase of knowledge as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.

However he was not a biblical creationist in the modern sense. He believed that mixing theological dogma with natural philosophy (science) corrupted both, famously criticizing those who tried to build systems of physics based on Genesis or Job.

Bacon articulated the metaphor of “Two Books” written by God:

• The Book of God’s Word (Scripture): Reveals God’s will, moral laws, and the path to salvation. Bacon considered this essential for spiritual truth and believed it should be studied deeply. 
• The Book of God’s Works (Nature): Reveals God’s power and omnipotence. He argued that studying nature was a religious duty that helped humanity understand the Creator’s greatness. 

He urged scholars to pursue “endless progress” in both books but warned strictly against “unwisely mingling or confounding” them.

Of course, I totally disagree his “unwisely mingling” view. There are “Two Books” representing one creation, One Creator. The two books are interwoven by the very nature of the creation. It is all one system created by God and any philosophy that ignores this fact is ultimately doomed to failure.

However he rightfully is credited with what is nowadays called the Scientific Method: hypothesis, experiment and data collection that may disprove the initial hypothesis. No experimental results can ever prove the hypothesis. If you want proofs, try mathematics, which is a closed artificial universe.

I have no doubt that this method gave a big start to the Scientific Revolution, which really started with Francis Bacon in the early 1600s. However in all my own experience in university research labs what was actually used were Bayesian Methods.

Bayesian Methods are statistical techniques that use Bayes’ theorem to update the probability of a hypothesis as more evidence or data becomes available. 

Instead of treating unknown yet-to-be-determined parameters as fixed, Bayesian analysis interprets probability as a degree of belief, allowing for the incorporation of prior knowledge or subjective beliefs alongside observed data. Bayes’ theorem uses a conditional probability to update the prior knowledge.

That means that Bayesian methods build on prior knowledge. And that also means prior biases, which is often seen when a parameter is measured over time. The prior measured value is considered with more weight than it should be and so new values are chosen that fall closest to the prior. What results is a progressive creep in the value towards the final accepted value, the true value. This can be seen in the historical measured values for the round-trip speed of light, c.

Also in the measurements of the electron charge (e).

The bias is not due to the error bounds not overlapping the final correct result but due to weight placed on the priors. So a results that favour a prior is accepted before newer values which may be more accurate. This bias is a feature of a worldview.

Thomas Bayes (c. 1701–1761) was a Presbyterian minister and a member of the English Nonconformist (Dissenter) religious tradition. While his father was a traditional Presbyterian, scholars describe Bayes’ personal theological beliefs as Unitarian or Arian, indicating he strayed from standard Christian orthodoxy. (That is the same accusation leveled against Isaac Newton, so perhaps there is some doubt there.)

Bayes mathematical work, specifically Bayes’ theorem, was originally developed to provide a probabilistic defense of Christianity against the skeptical arguments of philosopher David Hume, who had questioned the validity of miracles.

Bayes published two works during his lifetime: a theological tract titled Divine Benevolence (1731) and a mathematical defense of Isaac Newton’s calculus (1736).

Barring a miraculous revelation from God, in a dream or vision, most experimental development comes from a long list of prior researchers, scientists who slowly advanced the field — one building on the work of another. This is what the oft quoted expression means.

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

The expression is most famously attributed to Isaac Newton, who used it in a 1675 letter to his rival Robert Hooke. However, the metaphor actually originated in the 12th century with the French philosopher Bernard of Chartres, who described humans as “dwarfs on the shoulders of giants.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) was an English polymath and a central figure in the Scientific Revolution, renowned for his foundational contributions to physics, mathematics, and optics.

Newton attended Trinity College, Cambridge, ostensibly preparing to become an Anglican minister, but spent his time developing his groundbreaking theories. The years 1665–1666 was a period of intense personal productivity known as his annus mirabilis. 

He was a deeply religious Christian whose theological writings vastly outnumbered his scientific works. Newton believed in God the Father as the sole creator and Jesus Christ as His divine Son, but some have claimed he denied their co-equality, rejecting the Trinitarian doctrine.1,2 Don’t be misled by such claims. He was an alchemist too, but he wasn’t a witch. Alchemy at that time was the start of modern chemistry and metallurgy.

He viewed his scientific discoveries as a means to understand God’s design in nature, believing that the laws of physics revealed the order of a rational Creator. Newton spent decades studying biblical prophecy (particularly Daniel and Revelation) and church history, seeking to restore the “pure” faith of the early apostolic era.

His major works include Principia Mathematica (1687), which established the laws of motion and universal gravitation, and Opticks (1704), which detailed his experiments on light and color, including the invention of the reflecting telescope (1668). 

Isaac Newton adapted and popularized the concept to acknowledge that his scientific discoveries built upon the work of predecessors like René Descartes. And this situation has been the norm since Isaac Newton.

René Descartes (1596–1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist widely regarded as the father of modern Western philosophy and a key figure in the Scientific Revolution. 

He is most famous for the epistemological foundationalist dictum “I think, therefore I am” (Cogito, ergo sum) and for developing Cartesian dualism, the theory that the mind and body are distinct substances.

René Descartes was a Roman Catholic who actively sought to align his philosophy with Christian doctrine.  He worked diligently to provide rational proofs for the existence of God, aiming to reconcile the new science with Christian beliefs and avoid conflict with ecclesiastical authorities. 

He insisted that truths of faith were superior to human reason and separated theological doctrines (like the Trinity) from his rational metaphysics. 

In works like the Meditations, he offered arguments for God’s existence (such as the trademark and ontological arguments) to establish God as the guarantor of truth and the creator of the universe. 

His distinction between mind (immaterial soul) and body (material matter) was intended to support the immortality of the soul, a core tenet of Christian theology. 

Despite his personal devotion, critics accused him of atheism because his mechanistic view of the physical world seemed to exclude God from daily natural processes, leading to the prohibition of his books by the Catholic Church in 1663. 

Ultimately, Descartes is viewed as a figure who tried to rationalize religion without abandoning it, positioning human reason as a path to understanding God rather than a replacement for faith. 

That is quite different to the humanist arguments of atheistic human reason without any foundation in God.

What we now need to understand is that not all science is science. It is not all subject to the Scientific Method even allowing for the human biases and Bayesian inference.

When an hypothesis cannot be tested because the subject lies in the past for the researcher it cannot be called operational or experimental science.

One problem that arises here is that the scientists themselves cannot recognise their own biases and proceed as if they are validly testing their assumed hypothesis. Their minds are dominated by their worldview, and that could be based on there being no Creator (atheism), or that the Creator is no longer around (deism) and all universal parameters evolve from their initial conditions.

In cases where an historical parameter is sought, the science should be called forensic or historical science because no direct evidence of the sought-after parameter is available. As a result proxies are used. But the proxies also cannot be directly tested for what they are assumed to mean.

For example, when trying to determine historical Earth temperatures tree rings or Oxygen isotope ratios are used as proxies. They need calibration but even the calibrations cannot be unequivocal since no one has a time machine. No past measurement is possible. All are inferred from some measurement done in the present.

Francis Bacon kept separate his “Two Books”. To keep them separate is a flawed approach, which other Christian apologists have also used. It is very similar to what Hugh Ross (of Reason to Believe ministry) teaches. He speaks of the 66 books of the bible but then there is the 67th book of nature. Ross claims God revealed that to him before he was even a believer in Christ.

It is a compromise because it does not allow the Creator to work. It assumes that in terms of a literal history in the Genesis account there is error and the language must be reinterpreted to fit in with modern science.

In Ross’ case he believes in the big bang origin of the universe, and so he squeezes the big bang timeline into the 6 x 24-hour days of Genesis creation. Ross accepts the multi-billion-year ages of the Earth and its rock strata, fitting in long periods for each day of creation. He employs a sequence of progressive creation acts that are intended to correspond to the sequence of events in the Genesis account. But one problem with that is the order. They are out of sequence. As well, his progressive “creation” events are, for all intents and purposes, infinitesimally close to Darwinian evolution of species (which he denies).

Why is it so difficult for even the men of faith to completely accept the Christian worldview in all its details. Thankfully there have been many who have done so. But even among the believers there have been many who compromised on the scriptures in favour of secular interpretations of the physical sciences. They could not fully integrate into their worldview one big picture for the handiwork of God.

Footnote:

1. Some have accused Newton of Arianism, but this is rejected by Pfizenmaier, T.C., Was Isaac Newton an Arian?, Journal of the History of Ideas 68(1):57–80, 1997. See here.
2. A very detailed defense of Newton’s Trinitarianism is Van Alan Herd, The theology of Sir Isaac Newton, gradworks.umi.com, Doctoral Dissertation, University of Oklahoma, 2008. This documents much evidence, including Newton’s words refuting tritheism and affirming Trinitarian monotheism:

That to say there is but one God, ye father of all things, excludes not the son & Holy ghost from the Godhead becaus they are virtually conteined & implied in the father. … To apply ye name of God to ye Son or holy ghost as distinct persons from the father makes them not divers Gods from ye Father. … Soe there is divinity in ye father, divinity in ye Son, & divinity in ye holy ghost, & yet they are not thre forces but one force.

Related Reading

• Why Don’t Scientists Believe in God?
• The Lawgiver is the Biblical Creator God
• True Science and Science Falsely So-Called
• The Laws of Physics Point to the Creator
• How Much Can You Trust in Science?
• Evolution is Not Operational Science
• Why Believe in God in an Age of Science?
• The Bible is Still Relevant in This Age of Science!
• Religion in Science
• The Problem with Science is that So Much of it Simply Isn’t
• The Big Bang is Not a Reason to Believe!
• The Immortal Soul | Neuroscience vs. Materialism
• Can Artificial General Intelligence Have a Soul?
• Young Earth Creation vs. Modern Cosmology
• Operational and Historical Science: What Are they?

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You’ll get an email each time we publish a new

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Subscribe to our Newsletters as a Premium Subscribers at $5 USD/month or $30 USD/year (you choose). Cancel anytime.

Paid Premium Subscribers will get exclusive access to certain content I publish. That will only cost you a cup of coffee per month.

Also you’ll be able to download, for free, a PDF of my book Apocalypse Now and also a PDF of my book The Physics of Creation The Creator’s Ultimate Design for Earth.

You can download them from the link below.

This is how you can support my work. I have been publishing this website for 10 years now and up to 2024 I never asked for any support.

Press the button “Premium” on the front page to find a list of Premium content. Thanks so much to all supporters.

At a minimum, please join as a Free Subscriber. It’ll cost you nothing. It may also help me beat the shadow banning of some posts.

Comments Welcome Below

Rate this:

Exploring the Foundations of the Scientific Revolution

Several notable and important people led to the modern Scientific Revolution. It grew from their faith rooted in a Christian worldview. These philosophers and scientists founded their beliefs on a rational knowable Creator believing He would leave this universe imbued with rational laws that do not change. As a result using a sound investigative method those laws might be discovered.

The initial start to the development of modern science was heavily influenced by two philosophers who taught and developed the methodology of scientific empiricism: Roger Bacon in the 13th century and Francis Bacon in the 16th/17th century.

Roger Bacon (c. 1219/20–1292), known as Doctor Mirabilis, was a medieval English Franciscan friar, philosopher, and polymath who is considered one of the earliest European advocates of the scientific method and empiricism.

His philosophical contributions include:

• Empirical Science: Bacon emphasized direct observation and controlled experiment as essential correctives to authority and tradition, influencing the addition of optics to the medieval university curriculum. 
• Major Works: In 1267, he submitted the Opus Majus to Pope Clement IV, a comprehensive encyclopedia covering grammar, logic, mathematics, optics, and moral philosophy. 
• Scientific Innovations: He was the first European to record the formula for gunpowder and made significant studies in geometrical optics, vision, and refraction, anticipating developments in lenses and spectacles. 
• Imprisonment: Between 1277 and 1279, Bacon was likely imprisoned or placed under house arrest by his Franciscan superiors due to his interest in astrology, alchemy, and “suspected novelties,” though modern scholars debate the historical accuracy of this event. 
• Legacy: While deeply rooted in medieval scholasticism and theology, his insistence on experimental science (scientia experimentalis) positions him as a precursor to modern scientific inquiry. 

However the next Bacon has had the greatest influence on the fundamentals of modern science.

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was an English philosopher and statesman widely regarded as the father of empiricism and a foundational figure in the development of the scientific method.  He argued that knowledge should be derived from inductive reasoning and careful observation of nature, rejecting the deductive Aristotelian logic that dominated his era.

His philosophical contributions include:

• The Baconian Method: A systematic approach to science emphasizing experimentation, data collection, and the elimination of biases (known as the “Idols”).
• Key Works: He authored Novum Organum (1620), which outlined his new logical framework, and The Advancement of Learning (1605), advocating for the practical application of science to benefit humanity. 
• Philosophy of Science: Bacon believed that “knowledge is power,” asserting that scientific inquiry should not only seek truth but also produce tangible improvements in human life. 
• Legacy: His ideas heavily influenced the founders of the Royal Society and helped usher in the Scientific Revolution, shifting natural philosophy toward empirical and experimental practices. 

Francis Bacon was a devout Anglican Christian who sought to reconcile his faith with the emerging scientific method.  He believed that studying nature through empirical observation was a way to understand God’s creation and that scientific progress served a spiritual duty to alleviate human suffering. 

While Bacon argued for keeping theology and natural philosophy in separate spheres to prevent religious dogma from hindering scientific inquiry, he remained critical of atheism.

Bacon famously stated that “a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion,” viewing the increase of knowledge as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.

However he was not a biblical creationist in the modern sense. He believed that mixing theological dogma with natural philosophy (science) corrupted both, famously criticizing those who tried to build systems of physics based on Genesis or Job.

Bacon articulated the metaphor of “Two Books” written by God:

• The Book of God’s Word (Scripture): Reveals God’s will, moral laws, and the path to salvation. Bacon considered this essential for spiritual truth and believed it should be studied deeply. 
• The Book of God’s Works (Nature): Reveals God’s power and omnipotence. He argued that studying nature was a religious duty that helped humanity understand the Creator’s greatness. 

He urged scholars to pursue “endless progress” in both books but warned strictly against “unwisely mingling or confounding” them.

Of course, I totally disagree his “unwisely mingling” view. There are “Two Books” representing one creation, One Creator. The two books are interwoven by the very nature of the creation. It is all one system created by God and any philosophy that ignores this fact is ultimately doomed to failure.

However he rightfully is credited with what is nowadays called the Scientific Method: hypothesis, experiment and data collection that may disprove the initial hypothesis. No experimental results can ever prove the hypothesis. If you want proofs, try mathematics, which is a closed artificial universe.

I have no doubt that this method gave a big start to the Scientific Revolution, which really started with Francis Bacon in the early 1600s. However in all my own experience in university research labs what was actually used were Bayesian Methods.

Bayesian Methods are statistical techniques that use Bayes’ theorem to update the probability of a hypothesis as more evidence or data becomes available. 

Instead of treating unknown yet-to-be-determined parameters as fixed, Bayesian analysis interprets probability as a degree of belief, allowing for the incorporation of prior knowledge or subjective beliefs alongside observed data. Bayes’ theorem uses a conditional probability to update the prior knowledge.

That means that Bayesian methods build on prior knowledge. And that also means prior biases, which is often seen when a parameter is measured over time. The prior measured value is considered with more weight than it should be and so new values are chosen that fall closest to the prior. What results is a progressive creep in the value towards the final accepted value, the true value. This can be seen in the historical measured values for the round-trip speed of light, c.

Also in the measurements of the electron charge (e).

The bias is not due to the error bounds not overlapping the final correct result but due to weight placed on the priors. So a results that favour a prior is accepted before newer values which may be more accurate. This bias is a feature of a worldview.

Thomas Bayes (c. 1701–1761) was a Presbyterian minister and a member of the English Nonconformist (Dissenter) religious tradition. While his father was a traditional Presbyterian, scholars describe Bayes’ personal theological beliefs as Unitarian or Arian, indicating he strayed from standard Christian orthodoxy. (That is the same accusation leveled against Isaac Newton, so perhaps there is some doubt there.)

Bayes mathematical work, specifically Bayes’ theorem, was originally developed to provide a probabilistic defense of Christianity against the skeptical arguments of philosopher David Hume, who had questioned the validity of miracles.

Bayes published two works during his lifetime: a theological tract titled Divine Benevolence (1731) and a mathematical defense of Isaac Newton’s calculus (1736).

Barring a miraculous revelation from God, in a dream or vision, most experimental development comes from a long list of prior researchers, scientists who slowly advanced the field — one building on the work of another. This is what the oft quoted expression means.

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

The expression is most famously attributed to Isaac Newton, who used it in a 1675 letter to his rival Robert Hooke. However, the metaphor actually originated in the 12th century with the French philosopher Bernard of Chartres, who described humans as “dwarfs on the shoulders of giants.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) was an English polymath and a central figure in the Scientific Revolution, renowned for his foundational contributions to physics, mathematics, and optics.

Newton attended Trinity College, Cambridge, ostensibly preparing to become an Anglican minister, but spent his time developing his groundbreaking theories. The years 1665–1666 was a period of intense personal productivity known as his annus mirabilis. 

He was a deeply religious Christian whose theological writings vastly outnumbered his scientific works. Newton believed in God the Father as the sole creator and Jesus Christ as His divine Son, but some have claimed he denied their co-equality, rejecting the Trinitarian doctrine.1,2 Don’t be misled by such claims. He was an alchemist too, but he wasn’t a witch. Alchemy at that time was the start of modern chemistry and metallurgy.

He viewed his scientific discoveries as a means to understand God’s design in nature, believing that the laws of physics revealed the order of a rational Creator. Newton spent decades studying biblical prophecy (particularly Daniel and Revelation) and church history, seeking to restore the “pure” faith of the early apostolic era.

His major works include Principia Mathematica (1687), which established the laws of motion and universal gravitation, and Opticks (1704), which detailed his experiments on light and color, including the invention of the reflecting telescope (1668). 

Isaac Newton adapted and popularized the concept to acknowledge that his scientific discoveries built upon the work of predecessors like René Descartes. And this situation has been the norm since Isaac Newton.

René Descartes (1596–1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist widely regarded as the father of modern Western philosophy and a key figure in the Scientific Revolution. 

He is most famous for the epistemological foundationalist dictum “I think, therefore I am” (Cogito, ergo sum) and for developing Cartesian dualism, the theory that the mind and body are distinct substances.

René Descartes was a Roman Catholic who actively sought to align his philosophy with Christian doctrine.  He worked diligently to provide rational proofs for the existence of God, aiming to reconcile the new science with Christian beliefs and avoid conflict with ecclesiastical authorities. 

He insisted that truths of faith were superior to human reason and separated theological doctrines (like the Trinity) from his rational metaphysics. 

In works like the Meditations, he offered arguments for God’s existence (such as the trademark and ontological arguments) to establish God as the guarantor of truth and the creator of the universe. 

His distinction between mind (immaterial soul) and body (material matter) was intended to support the immortality of the soul, a core tenet of Christian theology. 

Despite his personal devotion, critics accused him of atheism because his mechanistic view of the physical world seemed to exclude God from daily natural processes, leading to the prohibition of his books by the Catholic Church in 1663. 

Ultimately, Descartes is viewed as a figure who tried to rationalize religion without abandoning it, positioning human reason as a path to understanding God rather than a replacement for faith. 

That is quite different to the humanist arguments of atheistic human reason without any foundation in God.

What we now need to understand is that not all science is science. It is not all subject to the Scientific Method even allowing for the human biases and Bayesian inference.

When an hypothesis cannot be tested because the subject lies in the past for the researcher it cannot be called operational or experimental science.

One problem that arises here is that the scientists themselves cannot recognise their own biases and proceed as if they are validly testing their assumed hypothesis. Their minds are dominated by their worldview, and that could be based on there being no Creator (atheism), or that the Creator is no longer around (deism) and all universal parameters evolve from their initial conditions.

In cases where an historical parameter is sought, the science should be called forensic or historical science because no direct evidence of the sought-after parameter is available. As a result proxies are used. But the proxies also cannot be directly tested for what they are assumed to mean.

For example, when trying to determine historical Earth temperatures tree rings or Oxygen isotope ratios are used as proxies. They need calibration but even the calibrations cannot be unequivocal since no one has a time machine. No past measurement is possible. All are inferred from some measurement done in the present.

Francis Bacon kept separate his “Two Books”. To keep them separate is a flawed approach, which other Christian apologists have also used. It is very similar to what Hugh Ross (of Reason to Believe ministry) teaches. He speaks of the 66 books of the bible but then there is the 67th book of nature. Ross claims God revealed that to him before he was even a believer in Christ.

It is a compromise because it does not allow the Creator to work. It assumes that in terms of a literal history in the Genesis account there is error and the language must be reinterpreted to fit in with modern science.

In Ross’ case he believes in the big bang origin of the universe, and so he squeezes the big bang timeline into the 6 x 24-hour days of Genesis creation. Ross accepts the multi-billion-year ages of the Earth and its rock strata, fitting in long periods for each day of creation. He employs a sequence of progressive creation acts that are intended to correspond to the sequence of events in the Genesis account. But one problem with that is the order. They are out of sequence. As well, his progressive “creation” events are, for all intents and purposes, infinitesimally close to Darwinian evolution of species (which he denies).

Why is it so difficult for even the men of faith to completely accept the Christian worldview in all its details. Thankfully there have been many who have done so. But even among the believers there have been many who compromised on the scriptures in favour of secular interpretations of the physical sciences. They could not fully integrate into their worldview one big picture for the handiwork of God.

Footnote:

1. Some have accused Newton of Arianism, but this is rejected by Pfizenmaier, T.C., Was Isaac Newton an Arian?, Journal of the History of Ideas 68(1):57–80, 1997. See here.
2. A very detailed defense of Newton’s Trinitarianism is Van Alan Herd, The theology of Sir Isaac Newton, gradworks.umi.com, Doctoral Dissertation, University of Oklahoma, 2008. This documents much evidence, including Newton’s words refuting tritheism and affirming Trinitarian monotheism:

That to say there is but one God, ye father of all things, excludes not the son & Holy ghost from the Godhead becaus they are virtually conteined & implied in the father. … To apply ye name of God to ye Son or holy ghost as distinct persons from the father makes them not divers Gods from ye Father. … Soe there is divinity in ye father, divinity in ye Son, & divinity in ye holy ghost, & yet they are not thre forces but one force.

Related Reading

• Why Don’t Scientists Believe in God?
• The Lawgiver is the Biblical Creator God
• True Science and Science Falsely So-Called
• The Laws of Physics Point to the Creator
• How Much Can You Trust in Science?
• Evolution is Not Operational Science
• Why Believe in God in an Age of Science?
• The Bible is Still Relevant in This Age of Science!
• Religion in Science
• The Problem with Science is that So Much of it Simply Isn’t
• The Big Bang is Not a Reason to Believe!
• The Immortal Soul | Neuroscience vs. Materialism
• Can Artificial General Intelligence Have a Soul?
• Young Earth Creation vs. Modern Cosmology
• Operational and Historical Science: What Are they?

Free Subscribers

Subscribe to our Newsletters as a Free Subscriber and be notified by email. Just put your email address in the box at the bottom of your screen.

You’ll get an email each time we publish a new

Premium Subscribers

Subscribe to our Newsletters as a Premium Subscribers at $5 USD/month or $30 USD/year (you choose). Cancel anytime.

Paid Premium Subscribers will get exclusive access to certain content I publish. That will only cost you a cup of coffee per month.

Also you’ll be able to download, for free, a PDF of my book Apocalypse Now and also a PDF of my book The Physics of Creation The Creator’s Ultimate Design for Earth.

You can download them from the link below.

This is how you can support my work. I have been publishing this website for 10 years now and up to 2024 I never asked for any support.

Press the button “Premium” on the front page to find a list of Premium content. Thanks so much to all supporters.

At a minimum, please join as a Free Subscriber. It’ll cost you nothing. It may also help me beat the shadow banning of some posts.

Comments Welcome Below

Rate this:

Exploring the Foundations of the Scientific Revolution

Several notable and important people led to the modern Scientific Revolution. It grew from their faith rooted in a Christian worldview. These philosophers and scientists founded their beliefs on a rational knowable Creator believing He would leave this universe imbued with rational laws that do not change. As a result using a sound investigative method those laws might be discovered.

The initial start to the development of modern science was heavily influenced by two philosophers who taught and developed the methodology of scientific empiricism: Roger Bacon in the 13th century and Francis Bacon in the 16th/17th century.

Roger Bacon (c. 1219/20–1292), known as Doctor Mirabilis, was a medieval English Franciscan friar, philosopher, and polymath who is considered one of the earliest European advocates of the scientific method and empiricism.

His philosophical contributions include:

• Empirical Science: Bacon emphasized direct observation and controlled experiment as essential correctives to authority and tradition, influencing the addition of optics to the medieval university curriculum. 
• Major Works: In 1267, he submitted the Opus Majus to Pope Clement IV, a comprehensive encyclopedia covering grammar, logic, mathematics, optics, and moral philosophy. 
• Scientific Innovations: He was the first European to record the formula for gunpowder and made significant studies in geometrical optics, vision, and refraction, anticipating developments in lenses and spectacles. 
• Imprisonment: Between 1277 and 1279, Bacon was likely imprisoned or placed under house arrest by his Franciscan superiors due to his interest in astrology, alchemy, and “suspected novelties,” though modern scholars debate the historical accuracy of this event. 
• Legacy: While deeply rooted in medieval scholasticism and theology, his insistence on experimental science (scientia experimentalis) positions him as a precursor to modern scientific inquiry. 

However the next Bacon has had the greatest influence on the fundamentals of modern science.

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was an English philosopher and statesman widely regarded as the father of empiricism and a foundational figure in the development of the scientific method.  He argued that knowledge should be derived from inductive reasoning and careful observation of nature, rejecting the deductive Aristotelian logic that dominated his era.

His philosophical contributions include:

• The Baconian Method: A systematic approach to science emphasizing experimentation, data collection, and the elimination of biases (known as the “Idols”).
• Key Works: He authored Novum Organum (1620), which outlined his new logical framework, and The Advancement of Learning (1605), advocating for the practical application of science to benefit humanity. 
• Philosophy of Science: Bacon believed that “knowledge is power,” asserting that scientific inquiry should not only seek truth but also produce tangible improvements in human life. 
• Legacy: His ideas heavily influenced the founders of the Royal Society and helped usher in the Scientific Revolution, shifting natural philosophy toward empirical and experimental practices. 

Francis Bacon was a devout Anglican Christian who sought to reconcile his faith with the emerging scientific method.  He believed that studying nature through empirical observation was a way to understand God’s creation and that scientific progress served a spiritual duty to alleviate human suffering. 

While Bacon argued for keeping theology and natural philosophy in separate spheres to prevent religious dogma from hindering scientific inquiry, he remained critical of atheism.

Bacon famously stated that “a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion,” viewing the increase of knowledge as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.

However he was not a biblical creationist in the modern sense. He believed that mixing theological dogma with natural philosophy (science) corrupted both, famously criticizing those who tried to build systems of physics based on Genesis or Job.

Bacon articulated the metaphor of “Two Books” written by God:

• The Book of God’s Word (Scripture): Reveals God’s will, moral laws, and the path to salvation. Bacon considered this essential for spiritual truth and believed it should be studied deeply. 
• The Book of God’s Works (Nature): Reveals God’s power and omnipotence. He argued that studying nature was a religious duty that helped humanity understand the Creator’s greatness. 

He urged scholars to pursue “endless progress” in both books but warned strictly against “unwisely mingling or confounding” them.

Of course, I totally disagree his “unwisely mingling” view. There are “Two Books” representing one creation, One Creator. The two books are interwoven by the very nature of the creation. It is all one system created by God and any philosophy that ignores this fact is ultimately doomed to failure.

However he rightfully is credited with what is nowadays called the Scientific Method: hypothesis, experiment and data collection that may disprove the initial hypothesis. No experimental results can ever prove the hypothesis. If you want proofs, try mathematics, which is a closed artificial universe.

I have no doubt that this method gave a big start to the Scientific Revolution, which really started with Francis Bacon in the early 1600s. However in all my own experience in university research labs what was actually used were Bayesian Methods.

Bayesian Methods are statistical techniques that use Bayes’ theorem to update the probability of a hypothesis as more evidence or data becomes available. 

Instead of treating unknown yet-to-be-determined parameters as fixed, Bayesian analysis interprets probability as a degree of belief, allowing for the incorporation of prior knowledge or subjective beliefs alongside observed data. Bayes’ theorem uses a conditional probability to update the prior knowledge.

That means that Bayesian methods build on prior knowledge. And that also means prior biases, which is often seen when a parameter is measured over time. The prior measured value is considered with more weight than it should be and so new values are chosen that fall closest to the prior. What results is a progressive creep in the value towards the final accepted value, the true value. This can be seen in the historical measured values for the round-trip speed of light, c.

Also in the measurements of the electron charge (e).

The bias is not due to the error bounds not overlapping the final correct result but due to weight placed on the priors. So a results that favour a prior is accepted before newer values which may be more accurate. This bias is a feature of a worldview.

Thomas Bayes (c. 1701–1761) was a Presbyterian minister and a member of the English Nonconformist (Dissenter) religious tradition. While his father was a traditional Presbyterian, scholars describe Bayes’ personal theological beliefs as Unitarian or Arian, indicating he strayed from standard Christian orthodoxy. (That is the same accusation leveled against Isaac Newton, so perhaps there is some doubt there.)

Bayes mathematical work, specifically Bayes’ theorem, was originally developed to provide a probabilistic defense of Christianity against the skeptical arguments of philosopher David Hume, who had questioned the validity of miracles.

Bayes published two works during his lifetime: a theological tract titled Divine Benevolence (1731) and a mathematical defense of Isaac Newton’s calculus (1736).

Barring a miraculous revelation from God, in a dream or vision, most experimental development comes from a long list of prior researchers, scientists who slowly advanced the field — one building on the work of another. This is what the oft quoted expression means.

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

The expression is most famously attributed to Isaac Newton, who used it in a 1675 letter to his rival Robert Hooke. However, the metaphor actually originated in the 12th century with the French philosopher Bernard of Chartres, who described humans as “dwarfs on the shoulders of giants.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) was an English polymath and a central figure in the Scientific Revolution, renowned for his foundational contributions to physics, mathematics, and optics.

Newton attended Trinity College, Cambridge, ostensibly preparing to become an Anglican minister, but spent his time developing his groundbreaking theories. The years 1665–1666 was a period of intense personal productivity known as his annus mirabilis. 

He was a deeply religious Christian whose theological writings vastly outnumbered his scientific works. Newton believed in God the Father as the sole creator and Jesus Christ as His divine Son, but some have claimed he denied their co-equality, rejecting the Trinitarian doctrine.1,2 Don’t be misled by such claims. He was an alchemist too, but he wasn’t a witch. Alchemy at that time was the start of modern chemistry and metallurgy.

He viewed his scientific discoveries as a means to understand God’s design in nature, believing that the laws of physics revealed the order of a rational Creator. Newton spent decades studying biblical prophecy (particularly Daniel and Revelation) and church history, seeking to restore the “pure” faith of the early apostolic era.

His major works include Principia Mathematica (1687), which established the laws of motion and universal gravitation, and Opticks (1704), which detailed his experiments on light and color, including the invention of the reflecting telescope (1668). 

Isaac Newton adapted and popularized the concept to acknowledge that his scientific discoveries built upon the work of predecessors like René Descartes. And this situation has been the norm since Isaac Newton.

René Descartes (1596–1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist widely regarded as the father of modern Western philosophy and a key figure in the Scientific Revolution. 

He is most famous for the epistemological foundationalist dictum “I think, therefore I am” (Cogito, ergo sum) and for developing Cartesian dualism, the theory that the mind and body are distinct substances.

René Descartes was a Roman Catholic who actively sought to align his philosophy with Christian doctrine.  He worked diligently to provide rational proofs for the existence of God, aiming to reconcile the new science with Christian beliefs and avoid conflict with ecclesiastical authorities. 

He insisted that truths of faith were superior to human reason and separated theological doctrines (like the Trinity) from his rational metaphysics. 

In works like the Meditations, he offered arguments for God’s existence (such as the trademark and ontological arguments) to establish God as the guarantor of truth and the creator of the universe. 

His distinction between mind (immaterial soul) and body (material matter) was intended to support the immortality of the soul, a core tenet of Christian theology. 

Despite his personal devotion, critics accused him of atheism because his mechanistic view of the physical world seemed to exclude God from daily natural processes, leading to the prohibition of his books by the Catholic Church in 1663. 

Ultimately, Descartes is viewed as a figure who tried to rationalize religion without abandoning it, positioning human reason as a path to understanding God rather than a replacement for faith. 

That is quite different to the humanist arguments of atheistic human reason without any foundation in God.

What we now need to understand is that not all science is science. It is not all subject to the Scientific Method even allowing for the human biases and Bayesian inference.

When an hypothesis cannot be tested because the subject lies in the past for the researcher it cannot be called operational or experimental science.

One problem that arises here is that the scientists themselves cannot recognise their own biases and proceed as if they are validly testing their assumed hypothesis. Their minds are dominated by their worldview, and that could be based on there being no Creator (atheism), or that the Creator is no longer around (deism) and all universal parameters evolve from their initial conditions.

In cases where an historical parameter is sought, the science should be called forensic or historical science because no direct evidence of the sought-after parameter is available. As a result proxies are used. But the proxies also cannot be directly tested for what they are assumed to mean.

For example, when trying to determine historical Earth temperatures tree rings or Oxygen isotope ratios are used as proxies. They need calibration but even the calibrations cannot be unequivocal since no one has a time machine. No past measurement is possible. All are inferred from some measurement done in the present.

Francis Bacon kept separate his “Two Books”. To keep them separate is a flawed approach, which other Christian apologists have also used. It is very similar to what Hugh Ross (of Reason to Believe ministry) teaches. He speaks of the 66 books of the bible but then there is the 67th book of nature. Ross claims God revealed that to him before he was even a believer in Christ.

It is a compromise because it does not allow the Creator to work. It assumes that in terms of a literal history in the Genesis account there is error and the language must be reinterpreted to fit in with modern science.

In Ross’ case he believes in the big bang origin of the universe, and so he squeezes the big bang timeline into the 6 x 24-hour days of Genesis creation. Ross accepts the multi-billion-year ages of the Earth and its rock strata, fitting in long periods for each day of creation. He employs a sequence of progressive creation acts that are intended to correspond to the sequence of events in the Genesis account. But one problem with that is the order. They are out of sequence. As well, his progressive “creation” events are, for all intents and purposes, infinitesimally close to Darwinian evolution of species (which he denies).

Why is it so difficult for even the men of faith to completely accept the Christian worldview in all its details. Thankfully there have been many who have done so. But even among the believers there have been many who compromised on the scriptures in favour of secular interpretations of the physical sciences. They could not fully integrate into their worldview one big picture for the handiwork of God.

Footnote:

1. Some have accused Newton of Arianism, but this is rejected by Pfizenmaier, T.C., Was Isaac Newton an Arian?, Journal of the History of Ideas 68(1):57–80, 1997. See here.
2. A very detailed defense of Newton’s Trinitarianism is Van Alan Herd, The theology of Sir Isaac Newton, gradworks.umi.com, Doctoral Dissertation, University of Oklahoma, 2008. This documents much evidence, including Newton’s words refuting tritheism and affirming Trinitarian monotheism:

That to say there is but one God, ye father of all things, excludes not the son & Holy ghost from the Godhead becaus they are virtually conteined & implied in the father. … To apply ye name of God to ye Son or holy ghost as distinct persons from the father makes them not divers Gods from ye Father. … Soe there is divinity in ye father, divinity in ye Son, & divinity in ye holy ghost, & yet they are not thre forces but one force.

Related Reading

• Why Don’t Scientists Believe in God?
• The Lawgiver is the Biblical Creator God
• True Science and Science Falsely So-Called
• The Laws of Physics Point to the Creator
• How Much Can You Trust in Science?
• Evolution is Not Operational Science
• Why Believe in God in an Age of Science?
• The Bible is Still Relevant in This Age of Science!
• Religion in Science
• The Problem with Science is that So Much of it Simply Isn’t
• The Big Bang is Not a Reason to Believe!
• The Immortal Soul | Neuroscience vs. Materialism
• Can Artificial General Intelligence Have a Soul?
• Young Earth Creation vs. Modern Cosmology
• Operational and Historical Science: What Are they?

Free Subscribers

Subscribe to our Newsletters as a Free Subscriber and be notified by email. Just put your email address in the box at the bottom of your screen.

You’ll get an email each time we publish a new

Premium Subscribers

Subscribe to our Newsletters as a Premium Subscribers at $5 USD/month or $30 USD/year (you choose). Cancel anytime.

Paid Premium Subscribers will get exclusive access to certain content I publish. That will only cost you a cup of coffee per month.

Also you’ll be able to download, for free, a PDF of my book Apocalypse Now and also a PDF of my book The Physics of Creation The Creator’s Ultimate Design for Earth.

You can download them from the link below.

This is how you can support my work. I have been publishing this website for 10 years now and up to 2024 I never asked for any support.

Press the button “Premium” on the front page to find a list of Premium content. Thanks so much to all supporters.

At a minimum, please join as a Free Subscriber. It’ll cost you nothing. It may also help me beat the shadow banning of some posts.

Comments Welcome Below

Rate this:

Exploring the Foundations of the Scientific Revolution

Several notable and important people led to the modern Scientific Revolution. It grew from their faith rooted in a Christian worldview. These philosophers and scientists founded their beliefs on a rational knowable Creator believing He would leave this universe imbued with rational laws that do not change. As a result using a sound investigative method those laws might be discovered.

The initial start to the development of modern science was heavily influenced by two philosophers who taught and developed the methodology of scientific empiricism: Roger Bacon in the 13th century and Francis Bacon in the 16th/17th century.

Roger Bacon (c. 1219/20–1292), known as Doctor Mirabilis, was a medieval English Franciscan friar, philosopher, and polymath who is considered one of the earliest European advocates of the scientific method and empiricism.

His philosophical contributions include:

• Empirical Science: Bacon emphasized direct observation and controlled experiment as essential correctives to authority and tradition, influencing the addition of optics to the medieval university curriculum. 
• Major Works: In 1267, he submitted the Opus Majus to Pope Clement IV, a comprehensive encyclopedia covering grammar, logic, mathematics, optics, and moral philosophy. 
• Scientific Innovations: He was the first European to record the formula for gunpowder and made significant studies in geometrical optics, vision, and refraction, anticipating developments in lenses and spectacles. 
• Imprisonment: Between 1277 and 1279, Bacon was likely imprisoned or placed under house arrest by his Franciscan superiors due to his interest in astrology, alchemy, and “suspected novelties,” though modern scholars debate the historical accuracy of this event. 
• Legacy: While deeply rooted in medieval scholasticism and theology, his insistence on experimental science (scientia experimentalis) positions him as a precursor to modern scientific inquiry. 

However the next Bacon has had the greatest influence on the fundamentals of modern science.

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was an English philosopher and statesman widely regarded as the father of empiricism and a foundational figure in the development of the scientific method.  He argued that knowledge should be derived from inductive reasoning and careful observation of nature, rejecting the deductive Aristotelian logic that dominated his era.

His philosophical contributions include:

• The Baconian Method: A systematic approach to science emphasizing experimentation, data collection, and the elimination of biases (known as the “Idols”).
• Key Works: He authored Novum Organum (1620), which outlined his new logical framework, and The Advancement of Learning (1605), advocating for the practical application of science to benefit humanity. 
• Philosophy of Science: Bacon believed that “knowledge is power,” asserting that scientific inquiry should not only seek truth but also produce tangible improvements in human life. 
• Legacy: His ideas heavily influenced the founders of the Royal Society and helped usher in the Scientific Revolution, shifting natural philosophy toward empirical and experimental practices. 

Francis Bacon was a devout Anglican Christian who sought to reconcile his faith with the emerging scientific method.  He believed that studying nature through empirical observation was a way to understand God’s creation and that scientific progress served a spiritual duty to alleviate human suffering. 

While Bacon argued for keeping theology and natural philosophy in separate spheres to prevent religious dogma from hindering scientific inquiry, he remained critical of atheism.

Bacon famously stated that “a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion,” viewing the increase of knowledge as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.

However he was not a biblical creationist in the modern sense. He believed that mixing theological dogma with natural philosophy (science) corrupted both, famously criticizing those who tried to build systems of physics based on Genesis or Job.

Bacon articulated the metaphor of “Two Books” written by God:

• The Book of God’s Word (Scripture): Reveals God’s will, moral laws, and the path to salvation. Bacon considered this essential for spiritual truth and believed it should be studied deeply. 
• The Book of God’s Works (Nature): Reveals God’s power and omnipotence. He argued that studying nature was a religious duty that helped humanity understand the Creator’s greatness. 

He urged scholars to pursue “endless progress” in both books but warned strictly against “unwisely mingling or confounding” them.

Of course, I totally disagree his “unwisely mingling” view. There are “Two Books” representing one creation, One Creator. The two books are interwoven by the very nature of the creation. It is all one system created by God and any philosophy that ignores this fact is ultimately doomed to failure.

However he rightfully is credited with what is nowadays called the Scientific Method: hypothesis, experiment and data collection that may disprove the initial hypothesis. No experimental results can ever prove the hypothesis. If you want proofs, try mathematics, which is a closed artificial universe.

I have no doubt that this method gave a big start to the Scientific Revolution, which really started with Francis Bacon in the early 1600s. However in all my own experience in university research labs what was actually used were Bayesian Methods.

Bayesian Methods are statistical techniques that use Bayes’ theorem to update the probability of a hypothesis as more evidence or data becomes available. 

Instead of treating unknown yet-to-be-determined parameters as fixed, Bayesian analysis interprets probability as a degree of belief, allowing for the incorporation of prior knowledge or subjective beliefs alongside observed data. Bayes’ theorem uses a conditional probability to update the prior knowledge.

That means that Bayesian methods build on prior knowledge. And that also means prior biases, which is often seen when a parameter is measured over time. The prior measured value is considered with more weight than it should be and so new values are chosen that fall closest to the prior. What results is a progressive creep in the value towards the final accepted value, the true value. This can be seen in the historical measured values for the round-trip speed of light, c.

Also in the measurements of the electron charge (e).

The bias is not due to the error bounds not overlapping the final correct result but due to weight placed on the priors. So a results that favour a prior is accepted before newer values which may be more accurate. This bias is a feature of a worldview.

Thomas Bayes (c. 1701–1761) was a Presbyterian minister and a member of the English Nonconformist (Dissenter) religious tradition. While his father was a traditional Presbyterian, scholars describe Bayes’ personal theological beliefs as Unitarian or Arian, indicating he strayed from standard Christian orthodoxy. (That is the same accusation leveled against Isaac Newton, so perhaps there is some doubt there.)

Bayes mathematical work, specifically Bayes’ theorem, was originally developed to provide a probabilistic defense of Christianity against the skeptical arguments of philosopher David Hume, who had questioned the validity of miracles.

Bayes published two works during his lifetime: a theological tract titled Divine Benevolence (1731) and a mathematical defense of Isaac Newton’s calculus (1736).

Barring a miraculous revelation from God, in a dream or vision, most experimental development comes from a long list of prior researchers, scientists who slowly advanced the field — one building on the work of another. This is what the oft quoted expression means.

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

The expression is most famously attributed to Isaac Newton, who used it in a 1675 letter to his rival Robert Hooke. However, the metaphor actually originated in the 12th century with the French philosopher Bernard of Chartres, who described humans as “dwarfs on the shoulders of giants.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) was an English polymath and a central figure in the Scientific Revolution, renowned for his foundational contributions to physics, mathematics, and optics.

Newton attended Trinity College, Cambridge, ostensibly preparing to become an Anglican minister, but spent his time developing his groundbreaking theories. The years 1665–1666 was a period of intense personal productivity known as his annus mirabilis. 

He was a deeply religious Christian whose theological writings vastly outnumbered his scientific works. Newton believed in God the Father as the sole creator and Jesus Christ as His divine Son, but some have claimed he denied their co-equality, rejecting the Trinitarian doctrine.1,2 Don’t be misled by such claims. He was an alchemist too, but he wasn’t a witch. Alchemy at that time was the start of modern chemistry and metallurgy.

He viewed his scientific discoveries as a means to understand God’s design in nature, believing that the laws of physics revealed the order of a rational Creator. Newton spent decades studying biblical prophecy (particularly Daniel and Revelation) and church history, seeking to restore the “pure” faith of the early apostolic era.

His major works include Principia Mathematica (1687), which established the laws of motion and universal gravitation, and Opticks (1704), which detailed his experiments on light and color, including the invention of the reflecting telescope (1668). 

Isaac Newton adapted and popularized the concept to acknowledge that his scientific discoveries built upon the work of predecessors like René Descartes. And this situation has been the norm since Isaac Newton.

René Descartes (1596–1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist widely regarded as the father of modern Western philosophy and a key figure in the Scientific Revolution. 

He is most famous for the epistemological foundationalist dictum “I think, therefore I am” (Cogito, ergo sum) and for developing Cartesian dualism, the theory that the mind and body are distinct substances.

René Descartes was a Roman Catholic who actively sought to align his philosophy with Christian doctrine.  He worked diligently to provide rational proofs for the existence of God, aiming to reconcile the new science with Christian beliefs and avoid conflict with ecclesiastical authorities. 

He insisted that truths of faith were superior to human reason and separated theological doctrines (like the Trinity) from his rational metaphysics. 

In works like the Meditations, he offered arguments for God’s existence (such as the trademark and ontological arguments) to establish God as the guarantor of truth and the creator of the universe. 

His distinction between mind (immaterial soul) and body (material matter) was intended to support the immortality of the soul, a core tenet of Christian theology. 

Despite his personal devotion, critics accused him of atheism because his mechanistic view of the physical world seemed to exclude God from daily natural processes, leading to the prohibition of his books by the Catholic Church in 1663. 

Ultimately, Descartes is viewed as a figure who tried to rationalize religion without abandoning it, positioning human reason as a path to understanding God rather than a replacement for faith. 

That is quite different to the humanist arguments of atheistic human reason without any foundation in God.

What we now need to understand is that not all science is science. It is not all subject to the Scientific Method even allowing for the human biases and Bayesian inference.

When an hypothesis cannot be tested because the subject lies in the past for the researcher it cannot be called operational or experimental science.

One problem that arises here is that the scientists themselves cannot recognise their own biases and proceed as if they are validly testing their assumed hypothesis. Their minds are dominated by their worldview, and that could be based on there being no Creator (atheism), or that the Creator is no longer around (deism) and all universal parameters evolve from their initial conditions.

In cases where an historical parameter is sought, the science should be called forensic or historical science because no direct evidence of the sought-after parameter is available. As a result proxies are used. But the proxies also cannot be directly tested for what they are assumed to mean.

For example, when trying to determine historical Earth temperatures tree rings or Oxygen isotope ratios are used as proxies. They need calibration but even the calibrations cannot be unequivocal since no one has a time machine. No past measurement is possible. All are inferred from some measurement done in the present.

Francis Bacon kept separate his “Two Books”. To keep them separate is a flawed approach, which other Christian apologists have also used. It is very similar to what Hugh Ross (of Reason to Believe ministry) teaches. He speaks of the 66 books of the bible but then there is the 67th book of nature. Ross claims God revealed that to him before he was even a believer in Christ.

It is a compromise because it does not allow the Creator to work. It assumes that in terms of a literal history in the Genesis account there is error and the language must be reinterpreted to fit in with modern science.

In Ross’ case he believes in the big bang origin of the universe, and so he squeezes the big bang timeline into the 6 x 24-hour days of Genesis creation. Ross accepts the multi-billion-year ages of the Earth and its rock strata, fitting in long periods for each day of creation. He employs a sequence of progressive creation acts that are intended to correspond to the sequence of events in the Genesis account. But one problem with that is the order. They are out of sequence. As well, his progressive “creation” events are, for all intents and purposes, infinitesimally close to Darwinian evolution of species (which he denies).

Why is it so difficult for even the men of faith to completely accept the Christian worldview in all its details. Thankfully there have been many who have done so. But even among the believers there have been many who compromised on the scriptures in favour of secular interpretations of the physical sciences. They could not fully integrate into their worldview one big picture for the handiwork of God.

Footnote:

1. Some have accused Newton of Arianism, but this is rejected by Pfizenmaier, T.C., Was Isaac Newton an Arian?, Journal of the History of Ideas 68(1):57–80, 1997. See here.
2. A very detailed defense of Newton’s Trinitarianism is Van Alan Herd, The theology of Sir Isaac Newton, gradworks.umi.com, Doctoral Dissertation, University of Oklahoma, 2008. This documents much evidence, including Newton’s words refuting tritheism and affirming Trinitarian monotheism:

That to say there is but one God, ye father of all things, excludes not the son & Holy ghost from the Godhead becaus they are virtually conteined & implied in the father. … To apply ye name of God to ye Son or holy ghost as distinct persons from the father makes them not divers Gods from ye Father. … Soe there is divinity in ye father, divinity in ye Son, & divinity in ye holy ghost, & yet they are not thre forces but one force.

Related Reading

• Why Don’t Scientists Believe in God?
• The Lawgiver is the Biblical Creator God
• True Science and Science Falsely So-Called
• The Laws of Physics Point to the Creator
• How Much Can You Trust in Science?
• Evolution is Not Operational Science
• Why Believe in God in an Age of Science?
• The Bible is Still Relevant in This Age of Science!
• Religion in Science
• The Problem with Science is that So Much of it Simply Isn’t
• The Big Bang is Not a Reason to Believe!
• The Immortal Soul | Neuroscience vs. Materialism
• Can Artificial General Intelligence Have a Soul?
• Young Earth Creation vs. Modern Cosmology
• Operational and Historical Science: What Are they?

Free Subscribers

Subscribe to our Newsletters as a Free Subscriber and be notified by email. Just put your email address in the box at the bottom of your screen.

You’ll get an email each time we publish a new

Premium Subscribers

Subscribe to our Newsletters as a Premium Subscribers at $5 USD/month or $30 USD/year (you choose). Cancel anytime.

Paid Premium Subscribers will get exclusive access to certain content I publish. That will only cost you a cup of coffee per month.

Also you’ll be able to download, for free, a PDF of my book Apocalypse Now and also a PDF of my book The Physics of Creation The Creator’s Ultimate Design for Earth.

You can download them from the link below.

This is how you can support my work. I have been publishing this website for 10 years now and up to 2024 I never asked for any support.

Press the button “Premium” on the front page to find a list of Premium content. Thanks so much to all supporters.

At a minimum, please join as a Free Subscriber. It’ll cost you nothing. It may also help me beat the shadow banning of some posts.

Comments Welcome Below

Rate this:

Exploring the Foundations of the Scientific Revolution

Several notable and important people led to the modern Scientific Revolution. It grew from their faith rooted in a Christian worldview. These philosophers and scientists founded their beliefs on a rational knowable Creator believing He would leave this universe imbued with rational laws that do not change. As a result using a sound investigative method those laws might be discovered.

The initial start to the development of modern science was heavily influenced by two philosophers who taught and developed the methodology of scientific empiricism: Roger Bacon in the 13th century and Francis Bacon in the 16th/17th century.

Roger Bacon (c. 1219/20–1292), known as Doctor Mirabilis, was a medieval English Franciscan friar, philosopher, and polymath who is considered one of the earliest European advocates of the scientific method and empiricism.

His philosophical contributions include:

• Empirical Science: Bacon emphasized direct observation and controlled experiment as essential correctives to authority and tradition, influencing the addition of optics to the medieval university curriculum. 
• Major Works: In 1267, he submitted the Opus Majus to Pope Clement IV, a comprehensive encyclopedia covering grammar, logic, mathematics, optics, and moral philosophy. 
• Scientific Innovations: He was the first European to record the formula for gunpowder and made significant studies in geometrical optics, vision, and refraction, anticipating developments in lenses and spectacles. 
• Imprisonment: Between 1277 and 1279, Bacon was likely imprisoned or placed under house arrest by his Franciscan superiors due to his interest in astrology, alchemy, and “suspected novelties,” though modern scholars debate the historical accuracy of this event. 
• Legacy: While deeply rooted in medieval scholasticism and theology, his insistence on experimental science (scientia experimentalis) positions him as a precursor to modern scientific inquiry. 

However the next Bacon has had the greatest influence on the fundamentals of modern science.

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was an English philosopher and statesman widely regarded as the father of empiricism and a foundational figure in the development of the scientific method.  He argued that knowledge should be derived from inductive reasoning and careful observation of nature, rejecting the deductive Aristotelian logic that dominated his era.

His philosophical contributions include:

• The Baconian Method: A systematic approach to science emphasizing experimentation, data collection, and the elimination of biases (known as the “Idols”).
• Key Works: He authored Novum Organum (1620), which outlined his new logical framework, and The Advancement of Learning (1605), advocating for the practical application of science to benefit humanity. 
• Philosophy of Science: Bacon believed that “knowledge is power,” asserting that scientific inquiry should not only seek truth but also produce tangible improvements in human life. 
• Legacy: His ideas heavily influenced the founders of the Royal Society and helped usher in the Scientific Revolution, shifting natural philosophy toward empirical and experimental practices. 

Francis Bacon was a devout Anglican Christian who sought to reconcile his faith with the emerging scientific method.  He believed that studying nature through empirical observation was a way to understand God’s creation and that scientific progress served a spiritual duty to alleviate human suffering. 

While Bacon argued for keeping theology and natural philosophy in separate spheres to prevent religious dogma from hindering scientific inquiry, he remained critical of atheism.

Bacon famously stated that “a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion,” viewing the increase of knowledge as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.

However he was not a biblical creationist in the modern sense. He believed that mixing theological dogma with natural philosophy (science) corrupted both, famously criticizing those who tried to build systems of physics based on Genesis or Job.

Bacon articulated the metaphor of “Two Books” written by God:

• The Book of God’s Word (Scripture): Reveals God’s will, moral laws, and the path to salvation. Bacon considered this essential for spiritual truth and believed it should be studied deeply. 
• The Book of God’s Works (Nature): Reveals God’s power and omnipotence. He argued that studying nature was a religious duty that helped humanity understand the Creator’s greatness. 

He urged scholars to pursue “endless progress” in both books but warned strictly against “unwisely mingling or confounding” them.

Of course, I totally disagree his “unwisely mingling” view. There are “Two Books” representing one creation, One Creator. The two books are interwoven by the very nature of the creation. It is all one system created by God and any philosophy that ignores this fact is ultimately doomed to failure.

However he rightfully is credited with what is nowadays called the Scientific Method: hypothesis, experiment and data collection that may disprove the initial hypothesis. No experimental results can ever prove the hypothesis. If you want proofs, try mathematics, which is a closed artificial universe.

I have no doubt that this method gave a big start to the Scientific Revolution, which really started with Francis Bacon in the early 1600s. However in all my own experience in university research labs what was actually used were Bayesian Methods.

Bayesian Methods are statistical techniques that use Bayes’ theorem to update the probability of a hypothesis as more evidence or data becomes available. 

Instead of treating unknown yet-to-be-determined parameters as fixed, Bayesian analysis interprets probability as a degree of belief, allowing for the incorporation of prior knowledge or subjective beliefs alongside observed data. Bayes’ theorem uses a conditional probability to update the prior knowledge.

That means that Bayesian methods build on prior knowledge. And that also means prior biases, which is often seen when a parameter is measured over time. The prior measured value is considered with more weight than it should be and so new values are chosen that fall closest to the prior. What results is a progressive creep in the value towards the final accepted value, the true value. This can be seen in the historical measured values for the round-trip speed of light, c.

Also in the measurements of the electron charge (e).

The bias is not due to the error bounds not overlapping the final correct result but due to weight placed on the priors. So a results that favour a prior is accepted before newer values which may be more accurate. This bias is a feature of a worldview.

Thomas Bayes (c. 1701–1761) was a Presbyterian minister and a member of the English Nonconformist (Dissenter) religious tradition. While his father was a traditional Presbyterian, scholars describe Bayes’ personal theological beliefs as Unitarian or Arian, indicating he strayed from standard Christian orthodoxy. (That is the same accusation leveled against Isaac Newton, so perhaps there is some doubt there.)

Bayes mathematical work, specifically Bayes’ theorem, was originally developed to provide a probabilistic defense of Christianity against the skeptical arguments of philosopher David Hume, who had questioned the validity of miracles.

Bayes published two works during his lifetime: a theological tract titled Divine Benevolence (1731) and a mathematical defense of Isaac Newton’s calculus (1736).

Barring a miraculous revelation from God, in a dream or vision, most experimental development comes from a long list of prior researchers, scientists who slowly advanced the field — one building on the work of another. This is what the oft quoted expression means.

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

The expression is most famously attributed to Isaac Newton, who used it in a 1675 letter to his rival Robert Hooke. However, the metaphor actually originated in the 12th century with the French philosopher Bernard of Chartres, who described humans as “dwarfs on the shoulders of giants.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) was an English polymath and a central figure in the Scientific Revolution, renowned for his foundational contributions to physics, mathematics, and optics.

Newton attended Trinity College, Cambridge, ostensibly preparing to become an Anglican minister, but spent his time developing his groundbreaking theories. The years 1665–1666 was a period of intense personal productivity known as his annus mirabilis. 

He was a deeply religious Christian whose theological writings vastly outnumbered his scientific works. Newton believed in God the Father as the sole creator and Jesus Christ as His divine Son, but some have claimed he denied their co-equality, rejecting the Trinitarian doctrine.1,2 Don’t be misled by such claims. He was an alchemist too, but he wasn’t a witch. Alchemy at that time was the start of modern chemistry and metallurgy.

He viewed his scientific discoveries as a means to understand God’s design in nature, believing that the laws of physics revealed the order of a rational Creator. Newton spent decades studying biblical prophecy (particularly Daniel and Revelation) and church history, seeking to restore the “pure” faith of the early apostolic era.

His major works include Principia Mathematica (1687), which established the laws of motion and universal gravitation, and Opticks (1704), which detailed his experiments on light and color, including the invention of the reflecting telescope (1668). 

Isaac Newton adapted and popularized the concept to acknowledge that his scientific discoveries built upon the work of predecessors like René Descartes. And this situation has been the norm since Isaac Newton.

René Descartes (1596–1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist widely regarded as the father of modern Western philosophy and a key figure in the Scientific Revolution. 

He is most famous for the epistemological foundationalist dictum “I think, therefore I am” (Cogito, ergo sum) and for developing Cartesian dualism, the theory that the mind and body are distinct substances.

René Descartes was a Roman Catholic who actively sought to align his philosophy with Christian doctrine.  He worked diligently to provide rational proofs for the existence of God, aiming to reconcile the new science with Christian beliefs and avoid conflict with ecclesiastical authorities. 

He insisted that truths of faith were superior to human reason and separated theological doctrines (like the Trinity) from his rational metaphysics. 

In works like the Meditations, he offered arguments for God’s existence (such as the trademark and ontological arguments) to establish God as the guarantor of truth and the creator of the universe. 

His distinction between mind (immaterial soul) and body (material matter) was intended to support the immortality of the soul, a core tenet of Christian theology. 

Despite his personal devotion, critics accused him of atheism because his mechanistic view of the physical world seemed to exclude God from daily natural processes, leading to the prohibition of his books by the Catholic Church in 1663. 

Ultimately, Descartes is viewed as a figure who tried to rationalize religion without abandoning it, positioning human reason as a path to understanding God rather than a replacement for faith. 

That is quite different to the humanist arguments of atheistic human reason without any foundation in God.

What we now need to understand is that not all science is science. It is not all subject to the Scientific Method even allowing for the human biases and Bayesian inference.

When an hypothesis cannot be tested because the subject lies in the past for the researcher it cannot be called operational or experimental science.

One problem that arises here is that the scientists themselves cannot recognise their own biases and proceed as if they are validly testing their assumed hypothesis. Their minds are dominated by their worldview, and that could be based on there being no Creator (atheism), or that the Creator is no longer around (deism) and all universal parameters evolve from their initial conditions.

In cases where an historical parameter is sought, the science should be called forensic or historical science because no direct evidence of the sought-after parameter is available. As a result proxies are used. But the proxies also cannot be directly tested for what they are assumed to mean.

For example, when trying to determine historical Earth temperatures tree rings or Oxygen isotope ratios are used as proxies. They need calibration but even the calibrations cannot be unequivocal since no one has a time machine. No past measurement is possible. All are inferred from some measurement done in the present.

Francis Bacon kept separate his “Two Books”. To keep them separate is a flawed approach, which other Christian apologists have also used. It is very similar to what Hugh Ross (of Reason to Believe ministry) teaches. He speaks of the 66 books of the bible but then there is the 67th book of nature. Ross claims God revealed that to him before he was even a believer in Christ.

It is a compromise because it does not allow the Creator to work. It assumes that in terms of a literal history in the Genesis account there is error and the language must be reinterpreted to fit in with modern science.

In Ross’ case he believes in the big bang origin of the universe, and so he squeezes the big bang timeline into the 6 x 24-hour days of Genesis creation. Ross accepts the multi-billion-year ages of the Earth and its rock strata, fitting in long periods for each day of creation. He employs a sequence of progressive creation acts that are intended to correspond to the sequence of events in the Genesis account. But one problem with that is the order. They are out of sequence. As well, his progressive “creation” events are, for all intents and purposes, infinitesimally close to Darwinian evolution of species (which he denies).

Why is it so difficult for even the men of faith to completely accept the Christian worldview in all its details. Thankfully there have been many who have done so. But even among the believers there have been many who compromised on the scriptures in favour of secular interpretations of the physical sciences. They could not fully integrate into their worldview one big picture for the handiwork of God.

Footnote:

1. Some have accused Newton of Arianism, but this is rejected by Pfizenmaier, T.C., Was Isaac Newton an Arian?, Journal of the History of Ideas 68(1):57–80, 1997. See here.
2. A very detailed defense of Newton’s Trinitarianism is Van Alan Herd, The theology of Sir Isaac Newton, gradworks.umi.com, Doctoral Dissertation, University of Oklahoma, 2008. This documents much evidence, including Newton’s words refuting tritheism and affirming Trinitarian monotheism:

That to say there is but one God, ye father of all things, excludes not the son & Holy ghost from the Godhead becaus they are virtually conteined & implied in the father. … To apply ye name of God to ye Son or holy ghost as distinct persons from the father makes them not divers Gods from ye Father. … Soe there is divinity in ye father, divinity in ye Son, & divinity in ye holy ghost, & yet they are not thre forces but one force.

Related Reading

• Why Don’t Scientists Believe in God?
• The Lawgiver is the Biblical Creator God
• True Science and Science Falsely So-Called
• The Laws of Physics Point to the Creator
• How Much Can You Trust in Science?
• Evolution is Not Operational Science
• Why Believe in God in an Age of Science?
• The Bible is Still Relevant in This Age of Science!
• Religion in Science
• The Problem with Science is that So Much of it Simply Isn’t
• The Big Bang is Not a Reason to Believe!
• The Immortal Soul | Neuroscience vs. Materialism
• Can Artificial General Intelligence Have a Soul?
• Young Earth Creation vs. Modern Cosmology
• Operational and Historical Science: What Are they?

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Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics 01/08/2026

It’s time once more for another Saturday update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further three papers, bringing the number in Volume 9 (2026) to 163 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 611.

I continue to include the posts made on our Mastodon account (on Fediscience); these announcements also show the DOI for each paper.

The first paper to report this week was published on Tuesday 28th July in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. “The Origins of the Bulk Flow” by Richard Watkins & Trajan Clark (Willamett U., USA) and Hume A Feldman (U. Kansas, USA) analyzes the origin of large-scale bulk flow using the CosmicFlows-4 catalog, finding that it is largely influenced by structures beyond 200 h-1 Mpc, challenging previous assumptions.

The overlay for this paper is here

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the announcement on Fediverse here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116996665639765936

The second paper for this week, also published on Tuesday 28th July in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics is: “Enhancing weak lensing redshift distribution characterization by optimizing the Dark Energy Survey Self-Organizing Map Photo-z method” by A. Campos (Carnegie Mellon U., USA) and the DES collaboration (113 authors). This study improves the Self-Organizing Map methodology for estimating redshift distribution in galaxies, notably reducing overlap between redshift bins, in preparation for the Dark Energy Survey Year 6 data.Abstractfor Enhancing weak lensing redshift distribution characterization by optimizing the Dark Energy Survey Self-Organizing Map Photo-z method.

The overlay looks like this:

The official version of the paper can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116996724358408451

The third paper of the week, published on Thursday 29th July in the folder Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics is “The Ray Tracing Sampler: Bayesian Sampling of Neural Networks for Everyone” by Peter Behroozi of the University of Arizona (USA). This paper presents a new family of Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling methods based on ray tracing, offering higher resilience to heating for stochastic gradients and other advantages.

The overlay for this one is here:

The final, accepted version can be found on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/117002484725569972

That’s all for this week. It’s been a bit slower than previous weeks no doubt because of the holiday season.

Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics 01/08/2026

It’s time once more for another Saturday update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further three papers, bringing the number in Volume 9 (2026) to 163 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 611.

I continue to include the posts made on our Mastodon account (on Fediscience); these announcements also show the DOI for each paper.

The first paper to report this week was published on Tuesday 28th July in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. “The Origins of the Bulk Flow” by Richard Watkins & Trajan Clark (Willamett U., USA) and Hume A Feldman (U. Kansas, USA) analyzes the origin of large-scale bulk flow using the CosmicFlows-4 catalog, finding that it is largely influenced by structures beyond 200 h-1 Mpc, challenging previous assumptions.

The overlay for this paper is here

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the announcement on Fediverse here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116996665639765936

The second paper for this week, also published on Tuesday 28th July in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics is: “Enhancing weak lensing redshift distribution characterization by optimizing the Dark Energy Survey Self-Organizing Map Photo-z method” by A. Campos (Carnegie Mellon U., USA) and the DES collaboration (113 authors). This study improves the Self-Organizing Map methodology for estimating redshift distribution in galaxies, notably reducing overlap between redshift bins, in preparation for the Dark Energy Survey Year 6 data.Abstractfor Enhancing weak lensing redshift distribution characterization by optimizing the Dark Energy Survey Self-Organizing Map Photo-z method.

The overlay looks like this:

The official version of the paper can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116996724358408451

The third paper of the week, published on Thursday 29th July in the folder Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics is “The Ray Tracing Sampler: Bayesian Sampling of Neural Networks for Everyone” by Peter Behroozi of the University of Arizona (USA). This paper presents a new family of Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling methods based on ray tracing, offering higher resilience to heating for stochastic gradients and other advantages.

The overlay for this one is here:

The final, accepted version can be found on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/117002484725569972

That’s all for this week. It’s been a bit slower than previous weeks no doubt because of the holiday season.

Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics 01/08/2026

It’s time once more for another Saturday update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further three papers, bringing the number in Volume 9 (2026) to 163 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 611.

I continue to include the posts made on our Mastodon account (on Fediscience); these announcements also show the DOI for each paper.

The first paper to report this week was published on Tuesday 28th July in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. “The Origins of the Bulk Flow” by Richard Watkins & Trajan Clark (Willamett U., USA) and Hume A Feldman (U. Kansas, USA) analyzes the origin of large-scale bulk flow using the CosmicFlows-4 catalog, finding that it is largely influenced by structures beyond 200 h-1 Mpc, challenging previous assumptions.

The overlay for this paper is here

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the announcement on Fediverse here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116996665639765936

The second paper for this week, also published on Tuesday 28th July in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics is: “Enhancing weak lensing redshift distribution characterization by optimizing the Dark Energy Survey Self-Organizing Map Photo-z method” by A. Campos (Carnegie Mellon U., USA) and the DES collaboration (113 authors). This study improves the Self-Organizing Map methodology for estimating redshift distribution in galaxies, notably reducing overlap between redshift bins, in preparation for the Dark Energy Survey Year 6 data.Abstractfor Enhancing weak lensing redshift distribution characterization by optimizing the Dark Energy Survey Self-Organizing Map Photo-z method.

The overlay looks like this:

The official version of the paper can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116996724358408451

The third paper of the week, published on Thursday 29th July in the folder Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics is “The Ray Tracing Sampler: Bayesian Sampling of Neural Networks for Everyone” by Peter Behroozi of the University of Arizona (USA). This paper presents a new family of Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling methods based on ray tracing, offering higher resilience to heating for stochastic gradients and other advantages.

The overlay for this one is here:

The final, accepted version can be found on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/117002484725569972

That’s all for this week. It’s been a bit slower than previous weeks no doubt because of the holiday season.

Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics 01/08/2026

It’s time once more for another Saturday update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further three papers, bringing the number in Volume 9 (2026) to 163 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 611.

I continue to include the posts made on our Mastodon account (on Fediscience); these announcements also show the DOI for each paper.

The first paper to report this week was published on Tuesday 28th July in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. “The Origins of the Bulk Flow” by Richard Watkins & Trajan Clark (Willamett U., USA) and Hume A Feldman (U. Kansas, USA) analyzes the origin of large-scale bulk flow using the CosmicFlows-4 catalog, finding that it is largely influenced by structures beyond 200 h-1 Mpc, challenging previous assumptions.

The overlay for this paper is here

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the announcement on Fediverse here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116996665639765936

The second paper for this week, also published on Tuesday 28th July in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics is: “Enhancing weak lensing redshift distribution characterization by optimizing the Dark Energy Survey Self-Organizing Map Photo-z method” by A. Campos (Carnegie Mellon U., USA) and the DES collaboration (113 authors). This study improves the Self-Organizing Map methodology for estimating redshift distribution in galaxies, notably reducing overlap between redshift bins, in preparation for the Dark Energy Survey Year 6 data.Abstractfor Enhancing weak lensing redshift distribution characterization by optimizing the Dark Energy Survey Self-Organizing Map Photo-z method.

The overlay looks like this:

The official version of the paper can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116996724358408451

The third paper of the week, published on Thursday 29th July in the folder Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics is “The Ray Tracing Sampler: Bayesian Sampling of Neural Networks for Everyone” by Peter Behroozi of the University of Arizona (USA). This paper presents a new family of Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling methods based on ray tracing, offering higher resilience to heating for stochastic gradients and other advantages.

The overlay for this one is here:

The final, accepted version can be found on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/117002484725569972

That’s all for this week. It’s been a bit slower than previous weeks no doubt because of the holiday season.

Instead of saying, “X will happen,” it says, “Here's the range of what might happen, and how likely each scenario is.” That humility makes for much smarter risk management.

Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AsTW1

#investing #finance #BayesianMethods

Instead of saying, “X will happen,” it says, “Here's the range of what might happen, and how likely each scenario is.” That humility makes for much smarter risk management.

Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AsTW1

#investing #finance #BayesianMethods

Instead of saying, “X will happen,” it says, “Here's the range of what might happen, and how likely each scenario is.” That humility makes for much smarter risk management.

Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AsTW1

#investing #finance #BayesianMethods

Instead of saying, “X will happen,” it says, “Here's the range of what might happen, and how likely each scenario is.” That humility makes for much smarter risk management.

Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AsTW1

#investing #finance #BayesianMethods

Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics – 25/04/2026

So here we are again, on a Saturday morning, with another update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further five papers, bringing the number in Volume 9 (2026) to 87 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 535.

I will continue to include the posts made on our Mastodon account (on Fediscience) to encourage you to visit it. Mastodon is a really excellent service, and a more than adequate replacement for X/Twitter (which nobody should be using); these announcements also show the DOI for each paper.

The first paper to report this week is “Bayesian Cosmic Void Finding with Graph Flows” by Leander Thiele (U. Tokyo, Japan). This was published on Monday 20th April in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. The paper presents a method using a deep graph neural network to identify cosmic voids in sparse galaxy surveys, improving upon traditional deterministic algorithms by considering the problem’s probabilistic nature. The overlay is here:

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the announcement on Fediverse here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116435864086025246

The second paper for this week, published on Wednesday 22nd April in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies, is “Sifting for a Stream: The Morphology of the 300S Stellar Stream” by Benjamin Cohen (U. Chicago, USA) and 20 others distributed around the world. This study analyzes the morphology of the $300S$ stellar stream, revealing three density peaks, a possible gap, and a kink, suggesting significant influence from the Large Magellanic Cloud on its structure.

The overlay for this one is here:

The official version of the paper can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116447005556180402

Next one up, the third paper of the week, is “IRMaGiC: Extending Luminous Red Galaxy Selection into the Infrared with Joint Rubin Observatory’s Large Survey of Space Time and Roman’s High Latitude Imaging Survey” by Zhiyuan Guo & Chris. W. Walter (Duke U., USA) and Eli S. Rykoff (Stanford U., USA) on behalf of the LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration. This was published on Wednesday April 22nd in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. The paper introduces IRMaGiC, an algorithm that improves the selection and redshift estimation of Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) by incorporating infrared data, enhancing future cosmological surveys.

The overlay for this one is here:

The final, accepted version can be found on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116447067337351283

The fourth paper this week, published on Thursday April 23rd, is “The Diagnostic Temperature Discrepancy as Evidence for Non-Maxwellian Coronal Electrons” by Victor Edmonds (Final Stop Consulting, USA). This paper, in the folder Solar and Stellar Astrophysics, presents two methods of measuring electron temperature in the quiet solar corona yielding different results, suggesting non-Maxwellian electron velocity distributions may be responsible for the discrepancy.

The overlay is here:

The finally accepted version of this paper can be found here and the Mastodon announcement follows:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116452775389963618

The fifth and final paper for this week was published on Friday 24th April in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies. The title is “Galaxy evolution in the post-merger regime. IV – The long-term effect of mergers on galactic stellar mass growth and distribution” by Sara L. Ellison (U. Victoria, Canada) and Leonardo Ferreira (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, Brazil). This study uses a large sample of post-merger galaxies to demonstrate that galaxy mergers trigger significant and extended stellar mass growth in their central regions, independent of stellar population modelling.

The overlay is here:

You can find the authorized version of this paper on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116458316824739014

The overlay for this one is here:

You can find the officially-accepted version on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116458316824739014

And that concludes this week’s update. I’ll do another one at the end of next week.

P.S. Thanks to the efforts of a member of our Editorial Board, the Open Journal of Astrophysics now has a Wikipedia page.

Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics – 25/04/2026

So here we are again, on a Saturday morning, with another update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further five papers, bringing the number in Volume 9 (2026) to 87 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 535.

I will continue to include the posts made on our Mastodon account (on Fediscience) to encourage you to visit it. Mastodon is a really excellent service, and a more than adequate replacement for X/Twitter (which nobody should be using); these announcements also show the DOI for each paper.

The first paper to report this week is “Bayesian Cosmic Void Finding with Graph Flows” by Leander Thiele (U. Tokyo, Japan). This was published on Monday 20th April in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. The paper presents a method using a deep graph neural network to identify cosmic voids in sparse galaxy surveys, improving upon traditional deterministic algorithms by considering the problem’s probabilistic nature. The overlay is here:

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the announcement on Fediverse here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116435864086025246

The second paper for this week, published on Wednesday 22nd April in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies, is “Sifting for a Stream: The Morphology of the 300S Stellar Stream” by Benjamin Cohen (U. Chicago, USA) and 20 others distributed around the world. This study analyzes the morphology of the $300S$ stellar stream, revealing three density peaks, a possible gap, and a kink, suggesting significant influence from the Large Magellanic Cloud on its structure.

The overlay for this one is here:

The official version of the paper can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116447005556180402

Next one up, the third paper of the week, is “IRMaGiC: Extending Luminous Red Galaxy Selection into the Infrared with Joint Rubin Observatory’s Large Survey of Space Time and Roman’s High Latitude Imaging Survey” by Zhiyuan Guo & Chris. W. Walter (Duke U., USA) and Eli S. Rykoff (Stanford U., USA) on behalf of the LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration. This was published on Wednesday April 22nd in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. The paper introduces IRMaGiC, an algorithm that improves the selection and redshift estimation of Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) by incorporating infrared data, enhancing future cosmological surveys.

The overlay for this one is here:

The final, accepted version can be found on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116447067337351283

The fourth paper this week, published on Thursday April 23rd, is “The Diagnostic Temperature Discrepancy as Evidence for Non-Maxwellian Coronal Electrons” by Victor Edmonds (Final Stop Consulting, USA). This paper, in the folder Solar and Stellar Astrophysics, presents two methods of measuring electron temperature in the quiet solar corona yielding different results, suggesting non-Maxwellian electron velocity distributions may be responsible for the discrepancy.

The overlay is here:

The finally accepted version of this paper can be found here and the Mastodon announcement follows:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116452775389963618

The fifth and final paper for this week was published on Friday 24th April in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies. The title is “Galaxy evolution in the post-merger regime. IV – The long-term effect of mergers on galactic stellar mass growth and distribution” by Sara L. Ellison (U. Victoria, Canada) and Leonardo Ferreira (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, Brazil). This study uses a large sample of post-merger galaxies to demonstrate that galaxy mergers trigger significant and extended stellar mass growth in their central regions, independent of stellar population modelling.

The overlay is here:

You can find the authorized version of this paper on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116458316824739014

The overlay for this one is here:

You can find the officially-accepted version on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116458316824739014

And that concludes this week’s update. I’ll do another one at the end of next week.

P.S. Thanks to the efforts of a member of our Editorial Board, the Open Journal of Astrophysics now has a Wikipedia page.

Embracing Bayesian methods in clinical trials

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2847011

#HackerNews #Embracing #Bayesian #methods #in #clinical #trials #BayesianMethods #ClinicalTrials #DataScience #HealthResearch #JAMA

Embracing Bayesian methods in clinical trials

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2847011

#HackerNews #Embracing #Bayesian #methods #in #clinical #trials #BayesianMethods #ClinicalTrials #DataScience #HealthResearch #JAMA

Embracing Bayesian methods in clinical trials

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2847011

#HackerNews #Embracing #Bayesian #methods #in #clinical #trials #BayesianMethods #ClinicalTrials #DataScience #HealthResearch #JAMA

Embracing Bayesian methods in clinical trials

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2847011

#HackerNews #Embracing #Bayesian #methods #in #clinical #trials #BayesianMethods #ClinicalTrials #DataScience #HealthResearch #JAMA

Embracing Bayesian methods in clinical trials

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2847011

#HackerNews #Embracing #Bayesian #methods #in #clinical #trials #BayesianMethods #ClinicalTrials #DataScience #HealthResearch #JAMA

Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics – 17/01/2026

It’s Saturday once more so time for another update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published seven papers, bringing the number in Volume 9 (2026) to 11 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 459. This week has been quite busy; for only the second time in recorded history we published at least one paper each working day.

I will continue to include the announcements made on our Mastodon account (on Fediscience) to encourage you to visit it. Mastodon is a really excellent service, and a more than adequate replacement for X/Twitter which nobody should be using.

The first three papers this week were all published on Monday January 12th in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies.

The first paper to report this week is “Rotational Kinematics in the Globular Cluster System of M31: Insights from Bayesian Inference” by Yuan (Cher) Li & Brendon J. Brewer (U. Auckland, New Zealand), Geraint F. Lewis (U. Sydney, Australia) and Dougal Mackey (independent researcher, Australia). This study uses Bayesian modelling to explore the kinematics of globular clusters in the Andromeda Galaxy, revealing distinct rotation patterns that suggest different subgroups were added at separate times.

The overlay is here:

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the announcement on Fediverse here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/115881522738421378

The second paper is “DESI Data Release 1: Stellar Catalogue” by Sergey Koposov (U. Edinburgh, UK) and an international cast of 67 other authors. This paper introduces and describes the stellar Value-Added Catalogue (VAC) based on DESI Data Release 1, providing measurements for over 4 million stars, including radial velocity, abundance, and stellar parameters.

The overlay for this one is here:

The official version of the paper can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/115881586884465975

Next we have “On the origins of oxygen: ALMA and JWST characterise the multi-phase, metal-enriched, star-bursting medium within a ‘normal’ z>11 galaxy” by Joris Witstok (Cosmic Dawn Centre, Copenhagen, Denmark) and 37 others in locations dotted around the world. This paper presents new ALMA observations of the JADES-GS-z11-0 galaxy confirm the presence of the [O III] 88 µm line, suggesting it consists of two low-mass components undergoing star formation and enriched in metals.

The overlay is here:

The official version can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/115881659633273777

The fourth paper this week is also in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies. but was published on Tuesday 13th January. It is entitled “Accelerated calibration of semi-analytic galaxy formation models” by Andrew Robertson and Andrew Benson (Carnegie Observatories, USA). This paper presents a faster calibration framework for galaxy formation models, using fewer simulations for each evaluation. However, the model shows discrepancies suggesting the model needs to be made more flexible.

The overlay is here:

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/115887131054018297

Next one up, published on Wednesday 14th January in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, is “Constraints from CMB lensing tomography with projected bispectra” by Lea Harscouet & David Alonso (U. Oxford), UK), Andrina Nicola (U. Manchester, UK) and Anže Slosar (Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA). This study presents angular power spectra and bispectra of DESI luminous red galaxies, finding that the galaxy bispectrum can constrain the amplitude of matter fluctuations and the non-relativistic matter fraction. The overlay is here:

You can find the officially accepted paper on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/115893813149036197

The sixth paper this week is “Universal numerical convergence criteria for subhalo tidal evolution” by Barry T. Chiang & Frank C. van den Bosch (Yale U., USA) and Hsi-Yu Schive (National Taiwan University, Taiwan). This was published on Thursday 15th January in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics; it presents an analysis of a simulation suite that addresses the ‘overmerging’ problem in cosmological simulations of dark matter subhalos, showing that up to 50% of halos in state-of-the art simulations are unresolved. The overlay is here:

The final accepted version of this paper can be found on arXiv here. The Mastodon announcement follows:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/115898339098021093

Finally for this week we have “Detectability of dark matter subhalo impacts in Milky Way stellar streams” by Junyang Lu , Tongyan Lin & Mukul Sholapurkar (UCSD, USA) and Ana Bonaca (Carnegie Observatories, USA). This was published on Friday 16th January (i.e. yesterday) in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies. The study develops a method to estimate the minimum detectable dark matter subhalo mass in stellar streams, ranking them by sensitivity and identifying promising lines for further research.

The overlay is here:

The officially accepted version can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/115904083514716420

That concludes the update for this week. I will do another next Saturday.

#ALMA #arXiv250207781v3 #arXiv250514787v3 #arXiv250707968v2 #arXiv250722888v4 #arXiv250900143v2 #arXiv251026901v2 #arXiv260105380v2 #AstrophysicsOfGalaxies #BayesianMethods #CosmologyAndNonGalacticAstrophysics #DarkEnergySurvey #darkMatter #DES #DiamondOpenAccess #DiamondOpenAccessPublishing #galaxyFormation #JWST #M31 #MilkyWay #OpenAccess #OpenAccessPublishing #OpenJournalOfAstrophysics #Oxygen #semiAnalyticModels #subhalos #TheOpenJournalOfAstrophysics #Tomography #weakGravitationalLensing

Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics – 17/01/2026

It’s Saturday once more so time for another update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published seven papers, bringing the number in Volume 9 (2026) to 11 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 459. This week has been quite busy; for only the second time in recorded history we published at least one paper each working day.

I will continue to include the announcements made on our Mastodon account (on Fediscience) to encourage you to visit it. Mastodon is a really excellent service, and a more than adequate replacement for X/Twitter which nobody should be using.

The first three papers this week were all published on Monday January 12th in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies.

The first paper to report this week is “Rotational Kinematics in the Globular Cluster System of M31: Insights from Bayesian Inference” by Yuan (Cher) Li & Brendon J. Brewer (U. Auckland, New Zealand), Geraint F. Lewis (U. Sydney, Australia) and Dougal Mackey (independent researcher, Australia). This study uses Bayesian modelling to explore the kinematics of globular clusters in the Andromeda Galaxy, revealing distinct rotation patterns that suggest different subgroups were added at separate times.

The overlay is here:

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the announcement on Fediverse here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/115881522738421378

The second paper is “DESI Data Release 1: Stellar Catalogue” by Sergey Koposov (U. Edinburgh, UK) and an international cast of 67 other authors. This paper introduces and describes the stellar Value-Added Catalogue (VAC) based on DESI Data Release 1, providing measurements for over 4 million stars, including radial velocity, abundance, and stellar parameters.

The overlay for this one is here:

The official version of the paper can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/115881586884465975

Next we have “On the origins of oxygen: ALMA and JWST characterise the multi-phase, metal-enriched, star-bursting medium within a ‘normal’ z>11 galaxy” by Joris Witstok (Cosmic Dawn Centre, Copenhagen, Denmark) and 37 others in locations dotted around the world. This paper presents new ALMA observations of the JADES-GS-z11-0 galaxy confirm the presence of the [O III] 88 µm line, suggesting it consists of two low-mass components undergoing star formation and enriched in metals.

The overlay is here:

The official version can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/115881659633273777

The fourth paper this week is also in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies. but was published on Tuesday 13th January. It is entitled “Accelerated calibration of semi-analytic galaxy formation models” by Andrew Robertson and Andrew Benson (Carnegie Observatories, USA). This paper presents a faster calibration framework for galaxy formation models, using fewer simulations for each evaluation. However, the model shows discrepancies suggesting the model needs to be made more flexible.

The overlay is here:

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/115887131054018297

Next one up, published on Wednesday 14th January in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, is “Constraints from CMB lensing tomography with projected bispectra” by Lea Harscouet & David Alonso (U. Oxford), UK), Andrina Nicola (U. Manchester, UK) and Anže Slosar (Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA). This study presents angular power spectra and bispectra of DESI luminous red galaxies, finding that the galaxy bispectrum can constrain the amplitude of matter fluctuations and the non-relativistic matter fraction. The overlay is here:

You can find the officially accepted paper on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/115893813149036197

The sixth paper this week is “Universal numerical convergence criteria for subhalo tidal evolution” by Barry T. Chiang & Frank C. van den Bosch (Yale U., USA) and Hsi-Yu Schive (National Taiwan University, Taiwan). This was published on Thursday 15th January in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics; it presents an analysis of a simulation suite that addresses the ‘overmerging’ problem in cosmological simulations of dark matter subhalos, showing that up to 50% of halos in state-of-the art simulations are unresolved. The overlay is here:

The final accepted version of this paper can be found on arXiv here. The Mastodon announcement follows:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/115898339098021093

Finally for this week we have “Detectability of dark matter subhalo impacts in Milky Way stellar streams” by Junyang Lu , Tongyan Lin & Mukul Sholapurkar (UCSD, USA) and Ana Bonaca (Carnegie Observatories, USA). This was published on Friday 16th January (i.e. yesterday) in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies. The study develops a method to estimate the minimum detectable dark matter subhalo mass in stellar streams, ranking them by sensitivity and identifying promising lines for further research.

The overlay is here:

The officially accepted version can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/115904083514716420

That concludes the update for this week. I will do another next Saturday.

#ALMA #arXiv250207781v3 #arXiv250514787v3 #arXiv250707968v2 #arXiv250722888v4 #arXiv250900143v2 #arXiv251026901v2 #arXiv260105380v2 #AstrophysicsOfGalaxies #BayesianMethods #CosmologyAndNonGalacticAstrophysics #DarkEnergySurvey #darkMatter #DES #DiamondOpenAccess #DiamondOpenAccessPublishing #galaxyFormation #JWST #M31 #MilkyWay #OpenAccess #OpenAccessPublishing #OpenJournalOfAstrophysics #Oxygen #semiAnalyticModels #subhalos #TheOpenJournalOfAstrophysics #Tomography #weakGravitationalLensing

Sponsorship opportunities are available for specific topics, whitepapers, tools, or advisory insights.

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#investing #finance #BayesianMethods

Sponsorship opportunities are available for specific topics, whitepapers, tools, or advisory insights.

Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AmKRK

#investing #finance #BayesianMethods

Sponsorship opportunities are available for specific topics, whitepapers, tools, or advisory insights.

Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AmKRK

#investing #finance #BayesianMethods

Sponsorship opportunities are available for specific topics, whitepapers, tools, or advisory insights.

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#investing #finance #BayesianMethods

Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics – 06/12/2025

Once again it’s time for the usual Saturday morning update of the week’s new papers at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further six papers, which brings the number in Volume 8 (2025) up to 190, and the total so far published by OJAp up to 425. I blogged about the significance of the latter figure here.

The first paper this week is “The galaxy-IGM connection in THESAN: observability and information content of the galaxy-Lyman-alpha cross-correlation at z>6” by Enrico Garaldi (U. Tokyo, Japan), Verena Bellscheidt (Tech. U. Munich, Germany), Aaron Smith (U. Texas Austin, USA) and Rahul Kannan (York U. Canada). This paper was published on Monday 1st December 2025 in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. It describes an investigation of the impact of observational limitations on the ability to retrieve the intrinsic galaxy-Lyman-alpha cross correlation from line-of-sight observations.

The overlay is here:

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement is here:

Open Journal of Astrophysics

@[email protected]

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "The galaxy-IGM connection in THESAN: observability and information content of the galaxy-Lyman-alpha cross-correlation at z>6" by Enrico Garaldi (U. Tokyo, Japan), Verena Bellscheidt (Tech. U. Munich, Germany), Aaron Smith (U. Texas Austin, USA) and Rahul Kannan (York U. Canada)

https://doi.org/10.33232/001c.151666

The second paper of the week is “A Less Terrifying Universe? Mundanity as an Explanation for the Fermi Paradox” by Robin H.D. Corbet (U. Maryland, USA). This paper was published on 1st December 2025 in the folder Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics. It presents a discussion of possible explanations for the lack of s evidence for the presence of technology-using extraterrestrial civilizations in the Galaxy (usually called the Fermi paradox). The overlay is here:

You can find the official version of this one on arXiv here. The federated announcement on Mastodon is here:

Open Journal of Astrophysics

@[email protected]

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "A Less Terrifying Universe? Mundanity as an Explanation for the Fermi Paradox" by Robin H.D. Corbet (U. Maryland, USA)

https://doi.org/10.33232/001c.151454

Next one up is “Sulphur abundances in star-forming regions from optical emission lines: A new approach based on photoionization models consistent with the direct method” by Enrique Pérez-Montero, Borja Pérez-Díaz, & José M. Vílchez ( (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Spain), Igor A. Zinchenko (LMU, Germany), Asier Castrillo, Marta Gavilán, Sandra Zamora & Ángeles I. Díaz (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain). This was published on 1st December 2025 in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies. This study uses the emission lines produced in the optical part of the spectrum and with photoionization models to derive sulphur chemical abundances in the gas-phase of star-forming galaxies.

The overlay is here:

You can find the official accepted version on arXiv here. The fediverse announcement is here:

Open Journal of Astrophysics

@[email protected]

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "Sulphur abundances in star-forming regions from optical emission lines: A new approach based on photoionization models consistent with the direct method" by Enrique Pérez-Montero, Borja Pérez-Díaz, & José M. Vílchez ( (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Spain), Igor A. Zinchenko (LMU, Germany), Asier Castrillo, Marta Gavilán, Sandra Zamora & Ángeles I. Díaz (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid , Spain)

https://doi.org/10.33232/001c.151253

The fourth article of the week is “Bayesian Posteriors with Stellar Population Synthesis on GPUs” by Georgios Zacharegkas & Andrew Hearin (Argonne National Laboratory, USA) and Andrew Benson (Carnegie Observatories, USA). This is an exploration of a range of computational techniques aimed at accelerating Stellar Population Synthesis predictions of galaxy photometry using the JAX library to target GPUs (Graphics Processing Units, in case you didn’t know). This paper was published on Tuesday December 2nd 2025 in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies.

The overlay is here:

You can find the official published version on arXiv here. The Fediverse announcement follows:

Open Journal of Astrophysics

@[email protected]

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "Bayesian Posteriors with Stellar Population Synthesis on GPUs" by Georgios Zacharegkas & Andrew Hearin (Argonne National Laboratory, USA) and Andrew Benson (Carnegie Observatories, USA)

https://doi.org/10.33232/001c.151255

Next one up is “IAEmu: Learning Galaxy Intrinsic Alignment Correlations” by Sneh Pandya Yuanyuan Yang, Nicholas Van Alfen, Jonathan Blazek and Robin Walters (Northeastern University, Boston, USA). This presents a neural-network-based emulator that predicts the galaxy position-position, position-orientation, and orientation-orientation, correlation functions and their uncertainties using mock catalogs based on the halo occupation distribution (HOD) framework. It was published on December 2nd 2025 in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. The overlay is here:

The official accepted version can be found on arXiv here. The Mastodon announcement is here:

Open Journal of Astrophysics

@[email protected]

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "IAEmu: Learning Galaxy Intrinsic Alignment Correlations" by Sneh Pandya Yuanyuan Yang, Nicholas Van Alfen, Jonathan Blazek and Robin Walters (Northeastern University, Boston, USA)

https://doi.org/10.33232/001c.151749

The last paper for this weel is “Unraveling the Nature of the Nuclear Transient AT2020adpi” by Paarmita Pandey (Ohio State University, USA) and a team of 15 others based in the USA, UK and Australia. This was published on Thursday December 4th 2025 in the folder High-Energy Astrophysical Phenomena. It is an investigation into a particular transient event AT2020adpi and a discussion of whether it is an extreme example of AGN variability or a Tidal Disruption Event (TDE). The overlay is here:

You can find the officially-accepted version on arXiv here, and the Mastodon announcement is here:

Open Journal of Astrophysics

@[email protected]

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "Unraveling the Nature of the Nuclear Transient AT2020adpi" by Paarmita Pandey (Ohio State University, USA) and 15 others based in the USA, UK and Australia

https://doi.org/10.33232/001c.151453

And that concludes the update for this week. I will do another next Saturday.

#arxiv241002850v2 #arxiv250405235v4 #arxiv250614736v2 #arxiv250619919v2 #arxiv250903593v3 #arxiv250922878v2 #astrophysicsOfGalaxies #at2020adpi #bayesianMethods #cosmologyAndNongalacticAstrophysics #diamondOpenAccessPublishing #fermiParadox #gpus #highEnergyAstrophysicalPhenomena #instrumentationAndMethodsForAstrophysics #intrinsicAlignments #lymanAlpha #machineLearning #nuclearTransient #openAccessPublishing #openJournalOfAstrophysics #photoionization #seti #starFormation #stellarPopulations #suplhur #theOpenJournalOfAstrophysics #thesanSimulations

Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics – 06/12/2025

Once again it’s time for the usual Saturday morning update of the week’s new papers at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further six papers, which brings the number in Volume 8 (2025) up to 190, and the total so far published by OJAp up to 425. I blogged about the significance of the latter figure here.

The first paper this week is “The galaxy-IGM connection in THESAN: observability and information content of the galaxy-Lyman-alpha cross-correlation at z>6” by Enrico Garaldi (U. Tokyo, Japan), Verena Bellscheidt (Tech. U. Munich, Germany), Aaron Smith (U. Texas Austin, USA) and Rahul Kannan (York U. Canada). This paper was published on Monday 1st December 2025 in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. It describes an investigation of the impact of observational limitations on the ability to retrieve the intrinsic galaxy-Lyman-alpha cross correlation from line-of-sight observations.

The overlay is here:

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement is here:

Open Journal of Astrophysics

@[email protected]

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "The galaxy-IGM connection in THESAN: observability and information content of the galaxy-Lyman-alpha cross-correlation at z>6" by Enrico Garaldi (U. Tokyo, Japan), Verena Bellscheidt (Tech. U. Munich, Germany), Aaron Smith (U. Texas Austin, USA) and Rahul Kannan (York U. Canada)

https://doi.org/10.33232/001c.151666

The second paper of the week is “A Less Terrifying Universe? Mundanity as an Explanation for the Fermi Paradox” by Robin H.D. Corbet (U. Maryland, USA). This paper was published on 1st December 2025 in the folder Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics. It presents a discussion of possible explanations for the lack of s evidence for the presence of technology-using extraterrestrial civilizations in the Galaxy (usually called the Fermi paradox). The overlay is here:

You can find the official version of this one on arXiv here. The federated announcement on Mastodon is here:

Open Journal of Astrophysics

@[email protected]

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "A Less Terrifying Universe? Mundanity as an Explanation for the Fermi Paradox" by Robin H.D. Corbet (U. Maryland, USA)

https://doi.org/10.33232/001c.151454

Next one up is “Sulphur abundances in star-forming regions from optical emission lines: A new approach based on photoionization models consistent with the direct method” by Enrique Pérez-Montero, Borja Pérez-Díaz, & José M. Vílchez ( (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Spain), Igor A. Zinchenko (LMU, Germany), Asier Castrillo, Marta Gavilán, Sandra Zamora & Ángeles I. Díaz (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain). This was published on 1st December 2025 in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies. This study uses the emission lines produced in the optical part of the spectrum and with photoionization models to derive sulphur chemical abundances in the gas-phase of star-forming galaxies.

The overlay is here:

You can find the official accepted version on arXiv here. The fediverse announcement is here:

Open Journal of Astrophysics

@[email protected]

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "Sulphur abundances in star-forming regions from optical emission lines: A new approach based on photoionization models consistent with the direct method" by Enrique Pérez-Montero, Borja Pérez-Díaz, & José M. Vílchez ( (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Spain), Igor A. Zinchenko (LMU, Germany), Asier Castrillo, Marta Gavilán, Sandra Zamora & Ángeles I. Díaz (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid , Spain)

https://doi.org/10.33232/001c.151253

The fourth article of the week is “Bayesian Posteriors with Stellar Population Synthesis on GPUs” by Georgios Zacharegkas & Andrew Hearin (Argonne National Laboratory, USA) and Andrew Benson (Carnegie Observatories, USA). This is an exploration of a range of computational techniques aimed at accelerating Stellar Population Synthesis predictions of galaxy photometry using the JAX library to target GPUs (Graphics Processing Units, in case you didn’t know). This paper was published on Tuesday December 2nd 2025 in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies.

The overlay is here:

You can find the official published version on arXiv here. The Fediverse announcement follows:

Open Journal of Astrophysics

@[email protected]

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "Bayesian Posteriors with Stellar Population Synthesis on GPUs" by Georgios Zacharegkas & Andrew Hearin (Argonne National Laboratory, USA) and Andrew Benson (Carnegie Observatories, USA)

https://doi.org/10.33232/001c.151255

Next one up is “IAEmu: Learning Galaxy Intrinsic Alignment Correlations” by Sneh Pandya Yuanyuan Yang, Nicholas Van Alfen, Jonathan Blazek and Robin Walters (Northeastern University, Boston, USA). This presents a neural-network-based emulator that predicts the galaxy position-position, position-orientation, and orientation-orientation, correlation functions and their uncertainties using mock catalogs based on the halo occupation distribution (HOD) framework. It was published on December 2nd 2025 in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. The overlay is here:

The official accepted version can be found on arXiv here. The Mastodon announcement is here:

Open Journal of Astrophysics

@[email protected]

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "IAEmu: Learning Galaxy Intrinsic Alignment Correlations" by Sneh Pandya Yuanyuan Yang, Nicholas Van Alfen, Jonathan Blazek and Robin Walters (Northeastern University, Boston, USA)

https://doi.org/10.33232/001c.151749

The last paper for this weel is “Unraveling the Nature of the Nuclear Transient AT2020adpi” by Paarmita Pandey (Ohio State University, USA) and a team of 15 others based in the USA, UK and Australia. This was published on Thursday December 4th 2025 in the folder High-Energy Astrophysical Phenomena. It is an investigation into a particular transient event AT2020adpi and a discussion of whether it is an extreme example of AGN variability or a Tidal Disruption Event (TDE). The overlay is here:

You can find the officially-accepted version on arXiv here, and the Mastodon announcement is here:

Open Journal of Astrophysics

@[email protected]

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "Unraveling the Nature of the Nuclear Transient AT2020adpi" by Paarmita Pandey (Ohio State University, USA) and 15 others based in the USA, UK and Australia

https://doi.org/10.33232/001c.151453

And that concludes the update for this week. I will do another next Saturday.

#arxiv241002850v2 #arxiv250405235v4 #arxiv250614736v2 #arxiv250619919v2 #arxiv250903593v3 #arxiv250922878v2 #astrophysicsOfGalaxies #at2020adpi #bayesianMethods #cosmologyAndNongalacticAstrophysics #diamondOpenAccessPublishing #fermiParadox #gpus #highEnergyAstrophysicalPhenomena #instrumentationAndMethodsForAstrophysics #intrinsicAlignments #lymanAlpha #machineLearning #nuclearTransient #openAccessPublishing #openJournalOfAstrophysics #photoionization #seti #starFormation #stellarPopulations #suplhur #theOpenJournalOfAstrophysics #thesanSimulations

🌀 We've all built (or trusted) a model that felt solid—until the market laughed in its face.

Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/Ai04r

#investing #finance #BayesianMethods

🌀 We've all built (or trusted) a model that felt solid—until the market laughed in its face.

Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/Ai04r

#investing #finance #BayesianMethods

🌀 We've all built (or trusted) a model that felt solid—until the market laughed in its face.

Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/Ai04r

#investing #finance #BayesianMethods

🌀 We've all built (or trusted) a model that felt solid—until the market laughed in its face.

Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/Ai04r

#investing #finance #BayesianMethods

Bayesian approaches handle this by saying: “Why pick one model when you can blend several?” Using

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Bayesian approaches handle this by saying: “Why pick one model when you can blend several?” Using

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One of the sneaky traps investors fall into is recency bias—the tendency to overweigh recent events.

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#investing #finance #BayesianMethods

One of the sneaky traps investors fall into is recency bias—the tendency to overweigh recent events.

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#investing #finance #BayesianMethods

One of the sneaky traps investors fall into is recency bias—the tendency to overweigh recent events.

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Rigid models often fail to account for rare events or black swans.

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Rigid models often fail to account for rare events or black swans.

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#investing #finance #BayesianMethods

Rigid models often fail to account for rare events or black swans.

Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AfuEp

#investing #finance #BayesianMethods

Does anyone have a good starting point for Bayesian ranking of text-based content?

Application in mind is placing of news articles on a page-based layout, and I'd like something more sofistikated than LIFO or manual text-based grading.

Ultimately I would probably have a set of curated exemplar articles of high and low rank to toss at a Bayesian classifier.

The system need not be perfect (and I'll probably add some random jitter to it), but it should be useful.

Boosts appreciated.

#BayesianMethods #ContentRanking #DearMastomind

Does anyone have a good starting point for Bayesian ranking of text-based content?

Application in mind is placing of news articles on a page-based layout, and I'd like something more sofistikated than LIFO or manual text-based grading.

Ultimately I would probably have a set of curated exemplar articles of high and low rank to toss at a Bayesian classifier.

The system need not be perfect (and I'll probably add some random jitter to it), but it should be useful.

Boosts appreciated.

#BayesianMethods #ContentRanking #DearMastomind

Does anyone have a good starting point for Bayesian ranking of text-based content?

Application in mind is placing of news articles on a page-based layout, and I'd like something more sofistikated than LIFO or manual text-based grading.

Ultimately I would probably have a set of curated exemplar articles of high and low rank to toss at a Bayesian classifier.

The system need not be perfect (and I'll probably add some random jitter to it), but it should be useful.

Boosts appreciated.

#BayesianMethods #ContentRanking #DearMastomind

Does anyone have a good starting point for Bayesian ranking of text-based content?

Application in mind is placing of news articles on a page-based layout, and I'd like something more sofistikated than LIFO or manual text-based grading.

Ultimately I would probably have a set of curated exemplar articles of high and low rank to toss at a Bayesian classifier.

The system need not be perfect (and I'll probably add some random jitter to it), but it should be useful.

Boosts appreciated.

#BayesianMethods #ContentRanking #DearMastomind

Does anyone have a good starting point for Bayesian ranking of text-based content?

Application in mind is placing of news articles on a page-based layout, and I'd like something more sofistikated than LIFO or manual text-based grading.

Ultimately I would probably have a set of curated exemplar articles of high and low rank to toss at a Bayesian classifier.

The system need not be perfect (and I'll probably add some random jitter to it), but it should be useful.

Boosts appreciated.

#BayesianMethods #ContentRanking #DearMastomind

“#BayesianMethods in Practice” were discussed on a workshop at CAS last week.
Many thanks to the organizer Andreas Doepp and the speakers:
Stephan Hartmann, Borut Trpin, Volker Schmid, Florian Pargent, Felix Schönbrodt @nicebread, Thomas Augustin, Matthias Feurer, Leon Assaad, Tom Sterkenburg, Rafael Fuchs, Lilian von Bressensdorf, Wiktor Młynarski @samplingrage, Oliver Friedrich, Daniel Gruen.