My country (the United States) is just going through a weird / awful / bizarre time. Even if I keep the politics out of the discussion, the anti-science movement in my country is truly insane. It always has been a problem in American churches, especially since the 1900s. Christian fundamentalism has hurt science, hurt religion, and hurt society. Fundamentalist movements in other religions have done likewise. The anti-science aspect of Christian fundamentalism now has spread into secular society. Other countries are experiencing this problematic issue as well, but Americans tend to be large and loud when we decide to act like idiots. For example, up to 700,000 Americans died during the U.S. Civil War over the issue of slavery. We killed almost one million people over a moral issue with only one correct answer — slavery is wrong.

So, yes, I am very depressed about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. being nominated as head of U.S. Health and Human Services. I am a physician and specifically a pediatric gastroenterologist. I have seen the deleterious effects of lack of medical care, inability to access medical care, and refusal to access medical care. I have seen the devastation caused by children who do not get vaccinated. I am super hopeful that RFK Jr. backs off on his anti-vaccine views. Perhaps he will just work on improving the food industry. Who knows?

Even in my home state of Utah, I recently have corresponded with the Utah House Chair of Health & Human Services about a state bill giving parents more freedom in denying their children access to the newborn screen. Unreal. The newborn screen is a simple blood test that can diagnose very severe diseases early in an infant’s life in order to 1) begin medical therapy, 2) extend a child’s life, and 3) give the child a healthy life. I can’t imagine why a parent would deny their child a chance to get screened early (with subsequent treatment) for phenylketonuria early, cystic fibrosis as well as myriad of terrible, preventable diseases.

I will say that the Bible’s book of Ecclesiastes is probably one of the most powerful yet least read books in the canon. It presents a dark picture of humanity. When I see our species making terrible decisions, this book’s verses come to me.

2:11 “Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.”

2: 18-21 “I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish? Yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune.”

5: 8-10 “If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things; for one official is eyed by a higher one, and over them both are others higher still. The increase from the land is taken by all; the king himself profits from the fields. Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless.”

Depressing? Yes, but pretty darn accurate when one considers how our species treats the weak and oppressed. We not only can be cruel to others but also to other species and to our planet. Perhaps there are genetic or epigenetic aspects or our cruelty. Our human obsession with crazy conspiracy theories? This problem is likely due to evolutionary pressure. You can go down a dark metaphysical hole here when you read or see the news.

I have no answer for such problems. Human awfulness is not solvable. Theodicy cannot be explained.

I do have one thought, however. Perhaps during our limited time on this planet, we are given the possiblity of helping the “other.” Yes, it is always great to donate money to good causes. It is great to explain to your friends about the real problems of the world. However, can you give water to a single homeless person? Can you help a lone elderly person across the street? Can you be kind to your nextdoor neighbor even if they disagree with you politically? Such simple things are hard…very hard.

Jay McDaniel’s essay on butterflies provides an excellent metaphor here. The life of the butterfly is so very short, but in that time period of its life, the butterfly is integral to the ecosystem of the whole world (including humans). We humans often don’t realize that such insects are working in the background. The simple pollination of one plant has downstream creative effects in time which benefit the plant, the plants around it, the soil, the city where the plant resides, and Earth. In many ways, this is panexperientialism — all reality experiencing the good act of that one butterfly.

We, as humans, can mimic the butterfy. A simple act of doing the right thing has huge implications for our world. The “right thing” isn’t necessarily a moral call. It is a call for creativity. It is a call between our species and the divine for the universal experience of producing ever more creativity in time and and in space. I made the figure below (I know it is kind of poorly made) to explain my idea.

This is not a Christian call to creativity. I may be Christian, but this call for creativity encompasses all religions and encompasses the lack of religion. It is the simple human decency of caring for the other. It may have the natural, evolutionary roots of altruism. It may be a supernatural desire calling each of us to be good to the “least of these.” I think it is the combination of the both as God is in the world. It calls for a Hegelian dialectic encompassing both the objective and subjective aspects of reality and of creativity. We can do more.

We can be kind. We can be like a butterfly and influence the world.

Odds and Ends:

1. I was interviewed for the podcast, “(Re)Thinking Faith with Josh Patterson.” He is a liberal Christian like me, so we talked quite a bit about metaphysics and kindness. I cussed a bit and probably was too opinionated. It should be out soon.
2. I’m a big fan of the liberal arts. I am currently reading, “The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs”. It is a good book. Consider reading it. Here is the link.

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Today is Sunday, February 9, 2025. Although I live in the states, I will not be watching the Super Bowel today. I actually like sports, but I hate long infomercials. The Super Bowl is definitely the penultimate form of infomercial. So, I went to a bar and danced with my spouse last night, went to church today, played some Pickleball this afternoon, and now am sitting and writing.

I really have enjoyed writing on this blog. I’m not sure it makes an impact, but as I have become older, I have found writing to be more and more relaxing.

Anway, let’s talk about telemores.

Telomores are an immensely important part of DNA that many people are not aware of. They are repetiitive pieces of DNA that exist at the ends of chromosomes. They serve a protective function.

Image of telomeres from UCSF. The telomeres are red. The chromosomes are blue.

You could metaphorically consider a telomere as the equivalent of a hard hat on a person’s head. If some big piece of equipment falls and hits the hard hat, the person’s head is protected.

The mechanism involving telomeres is similar. As cells divide, the ends of chromosomes get frayed and are at risk of not functioning. The telomere really is not involved with eventual protein formation — although there are some exceptions. If the chromosomes get frayed at the end during the process of DNA replication, the subsequent fraying or injury at the end of the chromosome just affects the telomere with no real effect on the purpose of the chromosome. Once the telomere is shortened to the point of not being protective , a cell can die or can quit dividing.

For example, human cells in a culture medium only divide by mitosis for 40 to 60 cylces before they stop reproducing. This braking effect is due to the telomeres being slowly worn away.

Telomeres are associated with controlling cell division and may have some effect on aging. It makes sense in the setting of aging. Telomeres are slowly removed –> cells quit functioning well –> organs start having issues –> humans age.

Different organisms have very different telomere length. A kilobase (Kb) is 1000 DNA base pairs. The typical little house mouse has telomere length of 150 kb. Protozoans can have 18 kb telomere length. Humans have a telomere length of 10 to 15 kb. It is weird that mice have such long telomeres. They are eaten by everything, so the longer length probably has to do with keeping their health in prime condition in order to have maintenance of muscle strength and organ function as a way to avoid predation. Healthy mice are less likely to be eaten than sick mice.

A great review article on telomeres is here.

Now on to theology and philosophy. In my recent book (“A Theology of the Microbiome“), I posit that reality is both objective and subjective. Seeing red affects the cones of the human retina to allow us to see the color. This effect is objective. The way we perceive red emotionally or psychologically is subjective. I would bet that my feelings about red are different than those of the neighbors on my street.

Mark Rothko, “Untitled”

Telomeres shorten with cell division and DNA mitosis. This cellular event is natural and expected. This shortening is objective in observation. However, telomeres also can shorten with subjective change via the effect of epigenetics. Epigenetics cause inherited change in a manner that eventually affects DNA inheritance.

There is fascinating research in this area.

Chronic stress in a human likely shortens telomere length due to psychological stress leading to oxidation and downstream telomere damage.

Adults who suffered maltreatment / abuse as children appear to have shortened telomere length compared to controls.

Depression may shorten telomere length with more problematic depression shortening telomere length even more.

Many, many research articles exist in this arena.

As someone who has studied in the fields of process theology and open & relational theology (see my prior posts), I will make some observations that warrant further theological study:

1. Telomeres are affected by direct genetic factors (objective) but also by environmental or psychological stress (subjective). This knowledge provides a theological and perhaps philosophical insight into how reality actually works.
2. I may not be able to objectively keep my / my neighbor’s telomeres from shortening, but I can indeed subjectively help. My neighbor may need food. My neighbor may need shelter. My neighbor definitely needs kindness. My country (and our whole world) currently seems to discount kindness. However, I can be kind to the neighbor or stranger. I am helping their life immeasurably (and measurably when considering telomere length).
3. Being kind to your neighbor, is probably healthy for you as well.
4. If I support the concept of panexperientialism in which all of nature has experience. If all of nature at every level of reality has experience, then I can further contend that God is involved in the experience of everything — from quark to quail, goat to galaxy, unicellular organism to universe. God is there in the midst of nature and in the midst of humanity with all of its joys and tragedies. In such a theological model, God realizes when we are being kind to the neighbor or stranger, and the effects of kindness and love go up and down the ladder of experience in nature. A kind act to one individual scales up to culture and society. It also scales down to our telomeres.

From a Christian perspective, the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10) subjectively aligns with our daily, objective, real-world experience.

My summary: Let’s all try to be a bit more kind. Your neighbor and your neighbor’s chromosomes will thank you.

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I get particularly angry when fraudsters cheat people out of money, especially when the victim is older or has a mental processing disorder (dementia, for example). Fraudsters are everywhere — at work, in our neighborhoods, and in our religious or social groups.

Fraudsters are great at convincing people to excessively worry about issues related to death. Their behavior is very devastating as none of us want to shuffle off the old mortal coil too early, and some anxious people are willing to pay large amounts of money for unproven or unethical therapies to prevent death.

I found this great editorial in Gastroenterology which is the biggest gastroenterology journals in the world. I receive the journal because I am a gastroenterologist and belong to the American Gastroenterological Association. The editorial was interesting because this article has nothing to do with my field.

The article, “Hacking Death in Dublin” was written by Seamus O’Mahoney who does research in the field of end-of-life care. The article discusses his experience attending the Longevity Conference sponsored by the Longevity Escape Velocity Foundation. I had not heard of this conference or this foundation.

When reading the article, one quickly gets the impression that O’Mahoney was amazed at the potential for fraud as well as a lack of the conference attendees’ understanding of death. I would agree with him.

Here are some quotes:

“The longevity biotech industry has a significant intersection with artificial
intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrency. Blockchain was frequently mentioned,
as was the ‘tokenization’ of longevity research funding, or ‘tokenomics.’ (I witnessed much mangling of the English language at this summit.) I was struck by how many of the biotech entrepreneurs lacked any medical or bioscience background.”

Ugh. You can pretty much bet that fraud will be involved when cryptocurrency and blockchain are mentioned as a positive. Also, why would one invest in a product when the entrepreneurs have no real science background?

“Aubrey de Grey, who majored in computer science, remarked that ‘the medical profession is at the trailing end of most conversations.’”

Ugh. Mr. de Grey is expressing a repetitive, tiresome statement. I am amazed how people who do not work in medicine have no understanding about the progress of medical science. Sure, the field progresses slowly at times (like all of science!!!!), but the advances in my time of being in medicine (since 1991) have been amazing! Such comments seem similar to statements made by the anti-vaccine movement in their belief that all healthcare should not be trusted. We do have those physicians who do shady work, but they are few and far between (just like lawyers, engineers, or teachers who do shady stuff).

“A recurring theme of the summit was the industry’s hatred of regulatory
bodies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA).”

Ugh. I am shocked, SHOCKED, that so-called entrepreneurs hate safety mechanisms. Please note my sarcasm.

“The radical accelerationist wing sees death as an affront, and its defeat as a moral imperative. One young member of this militant group told the summit: ‘We really need to get our shit together! We are dying! Why don’t we go Moonshot or Los Alamos?!’ He argued that all longevity research—its funding, execution, and publishing—should be ‘permissionless.’ ‘Who are they to tell us what to do with our bodies?’ he asked indignantly.“

Ugh. Comments like this from the young man in the article feel like someone who has financial privilege. This young man should go work in a developing country to see what “We are dying” really means. I have worked in Africa. I have worked in pediatric ICUs. I have seen real suffering. Also, this young man seems to not understand the second law of thermodynamics. Yes, we are dying. We are all dying. Everyone will die. Death is natural but perhaps preventable, at times, with good available hygeine, safe food, a clean environment, and prevention of deadly diseases.

“Doubt and uncertainty are at the heart of science, but doubt and uncertainty were not much in evidence at this summit, where the atmosphere was more akin to a cult, a gathering of true believers.”

Ugh. And “yes”, I have friends and family members who take some pseudo-science ideas as serious as religious dogma. It does seem, at times, cult-like.

You may be reading through this post and getting more and more depressed. I get it. I’m a practicing physician, and I am exposed to such crazy ideas on a regular basis. We can think about solutions. Some solutions may be global; others may simply consist of convincing a friend of family member about the realities of life and the objective nature of science.

And the emphasis should be on “reality.” The sad experiences of life (disease, injury, trauma, anxiety, death) are simply reality — nothing less, nothing more. We all may have many experiences during our lifetimes, but we all will die. The religious person, the atheist person, the agnostic person, the person who has no understanding of what death means — we will all die. We may have a belief in an afterlife. We may have no belief in an afterlife. We may state we do not know. In reality, NONE OF US know what happens after death. However, we all should recognize death will occur and be kind to others around us.

Photo of an ancient Roman cemetery (Wikipedia)

Interestingly, research has found risk factors do exist for people who have an extreme fear of death. Being an older female decreases the risk; believing in cryonics increases the risk.

Death anxiety is a real thing. It may lead to hypochondriasis. I worry that individuals with severe anxiety about dying may fall for foolishness as described in the article above.

One thing that probably helps ameliorate a severe fear of dying is cognitive based therapy. No need to invest money in a longevity scam. No need to scream into the void about how unfair life is. Cognitive based therapy, when does well, can be extremely helpful. Finding meaning in life, regardless of one’s metaphysics, also has been shown to be helpful.

Another thing to consider is to learn the second law of thermodynamics. Entropy will progress no matter what you try to do to prevent it. Take comfort that everything will reach a thermodynamic equilibrium. Everything that is material will end. The final end may not be the case spiritually or metaphysically, but all useful energy in our universe will end.

Some people have told me that theology is a pointless endeavor. There are many reasons to disagree with such a statement. Theology, when done well, can be preventative when one is exposed to the next “great idea” hypothesizing about living forever (materially at least).

Theologians (or people with good theological training) can talk and should talk about fraud — financial, religious, and metaphysicial. Theologians can talk about a better way to exist in a world in which we all die. Theologicans can talk about a better way to understand that birth, life, and death are natural.

Human society needs to recognize that we will all reach our natural limits.

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I am a huge fan of the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA), and in fact, I have been a member of the ASA for over 20 years. The ASA is a collection of scientists (broadly defined) who are also Christian. Although I am speaking from a Christian perspective, the work of the ASA is parallel to science education being done in other religions.

Specifically, the ASA reaches out to Christian groups to help them understand that science is extremely important in our society, including in religious societies. If one wants to love one’s neighbor, then appreciating and understanding simple scientific principles are completely congruent with the Christian faith. Such examples include understanding the importance of evolutionary science, genetics, Big Bang cosmology, prevention of global warming, and the importance of vaccines.

Evolutionary tree of birds from Nature

When one thinks about “Christian fundamentalism”, one may suppose that fundamentalism is an ancient concept. Not so. It is really more of a religious movement that started up in the early 20th century. It is a new movement Good references are here and here. Christian fundamentalism is decidely anti-science, which in my opinion, makes it potentially anti-Christian especially when it is involved in the anti-vaccination movement.

The ASA has a wonderful peer-reviewed journal called Perspectives on Science and the Christian Faith (PSCF) that is helpful in 1) understanding this fallability of fundamentalism and 2) providing helpful resources for those in science who try to teach and promote science in educational settings, churches, and communities.

The September issue PCSF had a great artile titled “Contemporary Challenges to the Pursuit of Truth” by Keith Miller. Typically, PCSF embargoes articles for one year before making them open to the public, but I did find a link that works.

Miller defines the overall issues that we run into when dealing with fundamentalists and their understanding of science. Specifically:

1. Absence of shared presuppositions and methodologies (you can be religious and still can see an objective reality as described by science)
2. Loss of trust in expert consensus communities
3. Lack of historical knowledge (big one — hey, even scientists and physicians don’t always realize the history of our fields)
4. Isolation from diverse perspectives
5. The inability to set personal egos when searching for truth.

Miller defines each of these issues and provides potential ways to interact with other individuals, especially when dealing with those who appear hostile to modern science. Honestly, we who understand science fairly well need to set aside our presumptions about the intelligence of those in fundamental communities. My interactions with such communities is that their pastors and laity are quite intelligent, but they simply do not understand how science works. In many ways, I blame the lack of funding of public education in the United States for this issue.

I would recommend this article highly if you want to understand how the Christian fundamentalist mind works. The author provides solutions for dealing with the issues brought up by people who live in a fundamentalist environment. Perhaps you can share it with someone who is in such a community. I am sure there are wonderful resources for other faith streams as well.

Odds and ends:

1. Interesting “Theories of Everything” podcast with David Bentley Hart. I enjoyed it.
2. The same September PCSF journal has a wonderful article titled, “Flood Geology and Conventional Geology Face Off Over the Coconino Sandstone.” It is a wonderful article refuting the so-called “science” (really it is pseudo-science) attempting to prove the global flood described in the Old Testament. It is okay that the story of Noah and the diluvial flood are a myth. Myths are very important for teaching and for understanding the human psyche. The article should be free to the public in a year.
3. The ASA has another journal that is open access and free to the public called God and Nature Magazine. I recommend it as well for more reading resources.

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