Ep. 172 - Dr. Janet Kellogg Ray ”The God of Monkey Science” pt. 2

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[00:00:55] There's a light on the hill from a bush that's burning. Welcome to The Deconstructionist podcast. I'm your host, John Williamson, and we are back with part two of my conversation with the amazing Dr. Janet Kellogg Ray.

[00:01:16] If you have not listened to the first part yet, this part may not make a whole lot of sense. So pause and go back and listen last week's episode and then listen to this one.

[00:01:24] If you've already heard last week's, then welcome back and you are in the right place. Before we get into it, www.thedeconstructionist.com is our lovely website that is curated by our good friend Ryan Battles and updated a few things on there.

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[00:02:30] Feel free to send us suggestions. Always open to that. So, all right, let's get to it. Without further ado, here is the second half of my interview with the amazing Dr. Janet Kellogg-Ray. Silence works.

[00:02:58] I think, I mean, I think we were absolutely exposed in that in that sense to the fact that, yeah, a lot of people really don't.

[00:03:06] I think the other thing that was kind of interesting and I'll be honest, I was educated along the way myself and am now sort of fascinated by this. Some of the advancements that that came about during specifically the pandemic, specifically, I'm thinking of.

[00:03:24] The vaccines, the type of vaccines themselves and just what a miracle breakthrough this mRNA vaccine is. And once I learned how big of a deal that is and the way in which it works, I was like, why is why aren't more people talking about how awesome this is?

[00:03:42] Like, yeah, talk about that a little bit, like because that's because it's not the same as your grandpa's vaccine. No, it's not. And again, you know, we had a breakdown in how science works when when it comes to that.

[00:03:55] But just about what was it, two weeks ago, two researchers who have been studying mRNA vaccines since the 1980s, four decades of experience over time. These two researchers were just awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for this four decades of work in developing an mRNA vaccine.

[00:04:30] Yet to this day, you will still hear people say it was rushed. It was experimental. It's just it's not tried out. What are we doing with this?

[00:04:45] And the scientists will say, no, we have been investigating mRNA as a as a way to introduce these proteins into someone's system in order to evoke an immunological response.

[00:05:02] The old fashioned way was we grew vats and vats and vats and vats and vats of viruses in chicken cells, chicken eggs, other kinds of animal cells. But that took time.

[00:05:18] It took a lot of time to grow enough vaccine that we then could either kill or weaken to put in a traditional vaccine.

[00:05:28] mRNA has made all of that obsolete or will make it obsolete because once we have the genetics and a genetic target for a specific virus, it's just really honestly, a fairly quick tweak in a tweak in a laboratory to make an mRNA molecule then that can be used to induce

[00:05:58] a immunological response. In the book, I talk about Dr. Kizmekia Corbett and this particular quote wasn't in the book, but she also had said because she had been working on other Corona viruses, she said, I'm going to hope I remember this correctly.

[00:06:16] I think she said it only took me about 30 minutes once she had the Corona virus genetics figured out and the specific spike protein on the virus. She said it was just a couple of tweaks because we had been studying Corona viruses for a decade in the lab.

[00:06:39] And so, you know, with this misunderstanding of how science works, we have, again, lots of consternation over how fast the vaccine was rolled out. When Dr. Corbett said, well, you know what? It could have been quicker. It could have been quicker. We were ready to go.

[00:07:00] And mRNA vaccines, like you said, are there. You know, they're going to be very much of the wave of the future.

[00:07:07] I think research is being done now to target cancers, other types of things, because if you can target something using your own body's immune system, then, you know, you've solved a lot of problems there.

[00:07:25] And what I did a lot of writing about, I mean, I'm not an epidemiologist, but I found the best ones and I obsessively read them during the height of the COVID pandemic.

[00:07:40] And, you know, and then all of the social media fears over this new, you know, Frankenstein vaccine.

[00:07:49] And, you know, as I was writing, I tried to make the point that the spike proteins that your body is making in response to this mRNA vaccine, those spike proteins built are built 100 percent using raw materials in your own body that already exist in your own body.

[00:08:17] And so you are getting basically an immunologic response built by your own cells.

[00:08:27] So what you're telling me is because the other the other thing that I always hear is, well, I don't I don't trust it because it's going to it's going to change my cellular makeup or some such excuse.

[00:08:41] It's it's going to mess with my biology in some in some form or fashion. So you're telling me that's not true. I'm telling you, that's not true, John. Yeah, I need my I need my PowerPoint behind me.

[00:08:56] It's it truly this truly is biology 101 high school freshman biology, college freshman biology. And that is this DNA that codes for all of your proteins, your biochemical makeup, a lot of your behavioral aspects in your body. DNA never leaves the nucleus of a cell.

[00:09:26] DNA never leaves the nucleus of the cell. Building proteins takes place outside the cell, always takes place outside the cell. So when the RNA molecule from an RNA vaccine is injected into your muscles and your your cell, your muscle cells start using that mRNA to build spike proteins.

[00:09:57] Those spike proteins are built from raw materials outside the nucleus. That's where all protein construction takes place again. That is biology 101. That is the that is a beginning lecture. When we talk about how DNA works, DNA stays tucked inside the nucleus.

[00:10:23] RNA travels outside the nucleus where it builds the proteins. Another basic science principle, biological principle, is that unlike DNA, which is double stranded, you have a little double helix. DNA tends to be quite stable. RNA is single stranded. And because it is single stranded, it's much more fragile.

[00:10:51] So an RNA molecule, even an RNA molecule originating in your own body is fragile. It doesn't last more than about 24 hours or so. So even the mRNA that was injected into your muscle cells is going to break down within a matter of hours after your vaccine.

[00:11:16] And it's not going to get anywhere near your DNA, much less changing your DNA. So no, you won't become a zombie. I hate to disappoint you.

[00:11:29] I think there's a certain percentage of the population that we're secretly hoping that would happen because they watched The Walking Dead too much. But that's just my theory. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's absolutely fascinating. And I'd also heard this same thing.

[00:11:43] You kind of touched on some of the things being worked on with this mRNA technology. And one of the things I thought was really fascinating beyond just obviously cancer would be a huge one, but I heard Alzheimer's as well. I was reading an article about that recently.

[00:11:57] I thought, wow. You know, like what? I mean, the possibilities are just absolutely amazing. Yeah. If we learn how to harness our own body's protein building mechanism, I mean, the sky's the limit. Yeah, that's incredible.

[00:12:19] You also talk about in the book, too, and I feel like we have to touch on this as well, because, you know, this is obviously a constant topic of conversation and debate as well.

[00:12:29] And by the way, I think you have a hidden talent, maybe not a hidden talent, but you definitely have a talent for not only chapter names, but like book titles as well. So thank you. Those are all mine. I had to fight for some of them.

[00:12:44] Really? Like which one? Yes. Oh, my goodness. You know, I'm trying to think there was. Oh, the original title I had was Monkey God Science. And I think the publisher thought that might be a little offensive.

[00:13:04] So we changed and I was fine with the God of Monkey Science. So yeah. No, my favorite chapter title was Anthony Fauci Hates Puppies. I had that title written before I wrote the chapter. So that's the first one I noticed. And then, I mean, they're all great.

[00:13:23] Like the Earth is running a fever. So that's the one I kind of wanted to jump into next.

[00:13:29] I think this one's really at the forefront right now because I think now more than ever, I think for a long time growing up, it's one thing to kind of like talk about the theories behind it. And oh, this is down the road. This is down the road.

[00:13:44] It sort of feels like now we're actually feeling the repercussions of maybe perhaps not acting quickly enough when it comes to climate change. And it's still baffling at how many people still fundamentally don't understand what that even means.

[00:14:01] You know, like, well, you know, it's the same temperature today, you know. And meanwhile, the polar ice caps are melting and the coastlines are flooding and we have these awful storms popping up everywhere. And, you know, it just feels like we're starting to really feel it now.

[00:14:19] And it starts to for those of us who believe that it's real, starts to become a situation where it's like, at what point are we past the point of no return? Right, right. You know, Catherine Hayhoe is my go to expert for all things climate science.

[00:14:42] Yes, she's amazing. Love her. And her mantra is always it's not the science so much that we reject. It's the solutions. And she says that we are solution averse, that we are solution averse.

[00:15:02] And so once again, it's kind of like what we saw in the 1980s with evolution. When we couldn't show evolution to be false, we switched gears and it became a front in a culture war. The same with climate science. We cannot demonstrate that the science is false.

[00:15:26] So we fight against the solutions. We don't want to go look for alternative fuels. We don't want to drive electric vehicles. You know, we post all sorts of, you know, I love to collect the snark I see on social media.

[00:15:46] So if you've got any good social media memes about climate or COVID or evolution, send them on. But I saw this one just a few weeks ago that said climate change. We used to just call it summer. And so, you know.

[00:16:05] Yeah, but summer isn't supposed to take place in December, though. Thank you. Thank you. You know, I am a Texas girl born and raised and lived here my entire life with a three year stint in Atlanta. At one point.

[00:16:23] But I grew up in a part of the state of Texas that gets really hot. You know, we had 110 days, a few days every summer. But what we didn't have were triple digit days almost every day of the summer, which is what we're seeing now.

[00:16:44] And, you know, just it's not just the temperature. It's not just the earth is getting hotter. It's the increased temperatures are impacting the water cycle. We're seeing tropical storms and hurricanes that get more serious faster. They dump more rain. Winds are higher.

[00:17:08] But you know what's interesting, you know, is trying to get and Dr.

[00:17:12] Hayhoe is, you know, she is the go to person for that and trying to wake up people of faith to see how this should be an area of concern for people of faith, because it is the most vulnerable among us across our planet that are most impacted when a flood comes or when a drought comes around.

[00:17:39] You know, it's usually not those of us living comfortable lives in the United States. It's usually the refugees in a camp somewhere or subsistence farmers who either aren't getting rain or they're being flooded. Interesting, though, when I always think of Dr. Hayhoe's mantra of being.

[00:18:05] Averse to the solutions. I think about that.

[00:18:10] I think it was a study out of Yale that was done during the pandemic when it became glaringly apparent that white evangelicals were the most averse to vaccination and the most averse to any kind of any kind of things that would help to shorten or to protect the

[00:18:37] most vulnerable. So the study looked at what kinds of messages might speak to these white evangelicals who are so resistant to vaccination. And the study looked at things like, you know, you want to protect your neighbor, don't you?

[00:18:59] And wouldn't you feel really bad if someone you knew got sick or a very vulnerable person, an elderly or a health risk person at risk for their health if they got sick because you infected them. You may be able to withstand a COVID infection.

[00:19:18] But what about your neighbor? And sadly, the study found that none of this messaging worked on this very resistant demographic of white evangelicals. None of this neighbor loving, neighbor protecting messaging made a difference.

[00:19:40] And so we're seeing this same thing being repeated with climate science, this resistance to climate science. It's all a hoax. It's just a hot summer. You know, here's I did see this one. Here's a picture of this particular lake in 1945. And here's a picture of it today.

[00:20:03] The lake is the same, the same depth. The same depth. So therefore, my anecdotal evidence beats your decades of peer reviewed research because my opinion is just as good as your opinion. And I can do my own research, my own long term research on climate science.

[00:20:25] And none of these messages that are love your neighbor oriented are going to make an impact on my life because I have the right to drive the car I want and to burn the fuels I want.

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[00:21:43] Yeah, it's yeah, it's a little depressing and also frustrating. So, you know, I guess the best way to end this is hopefully to leave people out a little bit with a little bit of hope.

[00:21:55] How do we how do we get people to change their views on this enough to start taking action that will ultimately stop things like climate change in its tracks? Like I have a almost 10 year old daughter.

[00:22:10] I would like there to be a beautiful earth left for her, like the one I remember when I was her age. So what are some things we do that we can do that that hopefully course corrects this?

[00:22:25] Well, I would like for people, especially people of faith, to take a broader view of this, to look at the bigger picture than what is right before them and what they've always thought.

[00:22:43] You know, I read a book recently about a month or so ago by an evolutionary biologist, and I have no idea what his religion is or even if he is a person of faith. I have no idea.

[00:22:59] But one point he makes in his book, and then I actually heard him interviewed, too, and he made the same point, was that when people of faith push back against him about evolution, he doesn't engage.

[00:23:16] He's completely written off anybody of faith who wants to have this discussion or argument with him about evolution. Now, he said, I will answer their questions, but I don't engage. And so what this says to me is, number one, I'm not ready to give up yet.

[00:23:40] I can't give up that easily. But what this says to me and the message that I would like to get across is that when we deny demonstrable, empirical science evidence, people of faith have taken themselves completely out of any broader conversation.

[00:24:04] I mean, who's going to listen to us? Who's going to listen to us when we speak to science? Who's going to care about our take on anything if we deny empirical evidence?

[00:24:18] You know, I'm not going to listen to a flat earth advocate to tell me about the best approaches to climate science, to climate change. I'm just not going to listen to them.

[00:24:32] I'm not probably not going to trust them to do my taxes, but I'm certainly not going to listen to a flat earth or tell me about what I should do in an area of science and how to approach it.

[00:24:45] So, you know, I think a better picture, a better approach is just to face the facts. We can deny science evidence. We can pretend it's all a big conspiracy. We can pretend it's all about politics or people of faith can speak in a modern scientific world.

[00:25:13] And, you know, what does that look like? Well, you know, first of all, you know, starting at ground zero, it might look like this. OK, evolution is a fact. Humans share common ancestry with all life. We are deeply connected to every living organism on this planet.

[00:25:39] Now, with that fact in mind, how do we rise above our natural evolutionary instincts to put ourselves first? How do we rise above a me first natural instinct to love our neighbor as ourselves?

[00:26:00] How do we as creatures, very much a part of this planet as all organisms are. How do we then represent God in a call to be God's image bearers in the world? OK, problem solving, you know, in the face of a future global pandemic, we face the facts.

[00:26:29] Germ theory is real. OK, germ theory is real. Let's look at the evidence in front of us. And with the evidence in front of us, how can, for example, churches serve during a time of a pandemic? How can we best serve?

[00:26:50] Do we take our money from our contributions and hire attorneys so we can keep our buildings open and can't be forced to shut down? Or do we use our resources to support our community for those who can't work from home, for those who live in multi-generation homes?

[00:27:12] You know, on and on. You know, we can lead or at the very least we can just get out of the way. You know, how long was the COVID pandemic prolonged? Because this huge demographic of evangelicals refused to get vaccinated or to wear masks.

[00:27:32] You know, did we contribute to the prolonging of a health crisis? Are we contributing to climate warming in a way that if we used our voices to speak to concern for neighbor, not only in our own country, but abroad?

[00:27:57] What if we used our voices that way instead of politically? That, you know, we don't want any laws that infringe on our rights to do exactly, to drive exactly what we want. What if we use those same voices to speak up for the most vulnerable in climate science?

[00:28:17] So my call is to not take yourselves completely out of the conversation, but to look for ways to speak with a faith informed voice to the evidence instead of denying the evidence.

[00:28:36] That may be more than you wanted to hear, but like I said, I'm not ready to give up yet. I'm not ready to give up yet. Good. Me neither. I have hope.

[00:28:46] And I think if enough of us, you know, stick to our guns, so to speak, I think we'll see our way out of this. So I'm very hopeful. Well, thank you so much for coming on again.

[00:29:02] The book is called The God of Monkey Science, People of Faith in a Modern Scientific World by Janet Kellogg-Ray. Thank you so much for coming out again. It's always fun to have you on. John, it's always fun to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

[00:29:53] Suffers and the white man has it made. Do it anymore. Taking me too long to recover. Feed the sick and poor and try to help the world to recover. I sat myself in your pews every single night.

[00:30:43] I gave you my money so that you would tell me what to think. From a book that you had taken the heart. That's how I learned to make exclusion look like love. Don't do it anymore. Taking me too long to recover.

[00:31:33] Feed the sick and poor and try to help the world to recover. So come, come as you are. Take up your cross. Use it to build a wall and reach across the aisle and fire your guns so you can keep them.

[00:32:11] And love, love how you want if we approve. And you'll be up. So come accept our gift. Salvation from sinner. Do it anymore. Taking me too long to recover. Feed the sick and poor and try to help the world to do it anymore.

[00:33:06] Taking me too long to recover. Feed the sick and poor and try to help the world to recover. It will take a while to wade through the fear and the hurt. But I think there's a way for us to love and heal.

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