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.

Models of evolution

Posted on 01/08/2018 by Jon Garvey

I remember at BioLogos a few years ago Dennis Venema doing a ballpark calculation that, given known mutation rates, he considered there was plenty of time for evolution, understood in Neodarwinian terms, to have produced all the mutations necessary for the differences between the chimp and human genomes since the time they are believed to have diverged.

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Concerning giraffes and evolution

Posted on 28/07/2018 by Jon Garvey

I’ve just been contributing to a BioLogos thread, in which the recurrent laryngeal nerve of the giraffe was flagged as a candidate for “bad design” (the thread was hived off from one on the equally bad design of the human reproductive system).

Posted in Creation, Science | 3 Comments

Losing God through noise

Posted on 23/07/2018 by Jon Garvey

I’m not sure what it is about Evolutionary Creation and aversion to natural theology, but it is exemplified by a current thread on BioLogos entitled “A theological argument for the impossibility of proving God by science.” The general position – stated by a number of people apart from the original poster – is that it’s presumptuous to try and reveal God from science if he chooses to keep himself hidden.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology | 8 Comments

Teleological laws

Posted on 21/07/2018 by Jon Garvey

I’m re-reading William Dembski’s Being as Communion, which I reviewed back in 2014 in a long series of posts starting here, partly because it’s interesting and partly to see what he says about the human soul for an enquiry over at Peaceful Science.

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The boundaries of science are not theological

Posted on 19/07/2018 by Jon Garvey

You are a scientist from Arcturus (didn’t know that, did you?) and your only surviving earth probe landed in my house and sends back accurate, but incomplete, information about the goings on here until the batteries run out after a couple of years. Which is more than can be said for the ensuing description, which is fictionalised for convenience.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science | 2 Comments

Explanatory power of evolution

Posted on 16/07/2018 by Jon Garvey

I enjoyed a little innocent mischief on Joshua Swamidass’s Peaceful Science website last week. In response to someone reporting the news of ancient human finds in China (tools 2.2 million years old), somebody else (George) suggested that, since it has been hypothesized that the epicanthic folds of Asians might be an adaptation to cold, this would accord with a population that had had to go through several ice ages.

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Directed evolution and progressive creation

Posted on 13/07/2018 by Jon Garvey

Paul Nelson, in a BioLogos comment, linked to a philosophy of science paper  which questions if there is any actual difference between the kind of “unique natural event” often postulated for, at least, key stages in the origin of life, and creationism. This is a look at the same question in a less analytical manner. And assuming Christian faith, I should add.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology | 2 Comments

More on falcons

Posted on 10/07/2018 by Jon Garvey

Esteemed Wife and I decided yesterday evening to forget government Brexit meltdowns, predictable Wimbledon matches and various sad local situations, and repair to Seaton Hole, a small and secluded beach close to home that we haven’t discovered in the nine years we have lived here.

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 3 Comments

Keeping your wits from drifting

Posted on 06/07/2018 by Jon Garvey

Long ago, before my BioLogos days, I think even when I was still a real doctor, I saw a documentary on the hammerhead shark.

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More possibly significant temple architecture

Posted on 03/07/2018 by Jon Garvey

In the last post I laid out a case for a pervasive contrast between two kinds of temple architecture in Scripture, arising from what I take to be a deliberate contrast between the sacred space described in Genesis 1:1-2:3 and that of Genesis 2:4ff. Here’s a further example – a textual problem that, to me, makes most sense when seen as part of a deliberate set of contrasts.

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