Computational and Applied Theology

Recently I was at a presentation given by a guy who does chastity talks to high school students around the country. He was throwing out the standard statistics about how effective various types of "safe-sex" devices are. I have heard this story countless time before, but this time was different. I had recently been studying various types of agent-based models and I said to myself, "this is a great opportunity to actually start a engineering/science ministry in Catholism." I have been trying to figure out a way to make that work for years, but to no avail. Globalisation has made social justice issues very complex. I have looked over various encyclicals that talk about social justice. I always get frustrated because the principles they throw out seem self-contradictory at times. Furthermore it is totally unclear how to apply many of those ideas. Being a Catholic I am used to dealing with things that appear to be paradoxes, so I don't give up, I just know I need to dig deeper. Given the challenges we are facing with the HSS mandates and health care in general I think it is past time Lay Catholics start generating real solutions to the social justice problems facing the world. I feel there was a time when Catholics were at the forefront of academy. I also feel that time is no longer with us in most fields. It doesn't have to be this way and it shouldn't. It's time Catholics started looking at some of these complex social justice problems ( e.g. immigration, resource allocation, healthcare, developing world, chastity, evangelization) were examined under the "algorithmic lens" so to speak. I have done a little bit of literature review and I have not seen too much from Catholic academia that tries to address these problems. I found one Catholic think tank in Washington DC, but they seem to be more focused on philosophy. This is my first attempt to do it.

(If you want to learn about the "algorithmic lens" I suggest you see this presentation:
The Algorithmic Lens: How the Computational Perspective is Transforming the Sciences
March 1, 2009
Presentation by Christos Papadimitriou, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department, UC Berkeley, CA.
http://www.scivee.tv/node/10204
)

I am seriously considering putting together a preliminary agent-based model of STD infection in an American High School. Actually I already started it (See screenshot above). My thought is this could start to get scaled up to work out non-contraceptive techniques for mitigating the spread of AIDS in Africa. My thought is I could put together in preliminary results in a poster that I could show at the annual Catholic Medical Association conference.
Abstracts are due Aug 3, 2012 so I have a deadline. I have the pleasure of knowing some guys that are pretty active in their CMA guilds so hopefully I can find some Infectious disease experts to help continue this work. Here is the CMA website if you want more info.

http://www.cathmed.org/events/annual_educational_conference/poster_session/

From CMA:

Poster Session

Call for Abstracts!

What: Poster presentations of scientific or theological topics of interest to Catholic physicians. Must be original work and not previously published or submitted for publication. Author must be present.

Limits: 3 abstracts per author

• Theological abstracts: 150 words
• Scientific abstracts: 250 words

Deadline: August 3, 2012

Submit by email: LQ@cathmed.org

Maybe we can find some other problems to begin addressing as well. I also happen to be in a place with a fairly active Catholic community with alot of guys who know how to run models. It might be a good place to get started.