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Post Archive
Category Archives: Science
The evolution of British primary health care
Back in the days of Richard Baxter, George Herbert or John Wesley, medical care was part of the remit of the church minister. Whilst physicians balanced the humours of the rich in cities, out in the sticks the poor could seldom afford their fees, and the pastor, as the most educated member of the community, made it his business to know some herbal cures and folk remedies. How effective they were – other than by demonstrating compassion, not to be denigrated in these days when the suffering are left to die alone – is hard to say, but then the same is true of the professional bleeders and purgers of … Continue reading
Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science
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Old views on biology tested empirically
With biology nowadays so focused on evolutionary theory (“nothing makes sense” etc – Dobzhansky) it’s easy to forget that the predictions of older theories about the living world can still be tested against the wealth of modern data. Sometimes, they do surprisingly well: sometimes they don’t.
Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology of nature
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Pseudoscience and a challenge from history
Phillip Johnson gives an intriguing quote from Karl Popper on pseudoscience. He points out that Popper was raised in Vienna, a centre both for Marxism and Freudian theory, both of which claimed to be scientific and, for many decades, were accepted as such. Belief in either had
Posted in Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology
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Revisiting evolution (on the same old season ticket)
I’ve been re-reading Phillip E Johnnson’s Darwin on Trial, partly for nostalgia’s sake, since I met the guy once, and partly to re-examine some of the arguments, having been largely detached from the evolution discussion for a year or so in favour of examining dubious hegemonic scientific consensuses in other fields.
Posted in Philosophy, Science, Theology, Theology of nature
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A passage to India
A friend of mine is wrestling, candidly and productively in my view, with the hype of climate change. On the one hand he sees that there is so much in the mainstream account that is just nonsense, both regarding climate change itself, and the proposed solutions such as those fudged at COP26. On the other (if I don’t misrepresent him) he finds it hard to believe that a whole scientific community is complicit in deception, and also feels that the existence of harmful warming is undeniable, affecting the poor most of all. One example he cites is his own experience of extreme temperatures when visiting Delhi a few years ago.
Posted in Politics and sociology, Science
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The Bat that Roared
Maybe you remember a cold-war era humorous novel by Leonard Wibberley, entitled The Mouse that Roared? It was subsequently made into a film starring Peter Sellers.
Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science
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Repenting for civilisation?
I believe in original sin. But that means not that everything humans do is evil, but that everything we do is tainted by evil. My book God’s Good Earth argues that original sin has not corrupted the natural creation, which remains firmly under God’s good government. And likewise, mankind cannot corrupt that creation, which in part at least was made for humanity, by living in it and using it. I think that may have been forgotten.
Science goes Stalinist
A Prestigious cardiologist (Dr Peter McCullough) : a prestigious journal (Elsevier’s Current Problems in Cardiology): a worrying paper on rates of post-vaccination myocarditis. Peer review: check. Published online: check… then taken down “temporarily” and, a week later, “unpublished,” the only explanation to the lead author being that the publisher has the right to do so in the publishing contract. Full discussion here.
Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science
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I’m pro-vaccination, but…
Another day, and another excellent article points to the signs of developing problems with the COVID vaccination programme. At the same time, statistician John Dee provides an alarming presentation of ONS data showing how (factoring in obvious things like the number of tests) the positivity rate of PCR tests has escalated since mass vaccination was rolled out, even as you’d expect it to wane:
Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science
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More on green single-use plastics
It’s appalling exegesis, I realise, but I can’t get out of my head the idea that, at the moment, the “three unclean spirits like frogs” that come out of the mouth of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet in Revelation would do for the three big lies of COVID, Identity Marxism and Climate Emergency. As a biblical interpretation it’s rubbish, of course, unless you can identify the three satanic figures of the end times as separate sources for these plagues. But you have to admit it’s a graphic illustration of the areas in which truth is most under pressure just now.
Posted in Politics and sociology, Science
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