Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
This theory proposes that many “substitutions” (mutations) in the DNA have no detectable effect on the fitness of the carrier. In other words, compared to other variants at the gene (or site), they make no difference in the relative rate or replication of the gene: they are neither “selfish” nor “retiring”. One example is a mutation in the second or third position of some three base “codons”, the triplets that code in the DNA (and trascribed RNA) for proteins. Because there are more nucleotide triplets than amino acids in proteins (64 triplets but only 20 amino acids), some triplets are “synonymous”: coding for the same amino acid.
Here’s the genetic code from Wikibooks, showing that, given the first, second, and third nucleotide base in a codon, you can see which amino acid it codes for. The four bases are T for Thymine (which become uracil in the mRNA transcribed), C for Cytosine, G for Guanine, and A for Adenine.
As you can see in the table, nearly every one of the 20 amino acids can be coded for by different triplets (“stop” codons are those that, when present in a DNA sequence, terminate the production of a protein by the matching RNA that gets translated to proteins). In the first column, for example, you can see in the last four rows that all four codons that begin with “GT” will code for valine in the resulting protein. That means that whether the last base is a T, a C, a G, or an A makes no difference in what amino acid is in place in the protein.
So if there is a mutation in the DNA changing GTT to GTC, GTA, or GTG, the protein produced will be the same. This means that, nearly without exception, the “fitness” of these four different variants will be identical, and the mutational variants will neither be selected for or against. You can see the number of “synonymous” codons: they comprise about a quarter of all mutations in genes that code for proteins. And that means that nearly a quarter of mutations in the DNA will not affect the “fitness” of the carrier.
But it could be even a larger number, as there are huge portions of the DNA that seem to have no function at all. This is called “junk DNA”, and constitutes about 90% of the DNA in our own genome. (There is important DNA that does not code for proteins but is not “junk,” such as bits of DNA that control the expression of other genes.)
You see that I’ve been talking about the sequences of DNA rather than organismal traits, although mutations in the former can affect the latter. This is why the “neutral theory of evolution” is often called the “neutral theory of molecular evolution.” And that, in turn, is because it’s easier to construct evolutionary theory using the frequencies of gene variants rather than traits. But some differences in traits can also be neutral if they don’t affect fitness. Some possible examples in humans based on mutations include whether or not your earlobes are attached, whether you can roll your tongue or wiggle your ears, and maybe your Landsteiner blood type (A, B, or O).
But I digress. Since 1963 there has been a tremendous amount of both theoretical and empirical work on the neutral theory and on the dynamics of neutral mutations. As you might expect, truly neutral variants bounce around in frequency in populations because they’re neither selected for nor against. We know that neutral variants tend to be more visible in larger populations because small populations lead to loss of variation. We know the rate of evolutionary change of neutral variants: how often they arise in populations and how fast they become “fixed” in every member of a population (for a single change, these two rates are, curiously, equal). We know that “nearly neutral” mutations with weak effects on replication can even overcome selection, and act as if they are truly neutral in small populations whether they be good or bad. (This depends on the relative size of the selection coefficient and the inverse of the population size.)
There’s a whole mathematical analysis of these things, but I won’t go into it. I just want to make three points.
First, the neutral theory is important, especially if you’re looking at the evolution of DNA sequences, which happens pretty often in evolutionary biology. But it can also play a role in some traits in which mutations cause visible differences (ear attachment or shell color and pattern in some snail species).
Second, the neutral theory is a truly novel modification of Darwinism that was proposed within our lifetime, though earlier evolutionists sometimes alluded to the possibility of neutral mutations. The neutral theory is far more novel than other modifications that are said to help “overturn” evolutionary biology, like niche construction or plasticity.
Finally, Comfort does not mention the neutral theory in his article as a discovery that requires us to retool evolutionary theory, even though if there’s anything that seriously modifies our view of evolution, it is the neutral theory. The Selfish Gene doesn’t discuss it, either, even though the theory was already out when TSG was published. That’s probably because Dawkins’s book was a book about adaptive evolution, not nonadaptive or neutral evolution. (Dawkins does mention it in later books like The Blind Watchmaker.) Thus, when critiquing modern evolutionary theory, it is Comfort who should have mentioned what I think is the most important modification of our view of evolution in the last 65 years.
We are of course lacking readers’ wildlife photos, though I don’t know why. If you have some good ones, please send them in.
We do have a batch today, though, sent in by reader Jan Malik. Today’s photos feature vultures from New York State, and there are photos of other birds that will come in a part 2. Jan’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
It is a little tradition of mine to spend at least one day each fall watching raptors from an exposed ledge on Millbrook Mountain, which is a part of the Shawangunk Ridge, NY. I would call it a “hawk watch”, but hawks are attracted on their way south by the nearby Hudson River, which is a much better navigational aid. Instead, a whole day is spent observing vultures. This year the foliage was not at its best and the light was below average, so I’m mixing pictures from the past couple of years.
The cliff is home to a mix of about 50 Turkey vultures (Cathartes aura) and Black vultures (Coragyps atratus), our only Northeast vultures. Neither the California condor nor the King vulture makes it here, and the peculiar Crested Caracara, half vulture-half hawk, doesn’t live north of Texas.
Here’s an early morning view from my perch, which is quite exposed but ensures privacy from the numerous hikers. Progressively fading into the distance are other parts of the ridge: Near Trapps, the Trapps, and Skytop, while the Hudson Valley is on the right:
Vultures are late-morning flyers. The unpredictability of their food forces extreme energy-saving behavior, such as efficient soaring flight and lowering body temperature at night by several degrees to minimize heat loss. In the morning, they use sheltered depressions in the cliff to sun and warm themselves. Here, three Turkey vultures spread their wings in the so-called horaltic pose, maximizing exposure to solar radiation:
Eventually, at 9-10 AM, the Millbrook cliff rocks heat up a bit and thermals—vertical movements of air based on density differences—develop enough to allow soaring flight for the Turkey vultures, who in good conditions can stay aloft indefinitely, flapping their wings only when taking off or alighting on a perch:
An hour or so later than for the Turkey vultures, flying weather develops for the Black vultures. Turkey vultures are possibly the most efficient flying organisms (outside of invertebrates), while the Black vultures need a little more effort to stay aloft – flapping their wings often enough that it is possible to tell them apart from a distance:
Another difference is the underside of the wings – it is mostly silvery-white in Turkey vultures:
Black vultures have white markings on the tips of their wings’ underside only:
Additionally, while Turkey vultures have uniformly black/dark brown wing coverts, Black vultures have white markings on their primary feathers, making them appear from a distance as white spots:
Black vultures often fly or soar with their feet down. This is paradoxical since it obviously increases aerodynamic drag, and I’d think that the Black vultures – having higher wing loading than the Turkey vultures – would do everything possible to avoid that. But apparently it is needed to stabilize the flight, possibly due to a different aspect ratio – Black vultures have slightly shorter tail feathers than do Turkey vultures:
When at rest, Black vultures stay together and a bit apart from the Turkey vultures, but I did not notice any particular animosity between these species. Each vulture group has social rules, with the best perches reserved for dominant birds. Scuffles are infrequent and posturing is usually enough to make a contender vacate a prime spot:
From time to time, Turkey vultures also conglomerate to rest and warm themselves in the sun. The same wing anatomy that allows hours-long soaring flight also lets them spread their wings effortlessly by locking their joints:
But then it’s taking to the air again, soaring up and down the ridge, in the hope of catching a whiff of decomposing flesh. What helps them in finding food is their good sense of smell, which they have in common with pelagic seabirds. From my observations on the Shawangunk Ridge (or, as climbers call it, the Gunks), their hearing is sub-par; a few times when scrambling on a ledge I caught a resting vulture quite unaware of my presence until I was nearly touching it:
It’s an AP article that says this (among other things):
For some evangelical Christians, faith is about having a personal relationship with Jesus. At $1.99 per minute, the tech company Just Like Me is taking that concept to a new level.
Users of the platform can join video calls with an avatar of Jesus generated by artificial intelligence. Like other religious AI tools on the market, it offers words of prayer and encouragement in various languages. With the occasional glitch, it remembers previous conversations and speaks through not-quite-synced lips.
You can also talk to avatars of Charlie Kirk, Santa Claus, or your twin.
Two bucks a minute is expensive! But the strip is funny.
Welcome to a Hump Day (“Il giro di boa della settimana” in Italian): Wednesday, October 28, 2026 and National Chocolate Day. Here are some profiteroles from one of myfavorite restaurants in Paris, filled with ice cream and topped with a warm and luscious chocolate sauce:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the October 28 Wikipedia page.
Posting will be light today as I have to go to the retina doctor for a checkup on the results of laser treatment. All was well last time, so I’m optimistic.
Da Nooz:
*There are conflicting results in the Israel vote. The NYT reports that it’s neck and neck between Eisenkot and Netanyahu (“Bibi”), but It’s Noon in Israel says that Bibi’s bloc is leading (“Bibi hasn’t won, but the opposition has lost“. We won’t know who will be prime minister until there’s until a coalition puts one forward or the country has another election.
NYT:
Israelis were bracing on Wednesday for what could be weeks of political gridlock after exit polls showed no clear winner in a national election that many have described as a make-or-break moment for the country.
Turnout in Tuesday’s election, widely seen as a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, was the highest in at least a quarter-century. It was the first election since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks ignited three years of war.
Exit polls — which have a spotty record in Israel — suggested that Mr. Netanyahu’s alliance was neck and neck with a bloc of opposition parties led by Gadi Eisenkot, leaving neither side positioned to form a government.
That uncertainty did not stop the leading candidates from making triumphant late-night speeches to their supporters.
Mr. Eisenkot, a former Israeli military chief of staff, struck a defiant tone toward Mr. Netanyahu, saying: “Tonight we got the answer: The public opted for change.”
It’s Noon in Israel:
It’s Wednesday, October 28, and with about 77 percent of the vote counted, Netanyahu’s coalition parties hold 54 seats to the change bloc’s 49. The Joint List has 11 and Ra’am six. Likud leads with 27 seats, followed by Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar with 22 and Naftali Bennett’s Beyachad with 12. The Democrats have eight, while United Torah Judaism, Yisrael Beiteinu, Otzma Yehudit and Shas each have seven, and Religious Zionism, running with Zehut, has six. These numbers will still shift, and the double-envelope ballots, cast by soldiers and other special voters, have yet to be counted.
Last night, the exit polls told one story: Netanyahu had lost, but it wasn’t clear who on the other side had won. This morning, the results are telling another. Netanyahu hasn’t won yet, but the change bloc has clearly lost.
I’ve covered politics since the start of the century. I have never seen a camp organize for an election as impeccably, as efficiently and as energetically as the change bloc did. It signed model surplus-vote agreements, so that no leftover votes would go to waste, and ran an unprecedented operation flying Israelis home from abroad to vote. And by the actual count, it ended up with more or less the same number of seats as in the last election.
Demography beat energy, and the message also proved flawed and unsuccessful. The public wasn’t convinced that the war had been a total victory, as Netanyahu claimed, but it also refused to buy the opposition’s claim that it was a total failure. It was repelled by Haredi draft-dodging, but didn’t think the solution was a minority government propped up by draft refusers and anti-Zionists. It was disgusted when ultra-Orthodox protesters chanted “We do not believe in the rule of the Zionists,” but it was just as shocked when “Biladi, Biladi,” the Palestinian national anthem, was sung at the Joint List’s headquarters last night.
As Yiddish speakers in Israel might say, “Oy vey!”
Finally, here was a subheadline in the NYT last night. You can always count on them to get in a dig at Israel, but this is ridiculous:
The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for the Trump administration to restrict a Biden-era policy that allows immigration judges to use their discretion to close thousands of deportation cases each year.
Immigration advocates say the practice allows judges to ease loads on strained immigration courts and spare some migrants — such as crime victims or neglected juveniles — from going through removal proceedings if they have a good case for remaining in the United States.
Critics call the procedure, known as “administrative closure,” a form of backdoor amnesty.
After the first Trump administration tried to bar judges from using administrative closure, the Biden administration codified the practice in 2024.It hasbeen going on in some form for decades, with roughly 360,000 migrants granted administrative closure since 1990, according to government statistics.
The cases are closed, but not dismissed, so they could now be reopened.
When Trump returned to office last year, the administration announced it would no longer defend the Biden-era policy. Texas then challenged the rule in afederal court inthat state.
The Department of Justice told the judge it supported a judgment favoring Texas. The judge entered a permanent injunction blocking the policy allowingadministrative closure.
Three cities with large migrant populations — Baltimore; Columbus, Ohio; and New Haven, Connecticut — and an immigrant rights’ group sought to intervene in the case to defend the Biden rule and overturn the judgment. Courts denied those moves, giving way to their appeal to the Supreme Court.
I guess they vote on these unsigned opinions, and I further guess that the vote was 6-3. Will we ever find out (I doubt it) or get any written opinions? The decision seems ok insofar as some immigrants who should be deported are allowed to stay, but I doubt that many (or any) of the closed-out cases involve clearly deporation-worthy people.
*I love quizzes in the news, and the Wall Street Journal has one placing you as either very liberal, somewhat liberal, moderate, somewhat conservative, or very conservative.
The Wall Street Journal found broad areas of agreement when it asked 1,500 voters recently about some of the top policy ideas circulating in Congress and on the campaign trail.
Conservatives, liberals and moderates all backed a set of ideas to make healthcare and other expenses more affordable, as well as to curb illegal immigration. Yet some ideas were sharply polarizing and drew staunch opposition along ideological lines.
Take our poll to see how your views compare with the liberals, conservatives and moderates in our survey.
First you self-identify (I said I thought I was “somewhat liberal), then you’re asked how you feel about policies in the three areas of cost of living, healthcare, and immigration and the border. You have to say how you feel about four statements in each area, then you get a score. Here’s my outcome, which is disparate in the three areas, and I’m typed as a “moderate” overall. I guess that’s okay, though I just voted by mail, and my votes would, I think, type me as at least “somewhat liberal.”
*Over at his Substack site, Maarten Boudry argues that “Islamo-Leftism is not a conspiracy theory“, using evidence to show that the “red-green alliance” is very real and is coming for the West. (The article is free.) It started with this tweet, which you should read in full:
We will all soon know what it feels like to be Jewish. In France, they already do.
It will be our just deserts for having abandoned the Jews, ignored their warnings, turned against them, and even marched alongside their oppressors.
For three years, you useful idiots have been parading Palestinian flags, sporting keffiyehs, screaming “From the River to the Sea”, and recognizing a fictitious Palestinian state as a reward for Hamas’s October 7 massacre (looking at you, @EmmanuelMacron). You have boycotted the only Jewish state in the world, vilified the Jewish people’s right to self-determination (aka “Zionism”), and spread the “Gaza genocide” blood libel.
Did you really think that if you fed the crocodile enough Jewish flesh, it would eventually be satiated? All you have done is embolden the monster and whet its appetite.
So you were worried about “colonization”? Look around. The only thing being colonized here are our own Western cities. The Palestinian flag has become a victory banner, proudly waved amid the ruins of looted and vandalized historic buildings—a symbol of hatred for our civilization and everything it stands for.
In its mainstream form, Islamo-leftism is simply the left’s love affair with Islam, which it regards as the religion of the downtrodden and oppressed. The bargain is straightforward: leftists coddle Muslims and give them preferential treatment, while Muslims respond by voting for left-wing parties. The perfect embodiment of this rapprochement is the concept of “Islamophobia”, which left-wing academics, journalists and intellectuals have brandished for decades to shield Islam from legitimate criticism, much to the delight of Islamists. Instead of contemplating the possibility that fear of Islam may be a rational response to certain Islamic doctrines (such as the death penalty for apostates) and to the attitudes of the many Muslims who endorse them, large swaths of the left have pretended that it is a form of mental illness, an irrational paranoia with no basis in fact.
,. . . Even progressives who don’t actively rally to Islam’s defense have often turned a blind eye to the homophobia, misogyny, antisemitism and violence against apostates that are rampant in Islam, while sternly condemning comparable tendencies among fundamentalist Christians. This double standard is in itself a passive form of Islamo-leftism: abandoning your own progressive values for the sake of one religion, because most of its adherents have a darker complexion and you’re afraid of being called racist.
. . . The most explicit form of the Red-Green alliance is plainly visible on the streets of every Western city. For years, radical-left and Islamist groups have marched shoulder to shoulder at demonstrations and rallies against their common enemies: Zionism and Western imperialism. This unholy alliance is now held together by the all-purpose Palestinian flag, which no longer represents a people or an aspiring country, but an avatar onto which all sorts of fantasies can be projected.
For Muslims, it stands for the religious struggle against both the Little Satan (Israel) and the Great Satan (the United States), and for the religious duty to reconquer every piece of land that was once under Islamic rule. For leftists, it is the one thread that will unravel the whole fabric of the despised world order. That is the only way to understand the Irish writer Sally Rooney’s bizarre claim that “the liberation of Palestine represents the liberation of the world”. Although both groups have their reasons for obsessing about Palestine, it is mostly the Muslims who lead and the leftists who follow. If your favorite victim group hates the Jews Zionists with such fervor, surely those Jews Zionists must be uniquely diabolical.
Still not explicit enough for you? In 2006, one of the most influential academics on the left, Judith Butler, has described Hamas and Hezbollah as “progressive” movements that are “on the left”. She also insisted that the October 7 attack was not a terrorist attack but “an act of armed resistance”.
Soccer star Kylian Mbappé apologized for comments in which he apparently referred to Mao Zedong, the founding leader of Communist China, as a dictator, after facing backlash and losing brand deals with at least three different Chinese companies.
“My comment was ill-judged, and I now understand that it hurt many people in China and in Chinese communities around the world,” Mbappé said in a statement Tuesday.
“I apologize to everyone my words have upset,” he said. “This was absolutely not my intention. I have deep respect for the Chinese people and their history, and I am sincerely sorry.”
The incident is the latest in a string of cases where China leverages its economic clout to compel foreign companies and individuals to toe its political line. In 2019, Chinese state television ceased broadcasting NBA games after then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted support for anti-government protesters in Hong Kong.
. . .Beverage maker Dongpeng, dairy giant Mengniu and cheese maker Milkground said in similarly worded statements Tuesday that they were ending agreements with the soccer star, each saying they oppose “any words and actions that hurt national sentiment.”
The companies did not specify what prompted their decisions, but they released their statements after a clip that appeared to show Mbappé being interviewed ahead of going on the French online talk show “The Bridge” circulated on X.
The China Football Association said in a statement Tuesday that it has “lodged a stern protest” with Real Madrid and demanded that both the player and the football club “issue a public and formal apology.”
What did Mbappé say? Here’s Wikipedia’s report:
On 26 October 2026, during a French talk show The Bridge, Mbappé said that a meme “that makes me laugh the most…the one where there’s a video of a guy, I think it’s a Chinese dictator”, which refers to Mao Zedong, the founder and first leader of the People’s Republic of China. Mao’s portrait superimposed with Mbappé’s face appeared as he spoke.
I wouldn’t apologize, though I’m far, far poorer than Mbappé. And how many Chinese really would be offended if Mao were called a dictator, especially because he was? Here’s a video showing Mbappé at work:
An Australian man serving a life sentence for murder lost his legal effort to be able to eat Vegemite behind bars when a state supreme court on Monday upheld a prison ban on the country’s beloved spread.
For some, being spared the salty, yeasty condiment might seem like mercy. But Andre McKechnie argued that it was a violation of his human rights.
He filed suit last year in the Supreme Court of Victoria, arguing that the state’s ban on serving the pantry staple in prisons denied him his “culture as an Australian.” Prison officials, however, saw a security risk: The pungent spread could distract police dogs trained to sniff out contraband and could also be used by prisoners to brew alcohol.
The court ruled that Mr. McKechnie’s cultural rights had been curtailed but that the restriction was justified because of security concerns. In a 47-page judgment, Justice Claire Harris identified a fundamental justification for the ban.
“The limitation on Mr. McKechnie’s ability to enjoy Vegemite in community with other persons of Australian background is primarily that he is a prisoner, having been sentenced by a court to a term of imprisonment,” she wrote.
In his suit, Mr. McKechnie noted that neighboring New South Wales did not ban Vegemite from its prisons and claimed that not eating it made him feel “sad and disconnected from my family and community.”
Justice Harris was unconvinced.
“It is difficult to accept that the inability to consume Vegemite, rather than the fact of his imprisonment, is a material cause of his sadness and disconnection from his family and community,” she wrote.
. . .Vegemite was invented in Melbourne in the 1920s and can be found in more than 80 percent of Australian households today, according to the company’s website. Like Marmite, its British forebear, the spread inspires intense loyalty and equal distaste.
President Barack Obama called it “horrible.” But for many in Australia, it is a cherished national icon.
Barack Obama was right.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili feigns ignorance::
Hili: If my bowl is empty… Me: It means somebody has eaten whatever I put in it.
Hili: Is it possible that somebody was me?
In Polish:
Hili: Jeśli moja miseczka jest pusta…
Ja: To znaczy, że ktoś zjadł to, co do niej włożyłem.
Hili: Czy to mogłam być ja?
From Luana. I have to note that I was once an “entitled hippy bastard”:
An oldie but a goodie. In 1968 a bunch of entitled hippy bastards sent a letter detailing their specious demands to the Warden and Fellows of Wadham College, Oxford. This was their letter of reply, which speaks to how far the academy has since fallen. https://t.co/si8oxve85p
Wisdom just welcomed another chick at approximately seventy-four years of age.
The most elderly documented wild bird on Earth has been breeding offspring since the era of President Eisenhower. Biologists originally placed an identification band on the Laysan albatross back in 1956, a time when she had already reached maturity and was occupying a breeding nest. Almost seventy years after that moment, she arrived back at Midway Atoll in the Pacific Ocean alongside a different mate and produced another egg during the final months of 2024.
Her historic partner, Akeakamai, had gone missing for numerous consecutive seasons. Although these seabirds typically establish permanent, lifelong unions, they possess the ability to choose a replacement companion if their original mate vanishes.
Conservation officers successfully captured footage of Wisdom softly leaning her head against her current mate shortly before he took his place on top of their shared egg.
Two from my feed. First, the infamous Michigan campaign ad made by Cenk Uygur’s organization. He has said it’s “defamatory,” but it’s not. Van Jones says that El-Sayed should denounce it, but he hasn’t, as far as I know:
I have spoken out against anti-Muslim hate in the Michigan Senate race. I will speak out just as loudly when the target is Jewish people.
Let me state a little-known fact: ISRAEL GETS LESS THAN 0.1 PERCENT OF THE FEDERAL BUDGET. That’s less than one tenth of a percent!
But there is an ad running that tells voters they can’t afford groceries because the United States gives so much money to Israel. In reality, the United States spends money in and on countries all around the world – but this ad singles out the Jewish state. The ad is as dangerous as it is dishonest.
You can disagree with how the United States spends money abroad. But telling hungry families that the Jewish state is the reason they are suffering is wrong and shameful.
Blaming Jews for people’s problems is an old story. Anybody who has read the last century of history knows where it leads. It is a dark pathway.
This ad is anti-Jewish hate and should come down immediately. Abdul El-Sayed should denounce it today.
This Dutch Jewish boy was gassed to death as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz, probably with his mother. He was three years old, and would be 88 today had he lived.
Two from Dr. Cobb. First, apparent REM sleep in spiders. Do they dream?
🕷️💤 New paper in time for 🎃!Do #spiders really sleep? In our new study on #Portia fimbriata we tested all behavioural criteria of #sleep and found evidence for regulated, two-stage sleep with recurring REM-like stages. Out in @pnas.org!@roesslerdaniela.bsky.social 📄 tinyurl.com/3fky8ze7🧵1/9
Look how deep this crab it! I don’t think it could walk to that spot:
The #SamplingGap team recorded this wily crustacean more than 4,300 m beneath the ocean surface. During this expedition, scientists are documenting biodiversity along the Romanche Fracture Zone, an active transform fault that serves as a vital corridor between the eastern & western Atlantic basins.
It’s clear that the two great female vocalists of our time were Karen Carpenter and Barbra Streisand. It’s harder to choose best male vocalists, but surely near the top should be Johnny Mathis, who is 91. What a voice! Among his great songs is “It’s not for Me to Say,” recorded in 1957 and here performed live.
Nathaniel Comfort is identified by Wikipedia as “an American historian specializing in the history of biology. He is an associate professor in the Institute of the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University”. Comfort has written several books on the history of genetics, including a biography of Barbara McClintock, and I’ve heard he’s nearly finished what is likely to be the definitive biography of J. D. Watson. I have a great deal of respect for him.
Thus I was baffled by Comfort’s new piece in Nature discussing (or rather, dissing) Richard Dawkins’s The Selfish Gene. Despite that book’s influence and renown, Comfort claims that it’s outdated: indeed, not worth reading at all compared to books that discuss the view of evolution favored by Comfort. And Comfort’s favored view is that of the “Extended Evolutionary Synthesis” (“EES”), which argues that the “neo-Darwinian view of evolution” that fused natural selection and Mendelian genetics, is wrong and needs replacement with a new theory. I’ve discussed this view at length over the years (see my posts collected here), and, along with Doug Futuyma (see his article below), I note that while new discoveries have created add-ons to evolutionary theory (and dispelled some of Darwin’s own tenets, like the widespread inheritance of acquired traits), they don’t call for a new theory of evolution. The Selfish Gene is not outmoded—far from it.
In his essay, Comfort says that Dawkins’s view of evolution by natural selection as a process you can think of as driven by “selfish genes” is wrong: it’s too narrow and best left on the shelf. You can read Comfort’s piece here or by clicking on the title below:
As you may recall, Dawkins’s main point was that the unit of evolution by natural selection was the gene, or “replicator”: a bit of DNA that can reproduce itself from one generation to the next. The unit is not the individual, the group, or the species, but the replicator, which can be seen as “selfish” because those genes that replicate faster than their alternative forms will be the ones most represented in the the future. Faster replication can, for example, be effected by building bodies (“vehicles”) that last longer and leave more offspring than others. This is the main way we think of evolution by natural selection, but Dawkins’s “gene’s-eye view” is broader than this. Transposable genetic elements, for example, facilitate their own reproduction and survival by replicating quickly and infesting other parts of the genome. They spread through a species not by enhancing an organism’s adaptation, survival, or reproduction, but their ownreproduction.
Further, as the book points out, a gene can spread by selection even if it reduces the survival or number of offspring of the bearer itself, but enhances the number of copies present in relatives or groupmates—via kin selection or reciprocal altruism. This view of natural selection can be thought of as the spread of “selfish” genes, but, as Dawkins asserts repeatedly, it need not lead to selfish or aggressive behavior of individuals—one of the most common misunderstandings of the book.
The gene’s-eye view influenced not just the public, but many biologists, including me, and it clarifies a number of points that were murky (e.g., kin selection). But Comfort says it’s narrow and outmoded. Take a look at Comfort’s second paragraph:
Re-reading it now, with decades of scholarship in the history of biology under my belt, it seems less benign. The determinism baked into the “gene’s-eye view” in the book troubles me, as does the passivity of the organism in Dawkins’s telling — a “vehicle”, a mere “replicator”. The implication: that traits such as aggression are hard-wired into people. Fortunately, over the past couple of decades, new tools, fresh models and scholars in many disciplines have begun to embrace the complex reality of biology. Readers in search of an understanding of life on Earth today would do better to reach for books that take a broader view.
Yes, in fact organisms are passive, for although they can influence the spread of replicators via their own behavior, those behavioral features are themselves the product of “selfish genes” (an example is “extended phenotypes”, like the beaver dam—one subject of Dawkins’s eponymous book). This is truly a deterministic, naturalistic process that has no room for “agency,” “will”, or teleology, though I’ve suggested that truly nondeterministic processes like quantum mechanics might influence evolution by producing mutations. Absent quantum effects, evolution is indeed deterministic, and organisms are vehicles that express the products of replicators. (Yes, I know that some physicists think quantum mechanics is deterministic in ways we don’t understand.)
As for the implication that selfish genes imply the evolution of aggression or other such behaviors, Comfort apparently hasn’t got Dawkins’s message.
So what is the “broader” view of biology that, Comfort argues, should replace that of the selfish gene? It is the “Extended Evolutionary Synthesis,” which calls for a wholesale rebuild of neo-Darwinian evolution because of things like epigenetic modification, “niche construction” (e.g., the beaver dam cited above), behavioral and morphological plasticity, and what is called “natural genetic engineering”, a quasi-teleological view, largely touted by James Shapiro, which claims that organisms engineer their own fates by some “intelligent” process that did not evolve in the Dawkinsian way.
As Doug Futuyma explains in his paper below, all the phenomena mentioned above, save “natural genetic engineering,” fit comfortably within the modern synthesis, even though some discoveries, like epigenetic modification of DNA, have been made in recent decades. (I’ll point out here that DNA modified by the environment can cause evolutionary change only insofar as it produces “selfish [modified] DNA that replicates faster than unmodified DNA. And we have almost no cases of epigenetic modification not themselves coded in the DNA forming the basis of evolutionary change.)
I’ll make just two more points; the first involving the “directionality” of evolution. Here’s more from Comfort’s piece:
For instance, neo-Darwinism teaches that evolution is a random walk through changing environments, with selection favouring whatever traits help an organism to survive. Today, many scholars argue that there has to be direction to evolution. In How Life Works (2023), for instance, journalist Philip Ball points out that in a single cell, there is an unfathomably large number of possible interactions between different kinds of molecule — and there are about 37 trillion cells in one human body. “Such a system,” Ball writes, “can only hope to be stable if, out of all this complexity, only a limited number of collective ways of being may emerge”. Living organisms are forced to evolve in those few directions.
And the neo-Darwinian idea of evolution as a random process seems to run counter to the unavoidable observation that life has evolved towards ever-greater complexity. Biochemist Nick Lane has argued that, right back to life’s origin, the main driver of this complexity is the second law of thermodynamics — entropy, the tendency toward disorder. “Energy-releasing chemical reactions are at the core of the living process of all organisms,” wrote he and others (W. F. Martin et al. Science344, 1092–1093; 2014). The detailed chemistry behind this idea is outlined in depth in Lane’s brilliant 2015 book, The Vital Question. The overall idea is that complex life forms dissipate more heat than do their simpler counterparts. Life on Earth is pushed towards greater complexity and abundance because, given the composition of the planet, it is energetically favourable.
The first paragraph is in fact not a refutation of the selfish gene view. The only direction to evolution—and one that Dawkins notes—is that replicators get better and better at replicating over time. This in general leads to an increase in survival and reproduction of the “vehicles”—organisms—but it need not. The spread of transposable genetic elements, which account for a great deal of “genetic junk” that dominates our own genome, is one example. And nobody I know of thinks that organisms are unconstrained, either by their own nature or by the environment, in the way they can evolve. There are guardrails.
Second, the discussion of why life was once simple but has become more complex is not new. For one thing, life started out simple and thus if it was to go anywhere, it had to become at least a bit more complex. But the view of unidirectional complexity is simply not true. What is true is that life is a cumulative process, with new “adaptations” evolving from old ones, so a great deal of adaptive residue remains in our genome. But you’d be hard pressed to show that “complexity” has increased unidirectionally after we had multicellar organisms inhabiting many of the world’s niches. (By the way, each organism becomes or makes niches for other organisms, so evolution creates new ways of life, but that doesn’t mean that “life is more complex”).
Finally, there are many organisms that have evolved to become less complex, as replicators that “de-evolve” some features may be favored in some environments. Parasites are a common example. Tapeworms, for example, used to be free-living flatworms, but when they invaded the guts of organisms they lost most of their nervous and sensory systems, their digestive system, and their genomes became much simpler. Cave-dwelling organisms often lose their eyes: a decrease in complexity. Snakes used to be lizard-like organisms but have lost their limbs. Whales also lost their limbs. These examples are rife, and I won’t go on. The point is that Comfort is either distorting what Dawkins says, distorting what the Modern Synthesis says or implies, or distorting what’s happened in evolution.
Touting the EES, Comfort tells us above that there are better books to reach for than The Selfish Gene if you wish to understand where the theory of evolution stands. I would simply recommend Doug Futuyma and Mark Kirkpatrick’s high-level evolution textbook, simply called Evolution(Fifth Edition), published in 2022. To deal specifically with claims that the EES dismantles or greatly modifies the view of evolution in that textbook, you should read Doug Futuyma’s article below (click on the link). I’ve put its abstract below the title:
Abstract:
Evolutionary theory has been extended almost continually since the evolutionary synthesis (ES), but except for the much greater importance afforded genetic drift, the principal tenets of the ES have been strongly supported. Adaptations are attributable to the sorting of genetic variation by natural selection, which remains the only known cause of increase in fitness. Mutations are not adaptively directed, but as principal authors of the ES recognized, the material (structural) bases of biochemistry and development affect the variety of phenotypic variations that arise by mutation and recombination. Against this historical background, I analyse major propositions in the movement for an ‘extended evolutionary synthesis’. ‘Niche construction’ is a new label for a wide variety of well-known phenomena, many of which have been extensively studied, but (as with every topic in evolutionary biology) some aspects may have been understudied. There is no reason to consider it a neglected ‘process’ of evolution. The proposition that phenotypic plasticity may engender new adaptive phenotypes that are later genetically assimilated or accommodated is theoretically plausible; it may be most likely when the new phenotype is not truly novel, but is instead a slight extension of a reaction norm already shaped by natural selection in similar environments. However, evolution in new environments often compensates for maladaptive plastic phenotypic responses. The union of population genetic theory with mechanistic understanding of developmental processes enables more complete understanding by joining ultimate and proximate causation; but the latter does not replace or invalidate the former. Newly discovered molecular phenomena have been easily accommodated in the past by elaborating orthodox evolutionary theory, and it appears that the same holds today for phenomena such as epigenetic inheritance. In several of these areas, empirical evidence is needed to evaluate enthusiastic speculation. Evolutionary theory will continue to be extended, but there is no sign that it requires emendation.
No, evolution does not need a rebuild, and The Selfish Gene is not outmoded. It remains, for those who haven’t read it, a page-turner.
h/t reader John, who called my attention to Comfort’s article
Welcome to The Cruelest Day: Tuesday, October 27, 2026 and National American Beer Day. Here are the 10 top-rated American beers from the reliable Beer Advocate. The rankings are from the top down. You can go to the description of each beer by clicking on the links. (The taste of beer #1 is described as “Chocolate chip pancakes drenched with maple syrup served with espresso and a shot of bourbon, all in one sip. Our award-winning KBBS is decadence in a bottle.” What do you think a bottle costs? Yep, around $700 for ONE BOTTLE OF BEER! (That’s in Europe; I can’t find an American price because there isn’t any left for sale.)
Note that nearly all are very high in alcohol. I haven’t had any of these.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the October 26 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*The elections in Israel are taking place at this moment, but it may be weeks before we know who the Prime Minister will be (the voting is for the Knesset, not the PM, who is selected after discussion and coalition-forming.) From It’s Noon in Israel:
It’s Tuesday, October 27, and election day has finally arrived. As some five million Israelis enter the voting booth today and survey their three dozen options, they will be thinking about one thing: October 7.
Polls opened at 7 a.m., but, like so much of contemporary Israel, it began at 6:29 a.m. three years ago. Roughly half the country will cast its ballot on the conviction that such an event must never happen again, and they see the hawkish national camp as the best guarantor. The other half remembers who was in power on October 7 and cannot tolerate them staying in office. Those two approaches have defined the last three years of Israeli public discourse and are likely to continue to define the next four years as well.
From Umm al-Fahm in the north to Be’er Sheva in the south, from Tel Aviv to Bnei Brak, an energy has taken hold of the country. We are already seeing the highest turnout in 45 years: 16.68 percent as of 10 a.m. The last time the numbers were this high, the choice was Menachem Begin or Shimon Peres, and Israel still used the old shekel.
The closest comparison I can draw to this moment is the feeling of waiting for an Iranian retaliation: the calm before the storm, the sense that something momentous, terrible or miraculous is on the horizon.
Yet if Israelis weather attacks as one, they face this day nestled in their respective camps.
In all my years covering elections this millennium, I have never seen the center-left so organized or so energized. “The most important election in Israel’s history” is a recycled phrase, but for this camp it may well be true. After taking to the streets regularly for nearly four years to little effect, they finally have the opportunity to topple a coalition they despise. Yet if Gadi Eisenkot, falls short, one has to wonder whether the camp can easily bounce back, swap one general for another and rally behind him for 2030. Depending on the outcome, this may well be the last gasp of what was once Israel’s dominant political force.
It may take weeks before we know who the PM will be.
Below is the radiant Gal casting her ballot today, apparently taken from an Instagram video I can’t find. The caption at the Times of Israel is, “Gal Gadot posts a recording of herself as she casts a vote on Israel’s election day, October 27, 2026 (Courtesy).”. h/t Bat
She’s apparently not a fan of the present government:
“I’m voting for change, and I hope that today, Tuesday, pa’amayim ki tov (Tuesdays are traditionally viewed in Jewish culture as a lucky day) that it will only be good for us all,” said Gadot, blowing a kiss at the camera.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil surged to a remarkable re-election on Sunday, according to official preliminary results, but his opponent, Flávio Bolsonaro, said he would not accept the results after a chaotic Election Day.
Mr. Lula’s victory, which ended a string of conservative wins in Latin America cheered on by President Trump, came after a judge ordered polls to remain open an additional two hours — a move requested by both campaigns after transportation delays and bad weather disrupted voting. At a news conference, Mr. Bolsonaro called for the election to be annulled, saying the decision to keep the polls open “changed the rules in the middle of the game.”
“There’s a lot that needs to be cleared up before Brazil simply accepts this foul play that took place in these elections,” he said.
Mr. Lula received 51.8 percent of the vote, versus 48.2 percent for Flávio Bolsonaro, with 99.9 percent of the ballots counted, according to official preliminary results.
The leftist’s margin of victory was wider than four years ago, and was predicted by few pollsters. Even more stunning was that he achieved the comeback after placing second in the first round of voting earlier this month, a first in Brazilian history.
“I would like to thank the Brazilian people for the generosity they have shown me for a long time,” Mr. Lula said in a victory speech in São Paulo.
Mr. Lula, 80, had framed his candidacy as a vote for democracy and the only way to bar the return of the Bolsonaro family to power. He has frequently and defiantly clashed with Mr. Trump, who attempted to use tariffs and sanctions to keep Mr. Bolsonaro’s father, Jair, out of prison for his attempted coup four years ago.
I’ve heard that both candidates are corrupt, but I can’t vouch for that. What puzzles me is that both candidates agreed to keep the polls open, but Bolsonaro subsequently beefed about the longer period of voting when he lost. What is better known is the Lula is more anti-Israel then Bolsonaro—a connection to the Left that seems to hold most everywhere.
Venezuela’s most popular opposition leader, María Corina Machado, returned home on Sunday after nearly a year in exile, increasing pressure on the country’s authoritarian government — and its new chief authority, the United States — to move quickly toward a democratic transition.
At 11:31 a.m. Venezuela time, Ms. Machado wrote on X: “I am here. With you all.”
Ms. Machado entered Venezuela from neighboring Colombia, according to two government officials who asked not to be named to be able to discuss sensitive matters.
In the past, the Trump administration had made clear in private exchanges to foreign officials that it did not support Ms. Machado’s return, according to U.S. officials, and her travel was blocked. But on this occasion U.S. officials decided not to intervene.
As critical U.S. midterm elections near, some voters in Florida have maintained that the United States is not pushing hard enough for democratic change in Venezuela.
Ms. Machado has called for elections in Venezuela by next July, and has expressed her interest in running for president. She would be an extremely competitive challenger to the interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, who is part of the repressive government that has run the country for a generation.
and a tweet from her party (English translation): “#NOW | @MariaCorinaYA arrives at the Church of Santa Rosa, in #Lara, to thank the Divine Shepherdess for her return to Venezuela, after ten months out of the country. With faith and hand in hand with God, she reunites with the Venezuelans and her land! Welcome, your place and your task is here, with your people.”
#AHORA | @MariaCorinaYA llega a la Iglesia de Santa Rosa, en #Lara, para agradecer a la Divina Pastora por su regreso a Venezuela, luego de diez meses fuera del país.
¡Con fe y de la mano de Dios, se reencuentra con los venezolanos y su tierra!
Bienvenida, @MariaCorinaYA, tu lugar y tu tarea es aquí, con tu gente.
There’s too much God in there, but that doesn’t bother me too much. She’d be a much better leader than Rodriguez, who is basically a female equivalent for Maduro who was elevated to power by Trump in a deal for oil.
*It’s a movement among “progressives,” and even liberal Democrats, to call for a tax on billionaires (we have one on the Illinois ballot). But Democrats are actually divided on this tax, at least in California.
The idea seemed simple at first: a one-time tax on California’s billionaires to counter looming cuts to Medicaid.
Instead, the proposed wealth tax has exposed deep divisions among Democrats and created strange bedfellows on both sides working to defeat or pass the proposal.
Drama surrounding the measure includes a fight among labor unions worried their own priorities will suffer, tech elites putting down hundreds of millions to defeat it and allegations of extortion and harassment by the tax’s architect.
The messy fight has gripped California for the past year and shows how enacting a long-heralded concept on the left—taxing billionaires’ stratospheric wealth—is far from easy, even in one of the nation’s bluest states. It has been one of the costliest ballot fights in California’s history.
Voters will decide on Nov. 3 whether to approve the nation’s first-ever wealth tax targeting billionaires. The latest independent polls show slightly more voters support than oppose the tax, with large numbers undecided. Democratic voters show much stronger support—despite opposition by many of their leaders.
. . .The one-time, 5% tax would apply to the net assets of California residents worth $1 billion or more at the end of 2026. Rather than income or real estate, it would be levied on assets such as publicly traded stocks, bonds, private business interests, intellectual property and art. A person taxed on $10 billion in assets would owe $500 million.
The tax would apply to people who were California residents on Jan. 1, 2026, making it tougher for billionaires to skirt it by moving elsewhere. If the initiative passes, that retroactivity and other aspects of the law are expected to be tested in court.
Proponents estimate the tax will raise around $100 billion from between 200 and 300 California billionaires and argue it is necessary to prevent hospitals from closing, millions of residents from losing health coverage and insurance costs from spiking.
. . .The initiative set off a reordering of traditional political allies. A main concern: It might push wealthy people to leave the state, which over time could cause a painful hit to the state’s tax receipts. Gov. Gavin Newsom is against the measure, saying it could undermine California’s competitiveness.
Newsom has argued for a national wealth tax instead—the state’s top Democrat is finishing his final term in California and is discussing running for president in 2028. The Democratic candidate on the ballot to replace him as governor, Xavier Becerra, also opposes the measure.
But the state’s Democratic Party endorsed it—in a high-stakes weekend vote in August. Some progressives are in favor, including Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat representing Silicon Valley, as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, who has held rallies in Los Angeles and San Francisco backing the tax plan.
The tax will probably be instituted as there are more Democrats than billionaires in California, and it sounds like a no-brainer, though there could be long-term consequences. All I can say is that taxing billionaires beats killing them, something that blogger P. Z. Myers and his acolytes apparently favor.
It’s Monday, October 26, 18 hours before the election, and “history will not forget the role Zamir played in the last few days,” a senior security source told Channel 12’s Yaron Avraham, as an unprecedented confrontation between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir came to a head.
According to the report, Zamir received a directive from the political echelon. Rather than carry it out, he asked for an in-depth discussion first, along with legal authorization signed by the political leadership. “This is an action that could lead to a lightning confrontation with Iran at a sensitive and dramatic moment, and create a miscalculation,” a senior security official told the channel. Two sources described a discussion between the prime minister and the chief of staff on Sunday as very tense.
Sources familiar with the details said the military fears an attempt “to exploit the Iranian issue for political momentum.” That is how many will read the story: Zamir as Vasili Arkhipov, the Soviet officer refusing to sign off on firing a nuclear torpedo. The reality is closer to an officer demanding final confirmation before turning the final key.
The dispute does not appear to be over a yes-or-no decision on striking Iran. It is over the moves short of a strike, and how Tehran might read them. Israel is already taking actions that could easily spiral into war. Last week, dozens of Israeli fighter jets and refueling planes flew across Syrian and Iraqi airspace to the edge of Iran, some 1,300 kilometers from home, and turned back. Israel notified Washington in advance and called the flight a “power projection” exercise meant to deter Iran from attacking before the election. But it could easily have been mistaken for something else. Even American officials were suspicious, telling Axios that Israel may have hoped Iranian air defenses would open fire and hand it a pretext to strike.
*Reader Barry sent me the “Headline of the week from the Sunday Times,” which you can see below and read here (if you subcribe). The title is definitely clickbait. And yes, that’s subject Juliana Glasse, erstwhile Christian pop singer, in the photo.
A short excerpt:
JuliannaGlasse had been caught red-handed.
Glasse and Ben Zobrist, then a professional baseball player, had three children together and were muscling through a difficult patch in their 13-year marriage. Zobrist gestured towards the piles of books that Glasse had hidden around the house: in the linen closet, beneath her hairdryer, under the kitchen sink with the cleaning supplies. The works of Plato, Simone de Beauvoir, Toni Morrison and Ralph Waldo Emerson all stared back at her.
“You see?” she recalled him saying. “This is what happens when you read!”
Glasse, originally from Iowa City, had grown up in an evangelical household and gone on to become a successful Christian pop star. Until that moment, at the age of 34, she had fully embraced her fundamentalist lifestyle. But the suggestion that books were making her unhappy and hurting her marriage stuck with her.
“This is what happens when women read”, Glasse typed into her phone’s notes app after the fight was over. For a long time, she had been able to keep up appearances as a “godly woman and submissive wife”, where she felt her voice, needs and desires were all secondary to her husband’s. “When he spoke those words … it was like the runway of my life lit up, and the exit sign of my life lit up at the same time,” Glasse, now 42, told The Times over Zoom recently.
The phrase became her personal mantra, a rallying cry, and the name of her eventual foundation, which aims to liberate women from fundamentalist backgrounds. From evangelical wife to chief executive and gay rights advocate, Glasse has shared her journey to fight back against the book-banning movement across the US: “Under a second Trump administration, as books are being pulled from shelves, Plato is policed in American classrooms, and religion is wielded around the world to control women’s bodies, minds, and votes.”
Glasse said her ex-husband was right. “This is what happens when women read. We notice the systems that we’re in, we can begin to articulate what feels repressive or suppressive within those systems, we begin to challenge them … [and] we can actually leave them.”
This is why literacy and free availability of books is so important, as you can’t change oppressive systems unless you are literate. Glass, of course, was literate, but she was forbidden to read. The piece is an excerpt from her new book, This is What Happens When Women Read—also the title of her foundation to promote women’s literacy.
*The video below is an antisemitic ad for Abdul el-Sayed, though it wasn’t produced by the Michigan senatorial candidate but by, of all people, the odious Cenk Uygur. From JFeed (their bolding):
A new ad from a political action committee founded by Cenk Uygur, the host of The Young Turks, tells Michigan voters that their struggles to afford groceries and health care are Israel’s fault, days before the state’s tight Senate race.
The spot, paid for by Rebellion PAC, backs Democrat Abdul El-Sayed against Republican Mike Rogers. It shows a family in a grocery store worrying over food prices and denied health care, and ties their hardship to American support for Israel. Uygur promoted the ad on X on October 24, writing: “We have to suffer here at home, so Israel can get all its wars. That’s why they buy politicians like Mike Rogers.” He added that Rogers had promised to serve Israel “unconditionally,” but never made that promise to Michigan voters.
The ad is an independent expenditure, and its disclaimer states that it was not authorized by any candidate.
Critics say the ad repackages an old antisemitic trope for a modern campaign: ordinary people are suffering, and the Jews are to blame. Simone Rodan-Benzaquen said it was one of the most antisemitic political ads she had ever seen, summarizing its message as: your life is hard, groceries are expensive, and the Jewish state is why.
The ad’s economic claims also fall apart on inspection. US military aid to Israel can by law only be spent on American-made weapons, meaning the money flows back into the US defense industry rather than coming out of Michigan families’ grocery or health care budgets. Critics pointed out that Israel has also bought more than $1 billion in additional American arms since October 7.
Uygur responded to the backlash with derision. He dismissed the criticism as the reflexive “antisemite” charge, and claimed people were being called antisemites simply for refusing to fund Israel’s “genocide.” In another post, he asked supporters to donate so the ad could run more, writing that doing so would “drive the radical Zionists crazy.”
It is not the first time Uygur has framed the race around Israel. Appearing on Piers Morgan in September, he declared that Rogers “works for Israel” and urged voters: “Do not let Israel buy that seat.”
Here’s the commercial, straight from the Cenk’s mouth:
New @RebellionPac ad dropping in Michigan. We have to suffer here at home, so Israel can get all its wars. That’s why they buy politicians like Mike Rogers. He promised to serve Israel “unconditionally,” but never made that promise to you. https://t.co/mtgVOyNczg
In a 12-minute speech in Poland, Masih compares the victims of Islamist Iran to the victims of Auschwitz (which is in Poland).
The Handmaid’s Tale is fiction for you. For us, it’s real life.
In Poland, I spoke about the victims of Auschwitz and the people massacred by the Islamic Republic in Iran. History teaches us what happens when the world looks away. We must remember the victims, confront tyranny, and refuse to let another massacre be met with silence.
This Dutch Jewish girl was gassed to death as soon as she arribed in Auschwitz, along with her mother and younger brother. She was two years old and would have been 86 today had she lived.
There are a number of signs that the email below is a scam, including this one:
. . . but the funniest one is the name. “Mira Beee” couldn’t be arsed to cut the period in the signature or capitalize her last name. (It also came from a Protonmail address.)
Hello Jerry Coyne,
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