Category: evolution

A Muslim creationist accepts evolution after hearing the evidence, but was forced to leave her world

October 14, 2025 • 9:40 am

Although people argue that you can’t bring creationists to accepting evolution simply by showing them thge facts, this Radiolab audio shows that that isn’t an inviolable truth.  The podcast tells the story of a pious Muslim who studied evolution to try to debunk it, because she realized that evolution was undermining her faith, and if she could show that evolution was bogus, her faith would remain sound. Well, you know what happened next: she learned the irrefutable facts of evolution and gave up her faith, losing her “tribe” in the process.

This transformation is not unique. As I’ve said before, at one of James Randi’s “Amazing Meetings,” I met two Orthodox Jews, both of whom told me (independently) that they abandoned their faith because, after reading Why Evolution is True, gave up their pious Judaism (many Orthodox Jews reject evolution). Both were sad because, having embraced evolution, they were rejected by their family, but they stood firm in their acceptance of science. Such people are very brave, for the love of truth outweighs not only their love of superstition, but their need for a social network.

This 40-minute recording is the fascinating story of a well-known paleoanthropologist, fossil collector, evolutionist, and science popularizer, Ella al-Shamahi.  A Muslim in full jilbāb and in an arranged marriage, al-Shamahi studied evolution at Imperial College London so she could understand why it was false. Instead, she became a convert.This is from is the Wikipedia page on al-Shamani:

As a child, Al-Shamahi was a devout Muslim who wore the hijab from the age of seven and began missionary work throughout Britain at the age of 13. Her biology studies at Imperial College London were undertaken with the eventual aim of disproving evolutionary theory, but she soon came to believe that the theory was correct and her later studies would further distance her from her faith.  As of 2025, she was describing herself as a “non-practising Muslim”.

Al-Shamahi characterizes her political views as “wokey-progressive — definitely left-wing”, but she has also called for the scientific field to be more accommodating of those who are right-wing or devoutly religious and for discussions to be more nuanced.

In the podcast al-Shamahi describes two moments that were pivotal in getting her to embrace evolution:

A.. One was in Drosophila!  She describes an experiment in fruit flies in which, she said, she saw the very beginning of speciation: two groups of the same species that began evolving reproductive barriers between each other.  She doesn’t describe the experiment, but my best guess was the intriguing experiment of Bill Rice and George Salt, published in Evolution in 1990 (see also Rice 1995 ). In this experiment, flies were divided into groups by being running them through a complex maze that involved their having to make four “chocies”: light vs. dark (phototaxis), up versus down (geotaxis), faster versus slower development time, and whether they preferred the odor of acetaldehyde or ethanol. This produced eight groups of flies, of which Rice and Salt selected only from the two extremes.  After 35 generations, they got nearly complete separation of the two groups with no intermediates, which is the beginning of the type of reproductive isolation called “habitat selection,” which of course impedes gene flow because the two groups don’t encounter each other. There was no mating discrimination shown when the flies were tested in the same chamber. Now this is a lab experiment, and the flies likely would merge if selection were stopped, but it shows nevertheless that a form of impeded gene flow could evolve in only 35 generations (a couple of years).  This was convincing to al-Shamahi, though I’d argue that there are many other types of evidence that are more convincing (island biogeography, the fossil record [she does mention that under “stratigraphy“], and other stuff in my book.

B. The other bit of evidence, which I don’t discuss but Ken Miller has, is the finding that in “retrotransposons“—nonfunctional bits of DNA that move around in the genome—mutations in humans and chimps are in identical positions in the jumping DNA. That similarity implies a close relatedness of humans and chimps: they must have shared some of these “jumping genes” that were present in a common ancestor.  Since the DNA is nonfunctional, there’s no adaptive explanation that a creationist could devise to explain for this identity.

Both cases led to al-Shamahi’s epiphany, and, accepting it, she says “I knew I was going to have to leave my whole world.” (20:40 on the podcast). Fortunately, her sisters supported her views, but she didn’t talk about her new feelings to her friends, for she “did not know how to exist in a secular world.” In the end, however, she found community among secularists and forged a career based on evolution. She still says that “gentle does it” with creationists, and she tries to bond with them rather than convince them. In the end, though, that is her aim, however she achieves it.

She hasn’t spoken in detail about her “conversion,” so the podcast at the bottom is fascinating, for al-Shamahi is eloquent and funny despite her travails.  Here’s its introduction:

Ella al-Shamahi is one part Charles Darwin, one part Indiana Jones. She braves war zones and pirate-infested waters to collect fossils from prehistoric caves, fossils that help us understand the origin of our species. Her recent hit BBC/PBS series Human follows her around the globe trying to piece together the unlikely story of how early humans conquered the world.  But Ella’s own origins as an evolutionary biologist are equally unlikely. She sits down with us and tells us a story she has rarely shared publicly, about how she came to believe in evolution, and how much that belief cost her.

Special thanks to Misha Euceph and Hamza Syed.

EPISODE CREDITS: 
Reported by – Latif Nasser
Produced by – Jessica Yung and Pat Walters
with help from – Sarah Qari
Fact-checking by – Diane Kelly
and Edited by  – Pat Walters

To hear the episode, and I recommend you do, click below and then click “listen” (there’s also a transcript). Note that there are several longish commercial interruptions. 

I found a video of al-Shamahi recorded a month ago in which she also describes her conversion, and I’ve started it at that place.  But the whole thing is worth watching,

Or go here to hear her dispelling some myths about human evolution in a 9-minute video. After watching it, I wish I were a Homo floresiensis.

h/t: Robert.

Readers’ wildlife photos

August 19, 2025 • 8:15 am

Today’s photos come from reader Ephraim Heller, who took them in Brazil. Ephraim’s text and captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

A Spurious Tale

It was a typical birding day, squatting beside a water hyacinth-choked waste lagoon at a cattle ranch in Brazil’s Pantanal watching giant rodents and caimans slither in the muck and waiting for something to happen involving birds.

A capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris), the largest living rodent, surfaces amongst the water hyacinth in a sewage lagoon:

I noticed southern lapwings and wattled jacanas squabbling along the shore. These are common birds but of interest to me because I have never been able to capture decent flight photos: they have evolved the ability to always fly directly away from the photographer. I slowly squat-walked along the banks and they allowed me to approach as they bickered and fought. I started snapping close-up photos with my big 540mm lens when I suddenly stopped dead in my tracks: that lapwing has nipples.

A  southern lapwing (Vanellus chilensis) displaying its “nipples:”

I got an A in my last biology class (AP high school bio in 1980) so I immediately grasped that the stale scientific consensus about the differences between birds and mammals was wrong. I guardedly approached Fito, our guide. Fito is one of the top 5 birding guides in all of Latin America and I had already established my credibility when I hired him and explained that my wife is a birder, but I just want to photograph the colorful and pretty ones. I showed him my photo and, in a tone as nonchalant as I could muster, asked “What are those?”

“Wing spurs,” said Fito.

“Wing spurs,” I sagely repeated. I had no idea what he was talking about.

I went back to my station beside the sewage lagoon and began shooting again. Further photographic analysis reveals two important observations that could potentially cast doubt on my nipple theory: “wing spurs” indeed emanate from the lapwings’ wings and they are retractable:

I turned my attention to the wattled jacanas (Jacana jacana) as a bully mercilessly chased away another jacana every time it landed. They ignored me as I shot. My shutter speed of 1/2500 sec froze the action. I paused to check that my images looked all right when I make yet another discovery – wattled jacanas also have wing spurs:

I shuffle back to Fito.

“Fito, are lapwings and jacanas closely related?”

“No.”

I walk over to my wife and show her my photos.

“Remember what I told you about hoatzins?” she asks. We had seen lots of hoatzins the previous week in Brazil’s Amazon. I remember that years ago my wife had told me about these strange birds that are born with claws on their wings. Before they can fly, they evade predators by dropping from their perches on branches overhanging the water, swim away from the danger, and then use their claws to climb back up a tree. As they mature their wing claws disappear.

Adult hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin) – no visible claws on their wings:

“Isn’t this an interesting example of convergent evolution?” I say.

“Maybe it’s not convergent evolution. Maybe it’s an atavistic trait. From the dinos.”

While I hate it when my wife one-ups me on speculative nature theories, I have to admit that now I’m intrigued. Do wing spurs represent a cool example of convergent evolution or an even cooler trait left over from the dinos?

I do a quick internet search on wing spurs. Another bird we have just seen in Brazil also has wing spurs. Behold the southern screamer, presumably with its wing spurs retracted:

Now I was getting suspicious. My generation remembers the warning from James Bond’s archenemy Auric Goldfinger in the Ian Fleming novel and 1964 movie Goldfinger: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.” Lapwings, jacanas, hoatzin, and now screamers. What would Auric say?

Herewith everything I’ve subsequently learned about wing spurs.

Wing spurs are structurally distinct from talons or claws. Spurs usually project from the carpometacarpus, are covered by a keratin sheath, and are not used for perching or seizing prey. Unlike digit claws, which develop from the terminal phalanges, spurs are fixed, weapon-like appendages.

Wing spurs are present in several bird orders but are relatively uncommon overall. Wing spurs seem to have evolved independently in several modern bird families. These include some species of screamers, steamer ducks, spur-winged geese, lapwings, jacanas, stone-curlews / thick-knees, and swamphens present in the new world, old world, and Australia. These families are only distantly related: lapwings, jacanas, and screamer clades all diverged at least 50 million years ago.

Across taxa, wing spurs are primarily used as weapons—employed in intraspecific combat, territorial defense, or predator deterrence.

L. Rand published a detailed account of wing spurs in 1954 (available at: https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/wilson_bulletin/vol66/iss2/8). He observes that “spurs are projecting bony cores with an outer layer of horn, similar to the horns of cattle” and, surprisingly, that “the horny covering of the wing spur, in some species, undergoes molt.” He provides the following diagram of wing spurs in: (F) African jacana (Actophilornis africanus); (G1 and G2) northern jacana (Jacana spinosa); (H) southern lapwing (Vanellus chilensis); and (I) Rodrigues solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria).

 

 

In contrast to the wing spurs of modern birds, many basal avian dinosaurs, including Archaeopteryx and Anchiornis, had clawed fingers on their wings. These claws are homologous to the finger bones in modern birds, and in rare cases such as the hoatzin, vestigial claws are still present in juveniles. These are not carpal spurs, but true digit claws, aiding chicks in climbing until they fledge, when the claws are resorbed. The hoatzin lineage is highly divergent; molecular estimates suggest a split from other birds at least 64–70 million years ago, possibly earlier.

Most importantly, both my wife and I were correct: hoatzin claws may be an atavistic trait related to the dinosaurs, while the wing spurs of other birds represent convergent evolution. How cool is that!

Rare video of the Scopes “Monkey Trial”

August 6, 2025 • 11:30 am

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Scopes “Monkey Trial” in Dayton, Tennessee. (It lasted from July 10-21). John Scopes, a substitute teacher, was accused (with his cooperation) of teaching human evolution in high school, thus violating the state’s Butler Act, which forbade the teaching of human evolution (note: teaching nonhuman evolution was okay). He was convicted, as he surely had violated the law, but his conviction was overturned because the judge rather than the jury levied the $100 fine (judges couldn’t levy fines above $50).  Scopes’s conviction was thus set aside, and the verdict could not then be appealed to a higher court.

The Butler act was repealed only in 1967: 42 years later!  But nobody was convicted during that period, and today no court in the land dares convict anybody or any school board for teaching evolution, while it’s illegal almost everywhere to teach creationism or its gussied-up cousin Intelligent Design.

But I digress; I just discovered that there’s some video footage of the trial. It lacks sound, of course, since “talkies” didn’t arise until 1927, but it’s great to see the principals and the scene. So watch this 2½ minute video to see Dayton during the trial:

Quillette drags irrelevant issues into the Scopes trial and the teaching of evolution

August 2, 2025 • 11:00 am

This article in Quillette intrigued me with its subtitle, “The questions at the centre of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial are still contested today”? They are? It’s now illegal to ban the teaching of evolution in schools, and, save for religious schools, I can’t think of any schools that would deliberately omit evolution from the school curriculum, much less teaching creationism. So which questions are “still contested today”? You can read about it by clicking the link below, or, if that doesn’t work, try this link or this archived link.

Since this is the 100th anniversary of the Scopes “monkey trial” in Dayton, Tennessee, there’s a spate of articles about the trial.  And the author gets those pretty much right, so if you don’t know stuff like the famous outdoor cross-examination by Clarence Darrow that destroyed William Jennings Bryan, or Bryan’s death immediately after the trial, or the fact that the jury’s verdict of guilty was overturned on a technicality (preventing further appeals), or the persistence until 1967 of the Butler Act that Scopes violated—well, you’ll learn about all of these facts, which are well known to evolutionists and science historians.

Since then, the courts have struck down bans on the teaching of evolution, and also prohibited laws mandating the teaching of “scientific creationism” as well as “equal time” laws that mandate teaching creationism when you teach evolution. Evolution, as much as anything, is a scientific fact, and if you don’t know the evidence, well, read the book after which this website is named.

But what was Daseler referring to when he says that the questions of Scopes are still questioned today? It’s a mystery until you get to the last two paragraphs:

But as Bryan himself observed, the Scopes trial wasn’t really about evolution. It was about competing rights—about the rights of the individual versus the rights of the community. It was about free speech—about when and where it can be circumscribed. And it was about epistemology—about who determines what is valid information. Should teachers like John Scopes, who are presumably experts in their fields, decide what is taught in schools? Or should parents, who are presumably experts on their children? These remain disputed subjects to this day. If they’re not being fought over the teaching of evolution, they’re being fought over the teaching of critical race theory, genderqueer theory, or the 1619 Project.

Shortly after the 7 October attack on Israel, a history instructor at Berkeley High School, in California, asked her class to respond to the following prompt: “To what extent should Israel be considered an apartheid state?” Was that a thought-provoking query on current events or an inappropriate attempt to bring her personal politics into the classroom? And who decides? The answer to that last question is one of the unresolvable tensions inherent in a democratic society. William Jennings Bryan didn’t understand evolution, but he understood this fact. “The right of the people speaking through the legislature, to control the schools which they create and support is the real issue as I see it,” he said. “If not the people, who?”

Well, no, the Scopes trial was in part about evolution for sure, because the contested issue was evolution. And it was more about the right of the state (which passed the Butler Act forbidding the teaching of human evolution [not evolution in general]) than about the right of parents to determine curricula, though parental rights were mentioned. Now, except in many fundamentalist religious schools, the question about whether evolution should be taught has been settled, and the answer is “YEP.” That is a resolvable question, and it has been resolved. As the cornerstone of all biology, and the key to understanding how most biological phenomena came to be, the issue of whether parents can prohibit the teaching of evolution is not “unresolvable,” and no, parents, the state, and the school boards, have no right to ban it.  If they tried, they’d face a huge lawsuit, like the Dover School District of Pennsuylvania did when it tried to put Intelligent Design into the curriculum.

So when Daseler drags in critical race theory, “genderqueer theory” (what theory is that?), the 1619 Project, and even the Gaza War into his piece, he’s making a false analogy. These issues are still debatable, and they are ideological, not (in general) scientific.  Daseler apparently did this to try to slot evolution into the Zeitgeist, but it doesn’t fit. One might as well analogize the laws of thermodynamics with the 1619 Project.  Perhaps Daseler felt he needed a different slant on Scopes from merely recounting the facts that everybody else is adducing, but let’s be clear: the controversy about the teaching of evolution is over, and evolution has won.  The issue is contested only by religious fundamentalists, who include advocates of intelligent design (the latter pretend they’re not religiously motivated, but they are).  The truth has prevailed, and it’s time to move on. Forget CRT and the 1619 project, at least when it comes to science education.

Here I am paying honor to Scopes at his grave in Paducah, Kentucky 12 years ago:

John Scopes tombstone

 

Once again, theologians get paid for making stuff up

July 16, 2025 • 9:00 am

I am in fact surprised that two Iranian philosophers (yes, from the Department of Philosophy of Science, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran) are even allowed to publish this paper, which refers to God, not Allah, and doesn’t mention the Qur’an.  Well, that’s a good question, but not the question masticated in this paper in the journal Open Theology (click title to read or see the pdf here.

What we have is the usual kind of Sophisticated Theology™: a paper raising a question based on unsupported premises (there is a god that is kind, omnipotent and loving), and which then goes on to make up an answer about how certain baffling phenomena in the Universe can comport with such a god. Normally the topic of such inquiry is theodicy: why there is evil (especially “natural evil,” like childhood cancer or earthquakes) in a world made and run by such a god. This time, though, the topic is randomness. How, the sweating pair of theologians ask, can true randomness, untouched by God, exist in his Universe? More than that: how can true randomness, as part of the evolutionary process, unerringly wind up producing a species made in God’s image. As the authors ask, pretending to be puzzled:

. . . . from a theological perspective, the randomness and lack of purpose in the evolutionary process appear to conflict with God’s power, sovereignty, and wisdom.

Theologians cannot let this stand, for nothing can be allowed to conflict with God’s assumed wonderfulness and power. Nor do they assume that the randomness and lack of purpose in evolution comes from—could it be?—Satan.  No, in the end it’s all part of God’s plan.

The authors first discuss two types of randomness: stuff that appears to be random to us but in reality could be understood, or even predicted, if we had perfect knowledge. Whether a coin comes up heads or tails (or edge!) is this type of randomness.

The other type, which the authors take it upon themselves to comport with God, is fundamental, unpredictable (“ontological”) randomness—chance inherent in a system that cannot be predicted, even with perfect knowledge.  Quantum-mechanical “randomness”, or quantum probabilistic outcomes, are of this type. As the authors say:

In contrast, the real challenge for the relationship between God and the world lies in the existence of ontological or metaphysical randomness, which suggests that chance is an inherent aspect of the world’s structure and is inseparable from its dynamic nature. Ontological randomness cannot simply be viewed as a reflection of our inability to gain a certain understanding or a cognitive deficiency in comprehending the physical world. In other words, ontological randomness suggests a type of randomness inherent in the fundamental indeterminacy of the natural world. When every explanation of cosmic, macroscopic, and even biological phenomena relies on the principles of particle physics – which itself is characterized by intrinsic indeterminacy and stochastic events – it appears that we are confronted with ontological randomness.

. . . Ontological randomness. . . refers to events that cannot be predetermined in principle. Contrary to the views of proponents of ID, evolutionists argue that randomness is inherently non-purposeful. It is not merely a matter of attributing randomness to mutations due to our limited epistemic capacity to analyze the complex systems involved in the causal processes – similar to our inability to fully understand the causes of earthquakes or the movement of airborne particles. Rather, the fundamental indeterminacy of these processes means that no one can predict when they occur, much like our lack of access to the origins of nuclear emissions from Uranium-238.

Now the authors assume that evolution is driven by ontologically random mutations (“random” meaning, in the evolutionary sense, that the chance that a mutation will occur has nothing to do whether it will increase or decrease the bearer’s reproduction).  This itself may not be a good assumption, for, if we had perfect knowledge, we might be able to predict when and where a change in the DNA might take place. The role of quantum phenomena in mutation (if there is such a role) is still unknown.

But let’s be charitable and assume that yes, mutations in the evolutionary process are like movements of electrons: ontologically unpredictable. How could such a process not reflect decisions of God and yet wind up with his most desired of all “creations,” Homo sapiens.

Here’s the authors’ answer:

Our preferred reconciliation does not view the relationship between God and the natural world as a dualistic one. Any dualistic perspective ultimately leads to the problem of interaction and, consequently, the “God of the gaps” fallacy. Instead, we embrace the open theistic view, which holds that the world exists within God. Although the divine transcends the natural world, it is also immanent within it; thus, the evolutionary process occurring in the world unfolds as a manifestation of God’s self-expression and self-consciousness.

The world is progressing toward God’s self-consciousness through the evolutionary process, which has culminated in human beings who exist within the natural world, are part of nature, and possess awareness of both their surroundings and of God Himself. In this perspective, the process of evolution becomes a revelation of God’s nature. God reveals Himself in the universe by becoming increasingly self-conscious, and this self-consciousness fosters freedom; true freedom arises from autonomy rather than heteronomy, and autonomy is rooted in self-awareness. The divine is indeed the sovereign designer and intelligent architect of the world, but does not merely create from a position of supreme distance. As Carl Schmitt notes, “The sovereign, who in the deistic view of the world, even if conceived as residing outside the world, had remained the engineer of the great machine, has been radically pushed aside. The machine now runs by itself.“

If you detect a whiff of pantheism here, you’re right, and the authors admit it (bolding is mine):

According to our panentheistic and open-theistic view, God is the designer of the world, which serves as a revelation of the divine mind and nature. God does not reside outside the world; rather, the divine is immanent within it and transcendent of it. The world does not operate on autopilot. The randomness we observe in the world signifies divine sovereignty and omnipotence, granting the world the necessary freedom to reveal its nature, which simultaneously unveils the nature of God.

Of course that last bit is totally made up, for the authors have no way of knowing that this is true of God (remember, they can’t even show us that there’s a God). This disproves the idea that the “clash” of ideas instantiated by freedom of speech will eventually arrive at the truth.  Theology is one disproof of that idea, for it and its understanding of gods haven’t advanced one iota despite many clashes of ideas.

But of course God being all-knowing, somehow must have realized that the randomness He himself created would produce, with the help of natural selection, a creature made in His own image. Isn’t that special?

These lucubrations are part of what is called “open theology,” in which God grants the world freedom. Not just physical freedom, but its result, real free will (which of course the authors see as ontologically unpredictable, though it isn’t).  In their drive to make up a concept of God that comports with ontological randomness, they hit on an answer that isn’t new: God wanted a world with maximal freedom because such a world is the best of all possible worlds:

The traditional view of divine sovereignty is often characterized by the notion of God having full control over every event, leading to the idea of eternal predetermination. This dominant perspective in the history of Abrahamic religions posits that the existence of ontological randomness implies that the entire system is not under God’s control, allowing for procedures that operate without purpose under divine sovereignty. However, according to open theism, we should comprehend God’s sovereignty in harmony with divine mercy. Thus, divine sovereignty does not imply a paternalistic control over all things; rather, it embodies the granting of freedom. The truly powerful agent bestows life and freedom, enabling others to flourish instead of confining and controlling them. The Almighty is not merely an omni-controller or authority but a liberator, allowing all creatures to choose their own paths according to their inherent potential and encouraging them to reveal their capabilities. This process of world disclosure is itself a manifestation of God and contributes to divine self-consciousness.

So God’s at the wheel after all, and the freedom he bestowed on the world includes the freedom of children to die of cancer and of the tectonic plates to cause death-dealing earthquakes and tsunamis. (This kind of theodicy the authors don’t explain.)

I can’t bear to go on much longer as I watch the sweat-sodden authors make a virtue of necessity, but I’ll quote one more bit to show how they do this. As one sees so often in Sophisticated Theology™, they simply attribute their solution to another theologian, as if citing yet another shill somehow justifies their own “solution”:

As Bradley eloquently explains, power, when understood in the context of mercy and love, does not necessitate complete control; rather, it signifies the full endowment of freedom and life. The omnipotent is the one who most effectively enables creatures to experience life freely, filled with love and happiness. Certainly, God has a distinct plan, a desired program, and a unique teleology for creation; however, this teleology unfolds through its manifestation in nature, as the natural world evolves through its history.

. . . From this perspective, the randomness present in mutations reflects the freedom that God grants to all creatures. Through the evolutionary process, the world progresses toward an outcome of self-consciousness. Consequently, human beings emerge as the result of this evolutionary journey, possessing the capacity to understand their place in the world and, as part of the natural order, becoming aware of the world itself.

It always amazes me that theologians who can offer no convincing proof of a god’s existence are so sure about god’s nature and his methods.  How do they know this stuff?  The answer is that they don’t: they are either making stuff up or stealing ideas from their predecessors.

You may have noted that yes, there is teleology here. There is surely not complete freedom, as a rerun of evolution, if quantum mechanics has any effect on mutations, would not necessarily produce either consciousness or humans. And yes, the randomness isn’t true ontological randomness because it is biased towards getting what God wants (my bolding):

. . . . if we see God as immanent in the world and, so, in a panentheistic view according to which God is transcendent of the world but is not separated from nature, then we can explain why nature is biased toward the marvelous. The reason is that nature is manifesting God’s marvelous beauty.

To that, all I can say is “oy vey!”

In the end, then, the authors have produced nothing new. They’ve espoused pantheism, in which the God-who-is-in-everything has set up the world so it produces “the marvelous”, i.e. H. sapiens. This is not novel, and it’s not even ontological randomness. It is hooey. And two Iranian philosophers of science have gotten paid to produce it. The only question is not why they go on about this stuff at such length, but how the journal Open Theology was willing to publish a paper with such a mundane answer. Do they apply no critical standards? The answer is in the second word of the journal’s title.

The biggest question, though, is how I can be on an Arctic trip and have time to go after such bushwah. The answer to that one is that today is a sea day, and I don’t have a book to read or wish to watch television.

Bushwah!

h/t: B. Charlesworth

My interview with Chris Williamson

June 30, 2025 • 10:15 am

I don’t usually listen to podcasts because they are long—often an hour or more—but am more willing to be on them, as time goes by very quickly when you’re being interviewed, especially when expatiating about evolution. And, as I recall, that’s what I did on this interview with Chris Williamson from his “Modern Wisdom” series. I read that he has a large audience, not a bad thing, and had an unusual career. From Wikipedia:

Williamson was a contestant on the dating game show Take Me Out in 2012. He appeared on the first series of the reality show Love Island in 2015 as a model and nightclub promoter.Williamson has stated that he did not feel that he belonged on the show,  and that his experiences on Love Island caused a period of introspection and personal development, and resulted in a desire to contribute to the world by creating “content that genuinely changes the way that people live their daily lives”.

Well, I don’t know whether my lucubrations about evolution and its infection by ideology will affect anybody’s lives, but I could listen to myself for only 20 minutes or so. Like many folks, I can’t stand to see or hear myself on the video. Maybe readers will fare better.

I did look at a few comments, and was depressed to see a substantial number of people who think evolution is a myth.

This is also on spotify at this link.