Jonathan Kane



Jonathan Kane (online pseudonyms: Captain Occam, Agahnim, Aggie, Shuichi Tezuka , Tetrapteryx ) is an American right-wing HBD proponent, comic artist and palaeontology writer who counters creationist claims. He's written articles as a guest at Panda's Thumb in the past. However, contrary to his decent work criticising young earth creationism, he holds pseudoscientific views on race and intelligence and has an interest in drawing Nazi dinosaur artwork that has been criticized by many in the paleoart community.

Despite claiming to be "anti-pseudoscience", Kane promotes dubious and discredited ideas about race to the extent in 2010 he was blocked from editing race and intelligence-related articles on Wikipedia by the Arbitration Committee. His account was indefinitely banned in 2018. His former partner is Emily Willoughby.

Kane has written for the online magazine Quillette and has also authored an article for The Critic complaining about alleged "left-wing bias of Wikipedia".

Background
Kane is a former young earth creationist who later converted to theistic evolution. In 2002, then 19 years old, he abandoned theistic evolution having left Christianity and converted to deism. Kane describes himself as an “armchair palaeontologist”. 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.

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. He considers his political views to be libertarian but given his controversial views on race, paleolibertarianism is more accurate.

Anti-creationism
Kane has published articles critical of creationist claims (mostly palaeontology) and baraminology. 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. The book has received positive reviews from scientists for its "painstakingly detailed rebuttals to papers by creationists." Philosopher Stefaan Blancke commented that "God’s Word or Human Reason makes a significant contribution to the enduring battle against Christian fundamentalist anti-science". Palaeontologist Darren Naish positively reviewed the book.

Unsurprisingly, a negative review was published in the Journal of Creation by John Woodmorappe. Kane has responded to these criticisms.

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 controversially a proponent of hereditarianism and in 2009 tried to insert his point-of-view in the race and intelligence article on Wikipedia, getting into conflicts with different editors. After receiving multiple temporary blocks for edit-warring and disruption such as reverting edits of anyone who disagreed with him - he was topic banned in 2010 and indefinitely banned in 2018.

Kane disagrees with the term "scientific racism" and denies the work of J. Philippe Rushton is either racist or pseudoscientific.

Outright pseudoscientific claims of Rushton include his bizarre attempt of relating length of erect penises to brain size and forming a racial hierarchy from these. This type of research was based on entirely fabricated and self-reported data that has been discredited.

Before his ban on Wikipedia, Kane collaborated with white nationalist Emil Kirkegaard. In 2023, Kane stated "I still think Kirkegaard is capable of doing useful research, but whatever ability he has is eclipsed by his impulsivity, his habit of deliberate provoking people, and his determination to prove he's right in pointless dramas.

Quillette
On July 18, 2022, Kane, using the pseudonym Shuichi Tezuka, published an article titled "Cognitive Distortions" in Quillette defending Emily Willoughby's (Ferahgo the Assassin) controversial edit history on Wikipedia. Kane does not mention Willoughby by her real name, but provides clues such as describing Ferahgo as "a postdoctoral researcher in behavior genetics." In a thread on Wikipediocracy forum, a user identifies Feragho as Willoughby and the article writer as Kane. In the same thread, Kane (posting as Captain Occam) does not deny he is Shuichi Tezuka. Kane's article claims a group of left-wing editors under the influence of critical race theory took control of Wikipedia around the time of the death of George Floyd and began making changes on the race and intelligence article labelling hereditarianism as a fringe point of view:

Kane's conspiracy theory is unfounded and his article has been described as "mostly nonsense" by Eric Turkheimer. Promoters of Kane's conspiracy theory include Emil Kirkegaard, and Charles Murray.

Nazi dinosaur artwork
Kane was involved in drawing dinosaurs in Nazi uniforms. The artwork came to the attention of the paleoart community in 2022 who heavily criticized Emily Willoughby accusing her of racism and white supremacy. However, Willoughby has stated that Kane was responsible for the artwork.