Category Archives: Science

Convergent vision

Posted on 13/07/2015 by Jon Garvey

Even ordinary Independent readers were quizzical about why a UK newspaper carried the possible inapplicability of the US court judgement on same-sex marriage to American Samoa as its lead story  last Thursday (the day after my post on their part in this persistent propaganda programme). But in between the ads for libertinism, there were one or two items of actual news, including a piece about Dr Simon Conway Morris, and his forthcoming book on convergent evolution.

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Parasites and morality

Posted on 07/07/2015 by Jon Garvey

An anonymous Christian academic commenting on an earlier piece of mine, about the overwhelming witness in pre-modern theology to the ongoing goodness of creation (notwithstanding the Fall), criticized my passing reference to parasitism, because it was passing. Though the old writers were well acquainted with predation, they were simply unaware, he said, of the grave new challenge to God’s goodness posed by parasites: Without microscopy, most parasites couldn’t even be seen; and without molecular biology, their exquisitely designed mechanisms for producing slow, prolonged suffering leading to death—not quick, relatively painless death, such as at the hands of a lion or a shark—were not fully “appreciated.” This is the type of … Continue reading →

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Placebo and personhood

Posted on 02/07/2015 by Jon Garvey

The placebo effect always interested me when I was in medical practice. After all, it’s the only treatment that works across the entire spectrum of illness and the standard against which all other drug effects are judged. I caught the repeat of a BBC documentary on it here (unfortunately UK readers will only be able to catch it for a couple of weeks and those in foreign parts not at all. Sorry).

Posted in Medicine, Philosophy, Science | 4 Comments

Evolving to extinction happens

Posted on 29/06/2015 by Jon Garvey

It’s widely believed that Social Darwinism was a temporary evil that died out with racial eugenics after the Holocaust woke the world up. But there is one Social Darwinist whose ideas have managed not only to survive that setback, but to conquer the world. I refer, of course, to Alfred Kinsey, who would have rejoiced to see America’s official redefinition of marriage this week, as a fitting culmination of his life and work.

Posted in Creation, Politics and sociology, Science | 24 Comments

Keeping cool for Armageddon

Posted on 25/06/2015 by Jon Garvey

One of the things that’s been interesting about following the discussion on Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’ is the polarizing effect on Christians elicited by the very issue of climate change. That’s quite apart from a certain to-be-anticipated “No Popery” stance in some of the internet comments (including some from self-labelled Catholics). Opposition by some Christians to claims of global warming is not news, but is still an interesting cultural phenomenon, especially since (as a “religious position”) it’s largely confined to North Americam believers. Some of the objections, in my view, are related to the doctrine of creation, as particularly understood in America, so are worthy of discussion here.

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

Laudato Si’ and CPN

Posted on 22/06/2015 by Jon Garvey

As a non-Catholic I heard about Pope Francis’s new encyclical only through the jaded words of the mind-controlling secular press: “Pope accepts global warming.” Not living in North America, where climate change skepticism seems to be part of the Faith for many Evangelicals (though still a minority of them, according to surveys), my first thought was a fairly indifferent “Good.”

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Incarnational insights on the emergence of man

Posted on 17/06/2015 by Jon Garvey

It often seems to me that in the discussions over how evolution impacts theology, the theological adjustments felt necessary by many are often apparently snatched out of the air with little thought over how they change very basic Christian truths about, say, the nature of God himself. And that’s just when the theologians are writing. Start reading the comments of ὀι πολλοι and it’s like being in a rowing boat in the vicinity of Cape Horn. Somehow, it brings to mind an image from art history.

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Is Lamarck now up to la marque?

Posted on 15/06/2015 by Jon Garvey

Our friend pngarrison has once again shown his ability to nose out articles relevant to the science-faith issue, only this time it was for the benefit of BioLogos poster Roger Sawtelle rather than mine. I assume his link to this article by epigeneticist Michael Skinner was to speak to Roger’s perennial concern over the role of the environment and its ecology in evolution.

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Consensus rules, OK? Or not.

Posted on 10/06/2015 by Jon Garvey

In the discussion I had with John T Mullen on BioLogos, he criticised my skepticism about evolutionary psychology as a truth-finding discipline, including the following argument to which I did not reply then, but which seems worth examination in its own right: [T]hough we cannot pronounce on the specific claims made by either side, we can (if we have a broad-based education) identify when a consensus exists within a given scientific community, and we are rationally obligated to accept the conclusions of the consensus. Outsiders must not judge another discipline’s consensus.

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Evolution the universal doctrinal acid

Posted on 07/06/2015 by Jon Garvey

John T Mullen posting at BioLogos took issue with my claim that natural selection has not, in fact, built sin into human nature, so that evolution is not the fundamental problem for the orthodox Christian doctrine of sin it’s often claimed to be. He replied: Evolutionary biology presents us with a view of humanity that includes strong inherited behavioral tendencies toward self-exaltation at the expense of others. Natural selection can provide a satisfying explanation for this. The fact that we also seem to have inherited behavioral tendencies toward “altruistic” (i.e., co-operative, sacrificial-but-group-enhancing) behavior is very interesting, but beside the point. We all feel the pressure to advance our own causes … Continue reading →

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