Lance F.

Lance F. is a computer scientist and occasional free-lance writer. He is involved in a variety of religion and agnostic/atheist organizations both off and on the internet. He is an atheist, agnostic, humanist and Jew. Lance is in an interreligious marriage and is involved in several interreligious family organizations.

Professional Experience: Lance has been a DoD computer scientist since graduating from college in 1987. His primary focus in recent years has been developing artificial-intelligence-based virtual sensor technology although he also has done software design and implementation, system integration, project management, and has served on several national standards committees. Lance has been an author on 19 published technical papers. In addition to being active on about.com's agnosticism/atheism forum Lance is actively involved in interfaith family organizations. He is on the board of the InterFaith Families Project and is active in the Dovetail Institute for Interfaith Family Resources. He has had several articles on interfaith family issues published in the Dovetail Journal. Lance is a member of the American Humanist Association.

Education: Lance holds a BA in Computer Science and Mathematics from Temple University and an MS in Computer Science from George Washington University. He has also had countless hours of professional training in computer science and management subjects.

From Lance F.: "To be honest I don't really think of myself as an active atheist in the sense that my atheism isn't the most important thing about me. However, I do think that atheism and agnosticism get a bad rap in our (U.S.) society in general. I'd like to do what I can to change that impression. I do want to combat what I perceive as some of the negative influences of religion in society such as the ignorance perpetuated by fundamentalist religions. I'd also like to do what I can to promote humanism, which I consider to be the best secular "alternative" to conventional religion. I'm glad to be able to contribute to about.com's agnosticism/atheism forum and to do what little I can to achieve these goals."

Material from Lance:

Discussing Faith
Discussing Faith: how should faith be approached by those who rely primarily upon reason and evidence to examine claims or form beliefs?

Evolution and Creationism
What is evolution? What is creationism? How do creationists sell their ideas? Read the answers to these questions and more in the first part of a series of FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) on evolution, creationism, and science.

Science, Evolution and Creationism
What is science? What is a "scientific theory?" Is creationism science? Is evolution science? Read the answers to these questions and more in the second part of a series of FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) on evolution, creationism, and science.

Evolution, Creationism and Evidence
What are the various sorts of direct and indirect evidence for evolution? Does creationism have any supporting evidence? Detailed exploration of the science behind evolution and biology!