Category Archives: Science

Metaphysical heavy lifting

Posted on 19/09/2014 by Jon Garvey

I’ve now finished William Dembski’s Being as Communion and I have to say it’s probably had the most significant influence on my thinking of any book I’ve read in the last year or more, not excluding Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge, which incidentally he cites with understanding, as he does a wealth of other sources we’ve used on The Hump, from Ed Feser to Owen Barfield. Whether the world will agree with my positive assessment of the book is less certain – Polanyi didn’t have to cope with being stigmatized as a Fundie Creationist in a culture war. I think that materialist metaphysics is so deeply embedded in our psyche that Dembski will faze even … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy, Science, Theology | 1 Comment

Life as a cruise

Posted on 15/09/2014 by Jon Garvey

Way back in 1968, for reasons I couldn’t fathom even then, I found myself as a Lower Sixth form student on a school cruise somewhere in the Mediterranean, being asked to join a “Brains Trust” panel to entertain the other students. Mercifully I remember little about it, apart from its being chaired by a well-known journalist from the Daily Mirror (we didn’t take the Mirror so I’d never heard of her). The most memorable thing was that she took us panel-members for an illicit alcoholic beverage in the ship’s lounge, strictly off limits to the broad masses of students, afterwards. It was my first and last experience of academic privilege.

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The changing face of God and creation

Posted on 13/09/2014 by Jon Garvey

There’s an apocryphal story about the days before 1857 (when the law was reformed) when a divorce in Britain could only be obtained by a private Act of Parliament – clearly only possible for the rich and powerful. The tale goes that when a lengthy, tedious and ill-attended bill about the Corporation of Liverpool (some say Birmingham) was presented, the town clerk managed to slip into one interminable clause the words, “and hereby the town clerk N. is granted a divorce.”

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Chain of being – still binding us?

Posted on 11/09/2014 by Jon Garvey

After I posted my piece on the Great Chain of Being I was informed that the definitive treatment of that theme is the 1936 book (of the same name) by Arthur Lovejoy, So I thought I ought to check out how far I’d erred in my ad hoc treatment of it.

Posted in Philosophy, Science, Theology | 4 Comments

Design with a Designer but without a definition

Posted on 08/09/2014 by Jon Garvey

The third part of Robert Bishop’s critique of Stephen Meyer’s Darwin’s Doubt on BioLogos begins: All Christians agree that the universe is designed; otherwise, we would not be able to say that this is God’s creation. Where we may differ is on the nature of that design and the how as well as on expectations for detectability of design.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science | 2 Comments

Milgram revisited

Posted on 06/09/2014 by Jon Garvey

My attention was drawn to this news item. It stirs memories from nearly as long ago as the 1961 experiment itself, of my time studying social psychology in 1973. Milgram’s experiment was one of those most often cited on my Cambridge course, but not for the reasons given most prominence in the item.

Posted in Politics and sociology, Science | 1 Comment

Response to Deborah Haarsma’s Constructive New Column Regarding ID

Posted on 26/08/2014 by Edward Robinson

Over at BioLogos, President Deborah Haarsma has posted a column on ID/TE relations that is in some respects admirable, and certainly an improvement on many past things written about ID on BioLogos. Here I present in full my response to her column. I am publishing it here because it is rather long, and I suspect BioLogos may not want to publish such a lengthy piece in the comments section.

Posted in Creation, Edward Robinson, Science, Theology | 13 Comments

Miscellany

Posted on 25/08/2014 by Jon Garvey

Jurassic Lark The Hump is likely to be post-lite this week, as I’m preparing to play two solo guitar sets at the Lyme Regis Folk Festival, at the heart of the Jurassic Coast, as well as leading the civic parade on sopranino sax, in pied-piper style. Don’t ask how that came about since I’ve hardly played folk since the mid 80s. It’s a bit like Pink Anderson or John Hurt being dragged out of their rocking chairs on the Mississippi Delta to play after decades, except that those guys were actually good. Anyway, if you happen to be there on Friday or Saturday, say “Hallo.”

Posted in Creation, Music, Science, Theology | Leave a comment

The Cosmos of Cosmas

Posted on 22/08/2014 by Jon Garvey

While I was looking for suitable graphics to illustrate the mediaeval worldview for my recent series on the history of cosmology, I suddenly came upon this unfamiliar and completely off-the-wall conception, by one Cosmas Indicopleustes:

Posted in Creation, History, Science, Theology | 11 Comments

Cosmology through the ages #4 – Modern

Posted on 20/08/2014 by Jon Garvey

When Nicholas Copernicus first proposed his heliocentric model of the universe in 1543, it appears to have been primarily for the reason of returning astronomy to the Aristotelian ideal of perfect circles abandoned by Ptolemy’s equants, thus simplifying (and idealizing) the model. Though sources about his thinking are scarce, he was wedded enough to Aristotle still to consider the earth to be the lowest place in the universe, even though that was a problem for his cosmology: But the fact that Copernicus turned the earth into a planet did not cause him to reject Aristotelian physics, for he maintained that “land and water together press upon a single center of … Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | 11 Comments