The robot-mosquito correction: Verily's sterile-mosquito program
Asked to produce a source, Nick Harris can't. Ben reads the actual story: Verily (a Google company) built an automated lab breeding infertile mosquitoes infected with the sterilizing Wolbachia bacteria, so females lay eggs that never hatch — a mosquito-eradication effort, not robot mosquitoes injecting serums. The hosts agree the biology-tampering itself is still 'playing God,' but note it bears no resemblance to the conspiracy version.
More on Science
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Simeon's question: 'what made God?' and the case against scientism
- What made God? How can a being have no beginning?
Guest Simeon Clawson names his recurring faith question: what made God, and how can a mind process a being with no beginning?
From No. 556 · A Christian Mid-Life Crisis
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Abortion parallels and the uniqueness of humanity
- Is there a uniqueness in humanity that separates people from animals?
The hosts pivot from the study to its moral logic: humans are outside the food chain, so the thinning-the-herd rationale does not apply to people.
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Pope style, full: the man mistaken for the Pope on childlike curiosity
- Did dinosaurs exist, and can science and faith be held together?
Framing gag: a man in Minneapolis (sketching the 'pope' in downtown Des Moines) mistook Boova for the pontiff and demanded 'paper wisdom' — Boova refused to sign his Bible but agreed to the wisdom.
From No. 364 · Golden Calf Purity Rings
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Pushback: the penicillin example is weak; unexplained healings
The hosts argue the penicillin example proves nothing (nobody was praying for a petri dish; it was an accident), point to cases doctors called medically impossible (a co-host's heart condition), and ask why the author ignores healings science cannot explain.