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Author Archives: Jon Garvey
Who’s in charge of the asylum anyway?
I’ve been too slow to comment on the decision by a British court that the holding of a time of prayer in local council meetings is illegal. The case was brought by an ex-council member from a place not far from here, who was following the New Atheist agenda of claiming that his (evolved?) human rights were being abrogated by others praying, even though he had been quite at liberty to absent himself. The judge actually decided that his rights were not breached at all, but rather like the Dover Trial judge decided that he’d answer a question he hadn’t been asked for free, and said that councils had no … Continue reading
Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology
1 Comment
Thoughts on Biblical cosmology
One of the commonplaces of the “liberal evangelical” BioLogian approach to Bible interpretation is to use the example of ANE cosmology as a way of showing that the Bible cannot be taken as a scientific text. The concept of the Universe said to underlie Genesis, and common to the rest of the ancient world, is that shown in this diagram: It should be noted from the first that this is not an ancient diagram, but a modern interpretation of ancient descriptions. It is very easy to misinterpret the past, one example being the assumption that the mediaeval mappae mundi also suggest a flat earth surrounded by water, whereas in fact … Continue reading
Time Team
I don’t know if this popular programme on archaeology, a 20 year British institution, has made it across the Atlantic, though I’ve seen it on satellite TV across the world. It’s hit the headlines because one of its original team, Brummy archaeologist Prof Mick Aston , has left in anger because of decisions made by Channel 4, the commissioners of the programme: They included a new presenter to join Tony Robinson and decisions to drop some archaeologists and cut down the informative stuff about the archaeology.
Posted in Politics and sociology, Science
1 Comment
What you won’t say says most
There’s a rather revealing recent thread over on BioLogos. The article heading it up is part of Dennis Venema’s technical series on “junk DNA”, but a new poster named Crude opens the discussion thus: In your view, is evolution an entirely unguided process? Or was it guided by God, even if not in a way science is capable of detecting? Atheists (well, lets say most atheists) believe that evolution is a process which accomplishes what it does without guidance or input from any divine mind – the outcomes being neither foreseen or preordained. Do you disagree with that view, and if so, how? I think it would add to your … Continue reading
Posted in Creation, Science, Theology
9 Comments
Genre again – is Biblical higher criticism scientific?
Cal’s reponse to my last post set me thinking again about both the documentary hypothesis of the Pentateuch, and the redaction theories of the New Testament. I guess I had in mind the idea that one can’t regard the Pentateuch as “history” because that genre didn’t really exist until Herodotus in 450BC, well after even the latest dates given for the Bible text. So, according to the received wisdom, one has to look back to the original “sources” in the category of “myth”, “heroic epic”, “court chronicle” etc. But this way of thinking leaves a massive assumption unchallenged.
Posted in Science, Theology
3 Comments
John H Walton and the undermining of Darwinian metaphysics
I’ve mentioned John H Walton’s contribution to the interpretation of Genesis several times before on this blog. I won’t explain his thesis again in any detail, but in essence it’s the understanding than the creation account of Genesis is intended to be literal, but literal concerning principally the function of creation rather than its material existence. It is about how God organised the Universe as his temple, with man as his image (in the sense of temple-image) and priest. This privileged calling for man is reflected in the fact that creation’s function is described in relationship to humanity’s needs – the heavens as his calendar for planting, the vegetation as … Continue reading
Posted in Creation, Science, Theology
11 Comments
Things that evolve – (2) Natural Selection
There’s a new review of James Shapiro’s book here. The author, Adam Wilkins, is critical of Shapiro’s main thesis, but accepts there’s a growing body of opinion in certain evolutionary disciplines against classic Neodarwinism.
Posted in Creation, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology
7 Comments
Things that evolve – (1) Evolution
Gregory, who often posts here, is a sociologist interested in showing how the concept of evolution is misleading when applied to human sciences. Watch out for his forthcoming book on “Human Extension”. Nevertheless, the fact that evolution ought to be restricted to the field of biology doesn’t mean that it hasn’t, in reality, been applied to everything under the sun, and over it, as a global philosophy of existence. I want to look today at the interesting way in which that generalising principle has shifted since Darwin.
Posted in Politics and sociology, Science
1 Comment
Don’t talk to me about life
Prof Steve Jones’s recent column in the Daily Telegraph has a dig at Stephen Hawking’s belief that life, statistically, must exist elsewhere in the Universe. He cites Nick Lane’s biochemical case for the improbability of life arising – indeed, he says it’s unlikely that eukaryotic life exists anywhere else.
Prof Terry Hamblin
I was saddened to see the obituary of Prof Terry Hamblin in the paper today, his death occurring at the early age of 68. His name as a haematologist was still in the air at Poole Hospital when I started my medical career there, whence he had recentlydeparted to become the consultant at Bournemouth. Incidentally the Poole haematology department itself was run by Jeremy Lee-Potter, husband of Lynda Lee-Potter the journalist, and the long-haired technician with whom I dealt most, “Rog”, had not only played bass in a band with Robert Fripp of King Crimson fame, but had discovered no less than two rare varieties of haemoglobin.