Author Archives: Jon Garvey

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About Jon Garvey

Training in medicine (which was my career), social psychology and theology. Interests in most things, but especially the science-faith interface. The rest of my time, though, is spent writing, playing and recording music.

I hope my leg don’t break…

Posted on 10/11/2020 by Jon Garvey

…walking on the Moon. OK, maybe it’s time for an update on the UK Government’s stupidly named “Moonshot” testing programme, since my hopes that Boris Johnson would have quietly forgotten it have been dashed. Like so many reasonable hopes, this year. For it is being rolled out, with the help of the military, in town after town – characteristically before any assessment of its value and problems, just like lockdowns, masks, track and trace, vaccines, etc, etc, etc, etc. The name of the project is, obviously, an attempt to get the malleable propagandized public to identify with J. F. Kennedy’s “Can Do” Apollo project. It neglects the fact that younger … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics and sociology, Science | Leave a comment

The marginalized centre

Posted on 07/11/2020 by Jon Garvey

There’s something rather special about you people, though not many Hump readers get to express that in comments. I get around 100,000 hits a year, and particularly in the last few months those have been visits to posts mainly expressing dissidence to the mainstream narrative on COVID, on social justice and on world politics generally.

Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | 2 Comments

Cultural dementia

Posted on 05/11/2020 by Jon Garvey

Yesterday our MPs, deeply conflicted, but not sufficiently so to check out the data intelligently, voted through another national lockdown. This was despite the well-publicized de-bunking of the doomsday projections made to justify it, the data showing that infections and deaths have both peaked and appear to be on the way down, the latest excess deaths report that confirms we have average deaths for the time of year, and above all the clear evidence that no proper impact assessment has been done, let alone made available to parliament or public.

Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Prometheus, Theology | Leave a comment

Here we go again (in lockstep)

Posted on 03/11/2020 by Jon Garvey

The national lockdown I predicted (from the trajectory of the propaganda drip-feed, not from the data) was announced with another bunch of skewed, and already outdated, apocalyptic projections over the weekend. It is due to be voted on in Parliament tomorrow, but the official opposition are not opposing, and most Conservative MPs appear to have swallowed the “something must be done” line dictated by SAGE’s smoke and mirror displays.

Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science | Leave a comment

Suffering and anguish

Posted on 30/10/2020 by Jon Garvey

David Snoke’s presentation at last week’s Christian Scientific Society webinar added a useful thought to my treatment of animal suffering in God’s Good Earth. This question plays a large part in the kind of theodicy tangles that Evolutionary theologies tend to get into, deep time being held to build up an immense “debt” of suffering for God to requite, and evolution itself (apparently) being grounded on senseless and wasteful suffering.

Posted in Creation, Medicine, Philosophy, Science, Theology of nature | Leave a comment

Spot the con-trick(s)

Posted on 28/10/2020 by Jon Garvey

Well, that august scientific advisory body, SAGE, has produced yet another projection for a forthcoming second wave, courtesy (again) of Imperial College Modelling, inc. It’s all about death, this time. It appears on all the front pages today:

Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science | Leave a comment

Foot and mouth redividus

Posted on 27/10/2020 by Jon Garvey

From time to time critics of Imperial College’s COVID-19 modelling have pointed out their previous poor track record in several previous “scares,” including the catastrophic UK foot and mouth disease epidemic of 2001.

Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science | 2 Comments

Van Morrison tells it like it is

Posted on 26/10/2020 by Jon Garvey

Preach it, Van…

Posted in Music, Politics and sociology | Leave a comment

Still places at God’s Good Earth Webinar

Posted on 23/10/2020 by Jon Garvey

I’m just re-posting a reminder that I’m giving a presentation on my first book, God’s Good Earth Earth: the case for an unfallen creation at a Christian Scientific Society Webinar thos Saturday, 24th October, on natural evil. It’s in the morning, in the US, or the afternoon in Europe. If you’re an Australian reader, you’ll have to set your alarm clock. Speakers are Stuart Burgess from UK, and Fuz Rana, Scott Minnich and David Snoke from America, and the general tone of the others’ abstracts seems to be on “design” good or bad. It’s free, though they ask for a donation in the region of $20 for the logistics (not … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Philosophy, Science, Theology of nature | 2 Comments

The Great Global Referendum – your vote counts!

Posted on 20/10/2020 by Jon Garvey

Dear global citizen, Last November our colleagues in the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) warned us that unless global greenhouse gas emissions fall by 7.6 per cent each year between 2020 and 2030, the world will miss the opportunity to get on track towards the 1.5°C temperature goal of the Paris Agreement.

Posted in Politics and sociology | 2 Comments