Robert McCauley, a professor at Emory University where he holds appointments in the departments of philosophy, psychology, anthropology, and religion, will lecture about the role of cognition in science and religion a week from today at Princeton University.

Thousands of academic and religious organizations across the country have planned events for "Focus the Nation: Global Warming Solutions for America," a week dedicated to drawing national attention to climate change. In New York, for instance, Syracuse University, in collaboration with the State University College of Environmental Science and Forestry, will hold a teach-in on global warming today, and Le Moyne College, a Jesuit school also in Syracuse, held a teach-trek yesterday (with students walking and bicycling through downtown Syracuse to raise awareness of the issue) and has a series of presentations and discussions planned for today. Other area religious groups, including the May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society and St. James Episcopal Church, joined the effort by organizing their own events last Sunday. —Stephen Mapes

Tim Hutchinson, a former Republican senator from Arkansas and a senior adviser to Gov. Mike Huckabee's campaign, was online with washingtonpost.com yesterday to answer questions, including one from a reader in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who asked, "Given that Mike Huckabee believes in creationism, will you please reassure those of us who have more faith in science than does Huckabee as to what type of person a President Huckabee would appoint to be the White House Science Adviser?"
Hutchinson's response: "Gov. Huckabee, if you look at his 10 1/2 years as governor, never tried to impose his beliefs on anyone. From the statements I've heard on his beliefs in creation in no way disparage his confidence and value in modern science. I don't think those beliefs—which he has been open about and believe the American public deserves to know about them—would infringe on the sorts of people he would have in his administration. I think that's the greatest confidence people can have, those 10 1/2 years of experience. As he said, he never tried to put a church steeple on the capitol dome, and would never try to use the authority of government in that way." —Heather Wax

The United Church of Christ (which counts Barack Obama among its 1.2 million members) is launching a Web-based advertising campaign aimed at the scientific community. The ads, which are said to promote both a pro-science and pro-faith message, will appear on more than 30 popular science blogs during February and will link to a newly expanded "faith and science" section on the UCC's Web site. "Frankly, when it comes to persons engaged in scientific inquiry—geneticists, mathematicians, chemists, engineers, science teachers, and students—the church has a history of communicating disinterest, distrust, and even hostility," the Rev. John Thomas, the UCC's general minister and president, said in a press release. To begin to counteract that message, Thomas and a group of scientists and theologians also wrote a pastoral letter on science and technology that has been endorsed by Alan Leshner, the chief executive officer of AAAS, as well as Charles Townes and Ian Barbour, both past Templeton Prize winners. "Many today are hungering for an authentic spirituality that is intellectually honest and at home in a scientific era," the letter states. "They are searching for a new kind of wisdom to live by, one that is scientifically sophisticated, technologically advanced, morally just, ecologically sustainable, and spiritually alive." —Heather Wax

Nobel Prize winner and chemist (as well as author, poet, and playwright) Roald Hoffmann recently spoke at both Upper Dublin High School and Congregation Beth Or near Philadelphia about the relationship between science and the humanities. Hoffmann's speech at Beth Or focused on the connections between scientific discovery and Judaism, and was based partly on Old Wine, New Flasks: Reflections on Science and Jewish Tradition, a book he co-wrote with Shira Leibowitz Schmidt.

"Exploring the World, Discovering God," a pilot program for kindergarteners through fourth-graders, is helping teachers in Catholic schools link what they teach in science and religion class. The project, sponsored by the Institute for Theological Encounter with Science and Technology, is being used in Missouri, Texas, Kansas, and some home schools in Michigan, and plans are already in the works to expand it for grades 5 through 8, as well as for use by Protestant schools. The program's materials, which will be provided free on a Web site possibly as early as this fall, are being shaped by a group of advisers comprised of scientists, theologians, and educators. —Sara Kern

Beginning this Friday, Bidwell Presbyterian Church in Chico, California, will host a free conference on science and religion, where the guest speaker will be Robert Russell, founder and director of The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences and a professor of theology and science at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. The following Saturday (Evolution Weekend), a science-and-religion roundtable involving a climate physicist, a neurobiologist, and a geologist will be held at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Battle Creek, Michigan.