Category Archives: Science

Aposematism around the world

Posted on 15/10/2014 by Jon Garvey

This little chap was climbing the evolutionary ladder to our greenhouse recently. I’m referring to the warningly gaudy (aposematic) caterpillar rather than his cryptic slug friend, destined to be both drab and a toad’s meal. It prompted me to read a little on warning colouration and mimicry, which we debated here a little, some time back. I wasn’t too surprised that it has been a major, and contentious, topic of discussion since Darwin. Ernst Mayr said in 1982 that a biological concept which could clearly and unambiguously explain mimetic phenomena would also solve all other biological problems.

Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Science | 14 Comments

Another century-late review

Posted on 13/10/2014 by Jon Garvey

Following my custom of busting the myths that are spun about previous generations by reading the original sources, I finally got round to reading some Alfred Russel Wallace, in the form of his last (1910) book on a biological subject, The World of Life. Just to remind you of Wallace’s role, he was the co-discoverer of the Darwin-Wallace theory of evolution by natural selection, published in the 1858 paper On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection. By CHARLES DARWIN, Esq., F.R.S., F.L.S., & F.G.S., and ALFRED WALLACE, Esq. Communicated by Sir CHARLES LYELL, F.R.S., F.L.S., and J. … Continue reading →

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

The environment – random with respect to teleology

Posted on 09/10/2014 by Jon Garvey

Here’s me with one of my main guitars. Even most non-guitarists will recognise it as a Fender Stratocaster (though mine is a Tokai copy), the most successful model of electric guitar ever made. It was released in 1954, and remains the worldwide market leader, pretty much in its original form. Even Fender’s “improvements” have proved unable to compete with the original post-war technology. To what can one attribute its 60 year dominance of a crowded market?

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Keeping science and religion separate (not)

Posted on 07/10/2014 by Jon Garvey

My attention was drawn to an article by philosopher of science Stephen Dilley, in which he examines just what a surprisingly prominent place is given to theological arguments in Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. I must acknowledge upfront that I found the downloadable version of the article on Hump subscriber Ian Thompson’s Theism website, so he’s covered this issue already. But it does no harm to spread the information wider, I guess.

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 2 Comments

The Nature of the Physical World

Posted on 03/10/2014 by Jon Garvey

One of the great mysteries of modern life is why materialism as a philosophy refuses to lie down and die. Ted Davis on BioLogos pointed out recently that the modernist Samuel Schmucker believed in 1920 that Victorian science had discredited materialism. I’ve just completed a series of reviews in which mathematician and philosopher William Dembski argues that present knowledge of the nature of information has done the same. Today I want to address the book by astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington, the British “father” and expositor of both relativity and quantum theory, from the 1927 Gifford lectures.

Posted in Philosophy, Science, Theology | 2 Comments

Premonitions and materialism

Posted on 02/10/2014 by Jon Garvey

Last Friday night I had a rather vivid dream in which half my back tooth fell out, which was annoying. I should have woken up then, because the dream went on to include the front of my head falling off too – or rather, the painless falling-off of some extraneous bony extensions to my skull, which looked very interesting on the dream X-rays. It’s astonishing how dreams can ignore even the most basic aspects of reality. It was a surprise to look in a mirror and see some stranger’s face staring back at me – you’d have thought that was a fairly core aspect of identity. But that’s dreams for … Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science | 4 Comments

Conservation of information, evolution, etc

Posted on 30/09/2014 by Jon Garvey

Since William Dembski’s Being as Communion is released in the USA today, I’ll make this post the last in the series. To be honest, I’m a bit hesitant to comment on the culmination of the book, since it deals with his Law of Conservation of Information, on which he has published stuff before and received the usual criticism (that is, usually, ideologically-motivated dismissal).

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Dembski on chance and necessity

Posted on 29/09/2014 by Jon Garvey

William Demski’s two chapters on Determinism (short) and Contingency and Chance (longer) are useful in delineating ideas often used loosely, and the latter in particular presents some very helpful ideas.

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Dembski on getting information into the Universe

Posted on 28/09/2014 by Jon Garvey

I shall pass over the chapter in Being as Communion in which Dembski applies his informational metaphysics to “energy”, except to say that it attempts to consider information as a dynamic, relational thing rather than as something static. In chapter 14 he demonstrates how the universe is not a system closed to information, even if it is insisted that conservation of energy be maintained. And this applies whether the physical nature of the universe is seen as indeterminate or deterministic.

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Information as the foundation of metaphysics – and science

Posted on 26/09/2014 by Jon Garvey

The next three chapters of Being as Communion are really the centre of the book as far as arguing for its subtitle – “A Metaphysics of Information” – is concerned. So what’s wrong with matter as the foundation for understanding the physical world? Briefly, matter cannot give a complete account of information, and matter itself can only be inferred from the informational “signatures” of the particular forms it takes. Information explains matter, but not vice versa. Ergo information is prior.

Posted in Philosophy, Science, Theology | 2 Comments