I’m pretty sure that God does laugh. It’s impossible to watch this and reach any other conclusion.
Author: VD
Mr. McCarthy Responds
Now, first of all, keep in mind my immense respect for Dennis McCarthy. He came at a long-held, widespread assumption from a new direction and presented a convincing, conclusive case. I believe that I have done much the same for the Neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, and given my initial skepticism about the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays, I would never fault anyone who, upon their first encounter with MITTENS, is even more skeptical given its supposed foundation in science.
Here is McCarthy’s immediate and quite understandably dubious response:
While I like iconoclasts, this one’s wrong: Domesticated dogs (Canis familiaris) evolved from gray wolves in less than 20,000 years, and likely much faster. This is a crystal-clear counterexample to MITTENS.
Specifically, more than 400 dog breeds have been created with massive morphological and behavioral differences: size, skull shape, coat, intelligence, sociability.
Yes, the changes were driven by human-imposed artificial selection, but that is just a special case of natural selection—only more intense and targeted.
Despite extremely short timescales, huge numbers of heritable genetic traits have been modified and fixed.
If MITTENS were valid, such explosive change shouldn’t be possible—but it is, and it’s been documented in real time.
There are two reasons why artificial selection as demonstrated by domestic dog breeding not only do not provide a counterexample to MITTENS, but to the contrary, underline it and even offer one potential alternative to TENS and its modern variants.
- In artificial selection, there is no need to wait for a random mutation to first appear, then prove sufficiently advantageous to fixate throughout the entire population. The preferred genes, which already exist, are identified and selected, after which they are provided a fitness advantage that is much, much stronger than anything possible in nature, which reduces the number of generations required to establish fixation across the population of the new breed by orders of magnitude.
- In each of the creations of the artificially selected dog breeds, a very small population bottleneck was created of the sort that is absolutely impossible in nature. In fact, any population that falls below 10,000 individuals is much more likely to go extinct than fixate one single mutation, let alone thousands. Hence the term “endangered” as it is used with regards to species. Since MITTENS relies upon actual population demographics with reproductive spread being the primary constraint on the extent of any advantageous mutation, a critique that relies upon a) artificial selection and b) an externally imposed population bottleneck cannot serve as an effective counterexample.
Consider ChatGPT’s response to being presented with the requisite math; ChatGPT was even more initially skeptical. But remember, in order for the evolutionary framework to survive the mathematical challenge presented by the known genetic delta from the Last Chimp Human Common Ancestor to modern humanity, it is necessary to fixate a mutation across the entire human population every 40 generations on average.
Fixation in Humans in <40 Generations Is Almost Impossible
Unless the population is:
- Extremely small (e.g., <1,000 individuals),
- Undergoing a catastrophic bottleneck (mass extinction-like),
- Practicing unrealistic reproductive skew (e.g., a single male sires nearly every child),
- Or experiencing non-Mendelian inheritance (e.g., viral insertions, horizontal transmission, etc.),
Then fixation in <40 generations is not just unlikely—it’s mathematically implausible in humans.
Even with selection, you’re correct: the constraint is reproduction, not advantage. The logistics of human reproduction and descent limit how fast any allele can spread, no matter how advantageous.
Fixation in humans in <40 generations is, barring some extreme and hypothetical bottleneck, essentially impossible.
Notice that the list of exceptions actually tend to fit the domesticated dog breed scenarios rather nicely. If a mutation is to fix in 40 generations, it would need to go from 1 copy to ~8 billion people, assuming constant or growing population sizes. That would require a 300x greater spread than the upper limit of human reproductive skew for every single one of the ~15 million base pairs that humans have in common but do not share with either a) chimpanzees or b) the hypothetical LCHCA.
With regards to dogs and wolves, their genetic distance is one-sixth the distance of the chimpanzee-human gap and their generations are less than one-twelfth as long as human generations. Add in the artificial selection and the genetic bottleneck necessarily involved in the domestication of the Last Lupine Canine Common Ancestor and it should not be surprising to conclude that 20,000 years would be sufficient to cross that delta without contradicting MITTENS in any way.
That being said, I very much welcome skeptical and intelligent minds critiquing MITTENS, as only a rock-solid case capable of meeting every objection is going to overturn more than 150 years of scientific dogma.
Inevitable Iconoclasm
I’m very much looking forward to seeing what arch-iconoclast Dennis McCarthy is going to do to the official story of Charles Darwin and the Neo-Darwinian dogma once he discovers MITTENS and realizes that it is far more likely that the real author of Shakespeare’s plays was the recently deceased Queen Elizabeth II than Neo-Darwinian theories of evolution and its various epicycles can even begin to account for 10 percent of the human genetic variance.
You need to experience certain ideas, events, images, technologies, etc., before you can use them, whether in whole or in part, to recreate new ideas.
This insight also offers a new response to the “watchmaker argument” most famously stated by the Christian philosopher, William Paley. As Paley asked, repeating a well-known rationale for intelligent design, if you were to happen across a watch in a forest, would not the complexity and purpose of the time-piece imply the existence of a designer? If so, then would not a human being, which is far more complicated than the watch, suggest a designer as well?
Dawkins may be the scientist who has provided the most comprehensive response to Paley’s challenge in The Blind Watchmaker (1986), the title of which is based on this famous argument. Dawkins showed that natural selection can indeed give the appearance of design by continuously fomenting the proliferation of beneficial adaptations.
Still, it may be instructive to point out that, while many people today try to use Paley’s arguments against evolution, the simple fact is that watches—just like iguanas and finches—had to evolve from much simpler systems with occasional incremental advances occurring over time.
Humans could not have constructed 19th-century clocks before the invention of cogs, gears, and levers—let alone before the practice of metallurgy, the use of numerical symbols, or the concept of time itself, etc. Instead, over many generations, simple timepieces had to accumulate small variations in the mental wombs of humans. Some of these variations were more helpful than others and led to their reproduction and proliferation.
Yes, the watch had to have a direct maker (the watchmaker)—just like the watchmaker, himself, also had to have a direct maker (his parents.) But the watchmaker did not invent the timepiece out of nothing and could not have been personally responsible for all its complexity. The basic plan of the watch passed though prior generations of clockmakers, continuously evolving along the way. Likewise, the configuration of the human watchmaker was also passed along through the DNA of all his ancestors, continuously evolving along the way. Neither the extraordinary complexity of the watch nor that of the watchmaker was created all in one miraculous burst—and certainly not by an immaterial and supernatural force.
As it happens, Paley’s arguments are correct, not because they are a rebuttal or a logical disproof of the various Neo-Darwinian epicycles, but simply because they led him to reject the obvious impossibility of evolution through natural selection.
The obvious and mathematical fact is that “the configuration of the human watchmaker” was definitely NOT “passed along through the DNA of all his ancestors, continuously evolving along the way” for the obvious reason that it could not have.
Mathematicians, physicists, and artificial intelligences have all checked and repeatedly confirmed the absolute impossibility of a sufficient number of mutational fixations occurring in the maximum nine million years available for the process.
And the reason the innumerate biologists keep insisting upon the impossible is that not one of them, from Charles Darwin to Richard Dawkins, has ever bothered to do the very simple math of human demographics and reproduction that is required for the evolutionary fairy tale to hold up in the aftermath of the sequencing of the human genome. Mendel was a blow, but MITTENS is a stake in the chest, a decapitation, and iron nails hammering the coffin shut.
I don’t blame McCarthy or anyone else for failing to notice this, because virtually no one but an economist is sufficiently accustomed to think in terms of millions, billions, and trillions to spot the obvious mathematical absurdity required to account for 15-20 million base pairs repeatedly fixating across the entire human population over the period of time involved.
Anyhow, I think it will be tremendously interesting if McArthy ever turns his formidable powers of skeptical investigation onto Mr. Darwin, his theory, and its many revisions. He doesn’t need to bother with Mr. Dawkins, of course, as the up-to-date evolutionists have already retreated to the very randomness that Dawkins sought to disprove with his inept little attempt at writing code.
The Revised Schedule
The results of the subscribers’ poll, in which nearly one-third of the Library subscribers made their opinions known, are now available on the Castalia Library substack. The new schedules have also been announced. A brief summary:
- Library goes to 4 books per year. Price unchanged.
- Libraria goes to 4 books per year. Price reduced.
- History goes to 3 books per year. Prices unchanged.
- Cathedra stays at 2 books per year. Price unchanged.
- Refunds provided to all Library, History, and Libraria subscribers upon request. Details at the substack.
The entire team is in agreement that this plan is the best we are able to do in the circumstances. It might be worth noting that this was a community effort, as it was a subscriber who came up with the plan in the first place.
The Swamp of Retarded Evil
A righteous denunciation of the dumbest place on the Internet:
“Oh, what’s the big deal? Isn’t this just harmless geeky fun?”
No. I refuse. It’s not harmless; it’s the most insidious and pervasive cultural force of our time. It’s corroding the bonds that hold society together. It destroyed a generation and shows no signs of stopping. You can’t escape it: everything is ugly and fat and dorky and trite and corny and satanic and fake and gay and soy and cringe. All mainstream culture is created by and for resentful geek losers. Everything sucks now and it’s because of Reddit.
“C’mon, isn’t it just a web forum for geeks? Why are you attributing all of society’s ills to some forum? And doesn’t it contain, like, a million different communities with opposing views?”
Yes, Reddit is a geek forum, and yes, it contains multitudes. But somehow, across all these communities, from r/knitting to /rWhoaThatsInteresting to r/ProgrammerHumor” to r/UpliftingNews, a distinct gestalt has taken prominence, on and off the site. The richest and most powerful people in the world are Reddit. The professional managerial class is Reddit. All of Western society runs on Redditism. The Redditor reigns supreme. This is, so far, the Reddit Century.
“WTF are you talking about? What is ‘the Redditor?’ Just someone who uses the website? Aren’t you overreacting a bit?”
No. The Redditor is an archetype that transcends the internet. He’s a self-loathing ex-gifted kid who indulges in childish consumption rather than face the duties and uncertainties of adulthood. He thumbs his nose at traditional authority, and makes that bratty rebelliousness his whole personality. Redditism is not just an aesthetic or a collection of fandoms, it’s an ideology, one that has been taken up and instrumentalized by the global elite against everything good. It animates a death cult that wants you dead first. It’s the end of the line.
The Redditor is the apotheosis of the Non-Player Character. He’s unself-aware despite his self-consciousness. He’s stupid despite his determination to prove he’s a Smart Boy. And he puts the capital-C in cringe.
Every day, 24 million members are giving each other the worst possible advice.
It’s going to take years for AI to recover from being trained on Reddit.
Report: Russia Captured British Officers
Hal Turner and others are reporting that Russian special forces operators have captured three British officers
Special forces of the Russian Federation have captured several NATO officers in Ukraine. This is the first real-life proof that NATO itself is actively waging war against Russia.
Lieutenant Colonel Richard Carroll, and Colonel Edward Blake, both active-duty officers of the British Army, along with as as-yet unidentified Agent of British MI-6 (Intelligence) were captured during a daring raid by Russian Special Forces, in the city of Ohakiv. Lt. Col. Carroll is detailed to the British Ministry of Defense.
The third individual taken in the raid is referred-to only as “A member of MI-6 Intelligence.”
A long-time Intelligence-Community colleague of mine from my years working with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task, Force (JTTF), whom I trust implicitly, told me Russian special forces disembarked from several ships and penetrated a command center of the Ukrainian armed forces. They captured British soldiers who coordinated the use of British missiles and drones against Russian forces and against civilian targets.
He went on to say the operation lasted about 15 minutes. Hours after the operation, diplomatic relations between London and Moscow deteriorated sharply. The British have been caught, red-handed, and the implications for Britain, and NATO as a whole, are now E X T R E M E L Y bad.
Representatives of the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked the Russian Ministry of Defense to return the British officers ‘lost’ in Ukraine. The official London version is: the arrested officers traveled to Ukraine as tourists and “accidentally” ended up in Ochakiv. The British had the gall to tell the Russians that the men “were interested in naval history and wanted to visit the coast where battles were fought during the Second World War.”
Clown World is going to clown. But either Clown World really wants Russia to attack the EU and the UK or NATO, NATO is getting careless about keeping its officers out of harm’s way, or the Russian advance has picked up the pace to the point that the NATO “military advisors” can’t retreat fast enough to avoid getting captured.
At this point, the only thing protecting the civilians of Great Britain and Europe is the restraint of the very man they’ve spent the last three years demonizing, Vladimir Putin. But there are only so many stupid provocations that even the most patient and intelligent man can accept.
Express Yourself
After some discussion, analysis, and research, we believe we’ve come up with a plan to address the panoply of rising costs of producing the world’s most beautiful books in a painless manner.
If you’re a Castalia subscriber, please read it, take part in the poll, and let us know what you think in the comments there. Please note that nothing has been decided yet, we’re just trying to come up with a plan that will work for everyone and maintain future viability without imposing unnecessary expenses on anyone.
Sea Power vs Land Power
Sea power tends to be more aggressive and expansive, but land power tends to last longer:
For over a century, two dead advisors have shaped the way great powers view the world.
On one side, we have Alfred Thayer Mahan—the American naval officer who believed sea power determined global supremacy. According to Mahan, controlling the oceans means controlling trade. If you control trade, you control wealth. If you control wealth… well, you get the picture.
On the other side is Halford Mackinder, the British geographer who argued the exact opposite. Forget the seas, he said. Whoever controls the “World Island”—Eurasia—controls the world. Railways, rivers, pipelines, and land empires are what count. Not frigates and aircraft carriers.
Mahan and Mackinder are no longer with us, but their ideas continue to influence the world today.
And we’re watching it unfold.
The United States and the United Kingdom—Mahan’s spiritual children—have long benefited from an ocean-based order. Ruling the waves built their prosperity and power. The British Empire’s reach was maritime. The U.S. Navy now patrols every major sea lane. The dollar reigns supreme because oil, commodities, and trade settle in greenbacks. That world—the Mahan world—is why Americans live like kings while land powers like Russia and China have spent decades playing catch-up.
But Mahan’s world has limits. Especially when you try to keep your rivals bottled up in theirs.
That’s precisely what the U.S. has tried to do with China.
If you look at ancient history, the rivalries between Athens and Sparta, and between Carthage and Rome, all ended the same way; with the land power eventually defeating the sea power. This is because sea power is intrinsically offensive, which means that it doesn’t have much in the way of defense in depth once its advantages are counteracted in one way or another.
It’s already apparent that either China or Russia can defeat the USA in a war. Which means that the US is an empire in decline, and the only real question is how fast it will collapse and how far.
Epic Beats Google
I’m not even remotely surprised that Epic won its case against Google over the Play Store. If we’ve learned anything, it’s that the game developers are smarter than the Big Tech guys and all their Silicon Valley lawyers:
A federal appeals court has upheld a jury verdict condemning Google’s Android app store as an illegal monopoly, clearing the way for a federal judge to enforce a potentially disruptive shakeup that’s designed to give consumers more choices.
The unanimous ruling issued Thursday by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals delivers a double-barreled legal blow for Google, which has been waylaid in three separate antitrust trials that resulted in different pillars of its internet empire being declared as domineering scofflaws monopolies since late 2023.
The unsuccessful appeal represents a major victory for video game maker Epic Games, which launched a legal crusade targeting Google’s Play Store for Android apps and Apple’s iPhone app store nearly five years ago in an attempt to bypass exclusive payment processing systems that charged 15% to 30% commissions on in-app transactions.
This is good news. It should make it a lot easier to get apps on the platforms that people prefer to utilize on their phones.
Don’t Stop
If you don’t use it, you will lose it. A doctor shares a conversation with her 88-year-old patient.
An 88-year-old who I’d been seeing for falls, weakness, and a hip fracture told me I looked strong. Asked if I lifted weights.
I proudly confirmed his assumption as I’d been lifting for the past 9 years. He smiled and said he used to lift too. Shared his old PRs.
He used to bench press 215 lbs, squat 350 lbs, and deadlift 475 lbs at his prime. He trained several times a week & used lifting as a way to stay both physically & mentally fit. But at some point along the way, life happened, so his training sessions decreased. Then, before he knew it, he stopped lifting altogether in his 50s.
Then he got older. He now uses a walker to get around now. He has difficulty getting up from a chair and he’s fallen in his home, one fall leading to a hip fracture.
Then he looked me dead in the eyes and said:
Don’t ever stop. If I hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t be your patient right now.
Ironically, it’s only because he’d been lifting into his 50s that he has survived to the age of 88. His decline began from a higher peak than most.
So whatever it is that you’re doing, from lifting weights to playing soccer, don’t stop unless you absolutely have to stop. You’re going to get older, but you don’t have to become frail and infirm.