I was reading an interesting article from J. Warner Wallace last week that he wrote for Townhall. In the article, he said that the real driver behind people turning away from truth, the big questions, religion in general, etc. was because of a desire for autonomy. People have enormous confidence about their desires, believing that following their desires is the surest way to reach happiness. But is it true?

In blue states, people consistently vote for leaders who make them feel good. Voters want to feel good, and they want to look good to other people – virtue signaling. And they are sure that feeling good and looking good will produce good results.

Hawaii is one of the bluest states in the country. There, the people consistently vote for policies that are much more progressive than the policies of those terrible red states. Policies like re-making the power grid to be driven by renewable green energy sources.

Here’s what happened next, as reported by Daily Wire:

Hawaiian Electric is under scrutiny for allegedly slow-walking modernization and repairs of its electrical grid before the fire that ripped through the island of Maui last week.

Hawaiian Electric is Hawaii’s principle electric utility, providing power to roughly 95% of the state. Financial disclosures and reports show the company worried about the state of its electrical grid, and specifically the risk of wildfires, but devoted resources to building out the utility’s green energy network with limited action to mitigate fire risk, according to The Wall Street Journal.

In 2015, the Hawaii State Legislature amended the State’s Renewable Portfolio Standards to establish the nation’s first goal of 100% renewable energy:

The focus on Hawaii’s energy priorities over the past decade has been dominated by its push for green energy. The state enacted a first-in-the-country law in 2015 mandating that Hawaii’s grid be powered by 100% renewable energy by 2045.

In 2021, regulators finished a top-to-bottom restructuring of the regulatory framework to guide that transition, offering Hawaiian Electric large bonuses for finishing green energy projects on time, and threatening the utility with fines if it missed deadlines.

[…]“You have to look at the scope and scale of the transformation within [Hawaiian Electric] that was occurring throughout the system,” Mina Morita, the 2011-2015 chair of the state utilities commission, told WSJ. “While there was concern for wildfire risk, politically the focus was on electricity generation.”

The government, which was elected by the people, mandated that the energy company would make going green their highest priority. Politically, the focus was on global warming alarmism. Not on lowering electricity prices for consumers. And not on protecting taxpayers from wild fires.

I had a quick look on LinkedIn at the resume of the CEO of the energy company, and she had no earned degrees in science, engineering or technology. She has a bachelors degree in accounting. Good degree, but not for the top job in energy production. Why is she the CEO of an energy production company? Will she face consequences for her failure to perform?

A very good book on science apologetics was published recently, called “The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith: Exploring the Ultimate Questions About Life and the Cosmos“. Well, there’s an ongoing series of posts about the book at Evolution News, and one of them caught my eye. They are talking about the origin of life, and what’s needed to create life from non-life.

Here is the post from Evolution News.

The article starts by explaining the what is required to show how non-living components could be organized into a living system:

• plausible biochemical paths from individual bio-building blocks like amino acids or nucleic acids to functional polymers such as proteins and DNA.
• ways to speed up chemical reactions that are naturally slow.
• the ordering of amino acids in proteins and nucleotide bases in RNA and DNA that allows them to function properly.

The leading naturalistic explanation to solve these problems is called the “RNA world” hypothesis:

The most popular proposal for the first self-replicating molecule is RNA — where life was first based upon RNA carrying both genetic information (akin to modern DNA) and performing catalytic functions (akin to modern enyzmes), in what is termed the RNA world.

The article lists several problems with the RNA world hypothesis. Dr. Walter Bradley lists two of those problems.

First, the assembly of RNA requires intelligent design:

First, RNA has not been shown to assemble in a laboratory without the help of a skilled chemist intelligently guiding the process. Origin-of-life theorist Steven Benner explained that a major obstacle to the natural production of RNA is that “RNA requires water to function, but RNA cannot emerge in water, and does not persist in water without repair” due to water’s “rapid and irreversible” corrosive effects upon RNA.³ In this “water paradox,” Benner explains that “life seems to need a substance (water) that is inherently toxic to polymers (e.g., RNA) necessary for life.”⁴

To overcome such difficulties, Benner and other chemists carefully designed experimental conditions that are favorable to the production of RNA. But Robert Shapiro explains that these experiments do not simulate natural conditions: “The flaw is in the logic — that this experimental control by researchers in a modern laboratory could have been available on the early Earth.”⁵ Reviewing attempts to construct RNA in the lab, James Tour likewise found that “[t]he conditions they used were cleverly selected,” but in the natural world, “the controlled conditions required to generate” RNA are “painfully improbable.”⁶ Origin-of-life theorists Michael Robertson and Gerald Joyce even called the natural origin of RNA a “Prebiotic Chemist’s Nightmare” because of “the intractable mixtures that are obtained in experiments designed to simulate the chemistry of the primitive Earth.”⁷ In the end, these experiments demonstrate one thing: RNA can only form by intelligent design.

The second problem is that the RNA world hypothesis is that it requires the existence of a self-replicating RNA molecule in order to get started. But this self-replicator contains a lot of biological information that is beyond the reach of chance to produce:

The most fundamental problem with the RNA world hypothesis is its inability to explain the origin of information in the first self-replicating RNA molecule — which experts suggest would have had to be at least 100 nucleotides long, if not between 200 and 300 nucleotides in length.¹⁰ How did the nucleotide bases in RNA become properly ordered to produce life? There are no known chemical or physical laws that can do this. To explain the ordering of nucleotides in the first self-replicating RNA molecule, origin-of-life theorists have no explanation other than blind chance. As noted, ID theorists call this obstacle the information sequence problem, but multiple mainstream theorists have also observed the great unlikelihood of naturally producing a precise RNA sequence required for replication.

Whenever I sit down to write some code or to write a blog post, I can start with one letter, then add another, then add another, until I have a functioning program, or a legible blog post. It might be possible for random chance to make a meaningful word out of 3 letters, like “the” or “hat”. But it’s not possible to make a self-replicating RNA molecule that way. The required sequence is just too long, and every letter has to be just right in order for it to function as a self-replicating system. The simplest self-replicating molecule is extremely complicated.

Anyway, check out the article, and if you want to read all about Walter Bradley (my role model), there is a new book out about him called “For a Greater Purpose: The Life and Legacy of Walter Bradley” which I finished, and it was great.

Previously, I had blogged about a small study published in 2018 by Brown University’s Dr. Lisa Littman. That study was controversial, because it falsified the narrative about transgenderism held by secular leftists. The new study, published in March 2023 in Archives of Sexual Behavior, confirms the Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria theory first advanced by Littman. Let’s take a look.

The study is here, on Springer Link.

Excerpt from the Abstract:

During the past decade there has been a dramatic increase in adolescents and young adults (AYA) complaining of gender dysphoria. One influential if controversial explanation is that the increase reflects a socially contagious syndrome: Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD).

We report results from a survey of parents who contacted the website ParentsofROGDKids.com because they believed their AYA children had ROGD. Results focused on 1655 AYA children whose gender dysphoria reportedly began between ages 11 and 21 years, inclusive. These youths were disproportionately (75%) natal female. Natal males had later onset (by 1.9 years) than females, and they were much less likely to have taken steps toward social gender transition (65.7% for females versus 28.6% for males). Pre-existing mental health issues were common, and youths with these issues were more likely than those without them to have socially and medically transitioned.

Parents reported that they had often felt pressured by clinicians to affirm their AYA child’s new gender and support their transition. According to the parents, AYA children’s mental health deteriorated considerably after social transition.

Breitbart reported about the study and noted:

When asked if their child had friends who “came out as transgender around the same time,” 55.4 percent said “yes,” with that response being significantly higher for females, (60.9 percent) than it was for males (38.7 percent).

[…]The study also revealed that parents said they oftentimes felt pressured by clinicians to go along with their child’s new gender identity and support their transition. The parents added that their children’s “mental health deteriorated considerably after social transition.”

[…]Parents also estimated that before developing gender dysphoria, their child was spending an average of 4.5 hours per day “on the internet and social media.”

When asked whether a stressful event in their child’s life may have contributed to the onset of gender dysphoria, 72.6 percent of parents answered “yes.”

One of the differences between men and women, in my experience, is that the majority of men tend to generate their worldview by making plans that are likely to achieve goals, whereas the majority of women tend to get their goals from the culture, and pursue those goals by doing what feels good “in the moment”. I have been told this by women who were never like this, and by women who grew out of this once they experienced failure. That’s why transgenderism is especially problematic for girls, because if it is being spread by social cues and pressures, then girls are typically going to be more susceptible to that than boys.

Let’s talk about the previous study.

Here’s how the study was first reported by Science Daily:

This month, a Brown University researcher published the first study to empirically describe teens and young adults who did not have symptoms of gender dysphoria during childhood but who were observed by their parents to rapidly develop gender dysphoria symptoms over days, weeks or months during or after puberty.

[…]The study was published on Aug. 16 in PLOS ONE.

Peer pressure / The Internet:

The pattern of clusters of teens in friend groups becoming transgender-identified, the group dynamics of these friend groups and the types of advice viewed online led her to the hypothesis that friends and online sources could spread certain beliefs.

[….]”Of the parents who provided information about their child’s friendship group, about a third responded that more than half of the kids in the friendship group became transgender-identified,” Littman said. “A group with 50 percent of its members becoming transgender-identified represents a rate that is more 70 times the expected prevalence for young adults.”

Mental disorders / traumatic events:

Additionally, 62 percent of parents reported their teen or young adult had one or more diagnoses of a psychiatric disorder or neurodevelopmental disability before the onset of gender dysphoria. Forty-eight percent reported that their child had experienced a traumatic or stressful event prior to the onset of their gender dysphoria, including being bullied, sexually assaulted or having their parents get divorced.

This article at The Federalist had a few examples to illustrate the conclusion of the study. I’ll pick two.

The study includes other eye-opening information, such as case studies of several children’s stories.

• “A 14-year-old natal female and three of her natal female friends were taking group lessons together with a very popular coach. The coach came out as transgender, and, within one year, all four students announced they were also transgender.”

• “A 14-year-old natal female and three of her natal female friends are part of a larger friend group that spends much of their time talking about gender and sexuality. The three natal female friends all announced they were trans boys and chose similar masculine names. After spending time with these three friends, the 14-year-old natal female announced that she was also a trans boy.”

I thought this quote from that article was interesting as well, given the culture’s obsession with “bullying”, which is a nebulous term that can mean actual bullying, or mere disagreement.

The study also may indicate that school “anti-bullying” programs typically created by LGBT activist organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign may help accelerate children identifying as transgender by pushing peers and authority figures to profusely express their support.

Coming out as transgender means instant fame and popularity, because you’re a victim, and everyone has to be nice to you… or else:

“Great increase in popularity among the student body at large. Being trans is a gold star in the eyes of other teens,” wrote one parent on the study response form. Another wrote, “not so much ‘popularity’ increasing as ‘status’ … also she became untouchable in terms of bullying in school as teachers who ignored homophobic bullying …are now all at pains to be hot on the heels of any trans bullying.”

So becoming transgender has social rewards, especially for people who are being bullied. White girls are constantly being bullied for their race in public schools, so identifying as transgender is a quick and easy way for them to get out of the oppressor class and into the victim class