Category Archives: Science

The limitations of (excluding) natural theology

Posted on 20/01/2015 by Jon Garvey

Much discussion recently amongst the usual suspects (including both BioLogos and Uncommon Descent) on a Wall Street Journal article by Eric Metaxas, suggesting an increasing support for theism from modern science. Unfortunately it’s behind a pay-wall, but seems to have majored on cosmic fine-tuning, together with support for the “rare earth” hypothesis.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology | 25 Comments

The bell curves! The bell curves!

Posted on 07/01/2015 by Jon Garvey

After the last post it occurs to me that change ringing is quite a clear illustration of the combinatorial problem in evolution. This is, essentially, that the number of variables involved in any form of genetic evolution based on random variation is so vast that they quickly outstrip the search resources of the universe.

Posted in Philosophy, Science | 17 Comments

Y-Adam, mito-Eve and all that

Posted on 03/01/2015 by Jon Garvey

Our regular commenter pngarrison let me know he has just posted a piece on his own blog, explaining the actual genetic situation regarding those often confused concepts of Y-chromosome “Adam”, mitochondrial “Eve”, population bottlenecks and so on. His training is in biochemistry, but with good of experience in genetics too.

Posted in Science, Theology | 6 Comments

Consensus and orthodoxy

Posted on 02/01/2015 by Jon Garvey

In my teens I was for a while a member of a liberally-leaning Congregational church, though myself Evangelical. A hymn not infrequently chosen had the refrain: The Lord hath yet more light and truth To break forth from His Word.

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Livestock breeding as an evolutionary surrogate

Posted on 31/12/2014 by Jon Garvey

Amongst this year’s Christmas gifts was a new bird identification book from my daughter. It was timely as my previous one was printed in 1966, and European birds have evolved since then.

Posted in Creation, Science | 2 Comments

2014: Another Year of Failure to Engage at BioLogos?

Posted on 29/12/2014 by Edward Robinson

The BioLogos Forum is a useful venue for exchanging ideas about creation and evolution, and religion and science generally.  But it is not as useful as it could be.  Though it features many columns which spark discussion among its readers, in very few cases do the writers of those columns engage effectively with the BioLogos readers. The BioLogos columnists can be divided into two groups:  Ted Davis, and Everyone Else.

Posted in Edward Robinson, Science, Theology | 27 Comments

The life was the light of men

Posted on 22/12/2014 by Jon Garvey

As so often, a paper pointed out to me by our commenter pngarrison fits nicely into the stream of Hump consciousness. This one is by leading archaeologist and palaeolinguist Professor Lord Colin Renfrew. It appears to summarise his 2008 book Prehistory: The Making of the Human Mind.

Posted in Creation, Genealogical Adam, Science, Theology | 5 Comments

Exploring a metaphysics of mind

Posted on 16/12/2014 by Jon Garvey

Carrying on the trajectory of previous posts we’ve reached the idea that although there is a “physical reality out there” (what Owen Barfield calls “the particles” or “the unrepresented”) there is no way we can encounter it directly. All our perception comes through sense and mind representations, which to the extent that we share what we perceive with others are public representations. That applies as much, we found, to the application of mathematical symbolism, as to more analogical symbols like “atoms are particles” or “genes are units of heredity”. Both can tell truth, but are inevitably incomplete and distorted representations of total reality.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology | 17 Comments

Language, meaning and humanness

Posted on 14/12/2014 by Jon Garvey

In the previous post I tried to show how closely related are the reality we perceive and the language with which we talk about it. As far as human beings go, no language -> no thought -> no true perception -> no “real world”. Language is also inextricably entwined with that difficult word “meaning”, so that separating the world from its meaning cuts across the very process by which we know there is a world.

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The power of words

Posted on 12/12/2014 by Jon Garvey

Here’s a quick summary of how we normally see the relationship of words and language to the physical world. The real world is “out there”, and words are arbitrary (and so ultimately meaningless) labels for what we perceive of it. Further, as several previous posts have discussed, what we perceive is far from the physical reality (what Owen Barfield calls “the unrepresented” or “the particles”). As he puts it, “There is no such thing as an unseen rainbow.” And so we live in a world of illusions, which we describe using arbitrary sounds. And if the reductive materialists have their way, we experience all that with minds that are also illusory … Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science | 1 Comment