1200: Science vs. Religion | Skeptical Sunday

1200: Science vs. Religion | Skeptical Sunday

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Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:00] Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today I'm here with Skeptical Sunday co-host Michael Regilio. On The Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you.

Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. And during the week, we have long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks. From spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, and performers. On Sundays, though, we do skeptical Sunday where a rotating guest, co-host and I break down a topic you may have never thought about and debunk common misconceptions.

Topics like sovereign citizens, e-commerce scams, diet supplements, the lottery, reiki, healing, self-help cults, and more. If you're new to the show or you wanna tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on persuasion and negotiation, psychology, disinformation, junk science, crime, and cults and more.

That'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do on the show. Just visit Jordan [00:01:00] harbinger.com/start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today we're gonna take it easy and just have a little fun episode free of controversy. Uh,

Michael Regilio: did I get my dates wrong? I thought we were talking about one of the most hotly debated topics like ever.

Jordan Harbinger: Ah, right. That's not the No, you're right. Uh, my bad. Today we're talking into science versus religion. Is faith, the enemy of reason Has religion held back progress or guided it? From Galileo to Darwin to stem cell research and climate denial, we're tracing the long and messy struggle between dogma and discovery.

Whether you're a believer, you're a skeptic, or somewhere in between. We're just gonna have a frank discussion today. We're not here to tiptoe. We're here to dissect, examine, and provoke thought on the subject of religion and science.

Michael Regilio: Yeah. Well, as Americans, we're actually mostly going to be discussing the issues that affect us, so this will be more of a Christianity versus science.

Discussion. I see. So still one of the oldest intellectual cage matches in history. But let's be clear here. We're not talking about all Christians. Many Christians have contributed in deeply [00:02:00] impactful ways to scientific discovery.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay, good. I'm glad you clarified that. Right. Today we're mostly focusing on sort of, uh, I guess you would call them fundamentalist Christians and their ongoing disagreement with science.

So forget Tyson vs. Holy Field or Ali vs. Foreman. This is Genesis versus geology. Yeah. Miracles

Michael Regilio: versus microscopes. Divinity versus Darwin. Yeah. Quite literally from the start, I mean, you've got Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the first humans, according to the Bible, get in the boot for eating from the tree of knowledge, not the tree of greed.

Mind you,

Jordan Harbinger: not the tree of lust. The tree of knowledge. So like we said, this is not gonna be the case for all Christians and all branches of Christianity. I'm thinking about my friends here who went to Jesuit universities, for example, and received excellent educations in science and are not young Earth creationists or whatever.

Michael Regilio: Right. For sure. And we're gonna get into that. But like I said, right now we're going to talk about people that are standing in the way of science and scientific progress. Many groups have done this over the last [00:03:00] 2000 years, but we live in the United States of America, and some portion of the Christian movement here is continuing to fight science.

These are almost entire branches of Christianity that see the Bible as literally true and believe in a seven day creation and a 6,000 year old Earth.

Jordan Harbinger: So for those who are like, what are young Earth creationists, those are young earth creationists, right? They believe the Earth is actually 6,000 years old.

Based on being created over seven days and then some complicated math kind of thing.

Michael Regilio: Right? Yeah. I mean, they think the Bible is literally true. I see. So it seems appropriate that we point out that if you do believe the Bible is literally true, then you believe the original sin was wanting to know stuff.

The Bible basically starts with a warning against critical thinking. Don't go asking too many questions. You'll end up naked in a bush with a

Jordan Harbinger: snake. Most Christians, even fundamentalist Christians of some varieties might. Probably disagree with that framing of original sin. Uh, I see what you're doing.

You're playing devil's

Michael Regilio: advocate in defense of Christianity. I like that. Yes, indeed. You're right. They would probably disagree with that. They [00:04:00] also would disagree with me if I said the earth is more than 6,000 years old that humans and our primate cousins share a common ancestor.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes, I suppose many of them would disagree with those assertions.

My ex-girlfriend, for example, did not believe in evolution and she thought it was totally ridiculous and she had a comic, a graphic novel kind of thing. That showed how evolution was impossible. It was, uh, it was a fun read.

Michael Regilio: I bet. I mean, actually, to be honest with you, I've probably read that exact comic book.

They're called tracks very often. I see. Yeah. The fact of the matter is many fundamentalist Christians would also disagree if I told them that climate change is manmade.

Jordan Harbinger: I mean, and a bunch would probably disagree with you there too, so. What I think we're trying to say is not all Christians. Right?

Michael Regilio: Right.

Many Christians would, but many Christians would say that climate change isn't manmade. And they might tell me something like, uh, that they know this because God made a deal with humans that he would never destroy the earth again after Noah's flood. Another thing that many Christians believe that never happened, it just didn't.

Look, Jordan, here's the fact of the matter. I'm all for being respectful, but part [00:05:00] of respect is letting me speak My honest truth, it's a two way street and this is just how I feel.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay? But it's based on scientific research. It's not just your opinion and, and I think it's just that this stuff gets so tricky when talking about people's deeply held beliefs.

And while I'm not afraid to offend people, I'm also not one of those people who's like, I'm gonna offend a bunch of people because I can, and then they have to take it. I don't know. I mean, I like my listeners. They're nice people, even if some of their beliefs are wrong sometimes. That's all.

Michael Regilio: I totally hear you, but let's be clear here.

It's, we're not just talking about beliefs. Fundamentalist Christians have real power in this country. They help dictate what children are taught. They help form policy that our government applies to our everyday life. The entire reason stem cell research has been hampered, comes from extreme conservative Christians, and it's not just stem cells.

The list goes on. So this is an important discussion.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes. And because it's important, let's make it tactful. My atheist comedian friend, and let's not reserve our finger pointing on these issues only for Christians. I used to [00:06:00] hang out with, uh, Hasidic Jews in college 'cause there was like a group where they always did dinner and stuff.

And while that's a whole skeptical Sunday on the beliefs that they had that were like kind of insane. I'll give you a sneak preview. I wanted to, uh, attend a lecture. There was lectures after the dinners, and it was why bad things happen to good people. And I was like, oh, that should be an interesting philosophical discussion, and not even kidding.

The root takeaway was that you just don't know that they're secretly bad people and maybe they like beat their wife and that's why God gave them cancer. You just think that they're a good person because you only know one side of them. And I was like, no, I do not accept. I do not accept that anybody who had a bad thing happen to them deserved it.

That was like my check please moment for that particular group. I just couldn't, after that I was like, nah. Can't deal.

Michael Regilio: Yeah. And look, there are certain religious people that will use their religious texts to justify beating their wives as well, which would make them good people. I guess. Look, it's convoluted, but you are right.

Even [00:07:00] back way before the Vatican, before the Inquisition, before Jesus in ancient Athens, the og, birthplace of reason, democracy and the fatal courtroom drama. The Battle of Religion versus reason began. So that's Socrates and company, right? Not exactly a scientist in the modern sense, but a foundational figure for logic, ethics, and you know, asking questions.

So

Jordan Harbinger: asking questions makes you a scientist. Now

Michael Regilio: I'm something of a scientist myself.

Jordan Harbinger: I actually try to apply the Socratic method every day on this podcast. I'll point out that in Athens, people didn't necessarily see Socrates as a truth seeker. The powerful people of Athens actually saw him as a troublemaker.

He was a nuisance. He was a gad fly, if you will. Ha Gad Fly. Haven't heard that one in a minute. That's basically a hipster insult. I think it's kind of a vintage roast at this point in time.

Michael Regilio: Yeah. I like it. I think I'm gonna start using that one. Do it'd rather it's on ey, be something of a gad fly. Mm-hmm.

Anyway, Socrates was put on trial and sentenced to death. The official charges corrupting the [00:08:00] youth and failing to acknowledge the gods of the city.

Jordan Harbinger: I confess, it's been a little strange to me that people who believe in gods like plural, that can hit you with lightning or turn you into a pillar of salt.

They're like, we need humans to punish people who badmouth us. That doesn't really add up for me.

Michael Regilio: No, nor I, but Socrates challenged traditional beliefs, debated everything from justice to the existence of the gods. That was dangerous stuff. He asked probing questions and exposed contradictions in people's thinking.

Jordan Harbinger: So that's the Socratic method. Some say that was the beginning of the scientific method.

Michael Regilio: Yeah, and they'd kind of be right. I mean, Socrates basically ran around making powerful people feel dumb. Nowadays that's the job of comedians or late night television hosts, which as it

Jordan Harbinger: turns out, not great for job security.

See, Stephen Colbert, I was thinking more of the fact that Socrates was poisoned, but you know, Stephen Colbert retiring to $250 million or whatever he is worth. Sure, same thing.

Michael Regilio: Yeah. Well, Socrates was famously found guilty by a jury of [00:09:00] 500 Athenians. Wow.

Jordan Harbinger: That's a lot of pissed off people. So it kind actually kind of sounds a bit like this podcast.

Let's hope not. No, I've pissed off more than 500 people for sure. Make a Canada joke. Wow. You'll never hear the end of it. Make a joke about literally anything else. Not that big of a deal. But yeah, there's at least 500 pissed off Canadians who used to maybe used to listen to this show.

Michael Regilio: Oh yeah. I, I made a joke online that involved, uh, the word Australia in it once.

And boy, I hear about it from the Australians.

Jordan Harbinger: I bet.

Michael Regilio: Anyway.

Jordan Harbinger: You're still alive. On the other hand, Socrates, not so much.

Michael Regilio: Yeah, well, his punishment, by the way, death by Hemlock, which was a toxic cocktail of ancient cancel culture, and he could have gone into exile, but he refused. He believed so deeply in rational dialogue and the examined life that he literally died for.

Plato goes into great detail behind Socrates's reasoning for this decision. Uh, it's in a, uh, his writing called, uh, Cato. It's an amazing read, highly [00:10:00] recommended. So the trial of Socrates is one of the earliest and most dramatic examples of religious and political authority, crushing free thought.

Socrates wasn't preaching atheism, he was just preaching reason. But that reason

Jordan Harbinger: still scared people.

Michael Regilio: Is that I mean, yeah, exactly. If you rewind even further back to the sixth century BCE, we hit the Ionian enlightenment. A group of thinkers on the coast of modern day Turkey who dared to ask, what is the world made of?

These were the original natural philosophers. Thas and Axander, Ann Xim, hair Colitis and Annex Aris.

Jordan Harbinger: Those names don't really roll off the tongue, but those great thinkers laid the groundwork for the fields of physics, astronomy, biology. I'm probably forgetting something else today, what we would call science essentially.

And I also saw that episode of Cosmos with Carl Sagan, by the way.

Michael Regilio: Hey, it's possible I heard of the Odians without watching Cosmos. And so had you heard of the Ionians without watching Cosmos? Of course not. But because of [00:11:00] Carl Sagan, I looked into it and I learned that Thalys said everything was made of water, and proximities said Air.

Haitis said Fire. Okay, they're not all winning ideas, but they were trying. They used observation, not mythology, logic instead of legend, they said, maybe thunder. Isn't Zeus throwing a tantrum? Maybe it's just

Jordan Harbinger: air pressure. Okay. That sounds like it might've been a tad controversial back in the day.

Michael Regilio: Yeah. In fact, the backlash came quickly once their ideas spread, especially into places like Athens.

People started pushing. Ris. He said the sun was a fiery rock, not a God. He was close. Yeah. Well, it took a long time for people to figure out what nuclear fusion was, but he was correct. It wasn't a chariot being cro, uh, pulled across the sky. It was a crazy idea. He was charged with impiety a capital offense.

Lucky for him. He was able to escape execution by going into exile, but his trial set the tone. Scientific explanations or threats [00:12:00]

Jordan Harbinger: to divine authority. Even before Christianity. Even before modern organized religion as we know it, there was already tension between belief systems rooted in the sacred, and thinkers asking, okay, fine, but why?

Michael Regilio: Yeah. And it only got hotter from there, like burning at the steak hot.

Jordan Harbinger: Ah, yes, the inquisition. And for the record, when I saw the subject of today's episode, I was expecting the inquisition. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Well, on the contrary, yeah.

Michael Regilio: Look. Their idea of friendly theological debate was more like you

Jordan Harbinger: said.

What about the stars? Time to die? Yeah. Giordano Bruno comes to mind. One of the original Giordano's, by the way. Um, but he was an OG space nerd. Now that I say that out loud, instead of just reading it in a book. Is Jordano Jordan, but in Italian. 'cause that's kind of cool. I kinda like it. I dig it.

Michael Regilio: Uh, you know what?

I don't know, but it, it looks like they might have the similar route. Wow. Let's just call him Jordan from now on. Sure. Jordan Broin was a 16th century Italian philosopher who [00:13:00] believed in cosmic pluralism. The idea that the universe is infinite with billions of stars and billions of planets orbiting them all with the potential for life.

Jordan Harbinger: So maybe God wasn't just obsessed with those of us here on Earth. Yeah,

Michael Regilio: yeah. Well, that's what he was saying. And in the 15 hundreds, such wild ideas directly contradicted the religious doctrine. I mean, not only did Bruno suggest that humanity isn't all that special, he also questioned the centrality of earth in God's master plan.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that's a heresy buffet, I suppose, back then.

Michael Regilio: Yeah. And the church said, yeah, that's not gonna fly. And promptly roasted him in 1600.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Like literally though. Right. They didn't set up a panel of mediocre comedians to tell jokes about him.

Michael Regilio: Oh my God. Having been to a number of those roasts, I might prefer the, uh, burned at the steak version.

The actual burning, yeah. Okay. And then of course there's Galileo Galilee, the father of modern science. He dared to suggest that the earth revolves around the sun and not the other

Jordan Harbinger: way around. [00:14:00] Bold move. And that I suppose no surprise, deeply offensive to the church. Yeah. They forced him to recant and put him under

Michael Regilio: house arrest for the remainder of his life.

He spent the re his last year's grounded by the Vatican for vehement suspicion of heresy.

Jordan Harbinger: That's church speak, I guess for shut up nerd. You know what though? Better than being flame broiled for sure.

Michael Regilio: Yeah. Interesting. Uh, Galileo wasn't officially cleared by the church until 1992 when Pope John Paul II formally acknowledged the church's error in condemning him.

So just a measly 359 years of silence and shame there.

Jordan Harbinger: Baby steps. There seems to be a consistent theme here, contradict religious scripture and you are in big trouble,

Michael Regilio: which is ironic because the guy who came up with the Big Bang theory. Was in fact a Catholic priest.

Jordan Harbinger: That's right. Famous atheist.

Christopher Hitchens was fond of making that point. I forgot about that.

Michael Regilio: Yeah. In fact, George Lamette, the Belgian Cosmologist, he came up with what he called the hypothesis of the primeval Adam or the cosmic [00:15:00] egg. Sounds delicious. And he was kind of close, right? Primeval Adam? Well, I mean, yeah. Yeah. Okay.

He's a really interesting guy in that he published his works in a little red French publication at the time. Nobody really noticed it. And then when Edwin Hubble kind of came to the same conclusion when he noticed that the universe was expanding and if it was expanding, logic would say that it must have at one time been much, much smaller and closer together.

And Ette really was like, it's good. It's all cool. Like he didn't really want credit for the fact that he actually kind of revolutionized physics. But yeah, his idea was he called it the cosmic egg. And I kind of hope that cosmic eggs aren't at all like space cakes, which I ate in Amsterdam and I literally felt like I was being burned at the stake.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Michael Regilio: Oh, I've been there. Yeah. But lame was not burned at the stake. To be clear,

Jordan Harbinger: this has nothing to do with anything, but I tried a space cake in Amsterdam because I went there when I was in, you know, 18 or something. Living in Germany. I went to Amsterdam and we were like, let's go to a coffee shop and [00:16:00] smoke marijuana.

So we went there with like dumb kids and I was like, I am so hungry. And I saw this brownie and I was like, oh, it's funny. They call it a space cake. So I bought one of those and ate it, and then my friend was like, oh, I want one too. That looks awesome. I was like, I'm not sharing. So I bought one for him.

That was a really bad idea. You probably should ask what's in things that you eat at places where they sell marijuana over the counter, because I shoved that whole thing in my face and a few hours later I remember telling my friend, Hans, I can't go to the bathroom because I'm a penguin with a beach ball stuck between my legs.

And I was walking like that and I couldn't make it through the door of our room to get to the shared bathroom in the hostel that we were in. I remember just laying in my bed being like, should I just pee in my pants or should I try to make it to the bathroom? And I made it finally to the bathroom, and I got in back to the room and I go, Hans, man, I'm a penguin with a beach ball between my legs.

He's like, yeah, you said that. And I go. I don't know if this is [00:17:00] gonna make any sense, but when the music stops, the vines go away from me. And when the music base comes in, the vines close in around me and he goes, bro, I know exactly what you mean. And I was like, we are, we. That Space Cake had marijuana and it didn't, it, there was something in there.

Michael Regilio: Yeah. I, I'm gonna have one comment about your story because I've been to Amsterdam a bunch of times. You know what they call Americans that come there and act like you idiots. Possibly as well. That's called being amster damaged.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh yeah. That's clever. And it's so true the, we were surrounded by so many dumb college kids that were like falling asleep at the table they were at.

I remember talking to this guy next to me. He was on a layover and he bought a huge bag of weed and he was trying to smoke all of it before he got back to the airport on his like five hour layover. And I remember the last thing he said before he passed out in a puddle of whatever he was drinking that he was missing, getting into his mouth was, yeah, I'm going to Princeton.

Many like fell asleep in a puddle of Coca-Cola. [00:18:00] That guy's probably a federal judge now. Anyway. Imagine being fined for teaching evolution. These days, the only crime is skipping these Midroll ads and missing out on Sweet Listener discounts. Let's swing into an ad break. We'll be right back.

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Come on and join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. You can find the course@sixminutenetworking.com. Alright, now back to Skeptical Sunday. Linette didn't get burned to death, but. He was a priest. Right. So maybe he had some connects that let him slide out of that one. Okay.

Michael Regilio: Yes. So Nette found a way to separate his religious beliefs from his scientific inquiry.

He said, look, the Bible tells us why science tells us

Jordan Harbinger: how sounds simple enough. But it didn't stop the fighting though. Right. And I do love that he kind of wormed his way out. Like, Hey, no, no, no, I'm still on board with the Bible. Science is just explaining kind of how maybe all that went down, the stuff that's not in the footnotes.

Slick. Good move.

Michael Regilio: I like it. Yeah. But it, it did not stop the fighting as science kept uncovering how things work, shedding light on the mysteries of our world, religion kept pushing back, trying to maintain its authority and its monopoly over knowledge. Fast forward to Charles Darwin and his [00:22:00] groundbreaking book on the

Jordan Harbinger: Origin of Species.

Also not exactly a popular guy or a popular book with hardcore fundamentalist religious folks. Right. The whole evolution thing. No, I mean, to this day they

Michael Regilio: rail against Darwin. And it wasn't exactly a popular book with a lot of people when it came out, including Darwin's wife who was devoutly religious.

So Darwin and Alfred, Russell Wallace, who never receives enough credit, but was simultaneously working on the same theory with Charles Darwin. Right. Wallace independently came up with basically the same theory. Right, right. Actually, it's a crazy story because Wallace, who had no idea Darwin was working on the same theory, sent an early draft of his work to Darwin for notes, and Darwin got it and was like.

Dude.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that must've been kind of tricky because he has to go, I know you're gonna think I'm copying your ideas, but I was thinking basically the same thing and he's, you can tell the other guy's like, don't you dare take credit for my work. He said, no, no, no, no. Here are my notes. Let me send you my notes it so that we can compare.

[00:23:00] 'cause I remember writing a paper in law school and I was like, can I see yours for inspiration? And then I was like, I hate to tell you this. I'm using a lot of the exact same analogies. And he was like, give you my damn paper back. Because he thought I was copying his work. But yeah, I can only imagine working on a great idea that will change the world.

And somebody sends you the same idea for notes and you're like, so are we both gonna win the prize and be famous forever? Or how's this gonna work?

Michael Regilio: Yeah. I mean, well actually how it did work, and to his credit, Darwin, who was far better known at the time, helped arrange for both he and Wallace's work to be read together at the Linean Society of London in July of 1858.

They knew that this was going to be an explosive publication.

Jordan Harbinger: That was kind of a boss move of him instead of just taking all the credit and getting away with it. 'cause he could. Yeah. Yeah. Nice guy. Was it also widely condemned though, like Galileo's findings where people are like, oh, these two troublemakers?

Michael Regilio: Uh, well, yes and no. It was widely condemned by many religious groups, but it was also quite the sensation, the first pressing of on the Origin of Species sold out on its first [00:24:00] day. People were super intrigued. Fellow scientists held the book up, not just for its revelations, but also for its methodical reasoning, extensive evidence, and avoidance of direct theological confrontations.

Jordan Harbinger: Interesting. They were very careful to do that avoidance of direct theological confrontations. So Darwin. Consciously tried not to directly contradict religious belief from the sound of it. Is that what you mean?

Michael Regilio: Let's put it this way. He knew what the bombshell was and he left it out of the book. He left completely outta the book, the Origin of the Human Species all together.

He just skipped it. Didn't get into it, just left it outta the book. Smart.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I have to say, of all species, humans really do seem like one of the easiest ones to figure out who we're related to because we look so much like primates, right? Yeah. I mean, we are primates, but like the ones that have hair all over their body.

Yeah. I mean, it's true also as Yes,

Michael Regilio: exactly. Yeah. Let me give you a quick aside though. Yeah. Because I found this fascinating in my research. An original pressing [00:25:00] of on the origin of species was found in 2001. This woman was cleaning out an attic and found it, and it had a stamp in it that it was taken out of the Boston Public Library in 1860.

No way. And she returned it. What? That's crazy. Yeah. Incredibly valuable. Like I couldn't find an exact value, but. Easily six figures.

Jordan Harbinger: That's amazing. So can you imagine being the librarian that got that is like, how do I file this? Lemme talk to my manager. And they're like, this is an international priceless artifact.

Yeah. Basically at this point. That's crazy. And they charged her the late fee too. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah. The late fee unfortunately eclipsed the value of the book. And she's homeless now.

Michael Regilio: Okay, so, so technical rapes, but the religious objection that we came from monkeys is not a new one. Let's cross the pond now from Darwin and Wallace in Britain.

To America, land of opportunity and also the land of banning science in schools. Entered the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925, Dayton, Tennessee. It was a 24-year-old high school [00:26:00] teacher. John Thomas scopes his crime teaching evolution, Darwin style. Which violated the Butler Act. A Tennessee law passed in 1925 that made it illegal for public school teachers to deny the divine creation of man.

Jordan Harbinger: Wow, that sounds so antiquated. I mean, it is a hundred years old, but the Butler Act really sounds like a violation of the establishment clause, which had been put into effect a couple hundred years prior. So you're basically limiting my freedom of speech to favor a particular religious belief. Doesn't that, that steps on a few.

Steps

Michael Regilio: on a few toes. Yeah. Well, it actually didn't go too well for scopes, and let's be clear, this was a criminal offense teaching kids that humans evolve from apes. And the trial became like just, it was a national spectacle, a media circus. They set up, uh, the courtroom, like a stage. People were selling monkey themed souvenirs out front of the courthouse.

The trial's like Coachella for creationists. Wow. Yeah, so the A CLU obviously backed scopes [00:27:00] and three times Presidential candidate Williams Jenning Bryan prosecuted. It was literally the Bible versus biology in the American court system. The big question being, should Christian religious beliefs dictate what is taught in science class?

In spoiler alert, the Bible won scopes was convicted and fined, but in the court of public opinion, the idea of science scored some serious points. Newspapers like the New York Times called the trial a buffoonish FARs. In truth though, when I really looked into it, it kind of boiled down to like a city versus rural divide.

City folks mocked the rural folks for their unscientific beliefs. The whole thing echoes of like where we are today. I mean, I was gonna say,

Jordan Harbinger: not much has changed. Right? That's sort of still happening.

Michael Regilio: And so people started waking up, though, particularly urban people started waking up to the fact that maybe just maybe teaching a 2000 year old text a scientific fact to the next generation of Americans was maybe a

Jordan Harbinger: little sketchy and unconstitutional, right?

Public opinion [00:28:00] may have shifted, but. I'm looking at the Butler Act that was on the books until 1967. So it's not like they took Swift action after this to remedy the situation.

Michael Regilio: No, that's right. Decades of legal state sponsored science denial

Jordan Harbinger: mandated biblical biology. So the Supreme Court eventually said, no, you can't ban teaching Evolution in schools, which seems like a big win for science.

I mean, it took forever, but whatever.

Michael Regilio: Right? That's right. Although the Supreme Court actually never took up the Butler Act. It made its way up to the court and they declined to take that particular case. But in 1968, it ruled on a similar law in Emerson v Arkansas ruling bans on the teaching of evolution violated again the establishment clause, ending the battle between fundamentalist religious views and science forever.

Of course. I'm kidding. Yeah. It was by no means over. Creationism just evolved. I see what you did there. Creationism evolved. Nice one. Yeah. Okay. So having met it, state court creationism evolved into creation science. It [00:29:00] attempts to reinterpret science so that it fits into a more literal interpretation.

The Bible still rejecting evolution and the bid bank theory. Of course,

Jordan Harbinger: at least they're not burning people alive anymore. Kind of maybe. At least not around here. We've come a long way, baby. So creation science takes over where creationism. Left off, but I, what's the difference?

Michael Regilio: Yeah. It took over and it did a pretty good job.

Many school boards and lawmakers are persuaded to include the teachings of creation science alongside evolution in the classroom. In fact, Arkansas even adopts a law known as the Balanced Treatment for Creation Science and Evolution Science Act. Wow. Act five 90 for short. A law that mandated public schools give balanced treatment to creation science and evolution science in the classroom.

So teachers were

Jordan Harbinger: mandated by law to present both of these things as equally plausible explanations? Is that what you're saying?

Michael Regilio: Yeah. More or less. Creationism was back in business. Wow. But not for long. Supreme Court, once again, weighs in and [00:30:00] rules in 1987 that the Arkansas law is unconstitutional and again, in violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

Since it was specifically intended, as you said, to advance a particular religion but have no fear. 'cause creationism evolves again this time into the even sexier brand of intelligent design.

Jordan Harbinger: Ah, so this is what my ex-girlfriend was always talking about, intelligent design. She explained it to me a lot, but it kind of all comes back to God designing everything, right?

No evolution.

Michael Regilio: And again, they did evolve in their views a little bit with intelligent design. Intelligent design doesn't contest the prevailing scientific view on the age of the earth.

Jordan Harbinger: I see that's big of them, but many, many fundamentalist religious folks, Christians, whatever, do still contest the prevailing scientific view on the age of the earth, right?

I mean, the young earth creationists that we were just talking about,

Michael Regilio: oh, it's huge. Now we're gonna get into that. I mean, heck, there are Christians out there these days. This is true. I know you know this, that not only contest the age of the Earth, [00:31:00] they contest the

Jordan Harbinger: edge of the earth. Yes. Flat earthers. I didn't know that was a fundamentalist Christian thing though.

I thought that was a sort of like terminally online. I wanna be contrarian. 'cause I'm on Reddit all day kind of thing.

Michael Regilio: Well, no, I mean, it, it's, it is a biblical view of the earth, particularly with their, um, view of the firmament, which the Bible talks about in Genesis. Right. Which is a dome over the earth and like flat earthers.

Think outer space is imaginary and the sun is local.

Jordan Harbinger: You're right. I've heard of the firmament and above that are angels. Right. But the firmament is the snow globe around. The top part of the earth that has lights on it that look like stars, basically. That was kind of their theory.

Michael Regilio: You know, I've not gotten too deep into flat earth, but I will say that it's kind of an opposite of a snow globe because they think that the water is above the glass instead of in the glass.

Like at least that's what the, the Bible says. It's, it talks of the waters above and the waters below and flat earthers, and people that believe in the firmament think that there's outer spaces water, or that it's imaginary and it's fake, and [00:32:00] wow. You know what? Maybe we should do an episode on stuff like that.

Jordan Harbinger: Maybe. Okay. Continue.

Michael Regilio: But they are out there and they are almost all certainly fundamentalist Christians, but whereas flat Earthers are usually laughed at, like you said, the proponents of intelligent design, well, they take themselves very seriously and have serious credentials. I mean, some of these people have PhDs, and at the end of the day, it's proven to be a little more than religion in a lab coat.

But this is a serious effort to undermine the teaching of evolution.

Jordan Harbinger: Now time to pray at the altar of capitalism. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Nord, VPN. Most of us hop on public wifi without a second thought. Coffee shops, airports, hotels, even the random free hotspot at the grocery store.

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Jordan Harbinger: Thank you for listening and supporting the show. All of the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the podcast are searchable and clickable at Jordan harbinger.com/deals. Now for the rest of skeptical Sunday. So to be clear, intelligent design proponents are not arguing that life all started in a garden with a naked man and a naked woman and a talking snake, right?

This is sort of beyond that. No, no, no.

Michael Regilio: [00:35:00] But they do argue that evolution does not sufficiently explain the complexity of life on earth. That science should recognize the existence of an intelligent designer, AKA God. Right? Right. I mean, and they're careful not to use that word. That's why they call it an intelligent designer, but okay.

Groups like the Discovery Institute have led campaigns here in America trying to discredit evolution as it's taught currently. With their stated goals being to defeat scientific materialism and replace it with the theistic, understanding that nature and humans are created by, well, they say an intelligent designer, but they're all Christians, so let's be honest.

God. Okay. Yeah. The whole. Notion revolves around something called irreducible complexity. What does that mean exactly? Okay, so irreducible complexity is a term popularized by a guy by the name of Michael Behe. He's a biochemist and prominent figure in the intelligent design movement. In 1996, he published a book called Darwin's Black Box.

In [00:36:00] it, he claimed that some biological systems are so complex and interdependent that they could not function if any part were removed. Therefore they couldn't have evolved step by step via natural selection because they wouldn't have worked until fully formed. Okay, I'm following. So all parts of life, nature, earth are necessary for function.

Remove one and the whole thing stops working. Therefore, it couldn't have evolved gradually. It must have been designed. They have a favorite example, let's, let me tell you about it. It's called the bacterial flagella. And this is a microscopic rotary motor. It's on a tiny little microscopic, uh, flagellum, and it, it does look like a little spinning motor and it's made of, of about 30 protein parts.

And if any one of these parts is taken out, the motor won't spin. Therefore they claim it couldn't have evolved piece by piece.

Jordan Harbinger: Honestly, I can follow that logic so far, right? It couldn't have evolved [00:37:00] piece by piece, but there are other ways things end up in nature.

Michael Regilio: Behe himself, who's, you know, the key proponent for this, he likes to use the example of a mouse trap.

A mouse trap consists of five parts, a base, a spring, a hammer, a catch, and a holding bar. Without any one of these, the mouse trap doesn't work. So the notion goes like this, why would evolution develop a spring when it would take another million years to add on the hammer or the holding bar?

Jordan Harbinger: Right now I'm seeing, so the fact that these things all do exist to them indicates there was a designer who could see the end result from the beginning and then work towards that.

Michael Regilio: Right. Bey's argument hinges on the idea that if we can't currently explain it, it must be a designer. That is what we call in the biz, the God of the gaps argument. He's saying that 'cause I don't understand. It must be God adding a supernatural explanation wherever science hasn't fully mapped things out yet, and in the case of irreducible complexity, scientists actually can explain it.

It's not a big [00:38:00] mystery. It turns out that systems evolve through co-option. That is to say structures evolve for one purpose and then are repurposed for another. Yeah. I was trying to think of a good example of this, and I came up with the most basic example when I was a kid. I loved it when my mom used the last paper towel because I would repurpose the empty paper towel roll into a kick ass too.

I'd run around the house Toodling. I was possibly a very annoying kid. Yeah, yeah. Well, you're an annoying adult too, so that really, that does track. Oh yeah. Okay. So, well, evolution can do the same thing. Something a biological being uses for one purpose can slowly over time be repurposed for something else.

So this brings us to the Kits Miller v Dover case. In 2005, a group of 11 parents in Pennsylvania sued the Dover Area School District. Over the school board's requirement that intelligent design be presented as an explanation for the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view. Effectively, [00:39:00] once again, teaching creationism to ninth grade public school students.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that sounds like the Tennessee Monkey trial all over again, right?

Michael Regilio: Yeah. And again, in 2005, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the parents. They ruled that intelligent design was a form of creationism and violated that pesky establishment cause of the First Amendment to the Constitution Again. The one that prohibits, as we said, the government from favoring one religion over another.

For the record, if you remember back to that era, George W. Bush was running for reelection at that time, and he was running on a platform of teach the controversy. Again, saying that like going back to that Arkansas law, teach both. Except there was no controversy. Evolutionary biologists were entirely against intelligent design.

There was no controversy. There's all science on one side and Christians on the other. But with the president of the United States on their side, you see how powerful of an ally they had.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. So the [00:40:00] Supreme Court steps in, once again in favor of science, but the fight continues. Why does it have to be this way?

Why all the bickering? I mean, you can teach what you want in church, right? You don't have to do it in school.

Michael Regilio: The question of why does it have to be like this kind of breaks down to this, science asks for evidence and religion runs on faith, and a religious person will tell you that it's all about faith.

They're built on different foundations. While they don't have to clash, they often do, especially when faith wants to shape public policy, education, or health. It's one thing to believe Noah built a boat. It's another thing to rewrite our biology and geology textbooks to include it as literal history.

It's all about how truth is defined in religion. Truth is revealed in science.

Jordan Harbinger: It's tested. Faith is immutable. Science evolves and science. New data equals new conclusions, and with most faiths, new data is made to fit the original conclusions

Michael Regilio: exactly. Every time somebody tries to argue with me by pointing out that science has gotten things [00:41:00] wrong, I always point out that it was more science and better science that corrected the bad science, not religion.

It's never been religion that corrected the science and this tension between faith and science. It's not just anecdotal. There's actually data hard peer reviewed data. A study published in 2018 looked at over 9,000 people across four data sets. They found that higher levels of religiosity measured not.

Just by affiliation, but actual belief and practice were linked to lower science literacy and more negative attitudes towards science and get this, in one part of the study, a parent's religiosity predicted their kids' attitudes towards science 20 years later.

Jordan Harbinger: So two decades of scientific side eye.

That's a long grudge man.

Michael Regilio: Yeah. And now that study shows correlation, not causation. So it doesn't necessarily prove that religion makes you anti-science. But it definitely suggests a long-term influence.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, it's a strong suggestion, I would say. Just [00:42:00] anecdotally.

Michael Regilio: Yeah. And while we might not be fighting in court over teaching evolution, although who's to say what tomorrow will bring the battle between American Christians and the scientific community has certainly not subsided.

Jordan Harbinger: What about the COVID-19 pandemic? Nothing like a pandemic to reveal just how deep the science divide runs, especially in this country.

Michael Regilio: Right. And boy, are reopening a can of worms. That one, but vaccines, masks, social distancing, all backed by science. And yet many American Christians, particularly evangelicals, said no thanks, especially white.

Evangelicals who had the lowest vaccination rates of any religious group in the us.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay. But I know plenty of non-religious people that also think that the pandemic was a hoax or vaccines were not necessary or bad for you or some kind of trick.

Michael Regilio: Yeah. Or that they have microchips in them or

Jordan Harbinger: that they have microchips in them.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Michael Regilio: And that gets to why this is all part of the same problem, believing things because of bad or non-existent evidence. Like the revelation crowd. That is [00:43:00] to say, the Christians who look to the book of Revelation in the Bible and its prophecies about end times, many of these pastors said that the vaccine was conditioning people to accept the mark of the beast.

Jordan Harbinger: I remember hearing that, seeing that, reading that on Twitter. Insert joke here about the needle jab being so small, I can't even find it. Right, but that I never really understood. You're conditioning people to accept the mark of the beast. I mean, I even remember going, okay, is that a euphemism? Explain this to me.

And it was just quite literally some kind of crazy nonsense, if I can say

Michael Regilio: that here, right? Well, it's in the book of Revelation and it's the mark of the beast. I had a guy not long ago telling me that the mark of the beast was here and it was some sort of barcode that was going to be tattooed or somehow put on you or something like that.

And I looked it up and he's like, no, it's real. They're working on it. I looked at it, I was like, dude, that was 15 years ago, and they abandoned it. It didn't like it's, anyway, but they see the mark of the beast everywhere. I mean, you know, there's the old saying, when you're a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail.

So, I [00:44:00] mean, I think there's some of that going on here. You also had pastors preaching against vaccines from the pulpit, and it's not just COVID. In the modern era fundamentalists, Christians often oppose climate change. Scientists are pretty firm on this, and this is just a fact. I honestly don't know why this is controversial.

The planet is heating up, ice caps are melting, extreme weather is increasing, and humans are causing. Many Christian leaders still say, God is in control. We don't need to worry. Or, my personal favorite, the Earth is ours to use. God gave it to us. That's called Dominion Theology.

Jordan Harbinger: So that's just kind of like a offshoot of Christianity saying, Hey, the Bible said drill if baby, drill if.

Is that what that is? Yeah. It was specifically Genesis 1 28. Fill the Earth and subdue it. Wow. Is that real? What does that mean? I, that's kind of bizarre. Yeah.

Michael Regilio: Yes. And let me be clear, I have no problem. With somebody preaching that from the pulpit, if that's the way they feel and their congregation wants to hear it, it's when these beliefs, based [00:45:00] on faith end up in our politics and our policies, it becomes very dangerous.

I mean, right now the EPA has decided to not only stop monitoring emissions. They've removed a, a study from the EPA that showed that, uh, CO2 is harmful to human health and that it heats up the earth. So, I mean, where do you think that's coming from?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that's interesting. So do you think religion has no place in politics and policy?

I'm gonna kind of guess that you're on the same page as separation of church and state as maybe I am.

Michael Regilio: Yeah, I absolutely do think that. I've been very front about the fact that I'm an atheist. You can just ask all my Christian friends, 'cause I have a lot of Christians in my life and their favorite subject is Michael is not coming to heaven with us.

Which gets me actually to the waiting for the rapture crowd who espouse a form of eschatological fatalism. Wow. Those are some big words, Michael. Tell us what they mean. It's a fancy way of saying why fix the planet if the raptures around the corner?

Jordan Harbinger: So it's kind of like [00:46:00] the earth is the apartment we're all moving out of next month, and we know the landlord's just gonna keep our security deposit anyway, so we have a big party.

Michael Regilio: That's actually really funny. But having been in that situation a few times back in my rock band days, I really hope we treat the earth better than me and my friends treated that apartment. Look, this denial goes beyond just what the Bible explicitly says. Like the Earth was created in six days and on the seventh day, God netflixed and chilled, or whatever.

The Bible doesn't say anything about stem cells because the Bible doesn't know anything about cells, but in America, which the Bible also doesn't know anything about. In the 21st century, stem cell research was certainly hampered by Christians who believed that stem cells had souls.

Jordan Harbinger: Right? Yeah. Well, I remember this was such a big deal under George W.

Bush, and I think they had to open up labs to study these things in the Caribbean or something like that. They had to offshore this.

Michael Regilio: Yeah, you're a hundred percent right. And it was under George W. Bush again. Under pressure from Christian [00:47:00] conservatives, he banned federal funding for any embryonic stem cell research that used newly created embryos only.

Research using already existing lines was allowed, which kind of limited progress. This discouraged scientists blocked funding and slowed innovation in the US compared to other countries with more permissive policies. I'll take this opportunity now to throw a little shade at my former religion, Catholicism.

We mentioned at the beginning that Catholics have been pretty good with education and science. Well, not when it came to stem cells. They were very, very bad. The Catholic church has been a big obstacle to stem cell research.

Jordan Harbinger: I thought the new Pope was all kind of like hip. Now you think maybe he'll change course.

Michael Regilio: Well, I hope the new Pope. Can cope okay with stem cells. But unfortunately, opposition to stem cell research has hampered progress in treating stuff like Parkinson's, spinal cord injuries, and diabetes. And in some ways, religion isn't just standing in the way of solutions to real problems. They're also creating problems where there was no problems, such [00:48:00] as,

Jordan Harbinger: I

Michael Regilio: am sure everyone saw this one coming, A person being gay.

Look, your religious beliefs about homosexuality are your own, and I'm not gonna get into it. Your religious beliefs about psychology and the ability to convert a gay person into a heterosexual person through conversion therapy. That does real harm. Is

Jordan Harbinger: this the whole pray the gay away stuff that you're talking about?

Michael Regilio: Yeah. Or more accurately psychological abuse. So for decades, Christian ministries and counselors have offered programs to cure homosexuality or correct gender identity, and it's not based in science. In fact, every major psychological and medical association has condemned it.

Jordan Harbinger: From the A PA to the WHO, the science is really clear on this.

Sexual orientation and gender identity are not disorders. They're normal variations of human experience. I don't think that's woke. I think that's kind of settled here, but I don't know. Maybe it is, but I'm pretty sure that that's the majority here on this. Aside from extreme religious folks. Yeah, [00:49:00]

Michael Regilio: right, for sure.

And let's be clear here, uh, you know, conservatives in America have really come around on the gay thing. The younger generation of many Christians I've seen have come around on the gay issue as well. But for some religious communities, the truth is inconvenient, so they treat it like a sin or worse, like a sickness.

Instead of compassion, they offer coercion instead of affirmation, they offer aversion therapy, shame cycles, and trauma. Sometimes it's subtle like church-based counseling that tries to reframe desire as temptation. Other times it's extreme like isolation, emotional abuse, even physical punishment. The damage can be long lasting.

Depression, anxiety. PTSD, increased suicide risk, especially for young people.

Jordan Harbinger: We've gotten letters from guys who have gay thoughts and attraction, but they choose to ignore them by praying harder or marrying a woman or something like that. It's actually quite sad for everyone involved. And yet, despite [00:50:00] the science, these gay conversion programs, they still exist.

I looked recently and it's very hard to believe it's, I, I am shocked that this is still around.

Michael Regilio: Yeah, and especially in deeply religious areas, conversion therapy clinics and camps have just gone underground. They've rebranded, they've renamed, but they're still operating. It's a classic example of faith rejecting fact choosing dogma over data and people suffer for it.

You can't pray someone straight. You can't shock the gay out and you definitely can't claim to love someone telling them their existence is broken.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. So here's the big question. Where do we draw the line between religious belief and scientific responsibility? Because people are free to believe whatever they want.

Michael Regilio: Yeah, go for it. Believe the earth is 6,000 years old. Believe Jesus wrote a dinosaur. Sorry, I'm being snarky. Whatever. But when the beliefs start dictating laws, public health and education policy, that's where it gets messy. It's one thing to opt out of a [00:51:00] flu shot. It's another to influence thousands to reject medicine during a global pandemic or vote for politicians who got climate policy because God promised not to flood the earth again.

But

Jordan Harbinger: he didn't

Michael Regilio: promise not to roast

Jordan Harbinger: us. Maybe God thinks like a lawyer and he's gonna take this literally, I don't know. Yeah.

Michael Regilio: Well we know You think like a lawyer, that's an amazing take on it. Mm-hmm. Look, faith isn't necessarily the problem. When faith refuses to engage with evidence and instead doubles down on fear and fantasy, it just, it's straight up dangerous.

Jordan Harbinger: You can have your own beliefs, but not your own facts. That's a common refrain on the show as well.

Michael Regilio: Yeah. It's not science that's the enemy, it's the fear of science or of what it reveals, what it challenges. It's easier to say, God made you wrong, let's fix it than to confront a

Jordan Harbinger: worldview that might be flawed.

So is there any hope? Can religion and science ever kind of be friends? They had been before, like Earl Powell, George Lame, the cosmic egg guy, or [00:52:00] Francis Collins, the former head of the Human Genome Project. That guy was a devout Christian as well. I mean, then he was studying DNA and all that stuff.

Michael Regilio: Yeah, no, he's, I mean, he did groundbreaking work and he is devoutly religious, right?

There are plenty of scientists who believe in God, who sees science as a way to understand creation, not replace it. It requires letting go of literalism, take thing. The Bible as metaphor, not a manual. And that's the big ask for some fundamentalist believers. The Bible isn't open to interpretation, it's the final word, and for scientists, that just doesn't fly.

At the end of the day, science isn't perfect, but it's rooted in facts and itself corrects. It proves itself wrong all the time, and it's okay with that.

Jordan Harbinger: And religion isn't always the bad guy, but it's clearly resistant to change and hesitant to correct itself as well.

Michael Regilio: Yeah. The minute Faith starts telling you not to trust science, that's a red flag in my book or Scarlet Letter.

If your beliefs are hurting [00:53:00] people, denying medicine, denying rights, denying facts, then we've got a problem. Truth shouldn't fear investigation. God, if he does exist, shouldn't need protection from telescopes or test tubes

Jordan Harbinger: and maybe don't burn people alive for believing differently. Amen, Jordan. Amen.

Thanks everyone for listening. Topic suggestions and angry emails, which I'm sure no one is going to write about this episode to me directly, jordan@jordanharbinger.com. Advertisers deals, discounts, and ways to support the show all at Jordan harbinger.com/deals. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter or Instagram.

You can also hit me on LinkedIn. You can find Michael Regilio on Instagram. Tour dates are up now as well. We'll be linking that in the show notes 'cause nobody can spell Lio. This show is created in association with Podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jase Sanderson, Tadas Sidlauskasi, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi.

Our advice and opinions are our own, and yes, I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Also, we do try to get things right in these episodes. Not everything is gospel, even if it's FactCheck. So consult [00:54:00] a professional before applying anything you hear on the show, especially if it's about your health and wellbeing.

Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use a good dose of the skepticism and knowledge we doled out today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn and we'll see you next time.

What if the real gender gap no one's talking about is the one where men are falling way behind? I sit down with Richard Reeves to unpack why guys are struggling.

JHS Clip: What's happening with our guys now? So many of our young men where they're just not feeling that same level of motivation and aspiration as young women, right?

We don't wanna go back to a world where women were discouraged from doing it. Of course not. But we should worry when we see gender gaps like that two to one, we should at least be asking the question like, why is that happening? Is that good? But the trouble is back to where we started. Like so many people just don't even want to confront the fact that this could be an area where we should be more worried about men than women.

They just can't do that because they think politically that's not acceptable and that's just get us into a horrible [00:55:00] position. Too many people even now struggle to admit that men are having problems 'cause they think men are the problem. And until we get past that, we're just gonna keep losing these men.

There's an old traditional saying, which is women need to hear. That they're loved and men need to hear that they're respected. I'm gonna say there's a grain of truth. I do not wanna stereotype. I do not wanna say it's true of everybody. And as a society, that's how we have to think about this. It's and not all.

And right now too much of our politics, especially around gender, is being framed as all pick a side, pink or blue, insane. And it's got us to a very difficult place in our culture. And so we've just all gotta give ourselves permission to care about boys and men. Without living in fear of the fact that in doing that, we've somehow gone over to the dark side and become a misogynist.

That is not true, and it's more of us that say that the less true it'll become

Jordan Harbinger: for more on what it [00:56:00] really takes to help men thrive without setting women back. Check out episode 1126 of the Jordan Harbinger Show.