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Failed predictions are a key feature of pseudoscience, and much of my writing has documented instances of credentialed academies making bold, confident declarations, only to act like they never happened when reality intruded into their fantasy.

The post Well Dr. Stephanie Seneff, 2025 is Over. Did Glyphosate Turn Half of All Children Autistic? first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

At the Q2B Silicon Valley conference, scientific and business leaders of the quantum computing industry hailed "spectacular" progress being made towards practical devices – but said that challenges remain

Astronomers have decoded the hidden past of a distant red giant star by listening to tiny vibrations in its light, revealing clues of a dramatic cosmic history. The star, which quietly orbits a dormant black hole, appears to be spinning far faster than it should—and its internal “starquakes” suggest it may have once collided and merged with another star. Even more puzzling, its chemical makeup makes it look ancient, while its internal structure reveals it’s relatively young.

When Earth was a molten inferno, water may have been locked safely underground rather than lost to space. Researchers discovered that bridgmanite deep in the mantle can store far more water at high temperatures than previously believed. During Earth’s cooling, this hidden reservoir could have held water volumes comparable to today’s oceans. Over time, that buried water helped drive geology and rebuild the planet’s surface environment.

The detection of mercurial particles of light emanating from mice led to a flurry of interest in biophotons, a mysterious phenomenon that could have applications in agriculture

Merry Christmas and happy First Day of Koynezaa!  We’ve collected 64 photos of cats from readers, and we’ll introduce them with two images. The first, clearly depicting a Jewish cat, was sent in by Stacy (not her cat, but a meme):

And an introductory greeting from Laura:

We don’t currently serve as a cat’s staff, but we’re out in Palm Springs for a few days. and saw this bit of graffiti art:

NOW FOR THE READERS’ CATS:

Andrew Petto’s cat, Grace. wreathed in a wreath:

Grace was rescued by our granddaughter from a barn as part of a litter abandoned by their mother. She was the last one unclaimed. After waging war against pathogens from at least 3 phyla, Grace thrived and grew to the contented feline she is today.

From Dave and Brandie Aylsworth:

Here’s is a picture of Andy and Emily, 1 year-old sisters who we starting serving after a friend moved and couldn’t keep them. They’re enjoying their first Xmas with us in Tampa on their new tower.

From Rachel Sperling:

Gloria (orange) and Cordelia (brown tabby) enjoying their cat-safe menorah on the last night of Hanukkah last year. Gloria is three and Cordelia is seven; they love everyone except each other (but they mostly get along).

From Linda Taylor:

Maxi and Milo spend the summer in the catio under a tree so naturally they spend Christmas under the tree.  I only meant to have one kitten but when I went to pick him up I discovered they came as a two pack, like milk at Costco.

From Kurt:

Neo the Cat arrived at his permanent home from the animal shelter in November 2024.  This photo was taken on either 25 or 26 of December 2024 showing that the then 5 month old Neo had decided that the bowl on the Christmas table was a purrfectly fine location for a nap.

From Wesley Segarra:

Here is a picture of one of my cats, Finn. He loves sleeping under the tree because he finally learned to not sleep in the tree.

From Kira Heller:

Gitel of the Tetons investigates our Chanukah sagebrush before booting it off the windowsill.

From Sarah Nunes:

Stanley is a 14 yr old shelter cat; my daughter volunteered with the shelter her first summer home from college and convinced us to adopt him.  He remained with us when she left home permanently after graduation.

From Naama Pat-El:

This is Kiki, the most recent addition to the TexasLinguist tribe. She definitely knows who the real present is.

From Miriam Meyerhoff, yet another Jewish cat:

Honu was a rescue cat, now 14 years old. She came from a house with eighteen cats and was very shy and prone to biting when she came to live with us, nearly three years ago. She didn’t purr and didn’t like being touched at all. My husband’s extraordinary patience with her has worked wonders. She now likes to curl up with you on the couch, plays with toys and will come and meet strangers. ‘Honu’ is Hawaiian for ’turtle’. We know she’s a calico and not a tortoiseshell, but it’s a good name for a cat.

From James Blase:

I don’t celebrate religious holidays (except Dec 25; which is my birthday – I’ll be 75), but here is the late Flats Cat Blase, helping celebrate “Festivus” on Dec 23 of last year:

From Terry McLean: my favorite species and my favorite beer:

Here is my Christmas cat photo contribution. Thought you might appreciate a ginger cat / Timothy Taylor’s Landlord combo. Ruby adopted us 5 years ago and is now the Landlord. A perfect angel. I think she has realized that she can’t fit in the Christmas tree anymore.

From David Brunsting:

Here is a photo of our kitten Hazel insinuating herself in our Christmas tree. She is our first cat and I am almost 70!  Your blog inspired us and we are so glad to have Hazel in our lives!”

Howie Neufeld doesn’t have a holiday picture, but did send in an awesome cat:

My favorite photos of my son, Ross, when he was 3 in 1991, with his cat (found in my backyard when I lived in Oregon, breed unknown). The cat was named Oscar, because he was a slob in terms of cleaning himself when first adopted (was so small then I had to feed him with a plastic syringe of milk). But he was a gentle cat. When we moved 5 miles away in NC to a new home, he disappeared for 6 weeks, only to show up at my former home. We were fortunate to get him back. Oscar died around 1995, young I admit, but the vet thinks he got into some bad food on his journey back to his original home, and that unfortunately shortened his life. A great cat – he would walk with us just like a puppy when we took hikes in the nearby woods. And never once scratched anyone. Ross received his MS in cybersecurity policy from Ga Tech on Saturday, where he works as a cyber security expert.

From Carl Morano:

Angel with ceramic tree.  Angel was a stray kitten that appeared in our backyard 2 years ago.  After a week of visits for food, we took her in.

From Paul T.:

Apollo was checking out the newly-placed presents.  Thankfully, the indoor tree has never been much of an interest to him, nor to our greyhound.

From Lucinda and Stan:

Here is a picture of our cat Frillybear, who loves to “help” with all chores, especially ones that make enticing noises.

From Cathy Hamm:

This is Wrigley, “The Great Destroyer of Christmas Trees.” We adopted him from our local cat shelter as a kitten. He is almost two years old and this is the second Christmas tree he has expertly dismantled. The tree is now back in storage under the stairs. It’s a good thing we adore Wrigley, and he is still getting his favorite toys for Christmas. Just not under the tree, LOL!

From:

Yeti (white Birman-ish lady on left) and Jessie (Turbo torby on right) waiting to share their morning fancyfeast. These girls started life in a feral colony. Were captured and neutered in a cat-ice raid, and adopted as “bonded pair”. Supposed to be siblings but the odds?

From Anne Lear:

The attached photo is of Tigger, a dedicated foodie, sidling across the table at Christmas dinner and aiming to approach the plate on the right without being noticed.  He had already been slipped pieces of turkey and was having difficulty waiting for his share of the scraps.The house rule is ‘no cats on the table at mealtimes’, which the cats have interpreted as meaning  ‘at least one foot on the chair’. Tigger was adopted as an extra to his brother Rusty because he was being bullied in the kitten cage at the vet. He was an ebullient character and an excellent mouser, but afraid of rats – one evening he sat beside me and watched a rat as it ran over my foot and into the bushes.  Unfortunately he lived only 9 years before dying of renal failure of unknown cause.

From Amy Perry:

Our sole outdoor Christmas decoration every year is this lighted star of Bethlehem in our front window. The black cat in the back, Circe, is 100% black and so skittish that she rarely lets us touch her. The cat in the front, Ella, a dilute tortoiseshell, frequently asks to be petted and we oblige her.

From Ginger K., another Jewish cat:

Attached is a Catnukkah photo of my friend’s cat from 2024. Kitteh’s name is Jackson and he is about 3 years old. He is a Very. Big. Kitteh. Not a chonker, but a tall and large-framed kitteh. He is cautious around strangers, but once he gets used to you he’ll allow you to pet him.

From Divy we get Jango:

 KitKat extraordinaire, Hili lover and master of his staff. [JAC: Jango is enamored of Hili and gazes at her photos often.]

From Donna Harris in Winnipeg:

This photo is not the very best pic I’ve taken, but it has the most meaning.  We adopted Brillo 2 years ago.  Pretty much feral. He’s also FIV positive.  It’s taken him a long,long time to get  used to us and our other 3 cats. But he’s come a long way.  We still can’t hold him and pick him up. But, he loves getting his fur brushed! This pic was a surprise. He found a new place to nap recently!!

From Alex Skucas:

This is Oreo.  Also known as The Great Fox Chaser.  When he is not actively hunting chipmunks, birds, squirrels, rabbits, snakes, and mice, he is lying in wait behind a tree or bush hoping for a fox to pass by.  When a fox gets close enough, Oreo will spring out and chase the fox over quite a long distance.  It is a game for Oreo and neither he nor the fox seem to realize that there is a significant size discrepancy between the two that actually favors the fox.  Here is Oreo in the morning after a night of predation.

From Tamara Sharoff, whose cat apparently wrote the entry:

My name is Squirt, a name I acquired when rescued as a young kitten 18 years ago outside a cafe in California. I spent my first 16 years living the good life as a barn cat. Now retired to the indoors. Not super crazy about the 2 leggers, but I’m slowly warming to them and their craziness like this weird thing behind me.

From Regina Jammen:

Here is Max, our orange tabby cat. When he is not gazing out the window here in Boston, Max loves decorated trees, lengthy books read to him, and lots of hugs.

From Tom Steinberg:

You’ve met Sparkle in her apple tree from the photo I send last June that you kindly featured. I was touched and honored by that. Here she is in her Usual Spot in Eugene with her orange highlights (hence the name), and one coy white paw. Her paws, belly, and chest are white.

Sparkle is helping me wrap a present to a granddaughter. And this was last minute! I took the photo ~ 15 minutes before Deadline.

From Kevin Henderson in New Mexico:

Iris, Jules, Lyra.  Waiting for Advent calendar salmon treats.

From Pamela we have “Freddy, the Atheist Cat”:

From Mary Lou and Jim Mayfield in Iowa:

“Tuxedo” dresses his best for the Holidays!

From Dave McCrady:

Say hello to Murphy the tomcat, circa 1975 or so.    A rescue, with us since he was a kitten.  Murphy was part of our family for the next 14 years or so.  He loved a good tussle and knew that when I put on the heavy mitt, claws were allowed.  He would latch on with all four feet.

From David Jorling:

I would send a video with the train running but the cat, named Mia, would knock it over. The train is a model of the Milwaukee Road’s “Cannonball”, which was the only commuter train in Milwaukee that ran from Watertown WI to Milwaukee.  

As you will see from the photo, I have an HO scale train around my holiday tree.  Last night we had guests for dinner and I turned on the train.  After dinner I went into our living room and Mia was on one of the chairs looking at me and yelling (meowing) at me like she had never done before.  I turned off the train and she immediately went across the tracks under the tree and curled up.  She was  yelling at me to turn off the train so she could cross the tracks, apparently.

From Steve:

Mabel is the 8th kitten we’ve fostered this year. We were a little sad when the previous kittens were adopted, but they went to good homes.

When my wife left 40 years of breakable ornaments in storage and started putting plastic ones on the tree, I went to the shelter and filled out the paperwork. Termed a ” failed foster”, Mabel has found her forever home.

Addendum: “Mabel takes just one ornament off the tree every day.”

From Darrell Ernst:

This pic is of Princess Leia, relaxing after rearranging the Christmas Village to her liking.

She is one of three cats we currently share our home with. We found her at the local Humane Society when she was about three months old. She was a stray trapped with some litter mates then handed over to the HS.

She is the archetypal cat, lithe, strong and pure grace in every movement. When playing she often stops the other cats in their tracks with an impossible seeming maneuver. Like a ballerina ninja. She is also possibly the sweetest creature I’ve ever known.

From Jay Lonner in the state of Washington:

Attached find a photo of Fitz and Ollie, our ~7 year old mackerel tabbies that we adopted as a bonded pair from the local humane society. They’re sweet boys who, despite their destructive tendencies, are a constant source of joy and love. What I find interesting about them from a biological perspective is that they are basically wild type cats — no pedigrees here! They are phenotypically indistinguishable (at least to my untrained eye) from African wildcats, and I appreciate the combination of chaos and cuddliness they bring to our otherwise staid lives.

From Debra Coplan:

This is Peaches trying to help celebrate Hannukah as best as she knows how.  Latkes were out of the question.

She is about 14 now. Adopted about 6 years ago after her owner died. I found her in an ad in the newspaper.

Happy Hannukah to all!

From Reese Vaughn:

Cider and his sister Razz (short for Raspberry) survived Hurricane Harvey in 2017 so they are eight years old. Thus is as Christmasy as they get.

Also from Reese:

This is Razz enjoying a Christmas treat from a hand-painted oyster shell, a traditional Texas Coast ornament. No, she didn’t eat the elf; she’s just blocking his body in the photo.

From Simon:

Balian (foreground) and Harry (headshot in the background) are now 3 and a half. In the ten days since this picture was taken they have been selectively removing labels from gifts put under the tree as well as a number of the lower decorations. No evidence of climbing it yet. They are about to be joined by our kids, their spouses and an 18-month-old grandson who enjoys a fraught personal relationship with his parents’ cat. He has yet to meet these two, and I anticipate a strong disapproval from the cats. And keen interest from the kid, from whom the first distinguishable work that I heard was “kitty”

From Susan Harrison:

Boris is seen here making a polite request: “When will my ornaments be up?”  He and Natasha are always pleased to have the tree brought in, adding visual interest to their domain.  Luckily, though, at age 13 and with their laid-back Ragdoll personalities, the two of them are not much of a threat to dangly breakable objects.

From Bob Woolley:

This is Lucy, a few years ago. The festive garb stayed on her for less than a minute, because she found them incompatible with her comfort and dignity. I think you can see her displeasure in her face.

From Peggy:

This is Minnie (Minuit) on a well-deserved rest after helping me put all the candles in for the last night of Hannukah. She is 16 and this is her 15th Hannukah; her first was spent in a Michigan barn with no Jews around). Still, I told her she cannot help me light the candles. Despite her Hebrew name, Minnie’s sister Tula (תולה is short for חתולה) wanted nothing to do with the menorah.

From Kathleen Vincent:

Perspicacious is his name. But we call him Percy.

From Bobbie Mason-Gamer:

We adopted the appropriately-named Noel from a shelter about a month ago. She likes the Christmas tree, alternating between naughty (batting the decorations) and nice (resting underneath). It must be a big surprise for a cat to suddenly find an indoor tree covered with things resembling cat toys, so I can’t fault little Noel for wanting to play with it! 

From Steven Eakman:

Here is our holiday cat photo for this year. It features a new addition to our family: This is Neville*. He is the successor to our beloved Nigel, who appeared in several prior holiday photo postings. Nigel was the benevolent ruler of this household for 17 years but, sadly, left us last February. Neville is about to turn six months old and is a pure feline chaos generator. Boundless kitten energy and the classic “who, me?” cattitude. In the photo he sports a bow/ribbon that he pilfered from a holiday package and subsequently had great fun playing with. The photo was taken as evidence of his guilt, not that he was at all repentant… *No, Neville is NOT named after Chamberlain, Longbottom, or any other real or fictional human of that name.

From Ashleigh G.:

This is my cat Grace who died last october. Here she is in her Christmas dress:

From Susan Wearn, who calls this “not much of a holiday cat.”

Here is my pitiful contribution of Murphy, the neighbor’s visiting cat, with a German incense smoker in the background. Feel free not to use this! I tried to take his picture under the tree, but he was having none of it.  He behaves very much like the male orange cat he is. 

From Roz:

Mendel and Yoda bundled in a shawl on their heated blanket. (We do winter rather than holidays over here—too dangerous to light Hanukkah candles with Devon Rexes around.)

Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas.

From Erik Levin:

This is Schrodinger. The bag is his holiday bag from a friend, with tube treats and a new blanket. He is fifteen years old, arthritic, and kidney stage three, as well as a true smuggler lap boy for life, and still a fierce bug killer and winter mouser. They find a way in when the temperature drops below -10C. 

From Ursula Goodenough:

Edith in her Christmas stocking, a gift to her lover Ursula

Another Jewish cat from Michele Miller:

Photo of my Yiddish cat, Meshuggah—she earns her name (‘crazy’ in Yiddish) as she is quite the hyper scaredy cat also known for wild zoomies. If you look carefully, you will notice her left ear is ’tipped’ showing she was once part of a feral colony. Usually ferals are tipped after TNR (’trap and release’ neutering) but for some reason she was taken in by a rescue where I adopted her at 9 months old—I work professional with quite a few rescues and end up taking home the ones no one else wants to adopt. 

Here’s Matthew Cobb’s cat Harry next to “an Xmas bauble the children painted to resemble Harry.”

Harry is 10, born on Halloween when a heavily pregnant stray cat walked into a neighbour’s back yard. She had 3 kittens. The first we heard about this was when they escaped at about 7 weeks old and the neighbor went nuts looking for them. They were up a tree. [Matthew took one who became Harry.]

From Elizabeth Leahey-Martinez

This is Lulu, full name Louise. She appeared one day in our parking lot late November 2 years ago and was quickly a foster fail as we fell in love with her. This is her favorite time of year as there is a tree in the house covered in toys!

From James Joy:

On July 4, 2021, my wife and I returned from a family get-together to find a very small kitten on our patio, all alone. We of course adopted her, making her the tenth rescue cat in our household.  We named her Coco, but as time went on she earned the nickname Punky. A few months later, we tried to put a Santa hat on her to take a photo for our Christmas card.  She refused to wear the hat, so this photo was our Christmas card.

From David Riddell, a Kiwi:

When our cat Kifi was little she used to climb up our old tinsel Christmas tree (an heirloom from my wife’s family), and she still gets very excited when it goes up each year.  She loves Christmas time -always lots of new boxes to check out for size!

From John Wilson:

Sunspot is dressed up as one of the holiday lions guarding the Art Institute of Chicago (it was his Halloween costume).

From Taryn Overton:

This is Hitchens.  He joined me in my second year of vet school and has been my sidekick through five states and seven moves.  He’s 15 years young.  Favorite pastimes: zoomies around the home, sunbathing no matter the temperature, and batting the eyelashes of his staff at 3:30 am when he’s hungry.

From Greg:

This is a photo of Perry. He is patiently waiting for Santa.

From Stephanie: Another Jewish cat, and with Hanukkah gelt (traditional foil-wrapped chocolate coins).

Lulu is a Jewish cat, of course, but isn’t sure whether she wants to try the gelt because she thinks the foil on the outside might irritate her fillings.  Just kidding, she doesn’t have many teeth because she had most of them pulled (she probably could have used some fillings).

From Iain:

I hope this gets to you in time. Here’s Jemima. She is floofy and likes to sit in her scratching box. She also has a rumbly purr and can hold a full conversation with her humans.

From Julia:

This is our ginger bit of fluff, Marlowe. Named after Shakespeare’s friend Christopher Marlowe for his colouring and our suspicion that he will also meet his end in a tavern brawl.  Here he is meeting Santa with my daughter. A bit of a scared kitty.

From Wendy:

Gracie! Peace on earth, or at least in bed.

Happy holidays from PCC(E) and, I presume, all the cats.

Scientists have discovered a giant cosmic filament where galaxies spin in sync with the structure that holds them together. The razor-thin chain of galaxies sits inside a much larger filament that appears to be slowly rotating as a whole. This coordinated motion is far stronger than expected by chance and hints that galaxy spin may be inherited from the cosmic web itself. The finding opens a new window into how galaxies formed and how matter flows across the Universe.

This Christmas, astronomers are highlighting a spectacular region of space that looks remarkably like a glowing holiday tree. Known as NGC 2264, this distant star-forming region sits about 2,700 light-years away and is filled with newborn stars lighting up clouds of gas and dust. The stars form a triangular shape called the Christmas Tree cluster, crowned by the dramatic Cone Nebula and wrapped in the swirling Fox Fur Nebula below. Together, these features create a festive cosmic scene spanning nearly 80 light-years, showing how young stars shape their surroundings on a truly galactic scale.

Palaeontologists reported some remarkable dinosaur fossils this year, including a Velociraptor relative, a dome-headed pachycephalosaur and one of the most heavily armoured creatures that ever lived

A microscope that cost less than £50 and took under 3 hours to build using a common 3D printer could be transformative for students and researchers with limited funding

A microscope that cost less than £50 and took under 3 hours to build using a common 3D printer could be transformative for students and researchers with limited funding

Double your generosity by donating to Skeptoid before the end of the year!

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Scientists are digging into the hidden makeup of carbon-rich asteroids to see whether they could one day fuel space exploration—or even be mined for valuable resources. By analyzing rare meteorites that naturally fall to Earth, researchers have uncovered clues about the chemistry, history, and potential usefulness of these ancient space rocks. While large-scale asteroid mining is still far off, the study highlights specific asteroid types that may be promising targets, especially for water extraction.

Scientists are digging into the hidden makeup of carbon-rich asteroids to see whether they could one day fuel space exploration—or even be mined for valuable resources. By analyzing rare meteorites that naturally fall to Earth, researchers have uncovered clues about the chemistry, history, and potential usefulness of these ancient space rocks. While large-scale asteroid mining is still far off, the study highlights specific asteroid types that may be promising targets, especially for water extraction.

I’ve often argued that the Free Press is soft on religion, even more so than its MSM equivalent, the New York Times. The editor of the FP, Bari Weiss, is Jewish, and although it’s not clear to me exactly what she believes (is there a God?), you’ll never see her criticizing religion. Her partner, Nellie Bowles, converted to Judaism, (I believe you have to espouse belief for that–a double entendre), and I can’t remember ever reading anything antireligious or pro-atheism on the site. (I may have missed something.) And now the editors have recruited at least four more religionists as part of a long series about religion celebrating America’s 250th anniversary.

There will be monthly paeans to religion for a year, and it may already have been going for a while.  One of the paeans is below: a long, tedious piece about how American required not only the Bible to attain equality of its citizens, but the Old Testament. It’s no accident, of course, that the author, Meir Yaakov Soloveichik, is an Orthodox rabbi.  (More rabbis to come!) The American experiment, he avers, involved the replacement of an earthly king with a heavenly one: God (Yahweh in his case). Well, maybe he was right, but in the end there’s no evidence for a God who makes us all equal. And religion, despite the rabbi’s claim, is waning in America, but the idea of equality remains.

Here’s the editors’ intro to the piece (bolding is mine):

Of all the radical ideas at the heart of the American founding, freedom of religion stands apart. Rarely in human history has a nascent nation rejected religious uniformity and bet instead on liberty, trusting that faiths can live side by side, peacefully and equally. In doing so, America didn’t banish faith, but made room for it to thrive in all its depth and diversity.

For this month’s installment of our America at 250 series, a yearlong celebration of the country’s big birthday, we’re spotlighting faith and how it helped build our nation. You’ll hear from Catholic magazine editor R. R. Reno on how his marriage to a Jewish woman drew him closer to God; from David Wolpe on two towering prophets of history; from Matthew Walther on the kaleidoscope of American religious life; and more.

Today, we kick things off with the great Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, who explains why the flourishing of biblical faith in the new country provided the basis for American equality. For, he writes, “In rejecting monarchy, Americans were not insisting that they had no king, but that their king was God.”—The Editors

If you subscribe, click below to read what the sweating rabbi is trying to say. If you don’t subscribe, well, you have an extra hour to do something fun:

The piece is not particularly well written, and I don’t think it makes its case, but I don’t want to waste time doing an exegesis of this. I just want to show how the Free Press keeps highlighting the benefits of faith—in this case historical ones—over and over again. And I’ll omit all the well-known stuff about the role of religion in the Continental Congress (objections to prayers, etc.) But here’s what the piece says about the Jewish foundation of Americ (all quotes are indented).

John Adams wrote that evening [in 1771] to his wife: “I never saw a greater Effect upon an Audience. It seemed as if Heaven had ordained that Psalm to be read on that Morning. I must beg you to read that Psalm.” A passage from the Hebrew Bible, describing a divine defense from one’s enemies, so united the members of the new Congress that it seemed heaven-sent.

For the Catholic philosopher Michael Novak, this anecdote highlights the prominent role played by the stories, imagery, and ideas of Hebrew scripture in the American revolution. In contrast to Christian texts, which are devoted to describing a kingdom that is “not of this earth,” the tale of biblical Israel is all about a polity that is very earthly indeed. Thus, as Novak noted in On Two Wings, his account of the role of faith in the American founding, “practically all American Christians erected their main arguments about political life from materials in the Jewish Testament.” The story of the Jews offered early Americans a tale from which they could find inspiration in their own crisis.

It also offered another advantage. Focusing on Judaic texts allowed the revolutionaries to avoid exegetical issues pertaining to Christian theology. “Lest their speech be taken as partisan,” Novak added, “Christian leaders usually avoided the idioms of rival denominations—Puritan, Quaker, Congregationalist, Episcopal, Unitarian, Methodist, and Universalist. The idiom of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was a religious lingua franca for the founding generation.” As a means of uniting the diverse group, Novak continues, “the language of Judaism came to be the central language of the American metaphysic—the unspoken background to a special American vision of nature, history, and the destiny of the human race.” Psalm 35 would serve as a symbol of the fact that patriots across America could indeed pray together.

Here it’s not just religion that was the bedrock foundation of America, but Old Testament Judaism.  Of course, the vast majority of Americans when the country was founded were Christians, and presumably accepted the Jesus stories, but this shows how historians can emphasize some stuff as opposed to other stuff to make their case

And here’s how Thomas Paine, himself an atheist, nevertheless foisted “belief in belief” on Americans in his influential pamphlet Common Sense. “Belief in belief”—the view that it’s good for the “little people” (Americans) to believe in God even if the intellectuals don’t—seems to be the point of view pushed by the Free Press, and, to me, explains why they don’t publish articles that dismantle belief. But I digress.

Paine privately denied the reality of revelation and scorned scripture as fantasy. (He would later voice his views on religion in The Age of Reason, ruining his reputation in America.) But America was a biblically literate land, and with Benjamin Rush’s help, Paine wrote for his audience in Common Sense. The pamphlet—probably the most influential published polemic in the history of the world—changed the way in which Americans regarded their king and monarchy in general.

The essence of Paine’s argument is easy to miss today. In rejecting monarchy, Americans were not insisting that they had no king, but that their king was God. “But where, says some, is the King of America?” Paine asks in Common Sense; “I’ll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain.” Not all patriots approved of the pamphlet; John Adams thought its arguments overwrought and exaggerated. But Paine spoke for the many whose own sentiments were evolving. Subjects who had once revered their king were beginning to conclude that the texts of ancient Israel pointed to a new way of seeing themselves.

The tale of America is not merely that of a break with Britain; it is equally a tale of a group of colonists who came to conclude that their equality derived from the monarchy of the Almighty.

There’s more:

But the fact remains that shorn of biblical faith, no cogent explanation can be given for the doctrine of equality that lies at the heart of the American creed. Indeed, the other sources of antiquity to which the Founders turned for inspiration—the philosophers of Greece and the statesmen of Rome—denied human equality and held a worldview that there were those destined to rule and others born to serve. As the Yale legal scholar Stephen L. Carter reflected in Civility: Manners, Morals, and the Etiquette of Democracy, to this day “faith in God provides a justification for the equality that liberal philosophy assumes and cherishes but is often unable to defend.”

This is bushwah. Of course a cogent nonreligious argument can be given for the doctrine of equality that lies at the heart of the American creed. Read any ethical philosopher (John Rawls is one example), or read the article on “Eauality” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, where the word “God” appears precisely once, and only in a discussion of how Christianity espoused an equality of humans before God.

But even if this historical interpretation be true, as Americans become more and more either atheists or “nones” (those not affiliated with a specific church or faith), the rationale for equality would seem to have disappeared. It hasn’t, because we now base it on humanism, not religion. If you stopped someone in the street and asked Americans why all people are equal before the law, I doubt they say “because that’s what the Old Testament dictates.” They may mutter something about all men being created equal from the Declaration of Independence, but philosophers who give us a rational basis for equality rely not on Divine Command but on secular arguments.

At the end, Rabbi Soloveichik raises the new canard that the waning of religion in America has slowed. They make a great deal about the plateau shown below:

Europeans may wonder at the way our politics is consumed by a culture war that is linked to differences regarding religion, but these debates endure in America because, unlike the largely secular continent across the ocean that was once the cradle of Christendom, faith continues to matter to so many millions of Americans. Even the much-discussed contemporary phenomenon known as the rise of the “nones”—Americans who do not belong to a faith at all—seems to have slowed. Few Americans today know the final lyrics of “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” but when God is invoked in our public life, it is meant to remind us of the unique way equality emerged in America, the way religion impacted how Americans came to see themselves.

As we mark America’s 250th anniversary, it is impossible to know with any certainty what the next decades will bring for our country. But looking back on the past, one prediction can be safely made. Religion in America has always defied the predictions of its demise, and on the 300th birthday of the United States, there will be citizens of this country who will rejoice in their equality—and thank the almighty monarch of America for it.

Mind you, religiosity hasn’t reversed its long-term trend of decreasing; it just has hit a plateau.  Here’s a graph from the Pew article cited by the rabbi:

BUT that goes back to only 2007, and deals only with Christianity. (I bet Islam would show growth.) Let’s take a longer view, looking at Pew data from 1972 to about 2021.  Christianity has fallen nearly 30%, and if you looked way back to the turn of the 20th century, I bet you’d see a much bigger decline. The “plateau” touted above—believers never mention the long term—is just a small segment of the graph, and while religion may increase or remain static, that’s not the long-term trend. In the meantime, “nones” have increased nearly sixfold, and other religions just a tad. Nope, the rabbi’s huzzahs ring hollow.

Look again at the last sentence:

But looking back on the past, one prediction can be safely made. Religion in America has always defied the predictions of its demise, and on the 300th birthday of the United States, there will be citizens of this country who will rejoice in their equality—and thank the almighty monarch of America for it.

That’s bogus.  There are two predictions that can be made. The first is the rabbi’s obvious one: America will always have some religious people. Yes, faith is sadly still alive, and we’ll have to wait a few centuries until we become like Sweden or Iceland. But the more important prediction is that faith is waning. It ain’t dead yet, but it’s dying. Even so, Americans still espouse equality.

It’s time for the Free Press to publish some stuff about unbelief, its increase over time, and the reasons for it.

I couldn’t help myself. I asked ChatGPT to illustrate some early Americans worshipping God as a king. Not bad, eh?

A new theory of "dark photons" attempted to explain a centuries-old experiment in a new way this year, in an effort to change our understanding of the nature of light

Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “repertoire”, shows the boys onstage, and once again Mo shows his characteristic flaw: behaving exactly in the ways he’s criticizing.

There’s a message on the site: “Merry Xmas from the boys.”

This is the penultimate of the two batches I have, so why not get your wildlife photos together instead of snoozing after that big Christmas feast? Today we have the final installment of Holiday Mushroom photos by reader Rik Gern from Austin, Texas. Rik’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Here is the final batch of mushroom pictures taken in northern Wisconsin last September.

I saved this batch for last and am a bit chagrined to send them because most of these pictures are of species I was unable to identify. I’ve been using iNaturalist, but it jammed up a few times. It would seem to identify the genus and species, but then I would get the infamous spinning wheel, which would persist until I exited the application. I thought it was recording the data, but later discovered that it wasn’t. I hope you will be willing to let your more knowledgeable readers weigh in on the species identification. [JAC: yes, please, if you know the species, do weigh in]

The cap on this mushroom has a woody look. This was the only example I ran across.

This one has nice, delicate looking gills. I think it might be a Destroying Angel  (Amanita bisporigera), but the pictures I saw showed some kind of flap on the stem which this specimen lacks.

Whatever this is, the small cap looks like a cookie dusted with cinnamon.

Something sure found this mushroom tasty!

This mushroom is in an intense tug of war with a thick spider web!

You can see from this image that the web is layered in three sheets.

I’ve see time lapse films of orb weavers weaving their webs, but I can’t imagine how this web was constructed.

Mushrooms are so often associated with psychedelia that I couldn’t resist closing this series by playing with a closeup image of the pores on the underside of the Chicken fat mushroom (Suillus americanus) to give it a trippy psychedelic feel.

Just as an interest in Photoshop led to an interest in photography, the thrill of having pictures on whyevolutionistrue alongside those of learned naturalists and scholars has piqued my interest in learning more about the world of fungi. I’ve been asking friends to recommend books that give a broad overview of fungi. Guide books only make my eyes glaze over and tie my brain in knots, as I don’t seem to have a good mind for that kind of detail, but I can grok the big picture when it’s presented well. There’s a book coming out in May called The Complete Fungi: Evolution, Diversity and Ecology by David S. Hibbit that looks fantastic. I have pre-ordered it, and thought some of your readers might be interested as well, so here is a link.

This will be the final reminder to send in your photo of cats with a Christmas theme, a holiday them, or a or Hanukkah theme (we now have many Jewish cats).  The instructions are here and we have now acquired more than 65 photos for posting. (Note: do not send AI pictures like the one I made below.)

Remember, one photo per submission, please! It should be holiday-themed and have a few words about the moggy, including its name. Also your name of pseudonym. (No videos, please, as I can’t embed them.)

I’ll move the deadline forward to 11 a.m. Chicago time TODAY; Christmas Eve and Koynezaa Eve. Sorry, but I can’t accept late entries.

The cats will be posted on Christmas Day—tomorrow morning. It’s a great panoply of furballs!

Astronomers discovered a new moon of Uranus and hundreds of moons around Saturn over the past year, and there may be many more yet to be found