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 Why am I reviewing in Autumn 2026 a book that came out in Spring 2024? Because of what else is happening this Autumn; all the political events that I describe here took place during August and September this year. The book’s excellent account of what causes pandemics in humans, and the role…
by Paul Braterman I first learnt of Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, which delivered its draft report on June 26, from a post in Hemant Mehta’s Friendly Atheist, where he describes it as a clown show and as “a blueprint to end church-state separation.” Mehta is far too optimistic. The commission’s report is much more than…
by Paul Braterman The Debunking Handbook, 2020, free download, 12 pages loosely laid out text with diagrams and flowcharts, 22 authors spanning 20 institutions on 3 continents, 108 references. This brief booklet is well worth your time. It has persuaded me to change my strategy in dealing with disinformation, and misinformation in general. Misinformation is…
by Paul Braterman Study this book if you are at all interested in the threats to the scientific and rational underpinnings of our culture, in the US and to some extent elsewhere. It is not an easy read, because of the density of material that the authors assembled to make their case, and the wide-ranging…
by Paul Braterman Looking Down the Tree, The Evolutionary Biology of Human Origins, Mitchell B. Cruzan, Oxford University Press, 2025 This book has an ambitious and praiseworthy agenda, to discuss a wide range of specifically human characteristics, in the context of the selection pressures operating on our ancestors once the forests of East Africa were…
by Paul Braterman Last Saturday was the 20th anniversary of the day on which Judge John Jones III handed down his decisive ruling, in the case of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, that Intelligent Design was a version of creationism, which is religion and not science, and as such violated the Establishment Clause of…
by Paul Braterman Throughout most of the UK (Northern Ireland is a partial exception) evolution is regarded as established science, and no politician would make belief in separate creation part of their platform, for fear of ridicule. In the US, this is far from being the case. Although evolution has become more widely accepted over…
by Paul Braterman The International Holocaust Remembrance Association definition of anti-Semitism is unacceptable, incoherent, and harmful, and should not be used in formulation of policy. First, my own credentials. I am Jewish. I passed my bar mitzvah test at what was then Jews’ College, London, with distinction. I have led congregations in prayer, and after…
by Paul Braterman When Representative (now House Speaker) Mike Johnson told us that the cause of school shootings was the study of Darwinism, he did so from the platform of Shreveport Christian Center, on which there were no religious symbols, but two flags equally prominent, that of the United States, and that of Israel. This…
by Paul Braterman Voting as a Christian; The Economic and Foreign Policy Issues, Wayne Grudem. Zondervan 2010/2012, pp 330, 560 brief footnotes to text, no index! WE AFFIRM that it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism and that such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness. WE DENY that…
by Paul Braterman This book is essential reading or anyone who is trying to make sense of what is happening in America (and, alas, in much of the rest of the world) today. It traces the intellectual roots of Trumpism back to its fascist (or perhaps more accurately Nazi) roots. It anatomizes the extraordinary coalition…
by Paul Braterman As Heather Cox Richardson and by now many others have pointed out, a coup d’état is taking place in the United States. Even the New York Times and the Washington Post now seem aware that things are not as they should be. The coup is conducted by the Administration itself, within which Vance occupies…
by Paul Braterman Tim LaHaye’s career shows a direct line of descent within creationist thinking, from Reagan-era anti-Communism, through a more diffuse blanket opposition to humanist thinking, to American exceptionalism and the impulses that would later express themselves in 21st-century Christian Nationalism. LaHaye gives us a bridge between traditional morality, anti-Communism and Reaganism, and present-day…
by Paul Braterman This book is a delight. Drawing on a deep love of her subject matter, the author interweaves descriptions of a sequence of rock types with the story of her own personal and professional life. An extremely difficult feat to bring off, but Marcia Bjornerud (M) manages to do this without artificiality or…
by Paul Braterman You need to take Ken Ham seriously. This entrepreneurial Brisbane high school teacher has put together the world’s largest Young Earth creationist organization, Answers in Genesis (AiG). This has a worldwide presence, publishes its own magazine, Answers, and emails a constant stream of highly repetitive messages to its followers. It has built…
by Paul Braterman According to the anthropologist James Bielo, such places as the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter provide sacred infotainment, in which visitors imagine that their own lived experience is Bible-based. This requires an illusion of authenticity, with no concern for biblical accuracy. Thus, when Bielo sat in on the planning stages of the…
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…