The evolution of British primary health care

Posted on 03/12/2021 by Jon Garvey

Back in the days of Richard Baxter, George Herbert or John Wesley, medical care was part of the remit of the church minister. Whilst physicians balanced the humours of the rich in cities, out in the sticks the poor could seldom afford their fees, and the pastor, as the most educated member of the community, made it his business to know some herbal cures and folk remedies. How effective they were – other than by demonstrating compassion, not to be denigrated in these days when the suffering are left to die alone – is hard to say, but then the same is true of the professional bleeders and purgers of London.

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

Old views on biology tested empirically

Posted on 01/12/2021 by Jon Garvey

With biology nowadays so focused on evolutionary theory (“nothing makes sense” etc – Dobzhansky) it’s easy to forget that the predictions of older theories about the living world can still be tested against the wealth of modern data. Sometimes, they do surprisingly well: sometimes they don’t.

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Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology of nature | 1 Comment

Pseudoscience and a challenge from history

Posted on 30/11/2021 by Jon Garvey

Phillip Johnson gives an intriguing quote from Karl Popper on pseudoscience. He points out that Popper was raised in Vienna, a centre both for Marxism and Freudian theory, both of which claimed to be scientific and, for many decades, were accepted as such. Belief in either had

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

Opinion polls as mind control

Posted on 29/11/2021 by Jon Garvey

A YouGov poll out today suggests that a large majority of Britons wish to make COVID booster injections mandatory. One would think that is a fairly surprising change in views in a democracy. But also out today is a video including input from a doctor who actually took the poll.

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Posted in Politics and sociology | 3 Comments

Revisiting evolution (on the same old season ticket)

Posted on 28/11/2021 by Jon Garvey

I’ve been re-reading Phillip E Johnnson’s Darwin on Trial, partly for nostalgia’s sake, since I met the guy once, and partly to re-examine some of the arguments, having been largely detached from the evolution discussion for a year or so in favour of examining dubious hegemonic scientific consensuses in other fields.

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Posted in Philosophy, Science, Theology, Theology of nature | 1 Comment

Get the shot or get shot

Posted on 23/11/2021 by Jon Garvey

One just has to say something about the new racking up of totalitarian control across Europe and, indeed, the world. Apart from “I told you so,” of course.

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Posted in Politics and sociology | 3 Comments

A passage to India

Posted on 18/11/2021 by Jon Garvey

A friend of mine is wrestling, candidly and productively in my view, with the hype of climate change. On the one hand he sees that there is so much in the mainstream account that is just nonsense, both regarding climate change itself, and the proposed solutions such as those fudged at COP26. On the other (if I don’t misrepresent him) he finds it hard to believe that a whole scientific community is complicit in deception, and also feels that the existence of harmful warming is undeniable, affecting the poor most of all. One example he cites is his own experience of extreme temperatures when visiting Delhi a few years ago.

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Posted in Politics and sociology, Science | Leave a comment

Religious plebs, salt and light

Posted on 15/11/2021 by Jon Garvey

Everybody I know who appreciates the pervasive lies surrounding us, and notably every Christian in that position, feels isolated and, if the truth be told, rather impotent as they experience the vehement opposition of family members, friends, and church associates. And that is certainly justified, since the capture of the institutions by fashionable progressivism has reached even into the evangelical churches.

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Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Prometheus, Theology | 3 Comments

Joining up the frogs

Posted on 11/11/2021 by Jon Garvey

Back in 2019, when I wrote Seeing through Smoke, I surprised myself by becoming not only skeptical of the whole climate science narrative, but convinced that it is part of the same deception at work in the post-modern moral system that James Lindsay usefully labels “Identity Marxism.” Up to that time I’d taken it for granted the general picture was true, despite the dishonesty of the some of the rhetoric of people like Michael Mann and David Attenborough. Enlightenment came, as it usually does, by looking beneath the bonnet.

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Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | Leave a comment

The world gets (false) trinitarian religion.

Posted on 08/11/2021 by Jon Garvey

There is a perceptive article on Christian Concern by Rev Dr Joe Boot, originally from England and now based in Toronto. His focus is on the religious nature of the response to COVID over the last two years.

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Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | 2 Comments