Paul Braterman is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Glasgow University, and former Regents Professor at the University of North Texas. His research has involved chemistry related to conditions on the early Earth and to the origins of life, and collaborations with Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Sandia National Laboratories, and NASA’s Astrobiology Institute. His earlier book, From Stars to Stalagmites, discusses aspects of chemistry in their historical and everyday contexts, and he is now working on a book exploring the links between creationism, climate change denial, conspiracy theories, and right-wing politics. Email: [email protected]; contactable at @[email protected]
by Paul Braterman By now you will know that the new Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson (Louisiana 4th District) was among those who voted against accepting the results of the 2020 Presidential election. You may also know that he is opposed to the concept of same sex marriage, which in some…
by Paul Braterman The Heartland Institute tells us that there is not, and cannot be, a climate crisis, because for most of the past 12,000 years the climate was warmer than it is today. A recent (October 5) posting by James Taylor, president of the Institute, states as follows (full text; fair use claimed): CLIMATE…
by Paul Braterman When people tell you what they are, believe them. In the 2021 Facebook posting attached below, still available [1], he tells us exactly what he is, and since, in May this year, Martyn Iles became Chief Ministry Officer at Answers in Genesis, the $28 million dollar a year concern that runs Kentucky’s…
by Paul Braterman Within a single week, the raging Canadian wildfires have provoked opposite reactions from different wings of US evangelism, both claiming that their position is based on Genesis, with The Atlantic reporting on the churches’ deep political divisions. Statistical analysis confirms (is anyone surprised?) that July’s unusual heatwave across the northern hemisphere is…
by Paul Braterman One month ago today, Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis appointed Martyn Iles, formerly director of the Australian Question Lobby, to the position of Chief Ministry Officer, ministry of course being Answers in Genesis’ core activity. Here’s why that matters. Martyn Iles, a lawyer by training, was the managing director of the…
by Paul Braterman The Vikings started out as raiders, but then, in the way of these things, ended up as rulers, and their influence stretched from Greenland to what is now Russia. They first enter English history in 793, with the sacking of the Monastery of Lindisfarne. By the late 9th century, they were colonising…
by Paul Braterman There are two possible attitudes towards Scripture. One is to regard it as the direct and infallible word of God. This leads to certain problems. The other one, equally compatible with devotion, is to regard it as the recorded writings of men (it almost always is men), however inspired, writing at a…
by Paul Braterman UPDATE (March 13, 2023, 8 AM): Gary Lineker has been reinstated, and has reaffirmed his position: A final thought: however difficult the last few days have been, it simply doesn’t compare to having to flee your home from persecution or war to seek refuge in a land far away. It’s heartwarming to…
by Paul Braterman A friend just sent me a copy of materials that the Cornwall Alliance is sending to its supporters. Here is an extract [fair use claimed]: BE ARMED AGAINST THE DANGERS OF SCIENCE SO CALLED Question any part of the climate-change “consensus” (how much climate change is going on, how much humans contribute…
by Paul Braterman In 1954, at the height of the McCarthyite Red Scare, the anti-evolution preacher John R. Rice asked his audience to whom Marx had dedicated The Communist Manifesto. The answer, he shouted out, was Charles Darwin. It is doubtful whether Marx had even heard of Darwin when he and Engels wrote the Manifesto…
by Paul Braterman New Zealand is taking measures to reduce the amount of methane and nitrous oxide generated by the flatulence and urinations of its vast flocks of sheep and cattle. No joke; molecule for molecule, methane is about 80 times as effective a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide, while nitrous oxide (laughing gas, an…
by Paul Braterman Young Earth creationist organisations are united in rejecting the secular science of climate change. This science, they say, incorporates the study of positive feedback loops as demonstrated by data from Ice Age cores (true). But all of this is part of the secular science that regards the Earth as ancient (also true)…
by Paul Braterman Do we really need 230 pages of at times closely argued text, followed by 70 pages of footnotes, just to tell us about Kentucky’s intellectually bankrupt Creation Museum and the authoritarian organisation, Answers in Genesis, that brings it to us? The answer, I fear, is yes. For instance, this book will tell…
by Paul Braterman An Immense World; How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us, Ed Yong, Random House/Bodley Head, June 2022 This book is an enormous achievement. A thrilling read, taking us into the Umwelt, or perceptual world, of numerous mammal, fish, reptile and insect species. A major work of scholarship, with over a…
by Paul Braterman Disaster has been averted at Imperial. But much damage has been done, the group appointed to implement the decisions taken faces an impossible task, and the process has aggravated the very problem that it was meant to address. For months, as I described here earlier, Imperial College has been contemplating the possibility…
by Paul Braterman When those in authority withhold promised information, we must fear for the worst. That is now the situation at Imperial College. As I write, the President’s Board is considering erasing from public view the role of one of the College’s founders, TH Huxley, despite his distinguished contributions throughout his life to education,…
by Paul Braterman We all know the story. Socrates has been told by the oracle that he is wisest of men, but he considers that he himself knows nothing. Puzzled, he takes to cross-examining his fellow Athenians about their beliefs, and time and again finds that they will not bear examination. As a result, he…
by Paul Braterman I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The authors have read widely and deeply over an enormous range of topics, and blended their insights into a coherent unified account covering subjects as diverse as genetics, stratigraphy, and the fine details of chemical bonding. The result is an overview stretching from ancient foreshadowings, through Enlightenment…
by Paul Braterman This short book deserves the widest possible readership. The author, Paul Nurse, shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the control of the process of cell division, and is currently Director of the Francis Crick Institute in London, and among other things is Chief Scientific Advisor…
by Paul Braterman Timefulness: How thinking like a geologist can help save the world, Marcia Bjornerud, Princeton University Press, 2018/2020, pp 208, sale price $8.84/£7.00 through publisher There are many excellent overviews for the general reader of how life on Earth has changed over time (see, for a recent example, Neil Shubin’s Some Assembly Required,…