I tried to cover a lot of ground in my April 16, 2022 review of Traced: Human DNA’s Big Surprise by Answers in Genesis representative Nathaniel Jeanson. But, like peeling away the layers of an onion, there’s more to discover and like a peeled onion reading Traced and its evangelism thinly masquerading as science is enough to make the reader cry.
Read MoreTraced: Human DNA's Big Surprise (2022) by Nathaniel Jeanson has virtually no surprises.
Nathaniel Jeanson’s Traced: Human DNA’s Big Surprise (2022, Master Books) offers virtually no surprises. This is not a science book. It is a work of fundamentalist religious propaganda dressed to appear scientific. Jeanson attempts to employ an analysis largely of his own invention on a narrow sampling of the human genome – extant Y-chromosome samples borrowed from other studies. These doctored genetic patterns are mapped onto historical events in an attempt to prove to the reader that all human beings are the descendants of the three sons of Noah – Shem, Japheth, and Ham. Jeanson’s views on world history are adolescent, Western-centric, and almost entirely focused on conflict and his science amateurish and divorced from any established methodology in molecular population genetics. In the end Jeanson, like all good science denialists, ends up ostensibly proving to the reader what he believed to begin with. Traced is a book working within his contractual obligations to his employer (the evangelical, conservative Christian ministry, Answers in Genesis) to promote a narrow, legalistic, literalist reading of the King James Bible and a Christian culture war agenda. It is not a science book. It is not a sober, informed historical account. It is a proselytizing work of pseudoscientific apologetics covered with a thin veil of carefully selected empiricism in an attempt to give his ideas the credibility he apparently craves.
Read MoreBrandolini’s law is still alive and well with Nathaniel Jeanson.
“The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.” - Alberto Brandolini, January 2013, From Wikipedia.
Creationism is an exercise in grievances and science denial
Science denialists are all about their grievances. Flat earthers voice their distrust of NASA. Anti-vaxxers point a finger at public health officials and the pharmaceutical industry. Climate change deniers heap blame on various environmental, government and scientific institutions. Science denialists build silos of blogs, Facebook pages and You Tube channels where they congregate with like-minded compatriots feed one another a regular diet of conspiracy, outrage, personal affronts, and misinformation to keep these grievances alive.
All of this is borne out of the grievance of feeling disenfranchised, of not being taken seriously, of being misunderstood, of their perception of being misrepresented. Some these grievances have merit but most are either imagined or overblown. Science denial as such is not a confrontation grounded in any substantive discussion of the evidence but rather in clashes of identity and the threat that science poses to some deeply held but narrow religious, ideological, political and economic positions.
Read MoreMaking it up as he goes along: A review of Replacing Darwin part 1
An overview.
Nathaniel Jeanson’s Replacing Darwin [1] could be called pseudoscientific, but arguably this may be unfair. Pseudo comes from the Greek pseudēs for ‘false’ and pseudos for ‘falsehood’. Labeling Replacing Darwin as pseudoscience suggests the participation in a deliberate lie and at the moment I’m unwilling to offer that suggestion. I am happy to grant Jeanson his sincerity. Because the bulk of the errors in Replacing Darwin are errors of omission I lean towards describing it as quasiscientific. Quasi is Latin for ‘as if’ and it is indeed as if what you are reading in Replacing Darwin is science. It is in fact only partially and ostensibly science.
I am also willing to be generous and accept that the majority of these omissions are simply due to an author with no actual expertise in the field he is writing about. The subject of Finding Darwin is rooted in population genetics, biogeography, ecology, phylogeography, speciation, molecular evolution and systematics, none of which are fields where Jeanson possesses any professional expertise.
I am also unaware of Jeanson ever having someone with any actual expertise in these fields reviewing either his book or any of his articles published on the Answers in Genesis website. As far as I know he’s only had his fellow like-minded creationists chime in on his work or at best someone with some molecular biology background who he has described as a friend and theistic evolutionist. His only attempts at outside reviewers are high-profile popularizers of evolution like Richard Dawkins or P. Z. Myers. With the exception of Jerry Coyne he apparently never solicited a review from anyone with active research in the fields the book covers, despite the fact there are thousands of working population geneticists and systematists out there.
Isaac Newton famously said if he’s seen any further it’s because he stands on the shoulders of giants, meaning in science we build from the findings of others. The entire book has the feel of someone who has abandoned Newton’s maxim and replaced it with “I’ll make it up as I go along.” Steven Pinker in his book Better Angels of our Nature said, “No one is smart enough to figure out anything worthwhile from scratch” and yet that seems to be exactly what Jeanson attempts to do.
Read MoreWhat is natural selection? What is evolution? Georgia Purdom of Answers in Genesis does not seem to know which is which.
Definitions are important. A prerequisite of virtually any rational discussion is agreement on a common terminology. Without common terms there may be little meaningful dialogue. Changing or obscuring definitions however is a time-honored tactic used by creationists to wriggle out of an intellectual position they find undesirable.
Georgia Purdom, PhD, of the creationist ministry Answers in Genesis promotes erroneous definitions of evolution so that she may accept obvious examples of natural selection without having to also accept that natural selection is a mechanism of biological evolution. The tactic is not of her own invention but one employed by generations of hardcore creationists unwilling to concede the reality of evolution even in the smallest of doses. In some circles, one’s creationist bona fides are apparently tarnished by the admission that natural selection is indeed a mechanism underlying even the slightest evolutionary change[1].
When faced with undeniable, empirical examples of natural selection in action the dedicated creationist’s only escape is to change the definitions of natural selection or evolution or both. Purdom has done this in videos, public lectures, in print and in blog posts and while I’m uncertain as to whether these misrepresentations are borne out of deliberation or ignorance the effect is the same, namely to confuse her audience and make scientists appear to be the ones who are equivocating and inventing sliding definitions. In fact they are not. The real definitions of both natural selection and evolution are entirely unequivocal.
Read MoreSpeaking out against climate change denial in West Virginia
Consideration of the Next Generation Science Standards by the West Virginia Board of Education (WVBOE) led to the surreptitious introduction of climate change denial language by one board member, Wade Linger. Thankfully, concerned educators, scientists, environmental activists and parents in West Virginia showed up before the board, wrote letters of support for sound science education and were successful in getting this language reversed from the standards. Since the last public hearing on the standards on January 14 the WVBOE received more than 7,000 comments during the intervening 30-day public comment period forcing the board to delay their final vote on the standards.
I was invited to submit an account of the incident in the Reports of the National Center for Science Education. My conclusion is that climate change denial and creationism have much in common. Both are assaults on reason that deliberately sow doubt of science, scientists and our scientific institutions to devalue scholarship and intellectualism in favor of narrow, ideological interests and neither have a place in the public classroom.
Read my commentary by clicking on the link below and let me know what you think.
In Praise of Ridicule: Our last weapon against the unintelligible.
It’s embarrassing how long it’s been since I contributed to my blog. The day-to-day life of actually being a scientist (plus being a museum curator, plus some teaching here and there) gets in the way of coming up with content to present science to the general public. But, sometimes a little inspiration comes along and coupled with yet another snow day there’s an opportunity to say something new on the blog. This time that inspiration came from watching last night’s debate between Bill Nye The Science Guy and Answers in Genesis CEO Ken Ham.
For me this was a little painful to watch. I have been thinking about the evolution/creation debate for almost 40 years. I grew up in an evangelical Christian household and was taught that the Bible was literal history. However, I also had an inexplicable interest in the natural world. Inexplicable in that no one in my family was a professional scientist or even carried much of a casual interest in science. My folks strongly encouraged my education as a means to an end but they didn’t exactly encourage me to dive too deep into learning about nature for its own sake. At least they didn’t have a curiosity so deep as to be unsatisfied with a Biblical answer. That’s not to say I didn’t have a loving supportive family, I did, and thankfully still do. But, even as a child Sunday school for me bought up a lot of questions that everyone around me seemed spectacularly uninterested in resolving in any way other than “God did it”. As someone who always wanted a house full of various critters, the Biblical story of Noah’s ark was by far my favorite in the Bible, however, for someone who also knew roughly just how many different varieties of critters are out there, not to mention plants, fungi, bacteria, it certainly came with a lot of unresolved baggage (Bill Nye’s arguments from biogeography and biodiversity were among the most effective of last night’s debate). Unpacking that baggage and learning more about the differences between the explanations for the diversity of nature provided by science and those provided by faith, folk tales and mythology put me on the course to be an evolutionary biologist.
Read MoreFor me this was a little painful to watch. I have been thinking about the evolution/creation debate for almost 40 years. I grew up in an evangelical Christian household and was taught that the Bible was literal history. However, I also had an inexplicable interest in the natural world. Inexplicable in that no one in my family was a professional scientist or even carried much of a casual interest in science. My folks strongly encouraged my education as a means to an end but they didn’t exactly encourage me to dive too deep into learning about nature for its own sake. At least they didn’t have a curiosity so deep as to be unsatisfied with a Biblical answer. That’s not to say I didn’t have a loving supportive family, I did, and thankfully still do. But, even as a child Sunday school for me bought up a lot of questions that everyone around me seemed spectacularly uninterested in resolving in any way other than “God did it”. As someone who always wanted a house full of various critters, the Biblical story of Noah’s ark was by far my favorite in the Bible, however, for someone who also knew roughly just how many different varieties of critters are out there, not to mention plants, fungi, bacteria, it certainly came with a lot of unresolved baggage (Bill Nye’s arguments from biogeography and biodiversity were among the most effective of last night’s debate). Unpacking that baggage and learning more about the differences between the explanations for the diversity of nature provided by science and those provided by faith, folk tales and mythology put me on the course to be an evolutionary biologist.
What’s so natural about nature?
Birders have long maintained highly effective communication networks. A sighting of a rare bird will rapidly spread among hardcore birders and scores of onlookers will flock, pun intended, to the best finds. Nearly universal access to the Internet has kicked these networks into overdrive. Now, within minutes of a rare find georeferenced coordinates and digital photos will be disseminated to websites, listservs, cell phones, twitter feeds and Facebook pages. This is the practice known as “chasing” birds brought into the 21st century.
Now, I don’t usually chase birds. It isn’t because I don’t want to necessarily, but more so because I never seem to be afforded the time. But, when I heard of a Hooded Crane (Grus monacha) found with wintering Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis) and Whooping Cranes (Grus americana) at the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge in Meigs County, Tennessee I decided maybe it was worth the chase. I’ve seen Japanese or Red-crowned Crane (Grus japonensis) in Japan and Taiwan and many Sandhill Cranes but I’ve never seen a Whooping Crane or a Hooded Crane so there was the chance for hitting a double on this trip. Plus, with the holiday break I had a nature-obsessed 6-year old boy out of school and in need of a little adventure. So, a 5 hour drive south on I-75 and we are at Hiwassee, and the trip didn’t disappoint; eagles, turkey, bluebirds, kingfishers, waterfowl, and many, many cranes, almost ridiculous numbers of cranes. Hiwassee is home to thousands of Sandhill Cranes whiling away the winter on a steady diet of East Tennessee corn. The Sandhills are typically accompanied by a couple of Whooping Cranes every year and, as of December 13th of this year, one very disorientated Hooded Crane, who should be spending the winter in Japan or China and returning to breeding ground in the Russian Far East in the spring. Needless to say this Hooded Crane was more than a little off course!
Three species of crane at Hiwassee Refuge; Sandhill (grey), Whooping (white) and Hooded (black with white neck)
Read MoreNatural History Collections in the 21st Century
“The first step in wisdom is to know the things themselves” -Linnaeus (1735) quoted from Judith Winston’s book Describing Species (1999)
The word museum has its origins in the Greek mouseion, meaning “the place of the Muses”. In natural history museums the Muses take the shape of the stunning diversity of the natural world. Since the very origins of mankind’s cultural development we have collected objects of natural history. For nearly three centuries we have erected these “places of the Muses” to study and publicly display these collections. Here is where the Muses of nature, Linnaeus’ “the things themselves”, reside and their secrets unlocked by generations of dedicated, and perhaps slightly mad, scientists and natural historians. Natural history museums and their collections have been at the heart of numerous scientific discoveries that have shaped our understanding of the world and our place in it.
What does the public think of natural history collections?
But, in the public imagination a natural history museum is often thought of as a stuffy place with old bones, rocks and stuffed animal skins, some of which are shown off to the public to satisfy an afternoon’s curiosity. I think an anachronistic view of a natural history museum prevails, a view where natural history collections are viewed with the mild curiosity we typically have for any esoteric pursuit. As a curator who happily tours the public through the collections at my home institution I get, “Why are there hundreds of dead mice in this drawer?” or “What use does anyone possibly have for jars of dead toads?”. It is as if they have walked onto an episode of A&E’s Hoarders except that instead of rooms consisting of disorganized piles of clothes populated by semi-feral cats they are surrounded by cabinets filled with the various remains of dead plants and animals (with maybe some fungi thrown in for good measure). It completely baffles most people as to why anyone would want to have piles upon piles of dead plants and animals. Their first thought tends to be surely there must be money in it. These things must be rare and carry some monetary value. When they are told that for most specimens they can’t be bought and sold in the marketplace and therefore really have no economic value they are really puzzled. “All this junk and it isn’t worth anything? You can’t sell it?” Well, yes and no, some things there is a market for, shell, fossil and insect collections for example, but for others, bird specimens, trade is mostly illegal. Suffice it to say that value in natural history collections is not measured on a monetary scale as say an art collection would be, a fact that frustrates insurance adjusters looking to tag a value on a natural hisotry collection in the only way we have seemed to value anything. I think it is way easier for people to wrap their heads around an art museum than a natural history museum precisely because of this clear monetary value placed on works of art. So, why do we have natural history collections and the museums that house them?
Read MoreThe word museum has its origins in the Greek mouseion, meaning “the place of the Muses”. In natural history museums the Muses take the shape of the stunning diversity of the natural world. Since the very origins of mankind’s cultural development we have collected objects of natural history. For nearly three centuries we have erected these “places of the Muses” to study and publicly display these collections. Here is where the Muses of nature, Linnaeus’ “the things themselves”, reside and their secrets unlocked by generations of dedicated, and perhaps slightly mad, scientists and natural historians. Natural history museums and their collections have been at the heart of numerous scientific discoveries that have shaped our understanding of the world and our place in it.
What does the public think of natural history collections?
But, in the public imagination a natural history museum is often thought of as a stuffy place with old bones, rocks and stuffed animal skins, some of which are shown off to the public to satisfy an afternoon’s curiosity. I think an anachronistic view of a natural history museum prevails, a view where natural history collections are viewed with the mild curiosity we typically have for any esoteric pursuit. As a curator who happily tours the public through the collections at my home institution I get, “Why are there hundreds of dead mice in this drawer?” or “What use does anyone possibly have for jars of dead toads?”. It is as if they have walked onto an episode of A&E’s Hoarders except that instead of rooms consisting of disorganized piles of clothes populated by semi-feral cats they are surrounded by cabinets filled with the various remains of dead plants and animals (with maybe some fungi thrown in for good measure). It completely baffles most people as to why anyone would want to have piles upon piles of dead plants and animals. Their first thought tends to be surely there must be money in it. These things must be rare and carry some monetary value. When they are told that for most specimens they can’t be bought and sold in the marketplace and therefore really have no economic value they are really puzzled. “All this junk and it isn’t worth anything? You can’t sell it?” Well, yes and no, some things there is a market for, shell, fossil and insect collections for example, but for others, bird specimens, trade is mostly illegal. Suffice it to say that value in natural history collections is not measured on a monetary scale as say an art collection would be, a fact that frustrates insurance adjusters looking to tag a value on a natural hisotry collection in the only way we have seemed to value anything. I think it is way easier for people to wrap their heads around an art museum than a natural history museum precisely because of this clear monetary value placed on works of art. So, why do we have natural history collections and the museums that house them?
My TEDxCincy Xperience
On October 7, 2010 I was proud to take part in the first TEDxCincy Conference at the Aronoff Center for the Arts in downtown Cincinnati. I joined 18 other speakers talking about everything from corporate culture to new media to inner city violence to personal encounters with wildlife to high tech tools in the study of Cincinnati's history. I spoke about the revolution in the life sciences created by the widening availability of next generation DNA sequencing. Now that a little time is past and I've got some other things out of the way in the lab I can sit back and reflect on the experience.