Craig is temporarily a post-doctoral fellow at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute who is looking for a permanent position. He spends most of his time balancing his overwhelming geekdom with normalcy so he can function in the real world. Luckily his wife likes his geekiness.
Peter Etnoyer is a Graduate Research Associate at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. He studies deep corals and ocean fronts, and he loves to be on the water.
Kevin Zelnio is a Graduate Student Researcher at Penn State studying the ecology of hydrothermal vent and methane seep communities. He raises awareness of the plight of the spineless through folk music.
I couldn't resist. FAILBlog has the original entry, a screenshot from a forum by someone who has a plan to stop sea level rise, an outcome of global warming. Here is what the text says:
"I was watching inconvenient truth the other day and theres the bit where it shows the sea level rising really high and flooding most of the world. Well i live near the sea, and don't want to drown, so i got to thinking. Maybe if we lower the sea level a bit, when the water level rises then it won't rise high enough to flood.ROTFLMAO, but seriously this is a scientist, education and media fail. If this person is to represent an average person who gets his information from TV and the internet with no scientific background, then we may as well be doomed.Anyway, heres the plan. Everyone who can should take a bucket of sea water and pour it down the sink. If lots of people put the effort in, we could lower the sea level substantially and create a better world for our children to live"
Life Science
Technology
Comments
That's sarcastic. Must be. Poe's Law definitely applies here.
Posted by: oku | August 29, 2008 1:27 PM
assume it is sarcasm. then it is not being effective. it is making fun of the seriousness of the issue, and wasting people's time. this is not a genuine contribution, and so should be faulted on that.
if it not sarcasm, then it should be criticized, as should the failures that led to it.
Posted by: ekzept | August 29, 2008 10:53 PM
I don't know quite what to say.....
Posted by: David Schwartz | August 30, 2008 7:10 AM
It can't be true, your average human being isn't that stupid.
Did you just delete the 'Farewell, Sciborg' entry from the feeds and the frontpage? It's still available at http://scienceblogs.com/deepseanews/2008/08/farewell_sciborg.php
Posted by: Pepijn | August 30, 2008 10:50 AM
Pepijn, - Some people are that stupid, and what really worries me is that they are allowed to vote.
Posted by: Ross James | August 30, 2008 5:19 PM
pepijn, I think peter may have had a premature... um... posting. ;)
Posted by: kevin z | August 30, 2008 7:58 PM
Or Craig is having, umm, separation anxiety.
Posted by: Peter | August 30, 2008 8:07 PM
Unfortunately, some people ARE that stupid! That's why Poe's Law holds. The risk of sarcasm and parody is that there will *always* be someone around who just doesn't get it.
"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." -- Henry Mencken
Posted by: Tom Davidson | September 2, 2008 5:32 AM