Category Archives: Science

Epistemology leaks

The discussion on this thread, with Lou Jost about the human particularity of reason (or the lack thereof) and with GD on the varying degrees of epistemological certainty within science, set me thinking about how in practice it’s impossible to wall off kinds of knowledge that, in theory, are quite distinct.

Posted in Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Science | 9 Comments

The limitations of (excluding) natural theology

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!

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

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

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.

Posted in Science, Theology | Leave a comment

Livestock breeding as an evolutionary surrogate

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?

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

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

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

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.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science | Leave a comment