Category Archives: Politics and sociology

Being on the side of science

Posted on 09/02/2018 by Jon Garvey

The conversation on BioLogos about the implications of Lenski’s E. coli experiment continued, between Richard Buggs and Joshua Swamidass, after I wrote my piece on it here. It turns out that, after discussion, they agreed that, in contradiction of my conclusion, the situation with respect to human genetics is less unpredictable, rather than more, as I suggested there, because of the highly mutable nature of bacteria in comparison to mammals. Lenski therefore seems to have been dropped from the discussion as irrelevant. As Joshua writes, “Retractions are good”!

Posted in Creation, Politics and sociology, Science | 7 Comments

Kew researcher vindicates the Hump of the Camel

Posted on 03/02/2018 by Jon Garvey

Over at post 449 of 462 on the BioLogos debate between Dennis Venema (BioLogos staff member) and Richard Buggs (chief researcher in Plant Health at Kew Botanical Gardens) on population genetics predictions about early man, Richard replied to, I think, my only previous contribution on the thread. In that post I had ventured a concern I addressed in more detail in a post here:

Posted in Politics and sociology, Science | 13 Comments

Credentialism and ignorance

Posted on 31/01/2018 by Jon Garvey

There’s an interesting, and rather long, podcast here in which philosopher Lydia McGrew calls out New Testament scholars, as an entire guild, on what she perceives as systemic errors in their basic methodology, and particularly in the field of what is called “redaction criticism”. I have to say I agree with most of what she says, but there has also been a backlash from evangelical NT scholars contradicting her, partly on the basis of credentialism, ie that since she herself is not a trained New Testament scholar, she has no warrant to criticize those who are.

Posted in Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | 2 Comments

Natural Theology, ID, and Lutherans: A Response to Davis, Murphy and Swamidass

Posted on 17/01/2018 by Edward Robinson

Over at BioLogos, Joshua Swamidass has started a new discussion, entitled “The Lutheran Option”. In it, Joshua makes the point that the Lutheran voice has rarely been heard in origins debates in the USA, and calls for a more balanced discussion in which characteristically Lutheran theological emphases are heard, alongside the more commonly heard Calvinist/Reformed and “Wesleyan” points of view.

Posted in Edward Robinson, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | 17 Comments

Function ≠ evolutionary explanation

Posted on 13/01/2018 by Jon Garvey

On two occasions in the last week, BBC radio scientific programmes have claimed to offer “evolutionary explanations” for observed human phenomena, though admittedly one might (memory is hazy) have been a food programme interviewing a scientist.

Posted in Politics and sociology, Science | 6 Comments

A Little Knowledge Is a Dangerous Thing: A Philological Note to a BioLogos Discussion

Posted on 01/12/2017 by Edward Robinson

One of the frustrations of web discussions about theology and science is that so many of the participants in the discussions choose to argue with a vigor all out of proportion to their knowledge of the subject at hand. It is easy enough to summon examples of individuals from all camps (YEC, OEC, atheist/materialist, TE/EC, and ID) and from all sites (such as Uncommon Descent, The Skeptical Zone, BioLogos, and Panda’s Thumb) who are guilty of forming opinions about authors they have not read, of taking strong positions in advance of learning the subject-matter, of affecting to more knowledge than they have, etc.

Posted in Edward Robinson, Politics and sociology, Theology, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Allegations of Sneaky Machinations at BioLogos and Discovery: Overreaction on Both Sides

Posted on 15/11/2017 by Edward Robinson

The commenter “Bilbo” recently stirred up a very constructive hornet’s nest at BioLogos with his thread on the origin of life (OOL). I appreciated the way he held the feet of the materialists (and of those ECs who lean to a materialist portrait of nature) to the fire on this question. However, he doesn’t always achieve constructive results, as can be seen from his new thread on the alleged sneaky machinations of people associated with Discovery.

Posted in Edward Robinson, Politics and sociology | 13 Comments

Two ways

Posted on 29/07/2017 by Jon Garvey

For most of my life I’ve tried to avoid the idea of Jesus as a moral teacher, both because of the gospel of grace and forgiveness versus moralistic self-help, and because of my awareness of C S Lewis’s famous argument in Mere Christianity: A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell.

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Understanding the times

Posted on 18/07/2017 by Jon Garvey

I was listening to Bob Dylan’s Talking World War III Blues in the car last week. Those who were of responsible age back in 1963 may remember it’s about Dylan recounting his dream of being the only one alive after a nuclear war to a psychiatrist, who eventually interrupts him saying he’s been having the same dream, only he was the only one left alive (“I didn’t see you around”). It goes on: A lot of time passed and now it seems Everybody’s having them dreams

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The Lisbon earthquake and plausibility

Posted on 01/07/2017 by Jon Garvey

In my last post on plausibility and credibility I had reason to quote N T Wright on how Deism first divorced God from nature back in the eighteenth century. But I didn’t mention the event commonly identified as the trigger for this radical rejection of the immanence of divine action, a rejection which persists (as I tried to show) until this day. That event was the Lisbon earthquake of 1755.

Posted in Creation, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | 4 Comments