Nothing in life makes sense except in the light of genealogy?

Posted on 17/02/2015 by Jon Garvey

Last Thursday my wife and I took a drive out, initially to Maiden Castle, Britain’s largest iron-age hill-fort (a new-build from 600BC, if you don’t count the Neolithic causewayed camp it replaced), but then to Radpole Lake, one of the largest reedbed habitats in the country. Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science | 12 Comments

More on the sociology of science

Posted on 16/02/2015 by Jon Garvey

Last week I wrote about a recent sociology paper that has revealed a significant social grouping in the US, which they call “Post-secularists”. I suggested that the most interesting thing is not so much the nature of the new demographic as the fact that it was only after someone changed the kind of questions being asked that the phenomenon become visible to science. Here’s another instance of how science cannot be separated from sociology. Continue reading →

Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science | 8 Comments

Democracies burn books

Posted on 14/02/2015 by Jon Garvey

Just a quick one today. I notice this story in the Independent today. Old books (non-fiction, note) pulped in Manchester reference library update. Some of the comments say it’s a storm in a teacup because, as the council spokeswoman said, “The only books which were withdrawn as part of this vital housekeeping exercise were those which were duplicated, outdated or otherwise obsolete.” Continue reading →

Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Science | Leave a comment

Another “Third Way” to cut the cake

Posted on 13/02/2015 by Jon Garvey

I was interested to see this piece of sociological research last week, which is well worth downloading and studying in detail. As you’ll see, the study uncovers a hitherto apparently invisible group, comprising 21% of the US population, which they call “post-secularists”. I don’t want to waste space doing a full summary, as the one in the Huffington Post seems to cover the bases laid down in the paper succinctly and pretty fairly. Continue reading →

Posted in Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | Leave a comment

Ritual purity and ideological pollution

Posted on 11/02/2015 by Jon Garvey

I went to check for any new stuff on the Third Way website of alternatives to Neodarwinism over the weekend, and noticed a further addition to the “Ts and C’s”. It seems they now consider themselves in danger of becoming ritually unclean: Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | 8 Comments

More on stochastics

Posted on 09/02/2015 by Jon Garvey

In two recent posts here and here I tried to show, via the route of Thomas Aquinas’s Fifth Way, that “randomness” as it is actually found in the world is a sign of order, not disorder, and therefore points to God no less than does final causation in nature. Continue reading →

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Designer theology for an undesigned universe

Posted on 06/02/2015 by Jon Garvey

A good bit of my reading of late has, intentionally or unintentionally, heightened my awareness of just how much whole patterns of thought we take for granted have changed over the years and centuries. For example at a fairly high resolution, a book I read on protective colouration by Stanislav Komárek showed just what changes have come and gone, and sometimes come again, in evolutionary theory since Darwin. Continue reading →

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Stochastic events and teleology

Posted on 04/02/2015 by Jon Garvey

In the last post I tried to unpack Thomas Aquinas’s Fifth Way of reasoning to the existence of God by the existence of consistent cause and effect (seeing teleology or final causation as just as real in the world as efficient causation). Of course, it’s not a proof, or if it is it’s one that doesn’t compel skeptics, which amounts to the same thing. But it is powerful, time-honoured and has never been refuted. It may surprise some, as it surprised me, that the Fifth Way makes allowance for chance as evidence for this aspect of causation. Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology | 15 Comments

Aquinas’ Sixth Way – the stochastic argument

Posted on 02/02/2015 by Jon Garvey

OK, that title was just an attention grabber, because Aquinas didn’t propose a Sixth Way, and the point I want to make in the next two two posts is covered in Aquinas’s Fifth Way, but it’s seldom appreciated. And that is that chance itself is part of the metaphysical argument for God. I think that’s worthy of discussion. Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology | 19 Comments

Bacon, beef and vegetables

Posted on 29/01/2015 by Jon Garvey

I wish I could link you (but I can’t, outside the UK) to an interesting BBC radio series on the history of ideas. Each Monday, presenter Melvyn Bragg introduces a big subject such as “What is man?” with a plenary session of experts from diverse fields, who each present their own programme on the other four days. Plenty to agree or disagree with, but always educational. This week I caught historian Justin Champion’s take on “How has technology changed us?” Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Science | 7 Comments