Category Archives: Science

Science and divine judgement

Posted on 11/09/2015 by Jon Garvey

There was a bit of a discussion on BioLogos not long ago about the possibility of miracles in relation to scientific laws. Interesting enough, but the subject has been treated quite frequently, in point of fact, from C S Lewis through to Alvin Plantinga. And it’s not really that controversial amongst contemporary Evangelicals, the target audience. As I pointed out there there’s been an intriguing change in general attitude to miracles within my lifetime, from something no modern man could countenance to something only old-fashioned atheists reject out of hand. But there’s a related field of divine action that’s both more ubiquitous and more controversial than that of occasional miracles.

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 12 Comments

Gregor Mendel: My Part in his Downfall

Posted on 08/09/2015 by Jon Garvey

The title, for Uninitiated Foreigners, alludes to this celebrated autobiography  by this mad genius, lest you think I really wish to denigrate the great monk. Below the fold is a link to a British documentary about epigenetics. It’s primarily about the discovery of epigenetics in the transmission of disease down generations, but we need always to remember that the medical aspects are just a window on a process that must, by its nature, be primarily physiological and adaptive, and is turning out to be ubiquitous:

Posted in Creation, Science | 2 Comments

Psychological studies past and present

Posted on 28/08/2015 by Jon Garvey

An interesting news item in what is becoming an increasingly common genre of news: scientific non-reproducibility.

Posted in Politics and sociology, Science | 2 Comments

Pentadactyly Live

Posted on 27/08/2015 by Jon Garvey

News being slow at the moment, I thought that for light relief I’d link to a video someone’s posted on YouTube of part of the set I did at Lyme Regis Folk Festival last weekend. After all, the song Pentadactyly arose from discussions about the pentadactyl limb both here and on BioLogos.

Posted in Music, Science | Leave a comment

Creation and Election

Posted on 19/08/2015 by Jon Garvey

The BioLogos thread on the historicity of Adam turns out to be another important one, though the most interesting bit has got hived off to a sub-thread involving the Usual Suspects here, one Ex-Suspect and Christy (who so far is not suspected of anything, though she’d be most welcome on The Hump). I venture to suggest that amongst these there is broad agreement (though they may not fully realise it) that classical Christianity requires that Adam and Eve are not optional, and that attempts to make them so at least amount to new doctrine (so Eddie) and more strongly that such attempts amount to heterodoxy. That a significant strand in … Continue reading →

Posted in Adam, Creation, Science, Theology | 21 Comments

You heard it here first

Posted on 17/08/2015 by Jon Garvey

V J Torley, in a piece on Uncommon Descent, cites ex-Biologos TE Karl Giberson writing a blurb for atheist John Loftus’ new book, in which Giberson does a mea culpa for the weakness of his “free creation” defence of Christianity in relation to evolution.

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | Leave a comment

Why the zebra got his stripes

Posted on 12/08/2015 by Jon Garvey

An instructive little news lollipop on the BBC radio news this morning. There was an interview with a PhD student researching the reason zebras have stripes. Her team was testing the hypothesis that herds of striped targets present a confusing target for predators. They did this by simulating such a scenario on a computer game, testing humans’ ability to zap confusing patterned targets as opposed to plain grey ones.

Posted in Creation, Science | 4 Comments

Some bad scientists, bad theologians, bad philosophers – 2

Posted on 07/08/2015 by Jon Garvey

In yesterday’s post I recounted some of the panoply of thinkers who have propounded the argument from design down the centuries. At the beginning I asked at what point this respectable enterprise had become “bad science and bad theology”. The usual answer would seem to be that Darwin confronted William Paley and overcame.

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

Some bad scientists, bad theologians, bad philosophers – 1

Posted on 06/08/2015 by Jon Garvey

Well, it seems BioLogos and the Discovery Institute are once more locked in contention for the heart and mind of (I suppose) the Informed Christian. The recent spat seems mainly to stem from BioLogian Jim Stump’s review of a book on design arguments, and can be summed up (from that side) in the now well-worn phrase: Design arguments are bad science and bad theology.

Posted in Creation, History, Philosophy, Science, Theology | 5 Comments

Paradigms that don’t fit

Posted on 04/08/2015 by Jon Garvey

In my last post I mentioned in passing YEC thinker Dr Arthur Jones, who has commented here in the past and who is remarkable in being one of the only people ever to get a PhD in evolutionary biology with original research leading to anti-evolutionary conclusions. The link was intended as an introduction to him, but the essay so linked is educational in its own right. It shows a remarkable degree of perception on the stuff I discussed in the last post, given that it was written back in 1970, even before his PhD, and only eight years after Kuhn published his book on paradigm shifts in science.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology | 6 Comments