Ella Al-Shamahi
The Navigator
Judgement in the fog, money, risk and the call others cannot make.
Ella Al-Shamahi embodies The Navigator, having charted a course across genuinely hostile epistemic terrain, from Muslim creationist missionary to evolutionary biologist, and now guiding others past the wreckage she sustained. Her insistence that science must actively court religious and right-leaning communities to survive politically shows a rare cross-tribal orientation.
“If we present science like it is in any way a tribal issue, we are asking people to choose between the people that they love and the paradigm that they exist in and science. And that is not going to end well for our scientists.”
On science and tribal polarizationundated
“I will be calling out and trying to rein in when our tribe is getting a bit too polarizing, being a bit too aggressive and unwelcoming to those on the right and to those who are religiously devout.”
On self-policing scientific communityundated
“I had no intention of putting anybody through what I went through. I was like, you believe what you want to believe. My hope was that the community would evolve to the point where it didn't feel like a choice.”
On leaving missionary world behindundated
Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy: “‘Humans are not evolved for modern life’ - evolutionary biologist Ella Al-Shamahi”
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