Author Archives: JanetKRay.com

GALILEO, A TELESCOPE, AND TEXAS STUDENTS

November 24, 2024 By in Cy Fair ISD, Galileo Tags: , Leave a comment

Galileo didn’t invent the telescope, but he built the best one in his day. 

Galileo turned his fancy new telescope toward Jupiter and made a shocking discovery: four moons! Four moons orbit the giant planet! It was the seventeenth century equivalent of headline-making-break in-news. 

Today, Jupiter has 95 officially recognized moons, so why all the excitement about four?

Those four moons landed Galileo in big trouble with the Church. 

The official position of the Church was an earth-centered universe: all stars, all moons, all planets orbit the earth. After all, the Bible clearly says that the earth is fixed and cannot be moved. And, more importantly, if earth is not the center of it all, then humans are not the center of God’s attention . . . and Christian theology falls apart.

Galileo set his telescope up in public and invited critics to look for themselves. See the evidence with your own two eyes, he said. 

But opposition to Galileo was never about the evidence. Opposition was so much NOT about the evidence that some people simply refused to look through the telescope.

Hard pass, they said. I’m good, they said. Nothing to see here.

This past spring, the board of the third largest school district in Texas, Cy-Fair ISD in the Houston area, voted overwhelmingly to ban thirteen chapters in approved science textbooks for the 2024-2025 school year. 

The banned chapters cover topics deemed “controversial” by the board: climate change, vaccines, and human impact on the earth and its ecosystems. 

No science teachers or science administrators were involved in the decision. 

State Representative Jon Rosenthal has kids in Cy-Fair. Here’s Rosenthal: “They’re choosing to not prepare them for the possibility of entering the scientific community or even understanding some of the stuff that drives our modern science and medical profession now.”

The textbooks can be used, but we must pretend the banned chapters aren’t there. Nothing to see here – just ignore that evidence. 

The Sci-Fair school board simply refuses to look through the telescope.

 And sadly, the students aren’t allowed to look, either.

NUMBER ONE

November 17, 2024 By in Robert F. Kennedy Jr., vaccine denial, vaccines Tags: , 2 Comments

In a perfect world, there would be no mistakes. But the world is not perfect, and mistakes – sometimes deadly – happen.

In mid-2018, two nurses in the island country of Samoa accidently reconstituted the measles vaccine with a muscle relaxant instead of water. Two infants died.

The Samoan government paused vaccinations to investigate the deaths. Within weeks, the error was discovered. But in a country with a measles vaccination rate already lower than recommended for herd immunity, parental fear spells disaster. 

That sound you hear? 

That’s the anti-vaccine cavalry riding in, led by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services. 

In 2019, RFK Jr. arrived in Samoa with his anti-vaccine message, embracing local anti-vaccine proponents. Months of parental fears stoked by RFK’s antivaccine message led to disaster: vaccination rates plummeted.

Three months after RFK’s visit, Samoa experienced a devastating measles outbreak. The government took action – mandating shutdowns and vaccinations. 

In 2019, there were almost 3,000 measles cases reported in Samoa. Thirty-nine people died, thirty-five of them children. 

RFK Jr. never updated his antivax website, Children’s Health Defense, regarding the cause of the original deaths. RFK Jr. denies his influence on the deadly outbreak.

RFK Jr. sometimes tries to back away from his antivax hot takes, like when he said Ann Frank had more freedom than people under vaccine mandates. Still, in a CNN interview just a year ago, RFK Jr. bragged about telling random parents with a baby “better not get him vaccinated,” in order to “save” the child. 

RFK Jr. has a long history of promoting health-related conspiracies:

HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. MMR vaccine causes autism. Chemtrails. Drinking raw milk is harmless. Chemicals in water are causing kids to be trans. COVID-19 was ethnically targeted to avoid infecting Jewish and Chinese people. 5G high speed internet harvests our data and controls our behavior. Fluoride in the water supply is harmful.

RFK Jr. is not a doctor or any type of healthcare professional, an epidemiologist, or a public health policy expert. 

I don’t know if RFK Jr. will be confirmed to lead Health and Human Services, but I DO know this: 

He was the number one choice of the president-elect.

First in line.

Only the best people, he promised. Only the best. 

Science Literacy in Popular Media

July 22, 2024 By in Candace Owens, science literacy 1 Comment

Candace Owens is a conservative political commentator with her own newly launched podcast. Owens’ pod ranked 4th on Spotify this week and has been as high as 3rd. Only Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson ranked higher. 

Donald Trump called Owens “a very smart thinker.”

Candace Owens has the ears of a lot of people, to say the least.

A few weeks ago, Owens weighed in on a science topic, one that most people would consider settled:

“I’m not a flat earther. I’m not a round earther. Actually, what I am is, I am somebody who has left the cult of science.”

What. 

Owens continued: “science, what it is actually, if you think about it, is a pagan faith.” 

So here we are. Science is a cult, science is a religion, says the pundit with a giant megaphone. Science is not a practice of evidence, data, and peer-review, but a matter of opinion and belief, according to Owens. 

Reality: a science fact is true whether I believe it or not. I can think the earth is flat or I can doubt the earth is “round”, but that does not change the fact: the earth is a sphere.

I fear for science literacy. 

Spiritualizing the Eclipse

April 11, 2024 By in eclipse, moon Tags: , , , , Leave a comment
Spiritualizing the Eclipse

Total Eclipse Day 2024 has been on my phone calendar since I witnessed the 2017 total eclipse in Nashville, where a mean little cloud decided to park itself over our viewing spot just ten seconds before totality. Still, it was an amazing experience, and I counted the days to April 8, 2024.

I had much better luck in Dallas, despite more looming clouds.

Anticipation as the moon’s path crept across the sun. Totality. TOTALITY. Minutes of solemn darkness. A gorgeous corona and a sighting of a brilliantly red flare. Laying on the ground, absorbing it all.

I felt the immensity of the universe. I witnessed, first-hand, the movement of celestial bodies, usually just an academic/intellectual given, but rarely seen in such dramatic fashion.

It was ethereal. It was beautiful. It was emotional. Spiritual, even. 

As the midday dawn turned back to day, I loved reading the socials and seeing the eclipse through the emotions of fellow humans, reflecting on beauty and immensity and their smallness in the universe.

Aside from the few (but inevitable) end-times or moral-decay-warning interpretations of the eclipse, many found a religious message in the event:

“The perfect distance between the earth, moon, and sun is the result of a divine, perfect plan for creation.” 

“The moon, any closer or further away would not stay in position. It all points to the Creator.”

And here’s where the science educator in me bristles, puts on a dinosaur dress, and fires up the Magic School Bus.

That is simply not correct. 

The moon was far, far closer to earth in the past. At the time of the moon’s formation, it was only 14,000 miles from earth. The moon that obscured the sun on Eclipse Day is 240,000 miles from us. And the moon continues to retreat – at the rate of 1.5 inches every year. 

The Apollo astronauts left mirrors on the surface of the moon. We can calculate the rate of retreat by firing lasers at the mirrors and timing the return trips. 

So much for a singular “perfect” distance between earth and moon, established by a divine, perfect plan. 

Why, then, is our moon inching away from us? Was it something we said?

The moon’s gravity tugs on the earth’s oceans as it makes its orbit. We feel this “tug” in the form of rising and falling tides. But – the earth’s gravity likewise pulls on the moon, speeding up the moon’s orbit. This bit of increased speed powers the moon’s retreat. 

Stand in awe of the universe: it’s awe-some. But we walk on shaky ground when we attempt to find “proofs” of God in what we don’t understand or what is not yet known. 

Saving the Day

January 13, 2024 By in Covid, mRNA, vaccines 3 Comments

The fine print on my t-shirt says, “RNA Saves the Day.” I bought the shirt almost three years ago, to celebrate my trips to the Texas Motor Speedway for my first two COVID shots.

But here we are three years later, with vaccine misinformation still percolating through the population. Most recently, the State Surgeon General of Florida warned against mRNA vaccines, claiming the vaccines are contaminated with DNA fragments.

Know what else is “contaminated” with harmless DNA fragments? The food you eat.

Even before their release, alarmists were pre-refusing the mRNA vaccines: It’s too fast! No one wants an experimental vaccine!

Just for fun, let’s look at what was happening in the before-times, the years before covid flipped our world.

In the days before shutdowns and paper towel shortages, researchers were knee-deep investigating the use of mRNA in treating a myriad of diseases. Of particular interest were diseases caused by inborn metabolic errors.

For example, people born with a glycogen storage disease do not make the protein needed to release sugar from storage between meals. If these people do not eat every hour or two (including all through the night), they risk life-threatening low blood sugar.

What if mRNA could be used to teach the body to produce the missing protein? Researchers were on it.

Already mRNA was being injected directly into heart muscle during open-heart surgery, instructing the heart to build new vessels to circumvent clogged arteries.

And personalized cancer treatments using mRNA had an astounding turn-around of 45 days from development to patient.

So, when the genetic sequence of the COVID virus was published in January 2020, it only took two days for vaccine scientists to decide which of the COVID spikes to target.

One hour – that’s all it took to design the mRNA for the spike used in the vaccines. Forty-five days later, the NIH began vaccine development.

It wasn’t speedy because scientists were careless. It was speedy because they weren’t starting from scratch.

And research hasn’t stopped.

In a clinical trial of melanoma patients, one group was given Moderna’s mRNA melanoma therapy along with a biologic that enhances immune response. Another group was given the biologic alone.

Three years after treatment, patients who received the mRNA therapy in addition to the biologic saw a 49% reduction in the risk of melanoma recurrence or death and a 62% reduction in the risk of metastasis or death compared to those who received only the biologic .

That’s huge.

Saving the day, indeed.

My Monkeys Got It Right

January 6, 2024 By in The God of Monkey Science 4 Comments

I knew it. I just knew it. 

In the 1970s, the American anti-evolution movement was gaining steam. Movement leaders set out to strip creationism of explicitly religious language and embed creation science in public schools as an alternative to evolution science. 

When research in “creation science” stalled, anti-evolution activists turned their sights on culture. 

Fighting evolution was never about science evidence. Originally, it was a theological problem.

In THE GOD OF MONKEY SCIENCE, I offer mounds of evidence indicating that evolution is no longer simply a theological issue but has morphed into a cultural issue.

And now, three months after the release of my book, comes a new book by Dr. Jason Lisle of the Biblical Science Institute. 

Lisle, an astrophysicist and a young and prominent face of young earth creationism, erases all doubt: the battle ground is not science evidence, it’s culture.

My Monkeys got it right.

Science, Both-Sides-Isms, and Texas Public Schools

November 26, 2023 By in evolution, science, Texas State Board of Education, Todd Wood Leave a comment
Science, Both-Sides-Isms, and Texas Public Schools

Todd Wood is a Ph.D. biochemist and is the president of Core Academy of Science, a young earth creationist think tank. Wood is a popular host and speaker and was featured in the widely distributed documentary-style film “Is Genesis History?”

A few years ago, Wood caught a lot of flak from creationist quarters because of an essay he posted on the Core Academy site.

“Evolution is not a theory in crisis,” wrote Wood.

“There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it … There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well.”

WHAT? Send the Ken Ham Bat Signal!

Then Dr. Wood added: “It is my own faith choice to reject evolution . . ..” 

While we were off-line and prepping for a feast of roast dinosaur with all the trimmings, the Texas State Board of Education was doing its best to sabotage science education in the state. The week before Thanksgiving, the Board met in Austin to adopt new science textbooks. 

By Friday, eight of twenty-two science texts had been rejected by the Board. 

Board member Evelyn Brooks voted against the textbooks because they didn’t give “considerable weight” to creationism. Students should be presented with both evolution and creationism in Texas public schools, according to Brooks.

Apparently, a majority of State Board members agreed. 

Fighting evolution has morphed into rejection of climate science. Also rejected were textbooks that, in the words of Board member Patricia Harding, “scared” children about climate change. 

If you’re not a Texan, why should you care? The sheer size of Texas public education makes the state a textbook juggernaut. If Texas ain’t buying it, it’s not being printed.

There is a reason why those who promote a six- to ten-thousand-year-old earth are always religious.

There is a reason why those who promote an instantaneous creation or a designed creation are always religious.

If evidence for a young earth or special creation or special design truly existed, there would be at least a few non-religious scientists supporting these positions, but there are not.

There are multitudes of religious people who, unlike Todd Wood, hold to faith and accept science evidence. Credit to Wood, however, for his intellectual honesty regarding his rejection of the evidence.

It is Todd Wood’s theology that demands he reject evolution, not the science. It is the Texas board members’ theology that demands they reject evolution, not the evidence.

As such, “both sides” have no place in a public-school classroom.

Launch Day for The God of Monkey Science

October 10, 2023 By in Uncategorized 4 Comments

Today’s the day!! Monkeys are on the loose!

THE GOD OF MONKEY SCIENCE OFFICIALLY RELEASES TODAY! I am so excited to launch this book into the world!

Please rate and/or review on Amazon, even if you didn’t get your book there. Ratings/reviews are critical in showing the book to potential readers (algorithms and all that).

If you will, copy and paste your review to Goodreads, Christianbook, and any other bookseller you’d like.

I posted direct links to review below.

A MILLION thanks and a big monkey hug!!

Amazon

Goodreads

Christianbook

Barnes And Noble

COVID Vaccines: The Fast and the Furious

October 2, 2023 By in Covid, Kariko, mRNA, Weissman 8 Comments
COVID Vaccines: The Fast and the Furious

They said it was “experimental.”

They said it was developed too fast, that it was “rushed.”

They said it was a political move by bureaucratic government scientists, and Anthony Fauci was the archvillain.

They even said it was a monstrosity that would change your DNA, make you infertile, and give Bill Gates microchip control over a population of “sheeple.”

Today, hundreds of thousands of people owe their lives to a COVID vaccine using mRNA technology – technology that has been studied and refined since the 1980s.

Molecular biologist Katalin Karikó was convinced that mRNA could revolutionize vaccine delivery. For almost a decade, Dr. Karikó worked in obscurity. 

A chance meeting with immunologist Drew Weissman at the University of Pennsylvania changed history.

It was 1998. Karikó and Weissman were chatting at the copy machine, waiting for it to warm up. Thus began a partnership with the goal of using mRNA to deliver a safe and revolutionary vaccine. 

Karikó and Weissman first published their groundbreaking discoveries in 2005. For the next fifteen years, they continue to work and publish with little funding.

But two biotech companies, Moderna and BioNTech, noticed. 

And in 2020, with a deadly pandemic looming, these companies combined the years of coronavirus research being done at the NIH and other labs with the work of Karikó and Weissman to produce two COVID-19 vaccines, each using mRNA technology.

Today, FOUR DECADES of research later, the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology was awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman. 

Congratulations and well-done from a grateful world. 

Christian Nationalism and Science Denial

September 11, 2023 By in Christian nationalism, science denial, vaccine denial Leave a comment
Christian Nationalism and Science Denial

I grew up in a small city in Texas. Almost everyone I knew went to church somewhere, usually some version of an evangelical church. 

Currently, many Americans who self-identify as “evangelical” aren’t a part of a traditionally evangelical church. “Evangelical” doesn’t necessarily describe where you go to church, or even if you go to church at all.

In fact, more than one-fifth of Americans who want the United States to officially be a “Christian nation” are secular or belong to a non-Christian faith. In 21st century America, “Christian” is more a cultural and political identity, rather than a religious one.

In the wake of this evolution, the terms “Christian” and “nationalism” have married. Characteristic of this marriage is an idealized version of history – that our nation was better, more moral, more diligent in the past. 

Other societies and cultures have idealized the past. Societies that idealize the past have many things in common, including support of “strong man” style leaders and a return to a “law and order” approach to society. 

There’s a lot to unpack here, but I want to focus on another characteristic of cultures that idealize the past: anti-intellectualism that often manifests as anti-science attitudes. 

Christian nationalism, as well as a belief that the Bible is historically and scientifically literally true, tracks with a greater tendency to believe conspiracy theories. Both groups track with anti-vaccine attitudes. 

White evangelicals were the religious demographic most resistant to a COVID vaccine, and also the most resistant to masking and social distancing.

And it didn’t stop with COVID. Already we are seeing state legislatures considering rollbacks of childhood vaccine requirements for school children. 

Look just below the surface of disputes about “science and religion” and you will see that they are primarily conflicts about moral and cultural order. 

Read more in The God of Monkey Science: People of Faith in a Modern Scientific World – available now for preorder!