I have a foreboding of America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time–when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all of the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; with our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
And when the dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites now down to 10 seconds or less, lowest-common-denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”
Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, is a Fundamentalist Christian blogger who has spent the past few years using my writing without credit or attribution for what he calls “teachings.” He takes a similar approach with my friend Ben Berwick. Thiessen has written more posts about the two of us that I can count. Sometimes, I just ignore the man. He’s little more than a gnat flying around my head on a warm summer day. These days, I selectively ignore Thiessen, choosing to only respond to posts I consider so egregious that they demand a response or are personal attacks on my character, family, or the readers of this blog.
Twice this week, Thiessen has demanded that both Ben and me apologize to him, for what I am not sure. I assume he’s demanding an apology because we dared to challenge his assertions about science. Thiessen sees himself as a defender of young earth creationism, a Bible literalist who will resolutely defend all sorts of nonsense because it appears in the Bible or is a personal belief of his. No amount of argumentation will change his mind. (And his defense of clerics who commit sex crimes is beyond disgusting.)
Thiessen claims to have a doctorate, including four science degrees — a claim he recently made for the first time. Geoff, a long-time reader of this blog, had this to say about Thiessen’s education claims and his understanding of science:
I don’t really care what educational achievements Tee claims, the proof of the pudding is in the eating or, in Tee’s case, the writing. There’s almost not a single sentence he writes that I can’t take issue with. Grammatically he’s dreadful, a clear indicator of his lack of proper education. Writing style not withstanding, his reasoning is impossible to understand by anyone with the slightest grasp of logic. He just doesn’t understand the scientific method. He seems to think it’s some isolated part of human existence, standing on its own, when in reality it’s the foundation on which everything we know about the world is based. Science essentially is observation and testing, reaching provisional conclusions, and incorporating them as needs be. Science and the scientific method is actually the only way we have of determining reality.
How is exploring the natural physical world going to provide the correct answers to our origins if science is not looking in the right direction or looking in the correct places? Providing the best explanation is not sufficient enough as the best explanation is not the truth.
The best explanation is the lazy man’s way to avoid the problems that arise with scientific research, when that research leads them away from natural solutions and into the supernatural. The scientists are too lazy and dishonest to say that the supernatural method is the only method possible.
Hence, God did it is the correct answer when science has no solutions. Here are some examples of science/evolution cannot answer why something exists.
…
How can anyone trust science when it fails to provide the answers to these and a myriad of other mysteries? It is not lazy to say God did it because that is the answer to all the mysteries science cannot answer.
Science is incapable of digging for and finding the truth because it does not want the truth. it wants something that misleads, misinforms, and hides the truth. In other words, they want something they and their biases can live with, and that is not science, nor is it objective.
True science would recognize the weakness of the natural-driven science and recognize God as the creator, as there is no alternative answer. It would also recognize God’s creativity, power, and glory in all of these and other examples science cannot find a natural solution.
It is just idiotic to dismiss the phrase ‘God did it’ because science cannot accept the supernatural. That dismissal is arrogance and ignorance on display at the same time. It is also a demonstration that science is incapable of studying the past as well as deriving the correct answer.
Saying science is the only way to get to the answers is showing a great bias against reality and the truth. Science is no longer objective but a tool to promote one bias or preconceived conclusion over the truth.
Instead of providing the correct answer, science becomes a place for unbelievers to hide from both reality and the truth. No one can trust a research field that takes great pains and many steps to avoid coming to the right answer.
When one expounds the truth, God did it, they are not being lazy, but illuminating the correct answer for everyone so that they are not misled by the lies that come from the deceived and blind secular world.\Yes, God did it all and science is a tool used by evil to lead people away from God and giving him the proper credit and glory.
Only a fool would say or repeat the words in the title in the exact same sentence structure. God created everything supernaturally and without the aid of science. Science is in over its head and outside of its scope when it investigates origins.
The Bible has the correct answer every time.
This is a good summary of the way Thiessen thinks about science.
Thiessen confuses “science research” with “science.” They are not one and the same. Further, Thiessen might want to study what Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder’s critics think of her work.
This brings me to Thiessen’s demand that I apologize. After posting Hossenfelder’s video, Thiessen wrote:
With the above video, we expect a very honest, public, humble, and personal apology for the attacks and off-the-wall comments from both MM & BG.
We know what we are talking about; they do not.
I still haven’t stopped laughing about Thiessen’s demand. There’s nothing I’ve said that deserves an apology. Thiessen is butthurt over our coverage of his bogus “four science degrees” claim. Until Thiessen actually provides evidence for his degrees, there’s no reason for anyone to believe he has them. All we know for sure is that Thiessen attended an unaccredited Bible college in Canada as a young man. And we didn’t even know that until I outed him. Thiessen claims “God knows, and that’s all that matters.” This is a common ploy of Thiessen’s. Don’t want to answer a question? Deflect or make some sort of God claim. End of discussion.
MM [Meerkat Musings] continues to make false accusations against us [me], so we [I] are [am] ignoring his latest response. Yet, neither he nor BG [Bruce Gerencser] has [have] apologized for their false accusations and their lies about us [me]. They like to make things personal, which we [I] do not, thus they have no credibility or an honest character.
We [I] have proven our [my] point quite well and guess what. We [I] opened up YouTube a few minutes ago and at the top of the suggestion list was the following video:
….
We [I] do not make fraudulent or misleading statements about anything. As you may have noticed, we [I] use legitimate websites and books to support our [my] points, so our [my] readers know they are getting accurate information.
That video is 20 minutes long, and it is well worth listening to as it provides not only information to defend one’s views on science but also provides eye-opening information on what is going on behind the scenes in science.
Maybe MM [Meerkat Musings] is upset as his rose colored view of science is destroyed, and it is not as glorious as he thought it was. Do not be fooled. Christians cannot trust scientists, and they do need to be fact-checked, etc., to get to the truth.
The Bible warns Christians about unbelievers and what they say. Those warnings include scientists and science, whether done by unbelievers or believers. We [I] are [am] not saying Christian scientists are all pure and do not commit fraud.
Those ‘Christian’ scientists who accept and promote evolution cannot be listened to either.
So once again, we [I] are [am] expecting a public, honest, humble, and sincere public apology from both BG [Bruce Gerencser] and MM [Meerkat Musings] because they are falsely accusing us [me] and have done nothing but lie about us [me] through their personal attacks.
Make sure to listen to the entire video to get all the right information on science.
Once again, Thiessen demands an apology from me.
Thiessen believes that Hossenfelder’s eighteen-minute video PROVES that Ben and I are lying about him and his science prowess. This claim has no merit. Besides, does Thiessen really believe that an eighteen-minute video by a controversial theoretical physicist justifies his criticisms of modern science? As I mentioned above, Thiessen confuses “science research” with “science” itself. He stupidly thinks that because a small minority of researchers lie or manipulate data that science itself can be disregarded anytime it disagrees with young-earth creationism and his wooden, literalist interpretations of the Bible.
Speaking only for myself, no apology will be forthcoming. I stand by every word I have written about Thiessen and his errant views of science and the Bible. I do kinda, a little bit, — I mean a teeny, tiny microscopic bit, regret saying a few years ago that Thiessen wants a picture of me naked to hang on his bedroom ceiling, but outside of that bit of risque humor, I stand by what I have written about him.
And Derrick? The offer of a picture still stands, but my nude photos are no longer available. 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, recently wrote:
Unbelievers are very short-sighted when it comes to the topic of science. They think that science is the authority that provides all the answers, or will do so with enough research.
….
But we and most Christians know better. Just a little research shows how bad science and scientists can be. Of course, unbelievers only give lip service to the destructive and harmful inventions that science, in general, has discovered and developed over the millennia.
….
We cannot forget that ‘science’ brought the world Covid. The ironic aspect of this disease was that the inventor, science, could not create an antidote. The so-called vaccines were worse than the disease and never could stop the disease or reinfection.
….
There is good reason for that. Scientists are not immune to sin, deceit, and are not omnipresent or omniscient. They are fallible human beings who have limited knowledge, and most of them are under the influence of evil.
….
What unbelievers want believers to do is not what they will do. But that is a side point. The real issue is the so-called blind trust in science, even though much of scientific research is unethical or does not follow any rules of morality.
….
Other examples is where ‘science’ developed heroin as cough medicine, radium for use in everyday items like toothpaste, forever chemicals which is a problem that has not been solved, thalidomide given to pregnant women to ease morning sickness, and even asbestos which took decades to clear up and even then it is not a job that has been completed (Ibid).
All of these examples and many more provide legitimate reasons to question and distrust science. No one knows the motivations behind the scientists’ work or why they included certain ingredients in medicines and everyday use items.
No one should be trusting scientists given their track. The original article [written by my friend Ben Berwick] we quoted provides another example of why believers should not trust scientists or even consider the words of unbelievers. They dismiss the experience, education, and other qualifications of believers simply because they hold to the religious views they disagree with.
….
Rather, it is the reverse, as Christian believers have God helping them get to the truth. Unbelieving scientists do not want the truth; they want a natural answer, and that is their fatal flaw.
They are not looking for the right answer but one they can accept and live with. Unfortunately, too many scientists claiming to be Christian follow that ideology over what God has said in the Bible.
God has not said we cannot do science, but if we do participate in any form of that research field, Christians must follow God’s instructions over their unbelieving secular counterparts. We are not to lie, be unethical, but do science according to his will and for God’s glory.
That means we remove any element of sin in the process so that God can bring Christian scientists to the truth and the solutions. We do not follow the blind and deceived, for that takes us away from God and the truth, as well as solutions for the problems of this world.
No, we do not trust science as science is not an authority on anything, and that research field and its participants are not greater than God. God has the answers and the power to solve life’s problems. We do not put our trust in those who are mere humans who do not have the answer or the power to do the same thing.
— end of quote —
Thiessen says he has four science degrees, yet he refuses to name the the colleges he attended or how and where he “earned” his doctorate:
We find those quoted statements hypocritical because the author of those words does not believe one word we say, even though we have 4 scientific degrees behind our names.
Does anyone really believe Thiessen has four science (not scientific) degrees behind his name? When pressed on where he studied and got his degrees, Thiessen says “God knows and that’s all that matters.” This allows him to present himself as some sort of expert, when, in fact, he is anything but. Thiessen knows that if he ever posts his CV, it will likely reveal that he is a fraud or his “degrees” came from unaccredited institutions or diploma mills. Scientist, he is not.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
More stunning images of deep space have been released, once again highlighting the vast and awe-inspiring reality of the universe—one that stands in stark contrast to the ancient cosmology described in the Book of Genesis.
According to that account, the universe was a small, flat Earth covered by a solid dome, fixed and immobile at the centre of creation. The sun, moon, and stars were imagined as small lights affixed to the underside of this dome. Surrounding it all, above and below, were the primordial waters—and somewhere within or beyond this structure lay a magical, supernatural realm inhabited by divine beings bearing a striking resemblance to capricious, tribal warlords, and winged men (Genesis 1:1–18).
And, according to the Bible narrative, it has only existed for 6-10,000 years!
Since the invention of the telescope, and as our instruments have grown ever more sophisticated, our understanding of the universe has revealed a reality far removed from the one imagined by the authors of Genesis. The cosmos is not only vastly older than they could have conceived, but also incomprehensibly immense. Earth itself is far larger and older than they believed, a spherical planet orbiting the Sun—which is just one of perhaps half a trillion stars in our own galaxy. And that galaxy is, in turn, just one among perhaps a trillion others. Altogether, this vast universe is nearly 14 billion years old.
The most recent images are from the James Webb Space Telescope, of a region of deep space, between twelve billion and one billion lightyears away, so showing how the universe has evolved since it was about one billion years old – younger than Earth is now.
Rubicondor presents facts, facts that only a young earth creationist would disagree with. As I was reading the aforementioned post, it dawned on me that there’s an easy test we can use to show the ignorance of the men who wrote the Bible. Are you ready?
The universe according to the Bible, as interpreted by young earth creationists.
The universe according to modern science, as revealed by the Jame Hubble Space Telescope.
You may view other photos from the James Web telescope here.
Maybe the real ignorance here is the ignorance of young earth creationists who treat the Bible as a science textbook.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
In 2024 when Donald Trump as a presidential candidate proposed piping water from British Columbia, Canada to California, his statement was largely dismissed as campaign rhetoric.
Once he was elected, Canadians started paying attention but the potential water grab was seen as logistically and politically problematic and unlikely to gain traction. And the issue received scant attention in the water-rich Great Lakes regions of the U.S. and Canada.
But now, Great Lakes water and related agreements between the U.S. and Canada are clearly on President Trump’s radar according to a recent New York Times story.
The Times reported that Trump told Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in February that he wanted to abandon various border agreements including those concerning water.
“He wanted to tear up the Great Lakes agreements and conventions between the two nations that lay out how they share and manage Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario,” according to the Times.
Executive director of the Traverse City non-profit FLOW, Liz Kirkwood said the scope of agreements include the Boundary Waters Treaty, the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, and the Great Lakes Compact.
Kirkwood described the agreements as a “Great Lakes partnership between Canada and the U.S. and they are a global model to protect and steward 20% of the planet’s fresh surface water.”
Kirkwood said any attempt to break the agreements would be “bad for the health of our lakes and our communities and ultimately destructive of the U.S. relationship with a trusted neighbor.”
Given the magnitude of Trump’s statements, Great Lakes Now canvassed the region for reactions, seeking comments from select governors and the Premier of Ontario. Ontario borders four of the five Great Lakes and is Canada’s most populous province with 14 million people.
In addition to FLOW, Great Lakes Now sought comments from Illinois-based Alliance for the Great Lakes and Wisconsin-based Milwaukee Riverkeeper. Both were instrumental in promoting passage of the Great Lakes Compact that prevents large-scale diversions from the Great Lakes.
Alliance CEO Joel Brammeier said: “U.S. treaties and agreements with Canada, and similar agreements among the states and provinces, are the bedrock on which sustainable protection and restoration of our Great Lakes is built.”
“There is no space for the U.S. to step back from its shared obligation,”Brammeier said.
From Milwaukee, Riverkeeper Cheryl Nenn said: “we should not play politics with the Great Lakes.”
Nenn also noted that only 1% of the Great Lakes are replenished by rainfall and snowmelt.
“They are a one-time gift from the glaciers, and we need to protect them from abuse and over-consumption and that should supersede all politics,” Nenn said.
Great Lakes Now also sought comments from water policy experts who have held official governance positions.
Chicago’s Cameron Davis was a longtime Great Lakes advocate before moving to the U.S. EPA under President Obama where he advised the administrator on Great Lakes issues.
“Midwesterners see protecting the Great Lakes and its water as an act of patriotism,” Davis said. “And they’re smart enough to know Canada is our friend in that effort.”
Davis noted that support for the lakes has been bi-partisan and he expected that the Great Lakes states “will defend their relationship with Canada.”
The bi-partisan federal support over the last 20 years includes an executive order signed by President George W. Bush that declared the Great Lakes a “national treasure.” Bush’s order laid the groundwork for development of the Great Lakes restoration program.
President Obama jumped-started restoration by putting $475 million in his first budget and funding continues today. It was also Bush who signed the legislation that codified the Great Lakes Compact into federal law.
Canada’s Maude Barlow is a veteran author and water advocate who served as the senior adviser on water to the United Nations General Assembly.
Barlow pointed to the lack of detail in Trump’s comments but said if he is referring to abandoning the Great Lakes Compact, “that is worrying.”
“He could then just cancel the Compact on the American side and start diverting Great Lakes water around the country to service the manufacturing and technology resurgence he is planning. In this case there would be little Canada could do,” she said.
The Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec have agreements that mirror the U.S. Compact but exist separately.
Barlow said Canadians value and protect their water heritage and will fight to defend it.
“And we know many Americans would take our side in such a struggle,” Barlow said.
Michigan’s Dave Dempsey served as a senior adviser on the staff of the International Joint Commission (IJC), the U.S.-Canada agency that advises the countries on transboundary issues.
“The IJC has a culture of joint fact-finding,” Dempsey said. “And the respectful resolution of boundary waters disagreements has served the two countries well. Abrogating the treaties would be a colossal mistake.”
An IJC spokesperson declined to comment on Trump’s water statements saying the agency “does not comment on political matters or issues of domestic policy. This is important in order to ensure our effectiveness as an impartial advisor to governments.”
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, both Democrats, did not respond to a request to comment on President Trump’s water statements.
Daniel Tierney, spokesperson for Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine declined to comment saying “I am not aware of a formal or final policy on which to comment.”
However, it’s important to note that Great Lakes governors have responsibility for the lakes via the Compact.
At a meeting of Great Lakes governors and premiers in Milwaukee, in 2019, Gov. Whitmer told Great Lakes Now that the lakes are “at the core of who Michigan is” and said, “absolutely, Michigan has to lead on Great Lakes issues.”
A spokesperson for Ontario Premier Doug Ford declined to comment saying:
“The issue is purely speculative at this point.”
Ford, a Progressive Conservative, has been aggressive in responding to Trump’s tariff threats.
The White House did not respond to a request to comment on Trump’s desire to put water agreements between the U.S. and Canada in play.
Please check out Circle of Blue for more articles on the Great Lakes.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I find it contemptible that ten House Democrats voted to censure Rep. Al Green for disrupting Congress.
Democrats had many ways in which they could have protested President Trump’s State of the Union Speech. Outside of Rep. Al Green’s protest, Democrats did little to show/voice their displeasure.
Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have been holding rallies from coast to coast, condemning Trump’s decimation of the Federal Government. We need similar rallies everywhere.
Joe Biden blamed Donald Trump for the economy he inherited in 2021, and now Trump is blaming Biden for the current state of the economy. That’s politics. However, a few months from now, after Trump has caused a recession, the blame will be his alone.
Vladimir Putin is obsessed with returning Russia to the glory days of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Countries such as Poland rightly fear being invaded, especially now that the United States is no longer interested in helping and protecting their allies.
I predict Donald Trump will try to remove the United States from NATO.
Whatever one may think about Ukraine, we committed to help defend them from Russia’s immoral, violent assault on their sovereignty. Sadly, President Trump has abandoned the Ukrainian people.
“The Art of Making a Deal,” my ass. President Trump is not a deal maker, he’s a narcissistic bully who seems hellbent on destroying anyone and everyone he disagrees with. We can only hope, that as he rages against his alleged enemies and nuzzles up to dictators and fascists, he doesn’t drag us into a major war.
It’s doubtful the world will do much about global climate change now that the United States has abandoned renewable energy and electric vehicles. “Drill baby Drill” is our official climate policy now.
Americans should be concerned over Trump’s attacks on institutions of higher learning, professors, media companies, and journalists. His goal is to silence anyone who speaks ill of him or challenges his policies. In doing so, he is trampling under foot the constitutional rights of every American.
Bonus: I continue to ponder my political future. If, as I fear, the national Democratic Party is broken beyond repair, is it time for me to leave the party? Or, do I remain a Democrat and focus on local issues, even though there is zero chance of a Democrat beating a Republican in my lifetime? Or, do I act on that increasingly nagging feeling I have; that it is time for me to invest my time, money, and talent in a third party?
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Within months, the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S. It’s only gotten so much worse.
For the remainder of 2020, we dealt with 385,676 deaths from the disease while then-President Trump lived in denial and misled the American people every day. He lied about its danger, how long it would last, treatments and prevention. He would bring in medical experts to speak during White House press conferences and then make stuff up himself out of nowhere and undermine everything that they said.
It was horrifying. People were dying and losing loved ones and the president was spewing an endless stream of strange nonsense, drivel, and dangerous misinformation. Many millions of people believed everything he said without question.
Then Trump lost the 2020 Election. He began lying about that too. Millions believed him again. Coward politicians rolled over for him. His lies exploded in the historic Jan. 6 attack on our nation’s Capitol.
As the COVID-19 vaccine was rolled out to the public at-large in 2021, the anti-vaxxer movement went into overdrive. Currently vaccine hesitancy is near record highs, so the anti-vaxxer movement really made out, a grisly and telling cultural consequence of a pandemic that’s taken 1.2 million American lives.
Regardless, objectively, the covid vaccine was a man-made miracle. Plagues throughout history have lasted up to 20 years or more. We had a vaccine in 11 months thanks to the brilliance of scientific research and modern medicine. It was incredible. It was a tremendous accomplishment of humankind by every historical standard, and people threw the most outrageous temper tantrums over it.
It’s easy to get lost in modern comfort, but I wish more people would just take a few seconds sometimes to recognize that we live in extraordinary times. The fact that we get to take hot showers every day is a monumental luxury compared to the rest of human history.
That we can communicate across the globe instantaneously is anthropologically astounding, if you compare the last 30 years of human history to the 300,000 years before it.
Look around you right now, wherever you are: desks, tables, electronics, electricity, light bulbs, appliances, glassware, furniture, knick-knacks, artwork, paint, carpeting, buildings. All of those things require science, engineering, mathematics, chemistry, physics, logistics, expertise. Experts. Smart people. Smart people gave us all of this.
Intelligence gave us every amazing thing that we see around us and take for granted. The collective education of humankind over millennia has brought us here.
A whole galaxy of humans and human know-how has come together to give us these wild luxuries of daily existence that make the vast majority of us wealthier in health and technology and everyday human comfort than the richest kings and queens and emperors of history.
And yet. We sneer at experts. We spit epithets like “academic elites” at professors dedicating their lives to pursuing discovery that benefits humankind. And we worship flashy internet hucksters selling lifestyle scams.
We mock intelligence and glorify egomania and materialism. We crave spectacle and are voyeurs for anger, confrontation, and violence.
We live in fantasy worlds where what we want to believe is true regardless of whether it is true, because what we want comes first no matter what, certainly no matter any facts, this decadence of mind and body only afforded to us by modernity’s remarkable luxury and technology.
It is in these ways that I regard a very great many adults as simply overgrown children.
Speaking of which, five years later, Donald Trump is president again. He has pardoned the 1,500 rioters who sacked the United States Congress to try to overthrow the last election for him.
Trump’s cancellation of NIH grant review panels, as Forbes reports, includes the $7.1 billion annual budget for the National Cancer Institute: “of which more than $3 billion a year is allocated directly towards research for the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of cancer, which causes over 600,000 deaths in the U.S. every year.” The NCI supports 72 different cancer centers.
Freezing national funding for cancer research is sadistic.
It could also be devastating to America’s institutions of higher education.
In Ohio, Republican politicians are piling on. This week they reintroduced a proposal to overhaul education at our colleges and universities.
They seek to install a culture of fear and paranoia over subject matter among Ohio faculty, threatening their livelihoods and banning their ability to strike. They also seek to ban any diversity efforts on campuses as well as any diversity courses.
The clear intent of the bill is to have a chilling effect on freedom of speech and expression, both explicit and implicit, which is an atrocious insult to the entire purpose of education and all of the ideas behind open inquiry in the pursuit of knowledge.
Ohio higher education currently ranks No. 39 in America. Apparently that’s not bad enough for them.
America’s love affair with swaggering ignorance and confident stupidity continues to reach awful new heights. The bill will come due. The piper will need to be paid. The damage will be extensive.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
By Dr. Mark Crislip, Infectious Diseased Expert, Science-Based Medicine, Old Doctor Yells at Clouds, January 22, 2024
Half-assed was the term my father often used to describe the result of my chores around the house as a kid. In retrospect, I can’t disagree with his assessment. I wish I had asked him before he died if a good job would be full-assed or zero-assed. I guess it depends on whether the goal is full or zero.
But I have been impressed with how often the basics of medicine are perfunctory. Cursory? Desultory? Superficial? No, I’ll stick with half-assed.
What I am referring to is so many health care providers I am in contact with as a patient or an observer (such as when my wife or mother sees a doctor) do a half-assed history and maybe a quarter-assed or three-quarter-assed physical.
It is sad.
When I have a medical problem, I organize the history before I see the care provider so they get a classic presentation of the history of the present illness, like I learned as a medical student. Six minutes tops, succinct, and perfectly organized. So I know my providers are getting the right information to make a diagnosis. I do recognize there is the problem in that my presentation also includes my bias as to what I think my problem is. I am well aware that, in regards to my own health, I am not the most reliable of historians or clinicians. The doctor who diagnoses himself has a fool for a patient and an idiot for a doctor and all that.
But for some family members, I have witnessed the most superficial of history taking. I know why. The abdominal pain that brought them into the ER? Going to get a CT to see what’s going on. So why bother with a careful history when the technology and blood tests will likely reveal the diagnosis? I am old and old school. I was taught and practiced that a careful history determines the diagnosis and then the tests are ordered to confirm that diagnosis, not to make it.
And when the CT is negative, everyone looks baffled because they have not bothered to make a clinical diagnosis first. Surprise.
I also find that providers rely more on what they read in the chart than what the patient has to say. And that is always a mistake. I learned early that the best approach to a new patient was to go in mostly blind and gather the information needed from the source. I was kind of an asshole, for when I was called for a consult I told them I wanted no more than a 5-word question they wanted answered. I assumed everyone else had it wrong and the approach occasionally paid off.
And the exam?
How many heart /lung exams have I seen that were both brief and through the gown or shirt? Too many to count. One anesthesiologist’s stethoscope was not on my chest for a complete cardiac cycle. It is rare to get a cardiopulmonary exam done that I think would provide any meaningful information to the examiner.
And abdominal exams? Usually, a brief push on the belly while the patient is sitting up. I have yet to see anyone do the classic look, listen, percuss, and palpate.
Most of the time, I just laugh, as I know the exam isn’t likely relevant. I have no cardiopulmonary issues and do not need a heart or lung exam before surgery. It is not like they are going to find an undiagnosed aortic stenosis that might cause an issue with anesthesia. But it might be with the next patient if they bothered to really listen.
So why are the exams so half-assed? I think two reasons. One is that technology is better than the exam, although more expensive. You will get more information from an ECHO or a CT or an ultrasound or an MRI. Or even a chest X-ray. My pulmonary attending years ago said the lung exam is what you do while waiting for the CXR to develop. And I kind of agree with that.
But finding pathology is fun and, on occasion, you will pick up pathology that the technology will miss. Little things, but important. How many times did I note the patient had blue sclera and talking with the patient revealed they likely had Ehlers-Danlos, unnoted for decades? Or the embolic event in the nail bed that meant endocarditis? And the exam can confirm what you think is the diagnosis from the careful and complete history. If you bothered to take one.
The main reason these exams are half-assed? Docs can bill at a higher level if they do them. So even if you have no heart or lung issues, you will get a half-assed heart-lung exam to bump up that billing code. I never did that. I was told many times that I could bill more if I did, but I never thought it was ethical to provide unneeded care for the sole purpose of billing. Everything you do for a patient should only be for the benefit of that patient.
I should add there is a difference between the initial physical and the follow-up physical. An initial evaluation by your HCP should be complete. After that? Likely should depend on what the problem is.
I will say the exam is not always half-assed with all health care providers. The docs I see often do the exam correctly. But they are all old, at least in their 50s. I have found the younger the provider, the more half-assed. And, sadly, MDs are more half-assed than NPs or PAs.
Grumpy old fart grousing about the youngsters today. And get off my grass.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
A double yellow line marks the centre of Route 29, expanding at the top of each rolling hill that sweeps across the frozen landscape of northeast Pennsylvania. From the former coal fields of Wilkes-Barre to the topmost border of the state, the road cuts through sleepy rural neighbourhoods littered with Trump signs and fading Christmas decorations.
Pulling into Dimock, a majority-White township with just over a thousand inhabitants, wide tyre marks start to form on either side of the yellow line. Hundreds of trucks shuttling equipment and water to fracking wells in the area have become part of the decor.
Joe Wilson pulls up to his neighbour Ray Kemble’s house in a pick-up truck hauling a 700-litre water tank he filled from a hydrant about a 20-minute drive away.
“You wouldn’t think that in America, people would be delivering water to houses just so they can take a shower,” he says. “This is the kind of stuff they do in Africa.”
More than two kilometers below his feet, billions of dollars worth of natural gas runs through the veins of the Marcellus Shale – the largest gas field in the United States.
The surface and groundwater used to supply homes in Dimock have become so contaminated with chemicals used during the fracking process that residents have lost access to clean water. As a result, neighbours have had to jumble together innovative solutions to help each other out.
“I deliver to Ray’s house once a week. He lives alone so he doesn’t need as much water. But there are five of us back home, so I have to drive back and forth from the hydrant to my house four times a week,” Wilson says, his face marked with exhaustion. “It becomes a chore.”
The 39-year-old construction worker siphons the water into Kemble’s basement tank using a long hose and waits for it to empty out. It takes about an hour to finish the whole operation and fill the reserve, which is normally intended for storing and transporting water for livestock.
The tank is attached to a pump which sends water to Kemle’s kitchen and shower, but it is not safe to drink. On top of the thousands of litres Wilson shuttles around each week, he and Kemble have to get additional jugs of bottled water to make coffee, brush their teeth or cook pasta.
Fracking is slang for hydraulic fracturing, a method used to extract natural gas or oil found in shale by drilling into the ground, then injecting water and other chemicals at high pressure underground to crack open existing fissures. The first company to start drilling for natural gas in Dimock, Cabot Oil & Gas, arrived in 2006 – riding the wave of the US fracking boom that would eventually turn Pennsylvania into the nation’s second-largest natural gas producer.
But shortly after Cabot’s arrival, locals started to fall seriously ill and Dimock saw its water turn brown. The contamination was so severe that people could put a match to a running tap and it would light on fire due to the high levels of methane in the water. A well near a house in the township even exploded as a result.
Enraged residents began filing lawsuits against the company in 2009 and kick-started what would become a litigation odyssey. A state investigation ultimately concluded that deficient gas wells drilled by Cabot had leaked unfettered amounts of methane into the township’s aquifer. The company was banned from fracking in Dimock in 2010.
Kemble, a former gas trucker who has been at the forefront of the fight from the very start, pulls out a printed report of the water testing done by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) that same year. “I’m not worried about just the methane coming through. Here’s the other 60-plus chemicals that are coming in with that methane,” he says, puffing on his pipe. The report includes arsenic and uranium, the latter of which is an important risk factor for developing chronic diseases.
A grand jury investigation found Cabot guilty of environmental crimes in 2020. But two years later, the situation regressed. Rebranded as Coterra Energy under a merger, the ban was quietly lifted and the company got permission to open 11 new fracking wells outside a 23-square-kilometre radius drawn around the township. In exchange, Coterra had to pay $16 million for a public water system set to be completed in 2027.
….
The majority of fracking wells are located in Republican counties across Pennsylvania, including here in Susquehanna County, where Trump won over 70 percent of votes in the 2024 election. Even though the environmental and health consequences fracking has had on Dimock shows a darker reality behind Trump’s promise to “frack, frack, frack” and “drill, baby, drill”, locals seem undeterred in their support for the incoming president.
Except for Kemble, who thinks Trump “is a lunatic anyway”. He is still registered as a Republican but contrary to most of his neighbours, Kemble did not vote for Trump in the 2024 presidential election because “he is all in with the industry”.
Along the main road, a colossal banner pasted on the front of a white, barn-like building reads “Trump coming soon”. Ironically, it was supposed to be a treatment site for fracking wastewater, but the project was put on hold because local authorities deemed it too dangerous. The building has been vacant for years.
Back at Kemble’s house, the gun-carrying Craig Stevens slaps his contact card onto the long wooden table where Kemble is sitting. It is bright yellow and has a snake coiled around an oil rig in the centre, a reference to the flag used by the right-wing Tea Party movement. The card reads “patriots from the oil & gas shales – don’t tread on me”. Along with Kemble, he is spearheading the battle against Coterra.
Stevens describes himself as a “former right-wing conservative” and insists that he is “not anti-drill” but rather “pro-clean air and water”, which is why he is also one of the few inhabitants here who didn’t vote for Trump either.
“Locals here will not talk about fracking because most of them have their hands in the pockets of the industry. They’ve signed gas leases in exchange for money and are contractually forbidden to speak out due to non-disclosure agreements,” Stevens says.
Trump made promises to boost oil and gas production by opening more drilling permits and increasing fracking leases on federal lands. But in the US, the vast majority of fracking takes place on state and private land. Gas companies can make deals with landowners to drill on their property, often in exchange for monthly payments in the form of royalties.
“It is a very sensitive subject here in Dimock,” a woman living in the community admits. She prefers to remain anonymous because her family has “had some problems” but “can’t talk about it”. There is a gas well close to her property that not only brought noise pollution but also caused “water issues”.
To solve the problems the family was having, they reached “a settlement” with Coterra, who installed a massive filtration system in their house so they could access clean water. In return, they agreed not to speak publicly about the contamination.
She says that money is the reason people will continue supporting Trump regardless of whether they are affected by the environmental and health consequences of the fracking around Dimock. “Some people get most of their income from the royalties [of gas leases on their property],” she explains. “[Those] with a ton of land like farmers have lots of wells on their properties,” and because they have a hard time making ends meet through agriculture, they sign gas leases.
Coterra has not only put money in the pockets of residents but has also funded local schools and given over $1 million to Susquehanna County for scholarships. A red brick hospital complex located about a 20-minute drive north of Dimock bears an unmistakable Coterra logo on its façade.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
For 2,000 years, Christian preachers have been saying Jesus is coming to Earth soon. As the 1976 gospel song by Andre Crouch goes:
Soon and very soon We are going to see the King Soon and very soon We are going to see the King Soon and very soon We are going to see the King Hallelujah, Hallelujah We’re going to see the king
Soon and very soon? Every generation of believers believed that Jesus would return to Earth while they were still alive. And every generation of believers died without seeing Jesus face-to-face. In the 1970s and 1980s, in particular, Evangelicals were certain that Jesus was going to rapture them away, safe from the wrath and judgment God planned to pour on the Earth, as recorded in the book of Revelation. Alas, most preachers who prophesied that the rapture was nigh died, proving themselves to be false prophets. Hal Lindsey, Jack Van Impe, Harold Camping, Herbert W. Armstrong, Edgar Whisenant, Jerry Falwell, and Ed Dobson — all pushing up daisies in the cemetery — predicted Jesus’s return in their lifetime.
These days, Evangelicals have largely given up on making predictions about the second coming of Jesus. Tired of waiting for Jesus to show up again, Evangelicals have taken to building a kingdom on earth through raw political power. They do not need Jesus; Trump is their Lord.
Earlier today, Defiance County, Ohio residents experienced an earth-shaking event that I hope will change their minds about the rapture. I spent fifty years of my life hearing Evangelical preachers preach passionate sermons about the imminent return of Jesus. Countless sermons were preached from Matthew 24:
And as he [Jesus] sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?
….
And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.
….
And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
Astute readers of the Bible will notice that I have skipped a number of Bible verses. I did this because that is exactly what many, if not most Evangelical preachers do. Their goal is to make a point or advance an agenda instead of properly exegeting the Word of God. If that was their plan, they would preach this passage of Scripture in context, and in doing so, teach their congregations that Matthew 24 has nothing to do with the rapture.
At 6:48 AM, Defiance County, Ohio, specifically the community of Hicksville (a few miles from our home), felt a magnitude 2.9 earthquake. This is the first recorded earthquake in Defiance County history. No fault lines lie nearby, so experts wonder what caused the earthquake. I suspect some local Evangelical preachers won’t wonder about what happened. Nope, these prophets of the Almighty will turn to Matthew 24, rip out the verses necessary to prove their point, and say that this earthquake is an irrefutable sign of the second coming of Jesus. Yes, siree bob, Jesus is coming soon! What other explanation could there be, right?
In time, scientists will posit likely explanations for the Defiance Earthquake®. And sure as Jesus is still lying in an unmarked Judean grave, these very same preachers will conveniently forget their earthquake predictions and move on to other newspaper auguries, sure, that this time, they will be right.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
