Donald MacCrimmon MacKay

MacKay was educated at Wick High School and St Andrews University, and gained a PhD at King's College London.{{cite thesis|last=MacKay|first=D. M.|title=The application of electronic principles to the solution of differential equations in physics.|year=1951|institution=University of London (King's College)|url=https://librarysearch.kcl.ac.uk:443/kings_v1:EVERYTHING:44KCL_ALEPH_DS001581352|at=Maughan Library: Index to theses, 2-2818|id=Barcode 0202950465}} In the late 1940s MacKay was among the first members of the Ratio Club.

Married to Valerie Wood, they had five children. His oldest son is Robert Sinclair MacKay, a professor of mathematics at the University of Warwick; his youngest son was David J. C. MacKay, a professor of physics at the University of Cambridge. He died within a year of giving the 1986 Gifford Lectures at the University of Glasgow.

In our age, when people look for explanations, the tendency more and more is to conceive of any and every situation that we are trying to understand by analogy with a machine.Cited in: Sytse Strijbos (1988) Het Technische Wereldbeeld. p. 13.

God's way of working has been slow and gradual (the bodies of higher animals coming into being through descent with modification from earlier species), is all that is meant by the term 'evolution' as used in science. In this technical, scientific sense the idea is theologically neutral, and is widely accepted by biologists who are also biblical Christians. Nothing in the Bible rules it out.Mackay, Donald M. (1997 edition). Clockwork Image: Christian Perspective on Science. Inter-Varsity Press. p. 51. {{ISBN|978-0851112428}}

MacKay authored several publications. A selection:

• MacKay, Donald MacCrimmon, [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v159/n4038/abs/159406a0.html A high-speed electronic function generator], Nature 159 (4038): 406–407. 1947
• Deeley, E. M., MacKay, D. M., [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v163/n4147/abs/163650a0.html Multiplication and division by electronic analogue methods], Nature 163 (4147): 650-650. 1949
• MacKay, Donald MacCrimmon, [https://www.nature.com/articles/181362c0 Moving visual images produced by regular stationary pattern], Nature 180 : 849–850. 1957
• MacKay, Donald MacCrimmon, [http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/content/LXIX/273/31.extract III. On the logical indeterminacy of a free choice.]{{dead link|date=January 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}, Mind, LXIX(273):31-40, 01 1960.
• MacKay, Donald MacCrimmon, [https://www.nature.com/articles/192739a0 Visual effects of non-redundant stimulation], Nature 192 (4804): 739-740. 1961
• MacKay, Donald MacCrimmon, and Michael Ellis Fisher. Analogue Computing at Ultra-High Speed: An Experimental and Theoretical Study. London: Chapman & Hall, 1962.
• MacKay, Donald MacCrimmon. [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/information-mechanism-and-meaning Information, Mechanism, and Meaning]. Cambridge: MIT Press. 1970.
• MacKay, Donald MacCrimmon. [https://books.google.com/books?id=t8wqAQAAMAAJ The Clockwork Image: A Christian Perspective on Science] InterVarsity Press. 1974.
• MacKay, Donald MacCrimmon. Brains, Machines, and Persons. Collins, 1980.
• MacKay, Donald MacCrimmon, and Valerie Mackay (ed). Behind the Eye. Basil Blackwell, 1991.

;About MacKay

• MacKay, Prof. Donald MacCrimmon, Who's Who 2009 online, Dec 2007
• [http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1992/PSCF3-92Thorson.html "An I Behind the Eye: Donald MacKay's Gifford Lectures"]. PSCF. 44 (March 1992): 49–54.
• [http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1992/PSCF3-92Haas.html "Donald MacCrimmon MacKay (1922-1987): A View From the Other Side of the Atlantic"]. PSCF. 44 (March 1992): 55–61.
• [http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1985/JASA9-85Cramer.html "Science, Scientism and Christianity: The Ideas of D.M. MacKay"]. J. A. CRAMER. PSCF. 37 (September 1985): 142–148.
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20090124235432/http://www.giffordlectures.org/Author.asp?AuthorID=234 Donald MacCrimmon MacKay] Gifford Lectures bio
• [http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1986/JASA3-86MacKay.html "MacKay vs. Cramer: A Rebuttal"]. D. M. MacKay. PSCF. 38 (March 1986): 62–63.
• [http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1991/PSCF6-91Barclay.html "Donald MacKay and Semi-materialism"]. Oliver R. Barclay. PSCF 43 (June 1991): 141–142.
• [http://129.82.76.41/FMPro?-db=ASAdb49.fm4&-lay=Layout1&-format=%2FASAdb%2Fresults2.html&-op=contains&-LOP=or&-sortfield=First+Author&-sortorder=ascending&-sortfield=volume_no&-sortorder=descending&-Max=All&Title=&-op=bw&First+Author=%22MacKay%2C+Donald%22&-op=contains&Date=&-find=&-find=Search MacKay's JASA papers]{{Dead link|date=February 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
• [http://www.asa3.org/ASA/articles/MacKay_bib.html A comprehensive list of works by Donald MacCrimmon MacKay]

• List of pioneers in computer science

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Category:1922 births

Category:1987 deaths

Category:Academics of Keele University

Category:Alumni of King's College London

Category:Alumni of the University of St Andrews

Category:British Christian writers

Category:British physicists

Category:British systems scientists

Category:Theistic evolutionists