Bert Jansch

Posted on 05/10/2011 by Jon Garvey

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 →

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…And from the Guardian

Posted on 04/10/2011 by Jon Garvey

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.

Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | 3 Comments

From “The existence and attributes of God”

Posted on 04/10/2011 by Jon Garvey

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 →

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Wallace without Grommit (but not without a designer)

Posted on 03/10/2011 by Jon Garvey

I was interested to hear about Michael Flannery’s 2011 book Alfred Russel Wallace: A Rediscovered Life. I’ve not read it yet, but some chapters are online here. The book is published by the Discovery Institute, clearly because it makes the case that Wallace, the co-founder with Darwin of the theory of evolution by natural selection, was a forerunner of the Intelligent Design Movement. DI is not the first to make such a claim, though, Stephen J Gould having written an essay to that effect in Panda’s Thumb. Continue reading →

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Another song of the month…

Posted on 30/09/2011 by Jon Garvey

I’ve just put up another new song on my website, again for a limited period. In case anyone’s interested, that is. It’s about death and hope, I guess – set in a funeral parlour, but I lost the cheesy organ music, except for relics of a hymn in the song itself. Strings and cor anglais courtesy of my E-mu Proteus, but otherwise me.

 Hope you like it. Once I’ve posted all the current songs it’ll be time to put the new album up.

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Stop the glot…

Posted on 28/09/2011 by Jon Garvey

The Labour leader Ed Milliband was on the lunchtime news just now, speaking from the party conference. Because it was a prepared speech, his cultured English was punctuated by entirely gratuitous and hugely annoying  glottal stops. Now I’m not averse to this regional variation, it being common from my childhood in the ghettoes of Guildford. But those of who went to Grammar School soon lost it with most of the rest of the patois. When I use it (not infrequently) it is part of a complete linguistic package, not grafted willy nilly on to Received Pronounciation. Milliband forgets to do it when he’s answering questions.  Continue reading →

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On philosophical bias

Posted on 27/09/2011 by Jon Garvey

Jerry Coyne has celebrated Amazon’s offer of a free Kindle version of James Shapiro’s Evolution: A View from the 21st Century by asking for comments on the book. (Beware: some people seem to have been charged for their download!) Coyne hasn’t read it himself, but says that Shapiro is “heterodox in his views.” He should know, since they are both at the University of Chicago. Even so, “heterodox” seems an odd choice of words. Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 3 Comments

And while we’re typing…

Posted on 26/09/2011 by Jon Garvey

Talking about the magical abilities of time, here’s my B B Warfield quote for today, anticipating Bill Dembski by a century or so, and without the maths:

“What chance cannot begin to produce in a moment, chance cannot complete the production of in an eternity… What is needed is not time, but cause. Even an eternal process cannot rid us of the necessity of seeking an adequate cause behind every change… We may cast our dice to all eternity with no more likelihood than at the first throw of ever turning up double sevens.”

Warfield, of course, never adequately grasped that natural selection can slowly build up even single sevens as many times as you like.

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Monkeys at programming

Posted on 26/09/2011 by Jon Garvey

Here’s an amusing one. Virtual monkeys actually succeeding in typing the Works of Shakespeare. The monkeys type out nine letter sequences which are then ticked off if they match any sequence in Shakespeare.

As mathematician Dr Ian Steward points out in the article, the methodology is a little flawed. But it doesn’t take a mathematician to see that you could do the work in no time by using one letter sequences, or “point mutations” as they are called in biology.

The programmer says, “This project is my attempt to find a creative way to attain an answer without infinite resources.” You might conclude that he has more resources available than he’s putting to good use. But he’s only having fun. And getting a bit of publicity. Nobody really thinks random events and selection could produce something as complicated as a book.

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Le alto on La Niña

Posted on 23/09/2011 by Jon Garvey

Finally got my alto sax back from lending it to someone, so I added an alto part to the new song. I think it sounds better – certainly more like what I originally intended.

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