On understanding pencils…..

Consider the humble pencil. For those poor souls born in the internet age who may not be familiar with them, the pencil is a wooden cylinder, usually about 12cm long, with a graphite core. They can be used for things like writing or drawing, making dark marks on paper (a bit like what happens on your laptop screen when you press keys on the keyboard). They don’t require an electrical supply and are pretty hardy objects, continuing to work in both hot and cold weather. They even work outdoors when it’s raining. But when all is said and done, they are fairly simple objects. Now here are some questions. What does it mean to understand a pencil? What range of disciplines are required? Is anything required beyond some fairly straightforward science? Could a pencil be any more than a sum of its parts?

Well talking of parts, I suppose a scientific approach to pencils would begin by understanding what it was actually made from. A simple pencil (let’s not complicate things too much by discussing pencils with erasers on the end or highly engineered propelling pencils) seems to consist of just two kinds of stuff. Its core is clearly different from the material surrounding it. In fact the core is probably a far from simple mixture of graphite, a substance which was originally mined but these days is manufactured. The graphite is mixed with clay or wax. The surround is of course wood. But what kind of wood? It turns out that almost all pencils are made of cedar, which doesn’t warp or crack, and can be repeatedly sharpened.  Actually the pencil I have in front of me is also painted (it’s red), and on the side there’s lettering.

The lettering spells out a brand name, but there are also some code letters. It turns out all pencils are not the same. In some the “filling” is hard and makes a thick black line, while in others it’s relatively soft making fainter, finer marks. So you don’t have to try out a pencil each time you go to buy one to find out what kind it is, the different types are coded. Apparently “medium soft” pencils (#2’s) are best for writing. But hang on. Now we’re not really thinking about the constituent parts of a pencil and their properties, the sort of thing that science can help with. A botanist could perhaps have identified the wood and speculated as to why it had been chosen. A chemist would have quickly identified that the core was a mixture of something that occurs naturally (graphite) mixed with other chemicals that it doesn’t naturally occur with. She could perhaps speculate on the processes used to combine these different substances. But now it turns out that there’s a whole other level of understanding required in order to understand pencils. They are “for something”, they have an intended purpose. And this is beyond the purview of chemistry and botany.

There are lots of uses to which pencils could be put. I assume that they burn, wood usually does. So I suppose you could put them in a fire to keep your house warm. They are relatively long and thin.  So I suppose you could poke them into holes in a bid to winkle out anything that might be hiding there. A quick experiment will show that graphite is an excellent conductor. But if you try to build circuits with pencils you’ll discover that they quickly generate so much heat that they burst into flames. So a line of pencils is never going to perform well as a mains electricity distribution system. Pencils have an intended purpose, for which they are designed, and for which they are really good. They are designed for writing and drawing, and when used in this way they perform admirably. But what kind of thing is an intended purpose? And what discipline has the correct tools for studying intended purposes? Not physics, or chemistry, or even most of biology.

It turns out pencils have a history, so it’s not just about the particular pencil sitting in front of me now. But they did not start out as the finely manufactured objects they are today. Some trace the history of the pencil back to Roman stylus. Others argue that pencils, properly understood, began with the discovery of naturally occurring graphite in Borrowdale in 1564. Leonardo frequently sketched his ideas in pencil. Without the humble pencil who knows what he might have forgotten all about,a what we would never have known he thought about. The pencil no doubt played a role in, and benefitted from, the industrial revolution of the 18^th and 19^th centuries. To understand the pencil clearly the humanities have a role to play.

Understanding pencils is turning out to be a bit tricky. To fully capture their constitution, their use and purposes, and their impact on society is getting complicated. Just imagine how complicated it would be to substantiate the claim that we understand things like table lamps, or cars or houses. Mind you, these are all artefacts. They are all things that people make and use. But what about understanding people? Is a person simpler or more complicated that a pencil? Now I think that the answer to this is fairly simply. But for the absence of doubt I think that people are more complicated than pencils. So if we need multiple methods to understand pencils, it’s fairly certain we’ll need multiple methods to understand people. To be able to claim we understand just one individual will take effort, multiple disciplines and many layers of explanation. Some higher levels of explanation will probably be closely related to lower layers, and it may be able to explain one thing at a higher level with things at a lower level. So in principle the biological processes of digestion, beginning with what goes on in the stomach, might well be reducible to chemical explanations (eg the action of hydrochloric acid on certain foodstuffs). While the detail might be a bit tricky and technical, you can see how this kind of thing might work. But there might be other levels of explanation that can’t be decomposed into lower level types of explanation. So I might well be able to explain chemically the effect of HCl on chocolate, but why do I so enjoy Cadbury’s Dairy Milk?

And this is just about explaining one individual. People tend to clump together. And in that clumping whole new concepts emerge and need different types of explanations. So what do we make of football scores? They are a thing. You know what I mean by “football score” even if in the UK it’s about some you do with a round ball, and in the US it concerns an oval ball. On one level a football score might be just two numbers on a board at one end of a football ground. But then it seems to have strange properties than can induce effects on human beings even over great distances. So there might be a vast crowd of 50 000 people in a football ground, variable distances from the board displaying the score. A score of 1-0 is somehow capable of inducing depression in one group of 25 000 and euphoria in the remaining 25 000 (and this is the simplified version). Suppose the same score is liberated from the football ground itself and transmitted by the wonders of modern communications across the world. Across the world a similar pattern of depression and eupohoria is induced in different individuals. So what kind of thing is a football score, and with what tools should it be studied?

Given all of the above consider the following famous quotation: “The Astonishing Hypothesis is that “You,” your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased it: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.”  This comes from Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick. If you’re nothing but a pack of neurons, then all we need to understand all the complexity of humanity are the tools furnished by a particular branch of biology called neuroscience, with perhaps a dash of physics and chemistry thrown in. It smacks of a kind of reductionism often encountered in the popular writings of scientists, very often towards the end of otherwise really interesting books. reductionism doesn't work for pencils. It’s unlikely to be a plausible approach to understanding people.  

Scientism

If “new atheism” (NA) is, if not dead, perhaps terminally ill, then one of the contributory factors to its demise is the scrutiny that its supporting doctrines have come under. Whether cause or consequence, NA has always been closely linked with “scientism”. Scientism is not science, does not work in the same way as science, and does not (or should not) have the same authority as science. A bit like NA itself, it’s not new; it has probably been around in one form or another as long as science itself. But it really began to emerge in the late 19^th century with the desire of some in science to paint the only possible relationship between science and other disciplines, or between science and religious faith, as a war in which there had to be a winner and a loser. It kicked around in the background for a while, probably pooped up in many undergraduate science courses, and came to public prominence more recently as a supporting pillar of NA.

What is it? Definitions abound, but at its heart it’s an understandable (and now familiar) view. The only truth that counts is scientific truth, and therefore the scientific method is the only means of discovering truth. A series of classic statements can be found in Peter Atkins short essay “Science as truth” published in in 1995. Speaking of science, Atkins claims that “There appear to be no bounds to its competence… This claim of universal competence may seem arrogant, but it appears to be justified.” All religion (grouped with studies of the paranormal) is dismissed as an “obscurantist pursuit”. Science is the “greatest of humanity’s intellectual achievements”; in contrast he thinks it a defensible proposition that “no philosopher has helped to elucidate nature”! I commenced my own scientific journey in 1979 when I began my science degree at the University of Glasgow. There were certainly some lecturers to us first-year biology students who weren’t backward at dropping such sentiments into their lectures. I now suspect that this was because their own historical and philosophical education was sadly lacking. As student, I found such views baffling; as a scientist, more than thirty years Iater I find them embarrassing.

There have been and are lots of responses to scientism. Some have come from those of a theological disposition. I rather like John Polkinghorne’s comment on scientism (in “Theology in the Context of Science, p46), that it is “the rash and implausible claim that science tells us all that is worth knowing, or even that could ever be known. Embracing that belief is to take an arid and dreary view of reality..” . Polkinghorne writes as a theologian and former (distinguished) physicist. For a wide ranging and eloquent critique from a scientist’s standpoint, read Austin Hughes’ “The Folly of Scientism”. Hughes writes for more than just the sake of an argument. He has a real concern that scientism’s overreach will eventually cause science big problems: “Continued insistence on the universal competence of science will serve only to undermine the credibility of science as a whole.” With contemporary attacks on expertise ringing in our ears, and with science now worrying within about the reproducibility crisis, I think he’s right to be concerned.  

Part of Hughes’ case is that philosophers are far from innocent when it comes to the scientism. Some schools of philosophy provided a major impetus to it (ie the logical positivists), while others colluded in its rise. It always bemused me that 19^th century theology gave up the tussle so easily. But philosophy being philosophy, scientism didn’t have it entirely its own way. At least now there does seem to be something of a fight back going on whether it’s Roger Scruton’s approach from art history, or Peter Hacker’s more analytical analytical critique.  

To my non-philosophical mind, many of those objecting to scientism seem to be united in a common reaction to the ignorance of those who promulgate scientism. This is a version of the disdain for other approaches that has been so much a part of NA. From their different perspectives, scientism’s critics have pointed out that it often derides and dismisses ideas that are never fully defined or fairly discussed. Some have objected to its selective memory when it comes to the history of science itself. Others have pointed out that it has a habit of blundering to other areas of academic endeavour, oblivious to important concepts and developments, constructing weak arguments and reaching fallacious conclusions. Particularly in popular accounts, this leads to a series of illusory battles against straw men, which of course, are convincingly won.  

It’s always struck me that this is something that often marks NA’s attacks on religious belief. Of course if you take the very weakest form of an argument it will be easy to defeat it. Having defeated the weakest form, it’s a short step to the claim that all arguments of that type are also therefore defeated. Showing that diverse beliefs in fairies, Santa Claus and large lizards controlling earth from the moon are irrational is not likely to be that relevant to debunking beliefs in well attested and evidenced ancient events that believers claim to have transformative power today. Such debunking may be possible, but it was always likely to take much more careful work than many in NA were apparently able or inclined to do. And the sheer logical inappropriateness of the natural science to do this work, was clearly lost on them.

As with the reported death of NA, it’s unclear to me what the fate of scientism will be. As Hughes argued, its fate will likely have important effects on science itself. As a scientist, I’m committed to the scientific endeavour, and think that within its area of competence science offers the best way to answer certain types of questions. But it can’t answer every type of question. For that we need the tools of philosophy, history, anthropology and the rest. And for that most important type of question (the why rather than the how)? If I were you I’d turn to Scripture rather than scientism (or even science).  

The strange life and (alleged) death of “new” atheism

“New” atheism, the type of ascribed to Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens et al, began its short life (according to its Wikipedia entry as of the 12^th August, 2017) around 2006, when it is claimed the term was first coined. The writer/s of the Wikipedia article clearly doesn’t have a very good internet connection. Even a pretty cursory search of the web throws up abundant material demonstrating that the label has been around much longer. As for what is being labelled, even many atheists are unclear on what was really new about “new” atheism.

Let’s start with the label. Back in 1984 Robert Morey published “The New Atheism and the Erosion of Freedom” (he was not a supporter). But the term has a much older history than even that. A French Jesuit in the 1690’s wrote a book called “The New Atheism” against the philosopher Spinoza. In the 19^th century William James is reported to have used the term. Spinoza, Hegel, Nietzsche (all philosophers) probably thought they were up to something new, and would not be too troubled with the label atheist. Mind you, being philosophers, they’d probably want to embark on a long definitional discussion (of the sort that wouldn’t sell these days) and conduct extensive research. The intellectual attention span seems to have shortened considerably. Towards the end of the 19^th century, scientists like T.H. Huxley and Ernst Haeckel clearly fitted the mould of the scientifically educated and inspired atheism of Dawkins and Sam Harris. I’ve heard the term “new atheist” applied to them (and the other late 19^th century Darwinists), although I haven’t been able to track down its use in contemporary sources. However, it seems that neither the label, nor the thing labelled, is particularly new.

Some have argued that it was not so much the content of the New Atheists that was new and exciting, but it was their style (a classic example of style over substance then). It was the militancy, swagger and verbal dexterity of the likes of Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens; their lack of respect for their theist interlocutors, and lack of deference for transparently fatuous arguments. Personally, I’ve always rather liked Richard Dawkins’ ability to turn a phrase. When it comes to his passion and skill in communicating science and its achievements, there’s much to admire. It’s when he wandered out of his area of expertise, and got on to the subject of religion, trying to smuggle his undoubted authority in the first realm into the second, he became less admirable (a view also echoed here). It’s not that he’s not entitled to anti-theist or more widely anti-religious views; nor is it that he’s not entitled to write and talk about them with a passion. It’s that when he does this, he has no special authority. Clearly the new atheists were observers of (some) religious practice and had strong views on the subject. But there was a lack of expertise on the issues they often tackled. Theologians, religious scholars and scholars of religion, and philosophers (including some who were by no means theists) pointed out this lack of expertise. But coming back to the issue of newness, in terms of the militancy and verbal skill of the “new” atheists, are the crop any more militant and skilful than Bertrand Russell (or a host of others from previous generations) in full flow?

It’s only fair to point out some atheists have contended that both the concept and the content of “New Atheism” is a straw man. Perhaps somewhat disconcerted by the naivety of some new atheist writing, some “old” atheists might be tempted to claim that “new” atheism is a bit of a theist hoax. But now another twist. As well as it’s disputed birth, and it’s somewhat ill-defined life, it now looks like its demise has been pronounced.

Throughout the internet, blogosphere and across the commentariat the question has been posed – is new atheism dead? In some cases death is pronounced with enthusiasm and comes as no surprise (eg Ed West in the Catholic Herald, “New Atheism is Dead”). In other cases (like here) its demise is perhaps tinged with more regret. For some the problem lies with the causes and views some of its prominent proponents have been linked with, although in the political sphere it has been called out for both right wing and left wing bias. The charge of misogyny has been levelled occasionally. A quick search will provide examples for anyone who’s interested, but this Phil Torres article provides an interesting starting point. Now again, a conspiracy theorist could claim that this is all some kind of theist plot. But the criticism is so wide ranging in terms of sources and content that this is scarcely sustainable. While I don’t want to appear overly gleeful, it is interesting that the new atheists do seem to be a bit friendless.

Perhaps it is because of their style after all. So very often the tone they adopted was one of disdain. But this seemed to spring from an almost wilful ignorance of their opponents various positions and arguments. Arguments for and against theism in particular and religion in general (particularly the organised sort) have flowed back and forth over a very long period. This longevity alone is suggestive that the issues at stake may be genuinely complex, and for all sorts of reasons. Of course if you pick the weakest caricature of the arguments you oppose, you’ll always be tempted to treat them with disdain. A starting assumption seemed to be that those of a religious persuasion were just so obviously stupid, that they deserved no kind of respect. Now it may be that there are things that are believed, which could count as religious, which are stupid. And there may well be religious people who are stupid, and who do and say stupid things. But it seemed as if the starting point for new atheists was that all religious views, and all religious people, were obviously stupid. This has no more traction as an argument than the contention that if I find a single stupid atheist, then atheism is clearly stupid. I have more respect for atheists than that, whether old or new. And its sheer unreasonableness probably did the new atheists no favours with a wide audience.

I admit that this may be perception as much as reality. If you were a theist on the end of, or an observer of, a typically robust new atheist critique, a sneer may have been detected where none was intended. If you were a fellow traveller with the alleged sneerer, you might just hear robust and triumphant argumentative thrusts. But given the friendlessness of new atheism, it would appear that more has been going on than the offending of sensitive theists.

Even if the death of “new” atheism has been somewhat exaggerated (to misquote Twain), a more respectful dialogue, one that is more comfortable with complexity and subtlety, and the need for hard thinking rather than just good put downs, would perhaps be a fitting legacy.

The Faith in Science

The blogosphere is a big and diverse place. There's all sorts of stuff out there (and here). One could spend one's life navigating it and responding to what one finds; there are things to enrage, engage or intrigue. I recently came across a blog post in the New Humanist blog written a while ago by Mark Lorch (Chemist and science communicator at the University of Hull) entitled "Can you be a scientist and have religious faith?". For obvious reasons this piqued my interest given that this is a question that seems to keep coming around, and is one that I've examined from time to time in my own humble corner of this vast landscape.

His post has an interesting starting point: "... I could never reconcile what I saw as a contradiction between the principles of the scientific method and faith in a supernatural god." Let us leave to one side the issue of whether "the scientific method" is real thing; Nobel laureate Sir Peter Medawar had his doubts (see his essay on "Induction and intuition in scientific thought", Pluto's Republic). Also of interest is his observation that, as a professional scientist in a University, he is surrounded by other scientists who have "religious faith". And not merely a formal or perfunctory commitment to religion. He's on about honest to goodness, fundamental, bible-believing type faith of the sort that really outrages the evangelical "new atheists" that Terry Eagelton refers to collectively as "Ditchkins". So here's some data indicating that I'm not particularly atypical and my views are not really out there (always a comforting thought). I'm not claiming that I'm typical, just that Christians who are "proper" scientists are not extinct or even on the endangered list (at least not yet). You would get quite a different impression form some quarters.

There were of course comments in the blog that were at first less welcome, if only because they seemed to betray a lack of thought and research. For instance: "Ultimately faith is the knowledge that something is true even though there is not evidence to support it...". There may be faith of this sort out there, but this is not the faith that the Bible writers call for, or that Christian believers exercise. Christian faith is a response to evidence. Yes it is a response that involves, at a certain point, a degree of trust, but that's no different to life in general and science in particular.

Starting with Francis Bacon, Lorch arrives at the conclusion that "without ever realising it, I too have a deeply-seated faith in my own (scientific) belief system." Glory be! Sense at last. Notwithstanding the problems with his definition of faith above,  I welcome his honesty about his own thought processes. The problem is, it's worse than he thinks (if faith being involved in science is a bad thing). One reason for his conclusion is the conviction that in science a thing called "induction" is involved. This appears to be a sound way of moving from observations/facts/results to new knowledge. But it turns out, no one really has an explanation for why it works when it works. But it does appear to work, so he's happy to stick with it, in the absence of convincing evidence. Hence, exercising faith. To be fair, I don't think this mysterious process of induction is why science works, and neither did Medawar (hence his essay on the subject). But there are other foundations on which science rests which we understand even less than "induction" and yet we're prepared to press on regardless. Take two examples: nature's uniformity and the principle of reproducibility.

I beaver away in my lab in Liverpool, collecting and analysing data, finding out stuff about vision and eye movement. Once I've completed a series of experiments, I write them up, and submit them to a scientific journal. The journal organises other scientists to review what I've written, there's usually a bit of back and forth, and eventually the journal agrees to publish my report of my endeavours. If we've all done our jobs, science creeps incrementally and imperceptibly forward, just a bit. We assume that what I've done in Liverpool could be done anywhere else (ie replicated) and as long as I've been honest and accurate) the result will be the same. This is because of the uniformity of nature. The same material and physical forces and processes that operate in my lab in Liverpool, operate in New York, Tokyo or Mumbai. But this uniformity, on which science rests, hasn't been established by some grand experiment, it just "is". It's assumed. But it's fundamental to the whole process. We take it as an article of faith.

And this business of reproducibility is interesting too. Now it turns out that you could replicate my experiments without too much difficulty. It would cost a little bit of money (but not too much because I'm a bit of a cheapskate), some time and a bit of skill. But nothing too taxing. Nevertheless, rather than do this, people are prepared to take on trust that I've done what I've said I've done, and the result are sound. So, rather than repeat my results, they build on them and do something slightly different and new, to make another small advance. But what about an experiment like the one that established the existence of the Higgs boson? That took billions of euros, thousands of scientists, and large chunks of continental Europe. Are we waiting until another Large Hadron Collider is built before we accept the result? No, we take CERN's results on trust. We exercise (reasonable) faith. And, all of this in the presence of what some in science are talking about as the reproducibility crisis; when this type of faith has been abused by the unscrupulous or occasionally outright fraudulent.

My intention is not to undermine science in any way. It's simply to pint our that like most other areas of life, faith is key to it, not incidental. So, a double standard is applied by those who would like to bash my Christian faith, and claim that on the basis of science I must be suffering from some kind of reason deficiency. It turns out I'm neither alone, nor am I deluded. Mark Lorch appears to agree.

Back to that chasm....

The Nature Editorial that I was reflecting on recently, prompted other responses published in the correspondence section of the journal itself. Firstly, Frank Nicolas' letter simply pointed out that all scientists adopt a "methodological naturalism" when doing science, and basically welcomed the new openness that the Editorial discussed. What was perhaps more interesting were the comments on the letter. In one it was stated:

"Where it is not incomprehensible this is an empty piece of philosophical maundering which should, and doubtless will be, widely ignored". 

A second commented: "Religion is by definition not open towards science, given that it ignores evidence (or actually the absence of it)..."

I didn't find the letter incomprehensible, and the philosophy wasn't empty. It was a fair statement of an approach many of us take in the lab. Even those of us committed to the belief that underpinning each instant in time, and at each point in space, it's the power of God that keeps the universe in existence (Hebrews 1:3), don't invoke this power to explain the processes we study. And the explanations we come up with don't compete with Hebrews 1. I study (among other things) psychological processes reflected in eye movement behaviour. If I invoke a mechanism like "behavioural inhibition" to explain an experimental finding, it doesn't mean that I'm denying that neurons in the brainstem gaze generating network weren't involved. I'm just operating at a different level of explanation. And as I can't measure the "power of His Word" in the lab (and don't seek to), I would never invoke it in the paper I eventually write on what I've been investigating. It forms part of the background that gives rise to my beliefs, thoughts, behaviour and activity. I would claim we all have such background (metaphysical) beliefs. It's just that I'm explicit about it, and know when (and when not to) mention them.

So in the lab, I'm as much a methodological naturalist as the next scientist. The problem comes when folk start hinting, implying or claiming that natural explanations (those couched in terms of what we can see, taste, touch, smell, measure) are the only type of explanations that count. This, I think, lies behind the response to Frank's letter. It's a form of metaphysical naturalism which, to be fair, is the default position of many scientists. However, it, itself, is not science, it's a metaphysical position, and it brings with it a history and set of attitudes. If you claim that only natural explanations apply to everything, that's a statement of the same sort as God upholds everything by His powerful word. This doesn't mean that it's necessarily wrong (although clearly I believe that it is). But it is equally true that it's not necessarily right, even if lots of scientists say it, and even if lot's of them also think that it's the only way to approach science specifically and life more generally.

Those of us with a religious and philosophical turn of mind accept the difference between the methodological naturalism we adopt in the lab and our other beliefs. We're open to thinking about the interaction between the science we do in the lab, and the kind of intellectual procedures it involves, and our other beliefs and attitudes. I think about how science informs me about the world (the world that God made and sustains); I reflect on what it tells me about Him. I think about how Scripture applies to what I do in the lab. These are not contradictory processes, although they do occasionally result in a bit of tension. What's interesting about the second of the two comments above is the claim that "Religion is by definition not open towards science" - not by my definition mate! In fact this statement suggests to me a closed attitude toward insights that both philosophy and religion can offer to the scientist. And it suggests a blind spot about the writer's own philosophical presuppositions and commitments.  

And then there's the implication that somehow the scientist who is a believer can only be a believer by ignoring stuff. I've commented on issues around facts and faith elsewhere on this blog. Religious belief, at least in Christianity, is not irrational, it is the opposite. It's not about ignoring anything. You might not like the conclusions drawn from the evidence, but please don't claim that either evidence was not involved, that it was not weighed or that counter evidence was not considered.

It would appear that in the  minds of some then, there is indeed a chasm between science and religion. I invite the interested observer to investigate further to discover whether this is myth or reality; to be open to the evidence.

Can I be a Christian and…? The downfall of Tim Farron

We’ve had to cope with yet more tragedy in recent days. After terror attacks in Manchester and London, now the news of massive loss of life in a tower block fire. But another, seeminly more trivial event, caught my attention on Tuesday evening – the resignation of Tim Farron as the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party. At the outset of the general election campaign, he was persistently and specifically questioned about an issue not in his party’s election manifesto, and not likely to feature in upcoming legislation. The issue of whether he thought “gay sex” was a sin, became sport for the media and a distraction to his party’s campaign. It was partly on the media’s radar because he is known to be a Christian (in the confessional as opposed to the ethnic sense), and while his voting record on LGBTIx issues is fairly consistent, he abstained on a final vote on the Same Sex Marriage Bill in 2013 (having voted consistently for the legislation up to that point), a decision he later said he regretted. The reaction to both his resignation and his resignation speech is instructive.

Some have gloated and some have provided a more nuanced commentary. On one hand it’s claimed we have seen prejudice and medievalism driven from the public sphere, on the other that tolerance and liberalism are now proven to be in decline rather than in the ascendancy. Before throwing in my tuppence worth, I’ll make clear my own perspective and commitments.

I too am a Christian - a term that needs further qualification. I am a follower of Jesus Christ, as He is revealed in the Bible, which I take to be the Word of God. I am convinced the Bible is both an ordinary and an extraordinary book. It’s ordinary in that it is composed of words, and has to be read and interpreted like any other book. It’s extraordinary in that these words are the means by which the God who is real communicates to 21^st century men and women. As with all words, the ones in my English translation of the Bible have to be interpreted, and that entails a degree of work and commitment on my part. Unlike the words in any other book, behind and within the words in my Bible, is the Living God.  He is not the words, and the words are not Him, but He communicates by means of them. Words can be misinterpreted of course. When I do that with the Bible, it is because I am limited and fallible, and sometimes just plain lazy. That is my failure, not God’s. All of this leaves room for disagreement among followers of Jesus and there are some areas of “twilight” in what Scripture says and what Scripture means. But, to quote Dr Johnston, the fact that there is twilight doesn’t mean I can’t tell night from day.

All of this matters because it is words, and partly Bible words, that contributed to Tim Farron’s downfall. I’m clear that God in His word is clear on matters such as human sexual behaviour and marriage. The views that I hold, based on a rational reading of Scripture, used to be the majority view, and were the consensus view on such matters for centuries. But no longer; I am now in a minority. It’s unclear the extent to which Tim and I agree on what the Bible teaches on these issues. I don’t know him personally, and have no inclination to speculate. But, despite many of his public statements, his voting record in parliament and his work on LGBTI issues in the Liberal Democrat party, the commentariat appear to assume that he thinks certain things, and on the basis of this assumed pattern of thought, he has been stalked, outed, criticised and condemned.

David Laws, not a stranger to controversy and the odd political resignation himself, was revealing in his article on the topic: ..”you cannot be a leader of a liberal party while holding fundamentally illiberal and prejudiced views". Never mind Farron’s voting record and tireless party work. Laws continued that the LD election campaign had been “undermined by the outdated opinions and views which Tim clearly holds”. It appears from this article that Mr Laws thinks that even if I accept that the law should treat he and I equally, I am not entitled to even think (let alone argue) that he or anyone else is immoral on the basis of my “outdated” and “irrational” beliefs. Exactly which methods should be used to expose my beliefs (if I should I keep them to myself) or to what extent I should be penalised for believing stuff he finds offensive, or whether I should be coerced to think differently – all this remains unsaid and unclear. Re-education camps perhaps? Sounds a bit illiberal to me.

The open and tolerant society that allowed campaigners to overturn the consensus view on legislation relating to issues like homosexuality and abortion was rooted in and shaped by a Biblically informed world view. It appears as society moves ever further away from this, I’m not even to be allowed to think differently from the new consensus, never mind to debate or campaign for change in a different direction. Liberalism apparently has its limits.

So much about politics, political leadership and illiberalism. But occasionally, I hear the question asked: is it possible to be a Christian and a scientist? After all, to be a Christian one has to be irrational. You have to believe stuff against reason, or at least not think too carefully about it. There are irrational beliefs (ie beliefs held either without evidence or in the teeth of evidence). But I am a Christian because having weighed the evidence and found it compelling, I have responded to it. Or not so much responded to it, but to Him. Because Christianity is at root a relationship with a person, not an information processing exercise. And having become a Christian, everything (including reason) is involved in being a Christian. And being a Christian, one exciting way of understanding the world around me, is to use the methods of science. In doing that, all I am doing is further exploring what ultimately God has done and is doing. Where others assert conflict, I find that these are more apparent than real. No choice between science and scripture is necessary. In happily being a Christian and a scientist, I’m doing nothing new, and I'm not alone. I’m following in a long and distinguished line.   

Hubris and its rewards

The dust is beginning to settle but it's unclear what the outlook is. We had an unexpected outcome to the general election in 2015. Then we had the Brexit result. That was closely followed by the Trump election in the US. Now punditry has taken  another kicking in Thursday's general election. Even at the end of the campaign the received wisdom pointed to a clear Conservative victory. Things hadn't entirely gone their way, but an overall majority, probably increased from what they achieved in 2015, was still expected. Then came the exit poll. We were back in hung parliament territory with no party holding an overall majority. And that's how it panned out.

It turned out that policy discussion trumped personal attacks, the young turned up and voted, and the campaign mattered. To a certain degree earnestness, consistency and principles, almost overthrew cynicism, cash, messaging and manipulation.

To an ordinary voter (ie me), it looks as though the Tories simply thought they had it in the bag and concluded they didn't have to try too hard. They didn't provide a clear and properly costed explanation of what they wanted to do, why they wanted to do it, and how they wanted to do it. They went with soundbites and slogans (remember "strong and stable"?). At least Labour had a stab at a proper manifesto. They had a go at the numbers. They attacked the Government's record and proposed a clear alternative. But instead of engagement we got evasion. The Prime Minister's no-show at the leader's debate, while completely understandable, came to symbolise that evasion. And her performance at the leaders' question time was at times patronising. I can only assume the Tories thought that the election was done and dusted; all they had to do was keep their heads down (or hidden away), not make mistakes, and all would be well. But then came the mistakes with important policies poorly constructed and explained, and in one case quickly amended mid-campaign.

On the opposition side there were ideas to be critiqued and attacked. There was a record (although not a government record) to be scrutinised, and criticised without smears. But they just didn't engage. They were determined to play the man and not the ball, and tried to reduce the whole game not so much to a game of two halves, but a game of two centre-halves. The British parliamentary system is a team game. But the Tories reduced it to I, me, my. And the I in question proved to be less capable than a lot of us had thought. Why? How?

Hubris is that form of pride that contains the seeds of its own downfall. Not all pride leads to a downfall, but hubris does. Its the claim of the boxer to be the greatest before he's felled by an uppercut in the fifth round. It's the cynicism of the politician, who's already moving on to "more important matters" before a vote is counted. Post Brexit, post Trump, you'd think they would have learned their lesson. Apparently not.

Actually the issues facing the electorate at this election were complex and profound. They were hardly aired at all. We were badly served. The result is a weakened government with an unclear mandate. But, if the politicians learn that ideas and worked out policy, explained in grown up terms, are what the electorate is after, then it won't have been a complete waste.

It is all a reminder (again) of the wider world and bigger issues, that life throws up. The judgements to be made and the evidence to be considered in deciding whether to place my "x" against a name, and which name to place it against, were quite different to what I do in my day job. But what is equally true is that it's into exactly this kind of situation that Scripture speaks. From the messiness of human lives lived out as worked examples, some good, some bad, lessons are to be learned. And from the God who ultimately creates and sustains those lives, and who calls us to live them in a particular way, the standard is set. And He has been crystal clear on the subject of hubris: "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble".