Pagan Scientist Speaks out

  • No really that DNA test did not tell you, you are Druid, just stop it!

    Now my last post might not convince someone who is really 100% convinced that they are encoded by their DNA to be Druid Warrior of Odin (let that comment sink in, and remember I am being facetious) . But no I understand that many of you believe (feel it even) that there are physical traits that make one Celtic, or Nordic, or whatever. Well, I have some bad news for you, its not what you think.

    I will start with one that is most common. Red Hair. I’ve seen in various places; people insist that their red hair (hopefully not from a bottle) is a sure sign of Celtic or Germanic or Nordic ancestry. Well, you might well have red haired ancestors (I know I do) but that’s not anything to do with the culture they came from. Again, we get to genetics vs memetics, but its even more complex than a simple “stop it Celtic is a cultural thing (oh don’t even get me on to that statement using the C word (Celt) not a genetic thing”).

    Red Hair is indeed more common in people from the regions we see as Germanic (northern (Scandinavian) and Southern (German)) and Celtic. Indeed, say Ireland and Scotland are up to a quarter (almost a third) of the population, while Spain, Central Italy etc its less than 1%. If you look of a map of Red hair and the distribution of the R1B Y-Haplogroup its rather striking with the overlaps. But the R1b haplotype is not a marker for just the Germanic and Celtic peoples. Add to this woman are more likely to have red hair than men (1). That Y-haplogroup map is less helpful now isn’t it. Add to this other non-Indo-European peoples such the Berbers of Morocco and Algeria have it, as do Afghani, Arab, Iranian, Mongolian, Turkic, Miao and Hmong peoples. Oh, and the Polynesians. So no your red hair does not mark your cultural background, unless its from a bottle, and that’s a cultural thing. Oh and Neanderthals had a red hair mutation too. Oh, and it is genetically recessive. Just Stop it!

    Genetically Red Hair is due to mutations of the melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R), which is found on chromosome 16. Neanderthal red hair is a different mutation to ours, but it was still the same gene.

    Ok so red hair marks you as a Celt. Nope. Hell, Gaulish warriors bleached their hair with lime (and spiked it too) which is possibly why the Romans though there were that many red-haired Celts. That is the hardcore equivalent to a “bottle blond/red”. Hardcore? Well lime burns like hell and will make you go bald, all for a look.

    What other traits do people ascribe to ancestral groups. Well eye colour (and that ladies and gentleman is complex genetics, too complex to go here) but the same story applies as with red hair. It’s not specific to a culture.


    Now don’t get me wrong there are some specific genetic conditions that are almost exclusive to certain groups. For example, Ta-Sachs’s disease, a horrible condition for children, as thought to be almost exclusive Ashkenazi Jews, but is also seen in populations that breed almost exclusively with in their own populations (French Canadians of Southern Quebec, the Amish of Pennsylvania, Cajuns etc). Similarly, the haemophilia of the European Royals was believed to be inherited from Queen Victoria passing it on to three of her nine children, in turn passing it on to the son of Tsar Nicholas. This haemophilia was so devastating as the royals of Europe seemed to want to “preserve the blood” and well that did not work out so well for some of them.

    Moving on.

    Many of the people who seem to hold to the idea of race, culture and genetics being important in a cultural sense have some funny ideas. Let’s pick on the “I’m a Viking” crowd again. Why> Because there is a sad prevalence of racists in their ranks.

    Many of these “Vikings” seem to think that their hunter gatherer ancestors (their words not mine) who became Vikings were Aryan and perfect.

    Oh, sweet summer children, you are going to hate me.

    Lesson time

    First before breaking some misconceptions here is my ancient Ancestry break down, the African bit is back, but now also South Asian. There is a good chance this is from Roma groups who migrated to Europe but given the British empire it might also be from the people living there now. I am not bothered beyond wondering “whence from?”

    There are three groups that make up modern Europeans

    1. Hunter Gatherers (aka the Western Hunter-Gatherers)
    2. First Famers
    3. Steppe pastoralists (aka the Indo-Europeans)

    So we have talked about the Steppe pastoralists. Most likely the Indo-European culture is from them. They brought horses and sheep and cattle, and the idea of a warrior caste. Oh and the ability drink milk as an adult? Probably for all Europeans is from these folks. So the groups of young white nationalist with their shirts off, showing of their pasty white toneless bodies, drinking lots of milk… owe these people thanks for that lactose persistence

     The First Farmers likely came from around Turkey (and the Eastern Hunter Gatherers) . If our heathen loving, want to be a Viking types were going to pick on a group, these are the people. But no they don’t pick on them. Why ? No idea.

    Then there are the First Famers who literally let us have our daily bread, and beer, they are descended from the Eastern Hunter Gatherers. They were a light skinned brown haired people from near modern Turkey. They are also most likely responsible for the megalithic culture of Europe. You know Stone Henge etc. But no, the Brosatru do not aspire to be them. Nope not any farmers here. No sir.

    This leaves the Western Hunter Gatherers.  Ah yes. The play Vikings want to be descended from the fur wearing, hunting men. That’s the life. Right? Well for one hunting and gathering included living off of a lot of shellfish if you were on a coast, because well shellfish don’t run away. You also lived in quite small mobile communities and had a really tough life if you sucked at hunting and or gathering. Its both folks, despite what Liver Kings says, our ancestors ate plants, or they’d die of malnutrition as they did not have access to vitamin pills. But here is the kicker for the people who thought they were model Aryans. They had fairly dark skin. Sure blue eyes, but their genetics don’t show the markers for light skin, or hair. Nope. This drives them nuts too. I mean totally ice cream, bananas and nuts and whipped cream crazy. It’s a leftist conspiracy to make us all “African”. I really don’t want to break it to them but “out of Africa” is a thing boys and girls. Live with it.

    Here let me show you what the famous “Cheddar Man” from the UK (near Cheddar, not because he was found with cheese) would have looked. His DNA has been analysed quite deeply. Sorry boys, but he can’t drink milk (cheese is likely a bad idea too sorry) either. Bugger.

    All fun aside, I am using this to illustrate that your preconceived notions are not fact. I may as well add a couple of other things in.

    With Regards to “Vikings”, unless you are directly descended from the very upper echelons of Scandinavian culture, you were a farmer or tradesman off on a raid. Yep, you dug the earth or built stuff (or both) for a living, and I mean LIVING, you can’t drag enough grub back on a longship to feed your family (and everyone else’s). You grew it. The nobles hunted but that meat was for special occasions, not a hunter gatherer lifestyle.

    (1) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29284020/

  • The DNA did not say that

    Now for some hard words. Also a statement. my comments about how DNA affects your spirituality are aimed at neopagans. None of us have grown up pagan in 100s of generations of pagans. This does not apply to people who grew up in a pagan culture, my comments about the DNA doing it however stand.

    So, you got a DNA test. That DNA test gave you an Ancestral result. Congratulations. But hold your horses for a moment.

    Lets look at mine from LivingDNA (as its specialized and is little to no good for telling you about your non UK and Irish ancestors). I’m according to them 98.2% from Great Britain and Ireland with the largest bit being from Northern Ireland and Southwestern Scotland. So I am a Gael, right? I mean that’s Ireland and the region of Dál Riata (a Gaelic Kingdom in Western Scotland).  Yeah? I mean that’s why I am following a Gaelic Reconstructive Pagan path Right?  Its in my blood. My Ancestors must be speaking to me.

    I am not a Gael. I technically am a descendant of the Celtic Diaspora. My Scots and Irish ancestors came to New Zealand (sometimes directly sometimes on a long and storied journey). They count as Gaels, as they likely spoke a form of Gaelic (Scots or Irish), they lived in a culture influenced as Gaelic. Me? I don’t speak much Irish or Scots Gaelic. I did grow up in a city that’s heavily influenced by the Scots settlers, but in all honestly its vestigial. I’d add that if my Ancestral Pagans are up in my face with making me be attracted to Celtic Reconstructionism and Druidry (in the past), they have tied up all my Christian ancestors, and the pre-Celtic ones. Does that sound likely?

    Why did I just go through all that nonsense in the last few Paragraphs? Because many many many people have used these ancestral tests as justification for their spirituality. I will also pick on one particular group who are the worst at this. Norse Pagans aka Heathens (including Astatru) seem to have it set in their mind “that its
    in the blood” and that’s why they are into this form of spirituality.

    So if I stop picking on any particular group, and move on to why these tests are not doing what you think they are doing.

    • Firstly, as mentioned in the last blog. What is being measured are non-coding single “letter” (Nucleotide) changes to the average DNA. It means its almost certainly not a gene, and not something that means you are part of a physically distinct group of people. What it means is that statistically (ie the probability is significant) you share more commonality with people alive and dead who lived in an area or are known to have come from an area.
    • Secondly culture, specific languages, and most certainly religions are not based on your genetics. You don’t speak English because your DNA codes for that. You are not (say) Roman Catholic because there Catholic, protestant, and Calvinist Genes and you happen to have the Catholic one.
    • You are not a Viking for a couple of reasons, the main one being it’s a job and its not a good choice these days if you like being out of prison. When people claim to be a “Viking” they almost certainly mean Scandinavian heritage, not that they like to jump in a boat with several drinking buddies, go adventure, sack a monastery, and perhaps set up a kingdom in the British Isles. I could be wrong; I mean I skip the news because its depressing sometimes.

    So from this I feel its time to introduce another idea that may be new.

    Your physical you is caused by your genetics (be it DNA or epigenetic changes). It is passed on sexually (at least for now) .

    Your culture, your language, any spirituality you do is (get ready for it) memetic.


    Wait What? Memetic? As in a meme. Sort of. The term meme was coined by Richard Dawkins. For all his flaws (he is far too aggressively an atheist to make good changes in people) he has gifted us a word for something interesting. Memes are ideas passed on as a “unit of cultural information”. So you gain Language, cultural identity (probably) and spirituality from other people. Ultimately its not in your blood Mr Heathen, you learn it. Yep, it does not matter if your ancestors were Vikings or farmers in the Scottish Highlands who never saw a longboat. IF the Aesir and Vanir call out to you, then they do that through (wait for it) gnosis, not eidien. Your DNA test is meaningless to that decision you make (or if you want is made for you by your gods). If your ancestors are kicking you in a direction, its not likely due to your DNA either….

    I am about to get into something that is going to further piss of the pretend Vikings. Oh well, I am fine with that. Oh and we are going to look at some simple mathematics too. Table 1 shows the percentage of DNA shared for 7 generations. Seven (7) Generations is say 175 years ago (assuming a 25 year period for a generation). Interestingly the roughly 2% African ancestry that Ancestry.com shows for me implies it entered my fathers side 6 or 7 generations ago.

    Table 1: How much DNA do I share with ancestors?

    GenerationRelationshipHow ManyDNA%
    7GGGGG–Grandparents1280.78
    6GGGG–Grandparents641.56
    5GGG–Grandparents323.12
    4GG–Grandparents166.25
    3Great-Grandparents812.5
    2Grandparents425
    1Parents250
    0This is you1100

    So, 175 years ago (or so) and I share (rounded up) 1% DNA with that ancestor, and there are 128 Great-great -great-great-great grandparents? None of them are likely to be pagans.

    Lets see? Well Lithuania was the last Pagan Country in Europe (it was officially Christian in 1387 but paganism was only totally eliminated by the 17th century). Ok how many generations is that? Lets pick 1650 as a date, we get (rounded up) 15 Generations. So that is shared DNA of 0.006% shared amongst 32768 blood ancestors. This assumes no inbreeding, which always possible if not desirable (though less likely if you are not royalty). All that mathematics later, we are talking about theoretical ancestors that you might have had, and who practiced in a way you would not recognise. For most of us its far longer. If I was to pick on British Paganism, the last Pagan king (Arwald) died in battle in 686 CE, 1336 years ago. Paganism might have lived on a few 100 years but lets use this. That is 52 53ish generations ago. Want to know how many ancestors? 9,007,199,254,740,992, or more people than have lived. How much DNA is that you share? Oh its 0.00000000000001110223024625157%

    The point remains: Its not your blood that is drawing you to paganism. Its if I am being generous (and honest with myself). If you only focus on these pagan ancestors, you are showing a great rudeness to your more modern ancestors. Did your grandparents show you kindness? Its unlikely (not impossible) they identified as pagan. So if you want to say you honour your ancestors. Do that Oh and don’t say your DNA is why you are some flavour of pagan.

  • Testing 1 2 …. Testing

    (Its going to be a longer blog so skim if you cannot be bothered)

    Ok now we get into repeating some posts from my old blog, but also something meaty, and perhaps challenging to many people. Ancestral DNA Tests.

    Chances are we have seen the adverts. Ancestry.com, 23&Me, MyHeritage and more (those are three of the big players). They all claim they will open the world of your ancestors to you (well I am paraphrasing here). Many of us are curious of how we came to be who we are. As pagans many of us are intensely invested in honouring ancestors (both of blood, and of culture). When I lived in the USA, I heard a lot of “I have no idea who my ancestors are/were”, while when I was growing up we had the family myths that I for one was interested in testing. I also had one more deep need. I did not know who my father was (we just did not talk about it, and I am not going to talk much about that genetic donor either). But as an only child, I only had half the story.

    So, a little of my own personal journey with DNA testing. During my Bioinformatics diploma, I was a regular donor of cells (swabs from my mouth usually) for samples to test. I did this, because as I have mentioned, back in 2010 there were only so many sources of data. The results were rudimentary and did mostly confirm “yep he’s European (mostly)” though there was a tiny percentage of something they could not quite place (perhaps it was Polynesian? Did I know my heritage? ). In late 2018 I told my wife “I’d love to do a DNA test” for fun. I choose Ancestry.com as they had the largest Database. Off I sent the swab, and In late February I got results. It was a heady email I opened telling me to log in and look. Now I don’t have the original result anymore (as they keep updating the results, to refine what you get), but Figure 1 shows the current answer, and well its almost the same (if more specific).

    Figure 1: My First DNA results (Ancestry.com)

    I glanced at them (they were less specific with Scots and Irish combined the English. Wales called “British-Western European), but it did have 1 – 2% African (more on that later also). It kind of confirmed the family legends. We were descended from Scots and Irish immigrants to New Zealand. My Grandfathers grandfather apparently changed his name when he came over, and there were questions of was he Cornish or Welsh etc. What was missing was the legends that I got my colouring (black hair, easy tanning skin etc) from survivors of the Spanish Armada that wrecked in Scotland. The African result was unexpected to be honest, but unlike many of the racists who do this, its was a good unexpected. What else did this test give me? Well, a Half Sister (who also shares the Bantu heritage, so its from “dad”). She was adopted out from her mother, because our “father” apparently had an issue with keeping his DNA to himself. All and all, one of the best Christmas gifts ever.

    2020 was a rough year for us all (COVID began) and for my 48th birthday I was gifted two more DNA tests. MyHeritage (on a massive sale) and LivingDNA (who specialize in UK DNA ancestry).

    First MyHeritage, this company was like the third option people took, if not Ancestry.com or 23&Me (both use different methods to each other to give you results) people tended to go to MyHeritage, if for no other reason, their website was more user friendly. Interestingly no African Heritage showed, but now Finish, and Greek/South Italian did. Why? Their data bases are different, and they assign differently. No matter what it does not matter.

    Figure 2: MyHeritage Results

    The Last individual testing I have done (oh I plan more) was Living DNA, and the results took six months to get, because they are a small operation (UK company, Denmark based testing) COVID knocked them back. But eventually I got the email too. I had gone with them as they provided maternal and Paternal Ancestral results. But first the Ancestral stuff.

    Figure 3: LivingDNA ancestral analysis

    Its curious to see their more focused breakdown of UK ancestry. Its what they specialize in, and it shows that I have some ties to Cornwall, which kind of backs up the story about my maternal Grandfathers grandfather. Perhaps anyway.

    Before we get into maternal and paternal ancestry, I best explain what all these tests are usually looking for. These relatively cheap tests are no complete genome scans, but rather they are looking for SNPS (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms) which are single nucleotide (each letter in your DNA “book” is one of 4 nucleic acids (aka nucleotides)), and each amino acid that makes up the proteins in your body is coded for by 3 letter sets of nucleotides. Thus, a single change might (not always) change the amino acid. This single letter change may seem minor, but they can have massive effects if the structural nature of the protein is different. But that is not important here as generally the areas scanned for these tests are in non-coding portions of your DNA. This will be addressed in the next post.

    When you see results on maternal or Paternal ancestry, it’s based on either you mtDNA (from your mommy) or if a male your Y-Chromosome (only from your Daddy). You can trace migration using these ancestral groups. For better or worse these have become referred to as “tribes”.

    My Maternal ancestry (haplogroup) is J1c1c. It’s not particularly diagnostic as its found all over Europe (though its highest in Slovenia, Ukraine, Hungary and Greece). Its thought to be part of the spread of Neolithic Farmers. Which explains why it’s pretty widespread in Europe.

    Figure 4: Maternal Ancestry

    Paternal ancestry is a bit more diagnostic. R-P312 (AKA R-S116 or R1b1a1a2a1a2) is associated with the spread of the Indo-European culture (sometimes called the Pastoralists). So yeah, it makes sense the Language and Cultural family I belong to (as European New Zealander I’m speaking a Germanic Language, living in a pseudo-European culture (with massive Polynesian influences)).

    Figure 5: Paternal Ancestry

    So three separate tests, and all with mostly the same result (ignoring a few % quibbling in different databases). Yep, I’m of European heritage, cool. For me, it was a fun academic process, and to be honest I’ve taken the data, and used it more for looking at what genetic traits I might exhibit (or do exhibit). But for many these results are life altering (or life shattering). Its also deceptive

    This is probably a good place to stop.

  • What Makes you, you?

    So you recently did a DNA Ancestry test, and you got some results. You are really excited as it shows something that:

    • Confirms what you always knew
    • Gives you something to go on, because it was a blank slate before this

    And/or

    •  Was quiet interesting, but changes nothing for you spiritually.

    The advent of cheap, fast DNA sequencing has opened a world of possibilities for people. Back at the turn of the Millennium (ok 2003 really but close enough) after 13 years of hard work, the first draft of the Human genome project (at the time the ambitious project to read the whole sequence of Human DNA) was announced as finished. Let’s ignore that it was neither a whole sequence (whole chunks of what was then called “Junk” DNA was ignored, and one person or hell 1 million people sequenced will not show the whole of humanity) or actually finished. But all that aside, it was the first such attempt to successfully “complete” it was also “completed” a little faster than expected, as it took roughly 13 years, when it was expected to take 15. Oh and it cost around $2.7 billion vs the predicted $3 Billion. The media waved flags and heralded the beginning of the genomic age.

    What you need to take from this is that in around the 1990s/00s it took say a decade and cost billions to sequence human DNA totally. Today? Well, the equivalent mapping of my DNA would cost say $500 USD (less on sale) and once they get my DNA sample probably be sequenced overnight, and results returned to me in a week, unless they are very busy (or COVID has impacted the work force). When I did my bioinformatics diploma in 2010, there was a push to sequence 1000 human genomes. New technologies were popping up every year, and it was estimated it would cost a few $1000 to sequence genomes “very soon”.

    So in the space of 20 years it has gone from the equivalent of an Apollo Program (aka the moon shot) level of effort to just another test you can get done at the lab. I am not going to get into the ethics and the traps involved here. Watch Gattaca and get back to me.

    Ok quick lesson in genetics. This is down and dirty level science. This is a blog after all.

    You (yes YOU) are unique. Even if you are a clone uh I mean an identical twin, you are still unique. Read on.

    Your cells carry two types of DNA. Nuclear DNA (so called because it lives in the nucleus of your cells, not because its radioactive). This holds your (hopefully) Chromosomes.  This DNA is relatively stable, though mutations to this is what drives evolution.

    Figure 1: Your Nuclear DNA

    You also carry a different set of DNA in each of the mitochondria in in your cells. The mitochondria are akin to the power plants of your cells, and you got the DNA in them from your mother (with a few exceptions)). We will refer to this as mtDNA going forward. Mt DNA mutates faster than nuclear DNA, but has no real visible effect on how you look. Some mutations will make you have a bad life however.

    Figure 2: Mitochondrial DNA (stolen from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_DNA#/media/File:Mitochondrial_DNA_lg.jpg)

    There is a third source of variance that makes you well you. Epigenetics. This is the phenotypic changes to biology that do not involve the change to DNA sequences. This means you are not going to inherit or pass on these changes.

    Ok that is out of the way. Like with my post on Gnosis and Eidien, this post is going to be as read and or referenced.

  • What it Is

    Where to start? So many options?Ok perhaps I will do one of the posts that I seem to need so often to post, when talking to either creationists, or someone who did a DNA test and was 5% Scandinavian, meaning he must have been a Viking.

    Belief vs facts

    There are essentially two ways you can claim to know something.

    • You have data to support it. This is intellectual knowledge. It is the purview of science.

    And

    • You feel it. You are aware of it but can’t prove it through facts (otherwise it would be in category (a).

    The Greeks had terms for these categories. Intellectual knowledge was eídein and feeling it was gnosis.  If we look at the etymology of these words we can also see how the terms might apply in modern English (even if it’s a roundabout trip).

    First a couple of notes on how this works. I am likely to delve into reconstructed languages, and the words will have a * at the start.  This means the word is reconstructed using various linguistic techniques. Don’t worry about that, or how they’re pronounced, we’re after the meaning, and how other related languages use them.

    Language Families? You are most likely reading this in modern English (unless your browser translated it to something else, then all bets are off). English is a Germanic Language, and Germanic language s are a significant branch of the Indo-European Language Family tree. Most European languages (and some middle Eastern and South Asia (in particular the Indian Sub-continent) are Indo-European. There is a reconstructed root language Proto-Indo-European (or more satisfyingly PIE) that linguists use to trace language evolution.

    Eidein (or εἴδειν in non anglicised form) is from the (reconstructed) Proto-Hellenic  *wéidos (meaning seeing, Image) which in turn is from the PIE *weyd- (“to See). Interestingly the English word Idea can be traced back to this Greek word.

    Gnosis (from the ancient greel γνωστικόςis) a feminine Greek noun which means “knowledge” or “awareness. The PIE root is *gno- (to know). So we can see that the word “know” and “knowledge” come from here. This is a tad confusing, till you understand that this is “spiritual knowledge” and you just “know it” rather than you understand that this is so based on learning and facts.

    So when someone tells you say “they just know something is so” and if politely asked “how do they know this” and they can’t explain it.  That is gnosis. If someone however knows its so, and can say cite some (note the plural here) peer reviewed sources, then that is eidien.

    Why is this important? Well to begin with I will assume that this conversation has been had in this post (or reference it) when I discuss things. I do not discount someone’s gnosis (as long as they don’t discount mine or more importantly established facts).

    Time to introduce a couple of ideas. There are types of gnoses that many of us reference.

    UPG (Unverified (or Unprovable)  Personal Gnosis): Is something you feel or suspect. You can not prove it, but it feels right. For me that is my own UPG that herself (An Morrigan (the Morrigan)) likes me to leave a Single Islay Malt as an offering more than any other Libation. Up shot if you know this is something that you can’t prove (nor do you need to) then its not important to try to do so. Just feel it.

    UPG (Unverified (or Unprovable) Shared Gnosis). Is something a group of people (most often some organized group, perhaps even a religion) hold to be true. An example would be the teachings of Jesus. We can not prove he said any of it, but the largest set of religions in the world are build around the collected sayings of their saviour (aka the New Testament).

    So an example, indeed the one at the end of the first paragraph. Someone took a DNA ancestry test, and it either confirms their deep set feeling they were a Viking, or it put them on that path. From a gnosis point of view, more power to them, but they are now using “facts” to reinforce their gut feeling of who their ancestors were. I am going to touch more on this in another post (oh am I going to do that). But this is an example of making a jump, based on a single fact from a single source of data.

    I think this is a good place to end this one.

  • We’re all mad here and it’s OK

    Over the years I’ve noticed a couple of trends from popular science, that pagans have seemed to adopt.

    • The word Quantum seems to be used to justify a lot of things that are purely mystical. But because as modern humans the idea something is mystical with no apparent grounding in science is uncomfortable to many. I mean no one likes being mocked. But honestly shoehorning the idea of quantum mechanics into something it was never meant to be used for does just that. If it helps its not just pagans, but most spiritual paths have someone trying this on for size.
    • Epigenetics explains the idea of racial memory (oh we are so going to talk about this one soon)
    • DNA explains why we are attracted to something pagan. This is really something that’s taken off with affordable genetic testing from companies like 23&Me and Ancestry.com.

    I plan to go over subjects that I have some qualifications in, and clear up misconceptions, and challenge downright wrong ideas.

    So elephant in the room? I’ve mentioned I have a PhD in the previous post, and I mentioned it was in Synthetic Chemistry. Right? I mean how does this apply to say genetics. Well no it does not, but I have other scientific qualifications too. I have a number of acronyms after my name when I use a business card, and hey one in particular is applicable here… yay. Gods know I am not using it in my day job.

    So a couple of points

    • I am not using my qualifications to brag or to claim authority over every other person who might wish to engage in debate. I welcome polite debate even. However I use them (ok one in particular) as evidence I am not just some wanker who read a Wikipedia page, and now knows it all.
    • I try to stay abreast of new ideas, however, please note a single paper does not destroy a theory.  A theory of science means it has supporting, testable (and they will have tested it) evidence. Please do not quote a paper at me that just got published, sit back and go “ah hah he’s wrong”. I will admit if I am wrong, but I will also kick that paper with steel toe boots to make sure it says what someone claims it says. But I will look.

    Ok my qualifications?

    I work in the pharmaceutical industry and my Bachelors with Honours in Chemistry and PhD also in Chemistry are applicable to that. I also have a Post Graduate Diploma in Hazard Assessment and Management, as well as being a trained Health and Safety Representative. None of these directly apply to anything to do with genetics. Nor does my Masters of Entrepreneurship (a stripped-down MBA for startups), that applies to helping my clients get to market.

    What does apply however is my Diploma for Graduates in Bioinformatics.

    What is Bioinformatics? Well it’s an interdisciplinary  scientific discipline that uses computer technology, statistics, and knowledge of Biochemistry/Genetics to  advance the understanding of biological data. In my case I studied the genetics of breast cancer, looking for potential off switches (called synthetic lethals). However my education led me also into the study of genetic ancestry tracing. This also lead to a hobby of getting various companies to test my DNA and use their databases to tell me what they think my ancestry is. It amuses me to see the differences. Again more on that in another post.

    So there we are. There is the battle field. I plan to set out short(ish) posts on subjects.

  • I’m back baby…. but this time it’s different

    I’ve had a blog of some sort since the 1990s. IT began with Live Journal, then I moved to Blogspot, then WordPress. Last week, I took a long look at what I was blogging about, and I discovered, its no longer me. I did something I almost never like to do, and I took down, irrevocably my BlogSpot and WordPress blogs.

    Why? Well to begin with the subject “Path of the Pagan Warrior” no longer spoke as much to who I am, who I hope to be, who I want to be remembered as. The blogs had become unfocused, and occasional rants happened, along with subject matter off topic. But I noticed one thing. My best posts, my posts that got the most attention? My posts on scientific subjects, battling the racism that Paganism seems to attract. More on those in another post. I am not going to detail much of what I learned there as a Pagan Warrior, but I did learn, that many pagans do not question the things they are taught or read (or I don’t know come to them in a vision). I made a lot of enemies trying to challenge that.  But I still embraced the idea of Warriorship, which included challenging things head on. I still do, but I don’t like the drama, I don’t like the yelling and threats (and oh were there many of those).

    So here we are. Gone is the Warriorship aspect (it may return, in another blog, another time, but it’s not helpful for what I plan to do here). But I remain the scientist, the pagan, and the educator.

    Enjoy

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