Category Archives: Science

I’ve just read an excellent recent paper  by J Richard Middleton, comparing the views of creation given in Psalms 8 and 104. If you don’t have access to Academia.edu you might not be able to access it, which is a shame as it has a lot to say on the view of creation theology I’ve been developing here over the last three years or so. That view differs from some of the common church teaching on “fallen creation”, but only because it recovers historical Christian doctrine. But it differs far more from the novel and quite incompatible theologies commonly presented in modern Evangelical theistic evolution and – as the last … Continue reading →

The conversation on the BioLogos thread I mentioned previously has continued, with Catholic Thomist biologist Mary B Moritz taking the part of Neil Ormerod, the original author. From her writing she takes a line that seems to be the commonest amongst Thomists interested in evolution (such as Ed Feser), pointing specifically to the allegedly simplistic shortcomings of Intelligent Design, but having no problems to speak of with the Neodarwinian scientific model. I’m commenting here, rather than on BioLogos, which would be appropriate, simply because of space.

There’s an article on BioLogos,  about divine contingency, by Neil Ormerod, based on Thomas Aquinas’ teaching. I’ve commented there, partly supportively but also with some criticisms, particularly on the article’s targeting Intelligent Design (largely inappropriately) and glossing over what would be far more approppriate criticisms of modern theistic evolution. First remove the beam from your own eye… To be honest, compared to the relative straightforwordness of Aquinas’ own writing, I found it a little hard to comprehend what picture of the world the article was painting, and in particular what idea of chance itself, which in the article was most often referred to as “genuine contingency.” So I’ll look at … Continue reading →

A piece by Michael Egnor in Evolution News and Views reviews a paper by Benjamin Libet about his work on the neurophysiology of intentional action. Libet’s is the famous work that showed, in an experimental setting, that an unconscious “readiness potential” precedes the conscious act of willing by some 350-400ms, and that in turn precedes action potentials in motor nerves by 200ms.