Naturalis Historia: A Two Year Status Report

Naturalis Historia is a bit more than two years old.   In that time I have written more than 160 articles and notes. The majority of these are reflections upon some aspect of the intersection of science and faith.  My typical modus operandi has been to take discoveries from science and ask how these discoveries impact our understanding of origins and the age of the Earth in particular.   Recently I have written more broadly, at times simply reporting on general interest stories in science with minimal commentary on how those stories could or should be understood within a biblical worldview.

I am nowhere close to running out of ideas of topics I wish to explore at the intersection of science and faith. What I am short of is time to do the background research and the writing itself.  The time I can devote to writing is impacted by several competing interests which include my real job, my family and a number of speaking engagements, beginning this spring, that will require quite a bit of preparation.

Yes, I do have a real job. This spring that job will have me teaching two sections of a non-majors biology course. Each of those classes will have about 170 students and I will be overseeing some aspects of the laboratory that goes with the course.  In addition to that I have multiple ongoing research projects that require my attention.  Oh, have I mentioned before that I have 5 school-age kids?  Yeah, lots of programs, sporting events, driving kids to school and so forth will be part of my daily routine for the foreseeable future.   In between all these engagements I’ll be jotting down my thoughts and continuing to share them with anyone that is interested.

Best of NH index:  A few weeks ago I generated a new page (see link at the top of the page) that organized most of my articles topically.  I also listed some of my favorite posts and my notes and photography.

What has the past two years taught me about blogging? 

First, if you write about dinosaurs, ken ham or better yet both at the same time you will get a lot of views of your post.  Second, if you write about the thoughts of anyone who died prior to the 20^th century only a small percentage of your followers will click though to view the post unless you can find a way to mention dinosaurs in the title.   Third, posts with over 500 words are not likely to be read in their entirety. Oh, wait. I already knew that, but it has not prevented me from posting many 2000+ word articles anyway.

But seriously, while it is nice to have the views of the pages most of my writing is intended to help me improve as a writer by forcing me to think through my ideas.   The blog keeps me intellectually engaged and stimulates my personal research in ways that I usually could not anticipate.  I have also been blessed with many positive interactions and made many new friends.

What are my future writing plans?

In the coming year I expect to produce a similar mix of 1) longer articles exploring topics that salient to science and faith discussions, 2) shorter notes that mostly take current science headlines and examine their significance toward a Biblical worldview and 3) fun science stories with minimal philosophical commentary and 4) natural history photography just because I enjoy like taking pictures.

In addition to publishing more original content, I plan, for the first time, to begin recycling some of my favorite posts.  I have picked up more than 200 followers in the past year and thus many will not have seen much of my earlier writing. This gives me a chance to update the science and do some badly needed editing of the writing of some of my earlier work.

Here are just a few of topics that I am currently researching that I hope to write about in the coming year:

• Continuation of the “geological context” series:  Geology of Israel and Egypt focusing on the origins of the Dead Sea, Nile River, and Mediterranean Sea
• Series of posts examining the claims of preservation of soft-tissues in dinosaurs and a look at some other important discoveries by Dr. Mary Schweitzer that are often overlooked by creationists
• Introduction to parasitic plants and the challenge they present to young earth creation biology
• What is life?  Examining how life is defined both scientifically and biblically
• The Grand Canyon and what it tells us about the age of the earth
• More posts on the geology of Mars because I follow the story of the Curiosity Rover so closely
• Many more thoughts on young earth creationism and its impact on the present and future of Christianity

Thank you for your encouragement in this past year and best wishes to all of you in 2014.