“Choice is an illusion”: True or False?
A quick one prompted by Uncommon Descent’s ongoing campaign against reductionist psychology. UD links to this blog about a book by David Eagleman, which is another of those efforts to show that neuroscience increasingly demonstrates that free will is an illusion. Continue reading
Clearing out the stable manure this morning my heart was lifted by the sight of a large flock of ravens interacting with a large flock of carrion crows in quite a complex way. It seemed to be one of those “close to nature” moments that is a bit more subtle than sunsets and so on. Consulting my limited library on British birds I couldn’t find anything about such conjoined flocks (strictly it was a congress of ravens with a murder of crows), until it occurred to me that there was probably just a dead deer or badger in the wood nearby. Nevertheless it got me to thinking about the origin – and the evolution – of complex behaviour.
Why is universal common descent so important, though? What does it actually do? It affirms Charles Darwin, of course, who famously wrote of life being “breathed into few forms or one”, but his theory didn’t actually demand it scientifically. He wrote against a prevailing assumption that natural species – if not artificially selected varieties – were unchanged since creation, but descent with modification needn’t imply a single ancestor, and the fossil record available to him certainly didn’t support that. Continue reading
I was woken from sleep by this this morning. The EU are investing 30m Euros (if the currency doesn’t disintegrate beforehand) in a project to understand human epigenetics. Several references in the piece view this as the successor to the Human Genome Project, with the implication that the latter delivered, in medicine at least, a lot less than was promised, as the clip of Francis Collins demonstrates. Continue reading
By chance I discovered recently that my old Grammar School zoology teacher, Tony, is living not too far from me. Though he used to be called “Sir”. I’m tossing around whether to contact him after 43 years, remembering those old bumper stickers, “If you can read this, thank a teacher.” I have reason to be very thankful to him and his colleague Des (also called “Sir”), who were responsible for getting me to Cambridge and enabling my career in medicine. And additionally, to any understanding I may have of the biological issues raised by evolution.
How coincidental, then, that at the same time various British luminaries should be petitioning the government about the terrible sitution in British schools, where secondary age kids are all being indoctrinated in Young Earth ID Creationism and some five year olds have not yet been taught the rudiments of the faith Neodarwinist truth. If the petition is to be believed, that is, and it must be true because it’s about science. Continue reading
A little more reflection prompted by Karl Giberson’s Guardian piece. There Karl describes “surviving” his youthful evangelical subculture. It should not be forgotten, though, that individuals reject all kinds of childhood backgrounds. The bass player in a band I was once in wore a badge saying “I survived a Catholic School”. I met him at a Pentecostal Church. I’ve also known many people who feel they’ve escaped to Christianity from secular environments – whether from the narrowly materialistic parents who said “Religion won’t get you far in this life,” or from the zealously political homes where Karl Marx ruled and the kids went to party conferences rather than Sunday School. Atheism can be oppressive too, as William Murray famously testified regarding his upbringing by Madalyn Murray O’Hair. Continue reading
I have to mark the passing of one of the greatest of British guitarists, Bert Jansch, who died today. Amazingly I only heard him play twice – the first time with Pentangle in 1970, and the second just a few years ago in Colchester. He did once make me a cup of coffee, though, when I bought a guitar from him in the days when he had a shop in Putney. Continue reading
Less edifying, in my humble opinion, is this piece in Monday’s Guardian by Karl Giberson, a key contributor to, and former Team Member of, BioLogos. His experience, of course, is his and not mine – I grew up in Britain, it would seem some years earlier than he did in North America. But I don’t recognise his view of Evangelical Christianity as an abusive environment for young people, nor his portrait of Francis Schaeffer, whose writings influenced me to think seriously and Christianly in every area of life, including my profession of medicine and my interest in science. And in everything else I encountered, come to that.
My pastor sent me this excellent quote from The Existence and Attributes of God by Stephen Charnock, 1680.
Since we cannot have a full notion of him, we should endeavour to make it as high and pure as we can… conceive of him as excellent, without any imperfection; a Spirit without parts, great without quantity; perfect without quality; everywhere without place; powerful without members; understanding without ignorance; wise without reasoning; light without darkness… and when you have risen to the highest, conceive him yet infinitely above all you can conceive of spirit, and acknowledge the infirmity of your own minds. And whatever conception comes into your minds, say, this is not God; God is more than this: if I could conceive him, he were not God. Continue reading
