More from Mark Vernon. And more again. I’m still not convinced though.

But this is the over-riding issue, it seems to me, in the atheists’ dismissal of God: if they really want to be conclusive then they must address the best ideas of God available, the criterion for that being those of the great theologians…Unfortunately, or irritatingly, though, they will find that the best theologians say that God is not ultimately amenable to the kind of analysis they want to apply. For the very simple reason that God is beyond human comprehension, else not God. This is not to say that reason has no role to play in theology: it’s primary purpose is to do away with false

Solana Larsen, who is blogging from the UN Conference on the Status of Women, points out the press release announcing Condoleeza Rice’s choice of delegates to attend the conference.

Bramon is a major fundraiser for Bush, and so is Guillermin Gable. Both are succesful business women, and Guillermin Gable is a member of Women Corporate Directors. Ooh well, that should make them qualified to take democratic global decisions on women in poverty, shouldn’t it? The real star is Pia Francesca de Solenni. She won an award from the Vatican for her PhD thesis. Guess what it’s about.

I am profoundly, bottomlessly sick of this administration’s insistence on appointing political hacks to everything from FEMA to putting Iraq back together … Read the rest

Ah-a. Sandra Harding has a new book – and it does look like a corker. Happily, people are taking note, and adding it to their science studies course outlines as required reading. Splendid.

The idea of this science as value- or culture-free is pulled apart by postcolonialist analyses of the culturally distinctive ways that Western science has developed…Harding problematizes the claim to universality that Western science rests upon…This evaluation is not only presented in terms of how we might transform the scientific traditions of the “Global North”, but also how we might transform the way we study science to be more critical, reflexive, and politically-engaged.

Great. Study of science that is more politically engaged. Great idea. Of course, the Bush … Read the rest