Jonathan Witt

John West on How Science Affirms America’s Founding Creed youtu.be/mZc85H15XVM?si… via @YouTube @JGWestDI

Project Hail Mary Can’t Outrun the God Hypothesis scienceandculture.com/2026/04/projec… via @discoverycsc

WATCH: Artemis II pilot Victor Glover hugs Fox News host’s baby with Down syndrome, Valentina—humanizing children like her. 80% of babies with the condition are aborted in the US This child, with an extra chromosome, is valuable and worthy of life.

Doctor’s Diary: A Physician Reads the Designer’s Signature scienceandculture.com/2026/04/doctor… via @discoverycsc

Between Life and the Cosmos, Which Provides Better Evidence for Design? scienceandculture.com/2026/04/betwee… via @discoverycsc

𝐍𝐎, 𝐈𝐓'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐀𝐈. 𝐈𝐓'𝐒 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐃 𝐏𝐔𝐍𝐂𝐓𝐔𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍. I see it constantly now. Someone reads a post or an article and spots an em dash — that long horizontal line — and immediately declares it was written by AI. 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐦 𝐝𝐚𝐬𝐡, 𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐆𝐏𝐓. You know who else uses em dashes? People who actually learned how English punctuation works. I don't normally step on this particular soapbox — and I commit authorial malpractice by never trying to sell you my books — but I've authored over 30 of them. Many have been international bestsellers. Well over 𝟏,𝟎𝟎𝟎,𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐬 in print, translated into 7+ languages, sold around the world. I am, amongst many other things, an actual author. So let me give you a quick education your grammar teachers apparently skipped. The em dash — this thing right here — is one of the most versatile punctuation marks in the English language. It's called an "em dash" because in traditional typesetting, it was the width of the capital letter M in whatever typeface you were using. It serves three primary functions. First, it sets off a parenthetical statement within a sentence — like this one — when you want more emphasis than commas provide but less formality than parentheses. Second, it signals an abrupt break in thought or a dramatic pivot. Third, it introduces an explanation or amplification of what came before it. Writers have been using it for centuries. Emily Dickinson used em dashes so obsessively her manuscripts look like they were attacked by a horizontal line. Mark Twain used them constantly in dialogue. So did F. Scott Fitzgerald. None of them had access to ChatGPT. Now for a bit of trivia most people never learn. There's also an 𝐞𝐧 𝐝𝐚𝐬𝐡 — slightly shorter, the width of the letter N. The en dash has a narrower purpose: it connects ranges. Pages 12–44. The years 1941–1945. The New York–London flight. It's the dash between two things that are connected but distinct. Most people have never heard of it, and most fonts render it just barely shorter than an em dash, which is why almost nobody notices the difference. Both have been part of formal typography since the invention of movable type in the 15th century. Gutenberg's typesetters used varying dash lengths to organize text. By the 18th century, printers had standardized the em and en dash as distinct glyphs with distinct grammatical functions. This isn't some modern AI invention — it's older than the United States. And if you use Microsoft Word, they're trivially easy to type. An en dash is Ctrl + Minus on the numeric keypad. An em dash is Ctrl + Alt + Minus on the numeric keypad. Word also auto-converts two hyphens (--) into an em dash if you have autocorrect enabled. That's why you see me use them in my books and in my posts — because I know they exist and I know the keyboard shortcut. The reason AI chatbots use em dashes frequently is because they were trained on well-written text — books, journalism, academic papers — written by people who knew the rules. The AI learned proper punctuation from proper writers. That doesn't make proper punctuation a sign of AI. It makes it a sign of 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐲. For the record, the only things I use AI for are conjuring up a quick graphic — like the image on this post — or as a shortcut for preliminary research. Think of it as a Google accelerator. The writing? That's all me. It has been for 30+ books and countless social media posts such as this one. If you've reached the end of this post, you now know more about dashes than most people who graduated with an English degree. And the next time you see an em dash and your first instinct is to scream "AI" — maybe consider that what you're actually looking at is someone who paid attention in class. Or someone whose grammar teachers didn't fail them quite as badly as yours failed you. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐦 𝐝𝐚𝐬𝐡 𝐢𝐬 𝟓𝟎𝟎 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐥𝐝. 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐨𝐭𝐬.

Stephen Meyer: “The Evidence Is OVERWHELMING!” youtu.be/lhz7WJZaqSw?si… via @YouTube

Knowing how to write a good prompt is quickly becoming the modern equivalent of knowing the alphabet for getting useful answers from AIs.

After months of preparation, I'm delighted to announce our new Restoring American Wellness podcast with @JennGalardi. Check out our inaugural episode and subscribe (on all major platforms including Spotify and YouTube. @Heritage (Link to first episode below)

Carl Sagan’s question is as ancient as the Psalms: “What is man that you are mindful of him?” But the psalmist’s answer is the same as Victor Glover’s: To see man not as a lonely cosmic accident, but as *beloved*. My debut in @WSJFreeEx. wsj.com/opinion/free-e…

And splashdown! America is back in the business of sending astronauts to the Moon and bringing them home safely. Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy did an outstanding job. These talented astronauts inspired the world and represented their space agencies and nations as humanity’s ambassadors to the stars. This was a test mission, the first crewed flight of SLS and Orion, pushing farther into the unforgiving environment of space than ever before, and it carried real risk. They accepted that risk for all we stood to learn and for the exciting missions that follow, as we return to the lunar surface, build a Moon base, and prepare for what comes next. And they were not alone. The entire NASA workforce, our commercial and international partners, and the hopes and dreams of people all over the world were with them. The astronauts know it, and you should too. This mission would not have been possible without you. Congratulations. Artemis II, mission accomplished.

Is This How Atheists Think? youtube.com/shorts/5rTH0Px… via @YouTube

New study: Adolescents have worse mental health after transgender treatments winteryknight.com/2026/04/08/new… via @Wintery_Knight @DrJayRichards

The Artemis II mission reveals glory of God — not science-based atheism foxnews.com/opinion/artemi… #FoxNews

Completely unhinged, casually heretical. And so theologically illiterate that he doesn't even seem to know it.

Five years ago, I traveled to Washington to be interviewed for "The Story of Everything," a documentary that explores the origins of the universe and humanity. I had no idea how it would turn out, but from the trailer it looks incredible. (Btw, that's my voice in the trailer listing off the finely-tuned parameters of the universe.) I've so far resisted seeing any rough cuts of this film, because, like William Shatner, I hate watching myself in anything. But I'm going to make an exception and see it when it comes out in the theater on April 30th. I hope y'all will go and see it, too. youtube.com/watch?v=pwL3ZK…

Compelling concurring opinion by Ninth Circuit judge VanDyke against his court’s practice of automatically granting stay of removal during appeal: “Because our court doles out automatic stays of removal as a matter of right, a petitioner like Santana can get a free decade in the United States simply by filing a meritless petition for immigration relief. And the more petitioners that exploit this system, the better it gets for each of them. As caseloads increase, it takes our court longer and longer to deal with utterly meritless immigration petitions, and our court further delays the process of all immigration enforcement. It’s a win-win for everyone—except the rule of law.”

A recent study out of Finland, a European country not within golf cart distance of Mar-A-Lago, looks like it should spell the end for pediatric sex trait modification. But it won’t. 1. Courts admit experts, they don’t referee studies. In the Blue State Hermit Nations, you can’t find a psychiatrist as an expert witness to save a kid from a crazy ex. Yes, SCOTUS just legalized good psychiatrists with the @ADFLegal win in Chiles v. Salazar, but now Colorado seeks to ruin sane doctors with lawsuits instead of pulling their licenses. The main experts (in Blue states) will remain AAP and @wpath. 2. Legislatively, the Blue State Hermit Nations will continue ignoring reality, because they are in a room with walls padded by heavily-financed activists like @ACLU and @LambdaLegal. The rule of legislators: if they won’t lose their seat, they won’t change. 3. The most important dynamic remains the @HJoyceGender Joyce Effect. When parents have done the unthinkable—and legislators and doctors have doubled down—there’s no human way to admit that and retain one’s ego and sanity. Bottom line, the Finland study is a huge deal, and illustrates what any reasonable doctor or adult should have expected already. But there was NEVER evidence for these interventions. It was always activism. (@dreddiewaldrep). Ending this barbaric tragedy requires political and legal force. The massive majority of Americans in favor of ending it, need to get comfortable enforcing basic definitions of reality with legal force. If we don’t end this quickly, 96% of medical students and the growing number of (Joyce Effect) involved parties will be too great to reverse. “Woke” ain’t dead. Time is ticking.