Islamic embryology is my curse now

I dread finding email in my inbox from someone with a Muslim name nowadays, because I know exactly what it’s going to about. Apparently I am notorious among Islamic fundamentalists because I said that the prophet Mohammed’s account of developmental biology is not accurate, and not at all substantial, so every once in a while someone gets it in their head to prove me wrong, that the Quran is precise, accurate, and complete. It is not, of course.

Here we go again.

Dear Professor PZ Myers,

I hope you are doing well. I am a Muslim medical student, and I recently watched your debate on embryology in Islam from 12 years ago. Unfortunately, the brothers debating you lacked in-depth knowledge of embryology[That’s a poor description to narrow it down. They were all bad, every one. Maybe this one with the appropiately named Nadir?], but I am here to offer a more informed perspective[Doubtful.]

I have written an entire book about embryology in Islam, detailing its basis and nuances. I noticed you are seeking detailed embryological descriptions in the Quran[No, I’m not. The Quran has a pitifully short description, I don’t need a whole book making excuses for it], and I believe you may have overlooked the significant details present in the verses of Surah Al-Muminun or other surah. While I understand you are an atheist and do not believe in God, I hope to provide you with some insights before it is too late[Too late…for what?].

I am willing to share passages from my book with you, completely free of charge, in the spirit of honest inquiry and the pursuit of truth. The first passages I will provide cover:

1. The formation of bones and flesh.
2. The claim that the Quran copied from the works of Galen and Aristotle.

Additionally, my book includes other topics such as:

3. Embryology classification at the microscopic level and its correlation with the Quran.
4. Sex determination in the Hadiths of the Prophet and the Quran.
5. Correcting misinterpretations of verses in Chapter 86 of the Quran: Surah At-Tariq (regarding the ejaculated fluid coming from between the backbone and ribs).

To start, I will send you the first two topics. All you need to do is read these to conclude that the knowledge contained in the Quran is not primitive and could not have been known by everyone at that time[I’ve read a complete translation of that section — it’s very short — and it’s primitive]. If you continue to claim otherwise, I would appreciate evidence that someone made similar statements as the Prophet did at that time[I feel no obligation to correspond further].

I apologize for not being able to share the entire book now, as it has not yet been released. However, I am happy to provide the first two passages, and if you are interested in more, please let me know and I will see what I can do.

Have a good day.

Best regards,

Are you ready for this? OK, let’s take a look at the excerpt about “bones and flesh”. The Quran claims Allah makes bones first, then clothes them with flesh. Is that what happens?

[Read more…]

What is the Vatican Method?

We’ve generally found that the scientific method is a useful tool for testing explanations, and apparently Catholics are envious, so they’ve evaluated their method for identifying supernatural phenomena and have come up with their own method, officially declaring changes in their protocols. Unfortunately, I struggled through a summary and haven’t been able to see exactly what’s new — the answer seems to be that they’re going to defer more to the authority of the Pope.

They are concerned that too many charlatans outside of the church are profiting from weird claims of supernatural manifestations of Catholic phantasms. That money should be going into Catholic coffers!

The Vatican’s doctrine office revised norms first issued in 1978, arguing that they were no longer useful or viable in the internet age. Nowadays, word about apparitions or weeping Madonnas travels quickly and can harm the faithful if hoaxers are trying to make money off people’s beliefs or manipulate them, the Vatican said.

The new norms make clear that such an abuse of people’s faith can be punishable canonically, saying, “The use of purported supernatural experiences or recognized mystical elements as a means of or a pretext for exerting control over people or carrying out abuses is to be considered of particular moral gravity.”

But there’s now denying that there are great sums of money to be made from wild-ass claims of apparitions appearing to the faithful. The Catholic church has profited from such claims for centuries.

When confirmed as authentic by church authorities, these otherwise inexplicable signs have led to a flourishing of the faith, with new religious vocations and conversions. That has been the case for the purported apparitions of Mary that turned Fatima, Portugal, and Lourdes, France, into enormously popular pilgrimage destinations.

Church figures who claimed to have experienced the stigmata wounds, including Padre Pio and Pope Francis’ namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, have inspired millions of Catholics even if decisions about their authenticity have been elusive.

Francis himself has weighed in on the phenomenon, making clear that he is devoted to the main church-approved Marian apparitions, such as Our Lady of Guadalupe, who believers say appeared to an Indigenous man in Mexico in 1531.

So the answer to this conundrum is to change the rules. Claims of supernatural events cannot be granted official status by local bishops, but must instead be reviewed and evaluated by a Vatican committee, and if acceptable must be rubber-stamped by the Pope. I don’t think they will be assessed on the evidence, but rather, on compatibility with church doctrine and potential to generate revenue. Of course that’s not the excuse the defenders of the Catholic church use.

Robert Fastiggi, who teaches Marian theology at the Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan and is an expert on apparitions, said at first glance that requirement might seem to take authority away from the local bishop.

“But I think it’s intended to avoid cases in which the Holy See might feel prompted to overrule a decision of the local bishop,” he said.

“What is positive in the new document is the recognition that the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Mother are present and active in human history,” he said. “We must appreciate these supernatural interventions but realize that they must be discerned properly.”

Right. Ghosts are real, if “discerned properly.” I guess I haven’t been discerning right.

Have there been any good commencement speeches this year?

Or ever? You might bet tempted to cite Kurt Vonnegut’s “Wear sunscreen” speech, but he didn’t give it and it was written as an essay by Mary Schmich. I’ve never heard one that I would want to hear twice.

But this year has suffered through some truly bad commencement speeches. I’ve already mentioned Chris Pan’s Bitcoin spam at Ohio State. But did you know that speech went through multiple public revisions? Pan worked through it on social media, got all kinds of criticism, and he went ahead and delivered it anyway. Why did he bother asking for criticism if he was going to ignore it anyway? There’s a special kind obtuse confidence on display there.

Pan was topped, though! Harrison Butker, a place kicker in the NFL, was invited to speak at Benedictine College, a small Catholic liberal arts (but not liberal!) college in Kansas, and he delivered a remarkably regressive pronouncement about how men and women should live…like 12th century Catholics, apparently.

In front of the crowd of about 485 male and female graduates, Butker suggested that a woman’s accomplishments in the home are more valuable than any academic or professional goals.

“I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you,” he said.

“How many of you are sitting here now about to cross this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career? Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”

Butker also praised his wife Isabelle, saying she “would be the first to say her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.”

I don’t recommend it, but you can suffer through this speech, too. He isn’t shy about declaring his deeply conservative, crude opinions.

The smugness. The obliviousness. The absolute lack of empathy for half the human beings on the planet. He’s awful.

What worried me most, though, is that no one walked out on him. Jerry Seinfield did a commencement speech full of banalities, and people walked out. This crowd at Benedictine College applauded and cheered at the end of that paean to neo-Nazi values, which tells me…don’t trust Benedictine College graduates. What are they teaching there?

the godfather, or grandfather, or one of the prime people that ended up actually killing the unity of the movement

A friend let me know that there was a discussion that briefly mentioned me last night, between Ember and Thomas Sheedy. Sheedy is a long time regressive conservative atheist who founded a group called Atheists for Liberty, and Ember put his views in the spotlight for a couple of hours. Sheedy was glib and articulate for a repulsive monster, but I think everyone could see right through him. He was babbling on about transgenderism, wokeism, Dave Silverman (he was framed!), Boghossian, Turning Point USA, and how he was committed to defending atheism über alles and that all this progressive ideology destroyed atheism, while his right-wing ideology was fine, and that it didn’t spill over into his atheist activism, unlike those weird Atheism+ freaks.

Somehow, he thinks promoting Trump and Desantis is compatible with his overweening support for a secular America. He’s completely blind to the fact that he is ideologically driven by forces that are inherently in opposition to atheism.

The bit where I’m mentioned is brief and not at all a big part of the conversation, and is at about the one hour mark in this video.

Sheedy says I am the godfather, or grandfather, or one of the prime people that ended up actually killing the unity of the movement. Cool. Not true and rather silly — lots of people found themselves dissatisfied with the movement, and I wasn’t a leader — but still rather flattering.

Do you think medical boards protect us from quacks?

She said, the longer you wear a mask, the more unhealthy you get.

She thinks vaccines wreck chromosomes. For those of you who say you are Christians, what will your life review look like at the end of your life? Will the Lord say to you: ‘You coerced people into being injected with this gene-modification technology that irreversibly disrupts your chromosomes?

She claims that that there is “some sort of an interface, ‘yet to be defined’ interface, between what’s being injected in these shots and all of the 5G towers, and that the vaccines have caused thousands of deaths in the U.S.

She also says I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures all over the internet of people who’ve had these shots, and now they’re magnetized. They can put a key on their forehead, it sticks. They can put spoons and forks all over them, and they can stick. Because now we think that there’s a metal piece to that.

She thinks cities are liquifying dead bodies and pouring them into the water supply.

She has a mission.

In one session, Tenpenny implores God to release the U.S. from the tyranny of the mask, argues America is founded on your word and expresses hope it will return to being one country under God. In another, she refers to vaccines as a bioweapon to damage your children created by satanists who allow Black Lives Matter and antifa activists to operate as a front to drive socialism through the heart of America, which turns into communism.

I’m sure you’ll all be relieved to know that the state medical board has restored Sherri Tenpenny’s license to practice medicine in the state of Ohio.