The Limits of Liberty

Nik Money • September 22, 2019

News that Jerry Falwell, Jr., President of Liberty University, is mired in conflicts with former board members, encouraged me to look at the educational opportunities for science students at his evangelical school. The requirements for a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology are particularly disquieting. Majors take a handful of the usual courses in cell biology and genetics, but they are also charged with selecting offerings taught in the Center for Creation Studies. The purpose of this center is “to promote the development of a consistent biblical view of origins in our students,” and to “equip students to contend for their faith in the creation account in Genesis.” The Director of Creation Studies at Liberty, Dr. Marcus Ross, has a remarkable record of publications that includes a compendium of amphibians that survived the biblical flood 4,000 years ago. After a lengthy review of amphibian diversity, he concludes that 248 pairs of these animals must have been saved on Noah’s Ark. This scholarly work appeared in a periodical titled, Answers Research Journal, which is published by the Answers in Genesis (AIG) Ministry. AIG is the organization that runs the Creation “Museum” and Ark Encounter theme parks in Kentucky. I wonder what Marcus teaches students about radiometric methods for dating rocks? The lessons of Liberty highlight the privilege of teaching and learning at a state university. In such a place, the exploration of life is guided by objective evidence and we are liberated from the monkish and deluded past.

The Mycologist: The Movie

By Nik Money • August 6, 2025
A screenplay by Matthew R. Riffle and Zackary D. Hill based on my 2017 novel, The Mycologist: The Diary of Bartholomew Leach, Professor of Natural History , is an official selection at the 2025 Cindependent Film Festival: https://www.cindependentfilmfest.org/ Wanda Sykes must be cast to play Phoebe Smith, Queen of Claysburgh. Excerpt: When Cates and I rode across the field, Phoebe Smith knocked out her pipe to prepare for battle: "Dare you is you damned whale; Cates haul you in again from offshore? You bin lying there sunnin your fat belly in Christ’s Sun I spose, hopin for a reeel high tide to pull you back to your damned porpuss-whore of a mother." I looked at Cates in utter amazement. He shrugged his shoulders and dismounted.

Mycobiome Art

By Nik Money • July 23, 2025
Dr. Gemma Anderson-Tempini is an artist working on a project about the mycobiome for a museum commission in Exeter in England. She asked several mycologists to “draw the mycobiome,” to help stimulate her thinking. This is my first draft in which I concentrated on the problems caused by fungi that live on the body. I could draw an alternative view to show that many of the same fungi are also part of the healthy microbiome. Interactions between fungi and bacteria is part of this story. Another approach would be to draw a mother nursing a baby and highlight the fungi in breast milk and the developing mycobiome of the infant.

What is a mushroom?

By Nik Money • February 13, 2025
With head-scratching among consumers about the sources of medicinal mushroom products, a reliable definition of a mushroom seems useful. Clarity is important because many of these “medicinals” come from mycelia instead of mushrooms and their chemical composition can be quite different. Here is my two-part definition. Mushrooms are the fungal equivalent of the fruits produced by plants. They release microscopic spores rather than seeds. We often refer to mushrooms as fruit bodies. Mushrooms are the reproductive organs of fungi. Their spores germinate to form feeding colonies called mycelia that grow as networks of branching filaments called hyphae. Mushrooms develop from mature mycelia to complete the fungal life cycle.

Clay Tablet

By Nik Money • October 5, 2024
Money's Laws

In Memoriam: Frank Harold

By Nik Money • September 18, 2024
“What I have done . . . is to make a constructive contribution to the global conversation of science and to gain some measure of insight into that great mystery, the origin of life . . . The way of science is for the best of our achievements to endure in substance but lose their individuality, like raindrops falling into a pond. So let it be.” Frank Harold (2016) Click here for the tribute in full

Screenplay

By Nik Money • August 22, 2024
A screenplay by Matthew R. Riffle and Zackary D. Hill based on my 2017 novel, The Mycologist: The Diary of Bartholomew Leach, Professor of Natural History , was an official selection at the 2024 Ink & Cinema Adapted Story Showcase. Click here for brief excerpt from the novel

The Jellyfish Who Lost Hope

By Nik Money • May 23, 2024
Hydras and the Roots of Depression

R.F.K. Junior's Worm

By Nik Money • May 10, 2024
With news of R.F.K. Junior’s encounter with a parasitic worm, I invite you to sing along with me to the tune of “My Favorite Things”: Roundworms in most guts and hookworms in plenty Segmented tapeworms that make you feel empty Many amoebas and pinworms like strings These were a few of our nightmarish things. (From “Molds, Mushrooms, and Medicines,” page 111)

Our Amoeboid Selves

By Nik Money • April 3, 2024
Species perform life cycles by transmitting distinctive collections of genes from one generation to the next. Individuals contribute to this process if they serve as biological parents, but there is no cycle for each of them, each human being, just a beginning and an end. Cells behaving as amoebas are conductors for the whole journey, sculpting the developing fetus, protecting the body from bacterial and fungal infection, repairing wounds, and removing worn out cells. Amoebas also destroy cancer cells until they turn cancerous themselves, spread tumors across the body, and extinguish one in six of us. All of these amoeboid human cells dig deep into the billion-year-old instructions in their genomes to activate the machinery for forming pseudopodia and flowing and feeding from place to place. From birth to death, womb to tomb, the body calls on its ancient amoeboid ancestry, just as it relies on its ciliary history to make sperm cells and the hairy cells that line the lungs and other organs. We are gigantic amalgams of the single-celled microbes that learned to crawl and swim in the mud and sunlit pools of the Precambrian.

Book recommendations

By Nik Money • January 15, 2024
If Kafka makes you laugh, this is for you: https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023/f/nicholas-p-money
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