Jonathan Kane

Jonathan Kane (online pseudonyms: Captain Occam,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Captain_Occam Agahnim, Aggie, Tetrapteryxhttps://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Tetrapteryx) is an American comic artist, former Young Earth creationist who now advocates evolution, and palaeontology writer who counters creationist claims. He's written articles as a guest at Panda's Thumb in the past. More controversially, in intelligence research, Kane staunchly defends the hereditarianism position."General intelligence: What we know and how we know it" by Jonathan Kane and Emily Willoughby, Panda's Thumb, 2018 March 29 Under his "Captain Occam" alias, Kane was involved in a feud on Wikipedia regarding articles on race and intelligence, where he attempted to push a staunchly pro-hereditarianism view in a manner that some other editors view as "rubbing elbows with racists and eugenicists"."Cognitive Distortions", Wikipediocracy, 2022 July 19 
==Background==
 Kane is a former Young Earth creationist who later converted to theistic evolution.https://www.christianforums.com/threads/has-anyone-here-converted-from-evolution-cosmology-to-young-earth-creationism.99030/#post-1881415 In 2002, then 19 years old, he abandoned theistic evolution having left Christianity and converted to deism. https://www.christianforums.com/threads/former-christians.78233/page-2#post-1591652 Kane describes himself as an “armchair palaeontologist”.https://wordorreason.com/about-the-authors/ Although having no degree in palaeontology, he worked as an intern at the New Jersey State Museum under natural-history curator David C. Parris from 2001 to 2005."Creationist classification of theropods" by Jonathan Kane (guest post of Matt Young), Panday's Tumb, 2016 November 8
He is perhaps most well-known for his humorous Occam’s Razor comic series about creationist dinosaur beliefs, including Kent Hovind's Dinosaur Adventure Land. The comic series formerly had a website named Captain Occam but went offline in 2017.Occam’s Razor Captain Occam (archived from July 15, 2017).
In the 2010s, Kane frequently collaborated with Emily A. Willoughby, a behavioral genetics and cognitive science researcher"Official website of Emily Willoughby: Paleoartist, writer, and researcher in behavioral genetics and cognitive psychology." who is also known as a Like Kane, Willoughby was a former young earth creationist who eventually became staunchly against creationism.Emily Willoughby (October 28, 2017). "The Compassionate Way to Combat Creationism". Quillette. Willoughby received bans on Wikipedia for acting as a "" for Kane post-ban and attempting to insert hereditarianism in Wikipedia's race and intelligence articles.Motion: Ferahgo the Assassin editing restrictions modified (September 2016)] (02:43, 1 September 2016 UTC) Wikipedia."Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race and intelligence/Review" As of late 2024, Willoughby is on the board of the International Society for Intelligence Research,ISIR Board Members. isironline.org. an academic organization that nonetheless has been criticized by tolerating known eugenicists."It might be a pseudo science, but students take the threat of eugenics seriously" by Ben Van Der Merwe, New Statesman, 2018 February 19 Similarly, Willoughby's research papers,Emily A. Willoughby, resume which have been published in several respectable scientific journals, have several times focused on "general intelligence" ( or general cognitive ability), of which some academics believe is either worthless and far too prone to political manipulation, or far too connected to old eugenics and racialism studies.Graves, Joseph L., and Amanda Johnson. “The Pseudoscience of Psychometry and The Bell Curve.” The Journal of Negro Education, vol. 64, no. 3, 1995, pp. 277–94. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2967209. Accessed 31 Dec. 2024. Willoughby's ties to intelligence research have on occasion caused some online controversy in the paleoart community.
==Research==
===Anti-creationism===
Kane has published articles critical of creationist claims (mostly palaeontology) and baraminology.https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2016/11/creationist-class.htmlhttps://pandasthumb.org/archives/2017/10/five-principles.html In 2017, Kane co-authored the book God’s Word or Human Reason? An Inside Perspective on Creationism, with Emily Willoughby and T. Michael Keese. https://wordorreason.com/ The book has received positive reviews from scientists for its "painstakingly detailed rebuttals to papers by creationists."https://magazine.scienceconnected.org/2017/02/book-review-gods-word-human-reason/ Philosopher Stefaan Blancke commented that "God’s Word or Human Reason makes a significant contribution to the enduring battle against Christian fundamentalist anti-science".https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JCH/article/view/13289/15451 Palaeontologist Darren Naish positively reviewed the book.https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/book-review-gods-word-or-human-reason-an-inside-perspective-on-creationism/
Unsurprisingly, a negative review was published in the Journal of Creation by John Woodmorappe.https://dl0.creation.com/articles/p124/c12414/j32_2_42-47.pdf Kane has responded to these criticisms.https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2018/10/John-Woodmorappe-vs.html
===Science and religion===
Although he is not personally religious, Kane is an advocate of the view that there is no necessary incompatibility between evolutionary science and religious belief. He explains in God's Word or Human Reason? that his eventual abandonment of Christianity was for reasons unrelated to his acceptance of evolution:
Kane has argued that when advocates of evolution attack religion in general, they risk undermining the efficacy of their anti-creationism arguments. He presented this argument in a 2017 article for The Panda's Thumb:
===Hereditarianism===
Kane is a staunch proponent of hereditarianism. Together with Willoughby, arguably they have made some claims that might be seen as being sympathetic to scientific racism. For instance, in a book review of by Nicolas Wade, the two quote Hbdchick (despite the account clearly being sympathetic to racialism by the handle name alone) and handwave the link between eugenics and Nazi genocide policies."Reviewing A Troublesome Inheritance" by Emily Willoughby and Jonathan Kane, DeviantAry, 2014 May 17
On Wikipedia, under his "Captain Occam" handle, Kane has been a staunch advocate of the hereditarianism point of view."Talk:History of the race and intelligence controversy/Archive 1", Wikipedia His arguments at times seemed to advocate whitewashing other notable figures who took eugenist or racialism positions. For instance, he advocated that J. Philippe Rushton should not be described as a scientific racist in a Wikipedia article on R/K selection theory,"Talk:R/K selection theory" and he dismissed Richard Lynn and Rushton's contributions to the white nationalist magazine American Renaissance as not being notable for a Wikipedia race and intelligence article."Talk:Race and intelligence/Archive 76" 
In 2010, this resulted in an arbitration case where he was accused of tag-teaming with other notorious trolls such as Michael Coombs (Mikemikev) in order to push an overt hereditarianism view on Wikipedia articles, with a particular focus on race-based inherited differences."Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race and intelligence" This resulted in a topic ban on race and intelligence articles.Wikipedia Signpost, 2010 August 30 Captain Occam was later indefinitely blocked in 2018."Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement"
==See also==
*Deistic evolution
==References==
Category:Authors
Category:Evolution
Category:Living people
Category:Pissed at us
Category:Racialism pseudoscientists
Category:Trolls