Category Archives: Politics and sociology

Hedging and ditching

Posted on 09/04/2020 by Jon Garvey

Here in rural Devon, most of the field boundaries are traditional “Devon banks,” which are banks of earth and stone originally capped with hedges, in order to contain livestock. Down in our valley, many of the banks are mediaeval. The parish boundary just down the lane, dated by counting the number of tree species that have colonized what was originally holly, probably dates right back to Saxon times. But up here on the hill most of them, including the boundaries of my own property, probably date to around 1820, when the common-land “turbary” was enclosed: a mere two hundred years.

Posted in Creation, History, Politics and sociology | Leave a comment

It’s the same the ‘ole world over…

Posted on 03/04/2020 by Jon Garvey

It’s the poor wot gets the blame. I’m increasingly of the opinion that the “precautionary principle” that’s so prevalent in the current crisis, and in many other recent public applications of science, is a highly dangerous one.

Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science | 4 Comments

By nature objects of wrath

Posted on 02/04/2020 by Jon Garvey

I’ve belatedly realised one plausible reason why Paul places homosexual acts at the head of his list of the sinful results of denying the true God in Romans 1:18ff. On the face of it, that particular activity doesn’t seem obviously to follow on from idolatry, nor to be uniquely evil.

Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | 2 Comments

Cancelling society to save lives

Posted on 18/03/2020 by Jon Garvey

A wise retired surgeon said on a radio phone-in yesterday that, just a few years ago, we wouldn’t even have known about COVID-19 until the pandemic was past its peak, and we would probably have concluded that it was just a particularly bad winter for elderly deaths from respiratory disease. Maybe ignorance is bliss.

Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science, Uncategorized | 6 Comments

God’s River of Love

Posted on 16/03/2020 by Jon Garvey

Long ago God formed a River of Love. It flowed from the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ, and ran with the clear water of life, a water so powerful that when it washed against those who bathed in it, it turned their rebellion and enmity against heaven into a love that reflected God’s own, and poured out from them to share the good news of forgiveness and healing to other people. As for those who drank of that water, they were enabled to live forever in the very presence of God.

Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | 2 Comments

Faith, and faith

Posted on 05/03/2020 by Jon Garvey

This is taking time out from my “retrospective” series. Does anybody else remember the old Science Fiction story about an anti-gravity machine?

Posted in Hump Retrospective, Music, Politics and sociology, Prometheus, Theology | 3 Comments

Cutting edge science and witch trials

Posted on 23/01/2020 by Jon Garvey

Using the Salem witch trials as an analogy in my last post made me aware of the controversial figure of Cotton Mather, the archetypal superstitious Puritan widely blamed for the Salem witch trials.

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Intersectional shamanism

Posted on 20/01/2020 by Jon Garvey

Three cheers for actor Laurence Fox, who on the BBC’s Question Time refused point blank to acknowledge the very validity of the existence of the “unconscious institutional racism” of the British people voiced by a (white) audience member regarding the Artist Formerly Known as HRH.

Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Science | 3 Comments

Playing the racist card

Posted on 10/01/2020 by Jon Garvey

Joshua Swamidass’s book on the Genealogical Adam and Eve Hypothesis is doing pretty well on the Amazon bestseller list. I guess that might bode well for my own book on the hypothesis once it comes out, if folks are interested in the possible applications as well as the science of the idea.

Posted in Creation, Genealogical Adam, Politics and sociology, Science | 2 Comments

Tall tales in science

Posted on 06/01/2020 by Jon Garvey

I found this short, but useful “entry level” video on the replication crisis in science on YouTube.

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