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Category Archives: Science
Wishing you a terrified Halloween
How we can respond to those spooky things Continue reading
Natural disasters and religious belief
Are religious responses more than psychological comfort? Continue reading
Posted in God, Science, Society
Tagged atheism, earthquakes, Laws of nature, Natural disasters, religion, Science, tsunamis, volcanoes
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Why do we make each other so ill by polluting the air?
How we learned to accept poor air quality Continue reading
Climate change: more hubris won’t stop it
John Vaillant’s shocking description of the recent fires in California, hotter than anything seen before, melting everything in urban landscapes, should wake us up to the future awaiting us all if we carry on with our destructive lifestyles. Now, the … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics, Science, Society
Tagged California, Climate change, democracy, environment, fires, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, technology
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What does progress do?
This is the second of my series of four talks on progress. The first describes its origins. Human life is unsatisfactory but our lives have been designed, by some kind of god, with potential for improvement. Sometimes we go forward, … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Ethics, Science, Society, Theology
Tagged economics, progress, Science, secularism, technology
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Genetic editing: what the debate tells us about ourselves
Robin Gill’s article in last Friday’s Church Times summarises the ethical debate about genetic editing. This post looks at the presuppositions behind the different positions. Genetic editing is a new technique for altering DNA sequences in plants, animals and humans:
Posted in Ethics, Science, Theology
Tagged ethics, genetic editing, medical ethics, Robin Gill
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Suspect science and godless knowledge
Richard Grant’s article Why scientists are losing the fight to communicate science to the public makes two good points about why people are often suspicious of scientists. I shall add a third, which to me is the important one. Grant … Continue reading
Has evolution made us what we are?
When I told the taxi driver that I was a priest, there was a pause. Then he said ‘Oh. I believe in evolution.’ ‘So do I’, I replied. That was too much for him. ‘I can’t take that.’ The study … Continue reading
The languages of evangelism
A few years ago in a local wine bar I found myself in unfamiliar company, sitting at a table next to a medium and opposite a committed member of the British Humanist Association. I had not met either before, but … Continue reading
Posted in God, Science, Theology
Tagged Christianity, Evangelism, Humanism, spiritualism
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Evolution as a moral guide
Where do we get our morals from? Should we get them from evolution? Many sociobiologists believe our moral beliefs come from our genes making us maximise our fertile offspring.