Category Archives: Politics and sociology

Magic in an age of incredulity

Posted on 27/03/2015 by Jon Garvey

Have you ever noticed how many serious academic bloggers are addicted to science fiction? Hardnosed researchers of evolutionary biology, or analytic philosophy or even critical theology will throw in regular posts about the latest Dr Who or Star Wars story. That got me wondering why magic remains so popular in fiction, in an age when nobody believes in magic. For science fiction, after all, is only really the supernatural set within pseudo-science rather than demonology (if you don’t count Phillip Pulman or Terry Pratchett, where it is set in demonology). As the introduction to one of the sci-fi anthologies on my shelf says, a story beginning “The last man in … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics and sociology, Science | 5 Comments

Blues is truth, and so is Science

Posted on 25/03/2015 by Jon Garvey

There are probably not many readers here who would fully endorse Brownie McGhee’s dictum that “Blues is Truth”. Whilst you might well agree with me that the blues is a music very expressive of the human condition, you’d probably consider that its truth lies in a fairly restricted sphere. You might even wonder if its practitioners always bare their souls honestly, rather than playing what they know their audiences will pay for. Then again, though Leadbelly said “There never was a white man had the blues” it owes its continued popularity, and even existence, to the efforts of a generation of white, British Grammar School kids like Eric Clapton and … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics and sociology, Science | 2 Comments

Eager beavers and missing lynx

Posted on 14/03/2015 by Jon Garvey

Exciting times ecologically close to home. Just a dozen miles from here, the first wild beavers to be seen in Britain since they were hunted to extinction in the eighteenth century have been granted UK citizenship. Presumably introduced deliberately (as none have been known to escape from captivity) the fate of the half-dozen or so living on the River Otter has been in the balance, as the risk of their carrying infection was discussed.

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

It’s an old trick…

Posted on 27/02/2015 by Jon Garvey

So, one death-affirming jihadist has been “outed”, with the resulting danger that by demonizing him our mainstream press will, once again, fail to notice they are increasing his propaganda value.

Posted in Creation, Politics and sociology | Leave a comment

How order develops spontaneously in news

Posted on 26/02/2015 by Jon Garvey

This Independent headline caught my eye: New theory could prove how life began and disprove God. As you’ll see, that’s the sub-editor’s sense of priority: the article itself just says the new theory “throws out the need for God”. The Indie’s source, with its stress on the punch-drunkness of God and the terror of Christians, is actually a piece by Paul Rosenberg at the Richard Dawkins Foundation, rather than the original review in Quanta Magazine. The latter was obviously un-newsworthy when it appeared over a year ago as it just mentioned the science, not the demise of God. Quanta was itself a secondary source for the work of physicist Jeremy … Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | 1 Comment

Why I am not a postmodernist

Posted on 23/02/2015 by Jon Garvey

Well, I’ve finally struggled through Michel Foucault’s The Order of things, much in the manner of someone destroying his health trying to cross the Sahara on foot, but too stubborn to give up. The enterprise started well – his preface laid out the bones of a thesis that there have been fundamental changes in the very patterns of thought, especially scientific thought, of which he proposes three since the sixteenth century. These changes are far deeper than the changing science itself, and he describes them as being at an “archaeological” level, and the result of rather mysterious forces rather than any new discoveries or increase in rationality.

Posted in History, Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Science | 4 Comments

Unexpected stasis in evolutionism

Posted on 19/02/2015 by Jon Garvey

Evolution was first presented as a theory of biology, but soon become the definitive way of thinking about every conceivable process involving time. In a real sense, it’s our culture’s “theory (or metatheory) of everything”, so that it’s not unfair to label the predominant worldview of the West, and not just of some atheist subset of positivists, as “Evolutionism”. Let me demonstrate this from both academic and popular sources, mixed indiscriminately.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Science | 10 Comments

More on the sociology of science

Posted on 16/02/2015 by Jon Garvey

Last week I wrote about a recent sociology paper that has revealed a significant social grouping in the US, which they call “Post-secularists”. I suggested that the most interesting thing is not so much the nature of the new demographic as the fact that it was only after someone changed the kind of questions being asked that the phenomenon become visible to science. Here’s another instance of how science cannot be separated from sociology.

Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science | 8 Comments

Democracies burn books

Posted on 14/02/2015 by Jon Garvey

Just a quick one today. I notice this story in the Independent today. Old books (non-fiction, note) pulped in Manchester reference library update. Some of the comments say it’s a storm in a teacup because, as the council spokeswoman said, “The only books which were withdrawn as part of this vital housekeeping exercise were those which were duplicated, outdated or otherwise obsolete.”

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

Another “Third Way” to cut the cake

Posted on 13/02/2015 by Jon Garvey

I was interested to see this piece of sociological research last week, which is well worth downloading and studying in detail. As you’ll see, the study uncovers a hitherto apparently invisible group, comprising 21% of the US population, which they call “post-secularists”. I don’t want to waste space doing a full summary, as the one in the Huffington Post seems to cover the bases laid down in the paper succinctly and pretty fairly.

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