Steno

The Times is reporting that the happy, smiling children on an atheist ad campaign are in fact from a Christian, evangelical family. An interesting irony perhaps. Children who front Richard Dawkins’ atheist ads are evangelicals The ad calls for children to be brought up without having religious labels placed upon them by their parents. Of course while the humanists don’t want parents to instill their values within their own children, they really want children to turn into humanists without any religious belief – why else would they fund these adverts? It is an interesting question what right parents have to instill their beliefs upon their children (I would suggest it is in fact a duty to bring children up to Read More ›

A friend has alerted me to this book and article in The Times online. Charles Darwin and the children of the evolution The headline makes the statement “The naturalist outraged the church, prompting a bitter debate that still sets creationists against evolutionists. Now a sinister link has emerged between his work and the recent spate of high-school killings by crazed, nihilistic teenagers.” Read the article here The book is available “The Political Gene: How Darwin’s Ideas Changed Politics” (Picador, £18.99) by Dennis Sewell is available at the BooksFirst        or at amazon.co.uk http://science-and-values.blogspot.com/

I have been studying the concept of emergence, especially from Arthur Peacocke, and Michael Polanyi recently. Peacocke was very much influenced by Polanyi, but instead has developed a monistic approach to reality within an emergentist-naturalistic-panentheistic perspective. Peacocke speaks about the process of evolution having ‘creativity’ as does the emergentist process philosopher Ian Barbour who suggested that there is some ‘design’ in the system of evolution. Polanyi believed in an irreducible hierarchy in nature, but one that has arisen through ‘ontogenetic emergence.’ This process was believed to have been driven forward by a ‘creative agent’ or director. (Polanyi (1962) Personal Knowledge, Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 393-395  (ontogeny – the development of what exists – as a child develops from an Read More ›

Logos Research Associates are hosting a ‘Darwin Was Wrong’ conference and webcast 13-14 November 09. Darwin Was Wrong Speakers include, John Sandford, John Baumgardner, Jerry Bergman and Pastor Chuck Smith. For those unable to attend a live webcast will be available. Venue, Calvery Chapel of Costa Mesa

There are a number of articles on the Science and Values blog about climate change. I was at a Cardiff university conference over the summer where the question of what action to take to tackle climate change was discussed along side questions about poverty reduction. The fear was that major action to tackle climate change, with CO2 levels reduced to 80% of today’s level, will lead to a massive increase in global poverty. Even though it was recognised that there is a problem, the effect of actions to reduce CO2 levels may cause greater problems. Both James Lovelock and Mike Hulme have proposed different solutions.

James Lovelock calls for mitigation strategies

James Lovelock commented to an audience at the ‘Ways With Words’ literary festival at Dartington Hall, near Totnes in Devon that; “It’s not going to take much of a sea-surge to knock out London. We should be spending money strengthening defences there rather than vain efforts to improve renewable energy.”

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There is a new book coming out in November Should Christians Embrace Evolution? published by IVP edited by Norman C Nevin From Amazon.co.uk From Amazon.com I picked this link up from Pandas Thumb it may be a bit out of date – about Norman Nevin “Professor Norman Nevin: Norman C. Nevin is Professor of Medical Genetics, Queen’s University of Belfast and Head of the Northern Regional Genetics Service. He has held the positions of secretary, vice-president and president of the UK Clinical Genetics Society as well as serving on various national and international committees notably the Human Genetics Advisory Commission. He is a member of the European Concerted Action for congenital abnormalities. Professor Nevin was a founder member of the Read More ›

We are often told that bunnies in the pre-Cambrian would be evidence against evolution, but that is just posturing. But what of real known anomalies? The Chinese fossil layers are throwing up all sorts of out of place evidence. It would be nice if we were told more about such fossils. But slowly word is getting out. We find now for instance a Tiny T Rex Raptorex kriegsteini in the early Cretaceous of China (or is that the late Jurassic?).

Tiny ancestor is T. rex blueprint – BBC  

Although the Jehol Group of China is now thought to be of Early Cretaceous age, many taxa are from the ‘Late Jurassic, or older.’ It is suggested that perhaps East Asia was a ‘refugium for some of these more typically ‘Jurassic’ taxa in the Lower Cretaceous.’

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Dawkins’ new book is reviewed in the Economist. How humans are related to chimpanzees—and to cheese mites and cherry trees too, Sep 3rd 2009, The Economist, From the review there are no new arguments, just more of the same polemical rhetoric and the same tired old evidences. If this is the best RD can do then Darwinian evolution is clearly on its last legs. Does Dawkins really appeal to the homology of skeletal plan which could be equally evidence of common design, or to the fossil record with all its out of place fossils including a Jurassic Beaver, Carboniferous dragonflies and Cambrian vertebrates. Does Dawkins really retreat to the rhetoric and polemics of a schoolyard bully again by misrepresenting arguments Read More ›

Another interesting paper I have come across recently was published by the American Scientific Affiliation Hyung S. Choi , Knowledge of the Unseen: A New Vision for Science and Religion Dialogue, ‘Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith’ 53.2 (June 2001): 96-101. http://www.asa3.org/asa/pscf/2001/pscf6-01choi.html A few quotes: “While contemporary physics and cosmology take seriously the knowledge of invisible realities, the discussion of the unseen in religion has been largely neglected in the recent science-and-religion discussion. Neglecting the issue in theology is ultimately self- defeating since God is considered the Unseen. In light of contemporary understanding of the unseen in science, we contend that that there are significant parallels between scientific and theological claims concerning the unseen. The epistemic distinction between the seen Read More ›

Richard Dawkins has a new book out soon; ‘The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution.’ An unfortunate title perhaps, bearing in mind the type of acts that have performed under that banner headline in the past. So is Dawkins no more than a travelling conjurer pulling bunnies out of hats in the name of science? Is his show cart of evolution just a charade of smoke and mirrors?

Let’s be frank, Dawkins is in reality more dangerous than a harmless travelling charlatan – the type of twisting rhetoric that Dawkins engages in is the type that leads to tyranny, not to respectful dialogue or family entertainment. He should be more careful, but he seems to have sacrificed his cares on some high alter; perhaps the million dollar book deals are clouding his judgment, but in reality his atheism leaves him unaccountable to anyone but himself or his atheist friends in the Royal Society. Yes, his rhetoric often appears to be as dangerous as that of the atheism of the twentieth century that led to fascist and communist regimes that abused human rights and led to the deaths of millions. Read More ›

I have recently come across Peter Strawson’s argument for soft naturalism in his book  Skepticism and Naturalism 1985. Also as a chapter Skepticism, Naturalism and Transcendental Arguments in Epistemology: an anthology pp.33-41 What strikes me from this is that proponents of hard forms of naturalism are trying to have it both ways, in that they allow naturalism a privileged place where it is not subject to the type of skepticism that the naturalist insists must be applied to all other knowledge claims. Strawson’s argument for soft naturalism comes out of Hume’s problem of induction and seems a more consistent approach than hard naturalism that is logically unsustainable.

youtube video – Harry Hill puts a fresh spin on Darwinism Sorry not embedded, but you will enjoy this UK TV comedian’s take off of Darwinism and his finches

Nick Spencer of Theos has interviewed Mary Midgley as part of their Rescuing Darwin project. This is written up in a report entitled Discussing Darwin. It would seem though that Midgley is closer to post-modernism and a multi-faith approach to truth, than the type of objective modernism that Darwinists believe underpins their science. Is she really the person to ask to defend science? Both Dawkins and scientific creationists have one point of agreement, that there is such a thing as objective truth.

Discussing Darwin – Mary Midgley

 Science and Values blog

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Andrew Halloway has reviewed ‘The Evolution of God’ by Robert Wright, published over at Science and Values blog. Science and Values – So even God evolves now ?

Professor Peter Harrison, the Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at the University of Oxford, has some very useful research on the history of science and religion that may be of interest to intelligent design researchers. Both books reveal important information about the religious foundations of modern science in terms of the desire of members of the Royal Society to recover pre-Fall Edenic knowledge, and how a literal reading of the Bible then enabled a literal reading of nature as opposed to the pre-modern symbolic reading. The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science (2007) http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521875592 The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science (1998) http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521000963