Stephen M. Barr

To quote the Gipper, “There he goes again.” Every time John G. West attempts to argue against my views, he misrepresents them. I have already pointed out several examples of this. But now West furnishes several more. Here is what West writes about me : Near the end of his recent blog . . . . Continue Reading »

On the Discovery Institute website , John G. West gives a three-part response to some things I said on this blog . In the first part he says: “Barr claims that ‘[w]hen scientists say that certain things in nature are random, this does mean that Nature is in a certain sense blind; it does . . . . Continue Reading »

I am sorry that I misinterpreted Joe’s position, and am happy to see that it is not the brand of theistic evolutionism represented by Francis S. Collins (and myself) that he really was criticizing. As I noted in my previous post , it is the insights of St. Augustine that are most needed here, . . . . Continue Reading »

I think both John West and Joe Carter are trapped in a false dilemma, namely the choice between believing that certain processes are random or believing that they are directed by God. The dilemma is created by a failure to take adequately into account the complete sovereignty of God and the fact . . . . Continue Reading »

Joe brings up an argument against Darwinism made by David Stove . I don’t really understand the argument as presented. In the first place, no one denies, as far as I know, that genetic mutations and natural selection still take place in human beings. That is one way that human beings develop . . . . Continue Reading »

Stephen Webb’s summary of my argument doesn’t come close to anything I said. It is an absurd caricature. In citing the fact that many religious scientists believe in evolution, I was not saying “gee, they must all be right” because “all those good people seem to agree about . . . . Continue Reading »

I find Stephen H. Webb’s reflections on Darwinism (“ How Darwin’s Wife Saved His Theory ”) very interesting, but I think there are questionable assumptions embedded in some of its verbal formulations. Consider the statement, “Critics of Darwinism . . . have long argued that . . . . Continue Reading »

The conversation between science and religion has suffered two sad losses recently, with the deaths of Peter E. Hodgson, the English physicist, on December 8, and Fr. Stanley L. Jaki, the historian and philosopher of science, on April 7. I never met either, but the news of their deaths, coming so . . . . Continue Reading »

I would like to second what Spengler says in reply to David Brooks on the subject of genius. It is obvious that Brooks has never met any true geniuses and has no idea what he is talking about on this subject.  There is at least one person alive today in my own field of theoretical particle . . . . Continue Reading »

Well, Fr. Jenkins has finally decided to respond to his critics . It is a very lawyerly response, involving a careful parsing of the words of the statement of the U.S. Bishops conference entitled “Catholics in Political Life.” Jenkins asserts that he and the others who made decision to . . . . Continue Reading »