Welcome back to Truth Wanted folks! This week’s special guest is taking a break from handing out quests in Skyrim to join Dan. He's a science communicator, he’s Tik Tok royalty, welcome Forrest Valkai to the show!

This week’s Patron of the Week is Ayame, thank you for supporting the show! A thousand blessings upon your ancestors.

Danni is having some trouble letting go of childhood religious indoctrination. Forrest recommends patience, these things don’t disappear, they fade away. He offers Danni a few tools, and a very gross, yet poignant metaphor. Dan shares an anecdote about his own upbringing, and advocates for visibility as an atheist, when safe to do so. Be patient with yourself Danni, much love!

Jay is up next, with a “No True Scotsman” argument that will dazzle and amaze. Okay, maybe not, but he tells our hosts that the Christians hating gay people aren’t true Christians. Our hosts point out that both all Xtians, good or bad, are drawing their conclusions from the same book. Jay has the one true interpretation of the Bible though! You and a million others, Jay.

TH has a real problem, that being his anti-vaxxer adult children. His kids offer up past lies from the government as reason to distrust the Covid narrative. Dan offers his own conversation with Anthony Magnabosco as an example of how minds don’t change overnight. Forrest paints a picture of how other conspiracies mirror the current anti-vax trend, and gives our caller a few tools for starting constructive conversations. There aren’t any magic words to get through to someone TH, but you seem to be on the right track.

Forrest spills the tea on this next call, Zim in Virginia asks how to explain evolution to a younger crowd, and it turns out Forrest is already on it! He’s working on exactly this topic! He gives a brief rundown of what Zim can expect, subjects like alleles, speciation, exactly what we need. Dan gets a bye round on this call, it’s entertaining as heck though!

Charles is up next, and asks our hosts what they think about the ethics of incest. Is our aversion to sex with close kin cultural, biological, or just plain good sense? Our hosts offer an impartial analysis of a typically taboo topic. Like the trolley problem, there’s no easy answer here.

Barrie the Kiwi asks if including creationism in public education has value, even if it’s just to warn students. Forrest thinks that teaching the history of science is valuable, especially because it includes the times we got it wrong. Honesty and skepticism go hand in hand!

Finally Paul gets Forrest super excited about mermaids and speciation. Actually. Best. Wrap-up. Ever.