Ken Ham Meets Everything is Terrible

Every once in a while Everything is Terrible has a fun denialism-overlap as they show some ad for a terrible piece of quackery, or in this case a great cut of Ken Ham speaking nonsense to a group of very unfortunate children. This is child abuse. Not the creationism bit, but the embarrassingly-shoddy job he does presenting his evidence which seems to consist of poorly-drawn cartoons of men standing next to dinosaurs and an overhead projector.

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Child abuse? hardly. Teaching children that life started as a result of two inanimate objects in space banged together and that evolution is a fact is true child abuse. The teaching of Gody denying is child abuse. There is plenty enough evidence to support the fact that humans and dinosaurs once lived together and that they died out as a result of climate change human hunters.

Yes, we had global climate change long before Al Gore decided to profit from his UN wealth redistribution ponzi scheme we now all know as American Global Warming (AWG).

Climate changes. No one denies that. We do deny that humans can cause it however. Any other teaching is truly abusive.

By Bob Glasner (not verified) on 18 Oct 2012 #permalink

Bob - maybe you can explain to me - Why do climate change denialists have this thing about Al Gore? I for one had accepted the reality that climate change was on its way while Gore was still an undergraduate student. The science has nothing to do with him.

I would also be grateful if you could explain the physics behind the notion that a 50% increase in an atmospheric gas that absorbs infrared radiation will not result in climate change.

life started as a result of two inanimate objects in space banged together

What on Earth are you blithering about? I suspect you are completely unable to describe the theory of evolution.

By Richard Simons (not verified) on 18 Oct 2012 #permalink

'There is plenty enough evidence to support the fact that humans and dinosaurs once lived together "

Well Bobby boy perhaps you would like to present that evidence?? Or perhaps you are just creating a POE ?

Yes Bob. As you said, you 'deny'.

Me, I prefer evidence and reason to ideology. But hey, if you want to believe that humans coexisted with dinosaurs or that the earth is flat, go ahead.

You will be the one that everyone laughs at.

Now - Bob - I'm not entirely sure why you stopped going to school at age 7 or if you've ever been there, but:

Can you tell me, why telling a child that some mysterious imaginary friend in the sky, that doesn't want anything but the best for humanity but still leaves out no possibility to let us kill ourselves or others, just because they don't have the same delusions, is no child abuse, but giving the kid the tools to experience and learn about the world is?

Is it just because it's harder to convince someone to believe in the zombie son of some wrathful, but still benevolent, god, if they know how to do the facts checking? Or do certain people really want to catapult us back into the dark ages?

Now concerning climate change:
Yeah, it started long ago. And, yeah, humanity did survive so far. But humanity has a certain talent called "the use of tools", such as warm clothing to protect against the cold or air conditioning against the heat.
Sadly, man is the only animal that is able to do that, while all other forms of live just have to take it. Now, I don't know, what you like to eat, be it meat (kind of hard if you exterminate all other animals because you ignore a problem you can solve but they can't) or plants (ever heard of the story of the flowers and bees?), but once they can no longer exist on earth, surviving kind of gets difficult even for the, more or less intelligent, animal called Man.

Third, the case of the dinosaurs:
If dinosaurs and humans ever happened to live at the same time and the same place, there should be some proof out there.
Like for example, skeletons of both in the same place, which happened to be buried there at the same time.
I'd even be OK with just a single human bone in a single dinosaur stomach. May even be one of our evolutionary predecessors and does not have to be a member of Homo sapiens sapiens.
And if you accept badly drawn pictures as proof, guess what, I can proof, with an equally bad (if not worse) drawn picture, that whatever deity you can name actually is a bowl of overcooked spaghetti...

I know, my choice of words isn't always the friendliest, but seriously dude... How much did they pay you, so that you just turn off your brain?

"The gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the dead, and so people only go to hell if that's where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won't do if they don't know about it. This explains why it is so important to shoot missionaries on sight."

-- (Terry Pratchett, Eric)

By Tridecanol (not verified) on 19 Oct 2012 #permalink

I read your comment, Mr. Glasner. You are guilty of abusing my brain.

Glasner’s comment gives new impetus to the title of Dawkins’ book, “The God DELUSION”.

I also love that Bob purposefully misread my comment. I specifically said the child abuse wasn't in the message, but the presentation. I mean, an overhead projector and crudely-drawn cartoons of a man standing next to a dinosaur? Really? That's what you're going to hold up against geology, physics, biology, and chemistry?

Mark:

I mean, an overhead projector and crudely-drawn cartoons of a man standing next to a dinosaur? Really? That’s what you’re going to hold up against geology, physics, biology, and chemistry?

Heh. Somebody has to stand up to these experts!

By Mal Adapted (not verified) on 19 Oct 2012 #permalink

I am looking for peer review.

Kindly give me some facts here.

Since you are looking at climate; how accurate is the following?

“If world temperature is driven by carbon dioxide, then, since:
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air is almost insignificant compared to the amount in the oceans;
And, since;
Increasing ocean temperature drives carbon dioxide out of solution and out of the oceans and into the atmosphere;
Then, unless year one Chemistry has missed something:
An increase in global temperature will lead to an increase in global carbon dioxide which will lead to an increase in temperature which will lead to an increase in carbon dioxide which will lead to an increase in temperature which will lead to an increase in carbon dioxide …….. . So, do the climate scientists really believe the earth is totally young, in contradiction to everything we learnt in school? After all, the oceans do not appear to have actually boiled …… . ”

If it has any basis in fact, how can the Earth be more than a few thousand years old?

Change of topic, really, similar topic.

Here are some questions I infrequently ask our furry friends, Ken Hamster, Richard (Dawkins) Rabbit, and, occasionally Whiskery John (Mackay). They gnaw about things. I have personally spoken with the two of Australian origin, and would have been more profitably employed, gnawing an adamant. Question: 'According to Genesis, all plants were made on the third day and were in some real sense alive at that time. According to the same authority, flowering and fruiting vegetation were made to grow during the day of Adam’s creation (six), and from the context, were full grown from scratch on that day. According to GENESIS, all complex life (above plant grade)without exception was created on the fifth day. The same authority demands that aspects of complex life were made or formed of earth on the sixth day. Explain, without contradicting the Bible. “
Here is one I frequently sent to Richard (Dawkins) Rabbit, and likeminded bunnies.
“Ahem, Prof. Dawk.. In the beginning, nothing got together with nothing, they made some gaseous extrusions or exuberances or emanations or whatever, these turned into rock, and in time your publications arose. Nothing you publish originated from intelligence? Your research shows there is zip, zero, zilch intelligence behind any of what you say or write?”
These people rely on each other.

Give with the peer review, thinkers!

By Philip Bruce Heywood (not verified) on 20 Oct 2012 #permalink

Dear Mr. Heywood
You won't find many peers here, with the possible exception of Mr. Glasner. Most people here seem able to recall much of their basic education, and to organize their thoughts in a logical manner.

Until you can write a coherent sentence based on facts, you won't find any peers here

All the best,
Alana

By Alana Fisher (not verified) on 25 Oct 2012 #permalink

Mr Heywood:

I would kindly suggest you review the concept of 'gain' in the context of feedback loops, which I believe will satisfy your inquiry regarding why the positive feedbacks in the Earth climate system do not result in a runaway hothouse.

By Composer99 (not verified) on 25 Oct 2012 #permalink

Thanks. You might like to run a scan over this – result of searching under Feedback Loops. I have some small acquaintance with the geologic record but my geochemistry is limited.
A feedback loop, as I deduce from googling, is a cause-effect scenario which in some circumstances can feed itself. An example is a bank run – actions by a few may lead to panic which feeds the numbers which feeds the run.... but eventually, the numbers must drop off and the run must subside. There can be positive and negative feedback in a loop. From what I read on WIKIPEDIA, (samples below), if the sun is assumed to be a steady supply of heat and the earth is approximated to a normal body capable of absorption and re-emission(‘black body’), then the standard law applicable to such a scenario (Stefan-Boltzmann) theoretically provides for sufficient re-emission to stop a positive feedback loop running to extremes. “Emitted radiation rises with the fourth power of temperature.” That puts a lid on extreme heat. This may explain why we are not like Venus? However, from what I read, (see below), the earth is not a perfect ‘black box’ and the big question as I read it hinges upon the exact mechanisms in place that cause it to vary from a perfect ‘black box’.
My perusal of climate papers suggests there is no unanimity of opinion amongst climate researchers regarding the way to get a fully meaningful mathematical formulation of the earth’s emissive properties. They are unable to practically apply Stefan-Boltzmann without a potential for wide error and this is borne out by varying predictions of future global warming. One paper I have seen predicts, a century from now, two degrees more than do others.
My conclusion, coming from an old-earth creationist perspective, is to ‘trust in God, and keep the powder dry” – do that which is realistic and don’t act as though we are orphans abandoned on a lump of space debris. But I would certainly value any further review of technicalities.
WIKIPEDIA:
Within climate a positive feedback subsystem never acts in isolation, but is always embedded within the overall climate system, which itself is always subject to a very powerful negative feedback, the Stefan–Boltzmann law that emitted radiation rises with the fourth power of temperature. Hence, on earth the gain of the overall system is always less than one, stopping the system from suffering runaway effects. While there may have been periods of time such as the exit from an ice age where the gain was greater than one, this has not lasted long enough for extreme effects such as the evaporation of the oceans as is believed to have happened on Venus
Examples of positive feedback subsystems in climatology include:
A warmer atmosphere will melt ice and this changes the albedo

which further warms the atmosphere.
Methane hydrates can be unstable so that a warming ocean could release more methane, which is also a greenhouse gas.
EXTRACT under Stefan- Boltzmann:
Similarly we can calculate the effective temperature of the Earth TE by equating the energy received from the Sun and the energy radiated by the Earth, under the black-body approximation. The amount of energy, ES, emitted by the Sun is given by:
[complicated formulae]
where TS is the temperature of the Sun, rS the radius of the Sun, and a0 is the distance between the Earth and the Sun. This gives an effective temperature of 6°C on the surface of the Earth, assuming that it perfectly absorbs all emission falling on it and has no atmosphere.
The Earth has an albedo of 0.3, meaning that 30% of the solar radiation that hits the planet gets scattered back into space without absorption. The effect of albedo on temperature can be approximated by assuming that the energy absorbed is multiplied by 0.7, but that the planet still radiates as a black body (the latter by definition of effective temperature, which is what we are calculating). This approximation reduces the temperature by a factor of 0.71/4, giving 255 K (−18 °C).
However, long-wave radiation from the surface of the earth is partially absorbed and re-radiated back down by greenhouse gases, namely water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane Since the emissivity with greenhouse effect (weighted more in the longer wavelengths where the Earth radiates) is reduced more than the absorptivity (weighted more in the shorter wavelengths of the Sun's radiation) is reduced, the equilibrium temperature is higher than the simple black-body calculation estimates. As a result, the Earth's actual average surface temperature is about 288 K (15 °C), which is higher than the 255 K effective temperature, and even higher than the 279 K temperature that a black body would have.

By Philip Bruce Heywood (not verified) on 27 Oct 2012 #permalink

Arr, in a few places above, I wrote, black box, when I should have written, black body.

By Philip Bruce Heywood (not verified) on 31 Oct 2012 #permalink