Skip vs. The Creationists

Posted by jrosenhouse on July 26, 2010
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If you are in the mood for a little light reading, have a look at this account of Skip Evans, formerly of the National Center for Science Education, conversing with some of the local creationists in Madison, WI.

It’s almost a shame that an apparently sincere and pretty decent guy like Kevin has fallen into the Answers in Genesis trap. He’s been gullible enough to hitch his theological wagon to the complete and utter stupidity that is young earth creationism. He’s been duped into believing, along with denying a staggering amount of legitimate science, that if all the animals alive today didn’t descend from a handful floating around on a boat for a year and being brushed, fed and shit-shoveled by an old man and his family then there’s no god, no heaven, no salvation and probably no good cheese steak left in Philly.

That’s just a taste. Go read the rest!

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  1. #1 Owlmirror
    July 26, 2010

    I can actually clarify one of the points that baffled Skip — the nonsense that dinosaurs were killed “for medicinal purposes” can be clarified and put in the proper context if you realize that the Creationists are garbling and distorting (as usual) a folk understanding of very real fossils. Of course, in no case was the “dragon” an actual (non-avian) dinosaur killed by humans.

    The paragraph on the poster references Chinese using “dragon” bones. Well, the Chinese called any fossil bones that turned up in their fields “dragon bones”, even if they were of a species of animal that was obviously similar to one that still lived. Pliocene and Pleistocene deer fossils, for example, might be the reason that some Chinese dragons are portrayed as having antlers.

    Ref: The first fossil hunters, by Adrienne Mayor, pg 39

    Now, the reason that these bones were/are considered “medicine” might be (and probably is) just basic superstition.

    However, another point that she mentions (about the First Nations of the Americas also using fossil bone as medicine), is that some bones are very absorbent, and might be used to drain an infected wound. Of course, attributing anything more to this affect, assuming that’s why they were considered medicine in the first place, no doubt was indeed just superstition. But it makes more sense given that context.

    Ref: Fossil legends of the first Americans
    By Adrienne Mayor, pg 196

    Ref: Ibid, pg 198

    Huh. I just looked at the notes for the latter (pg 380 in the book), and one of the people she thanks for information about the hydroscopic effect of mineralized bone… is David Marjanovic. Why does that name sound so familiar…. ??

  2. #2 Mr. Majestic
    July 26, 2010

    I hate to break the news but the darwinian religion is a myth. Darwin was nothing more than a bored old man with nothing better to do than rant and rave about little of nothing. Evolution is a myth. Otherwise some of them there fossils would have proven it to be a fact. Where are the trillions of transitional fossils that should be lying everywhere? There aren’t any! If there are any “transistional” fossils I would sure liek to see one. Good luck proving your myth. I will, however, admit than believing everything invented itself from nothing and evolved into a super complex universe all by itself, is still more believable than the whole global warming scam. They should renameit the World Depopulation/ Socialist Empire Takeover Movement. At leadt more people would believe it that way.

  3. #3 Siamang
    July 26, 2010

    Wow. Nut. Ball.

  4. #4 Dinosaur Teacher
    July 26, 2010

    ” Where are the trillions of transitional fossils that should be lying everywhere? There aren’t any!”

    Ambulocetus
    Pakicetus
    Georgiacetus
    Darwinia P.
    Archeaopteryx
    Australopithecus
    Eohippus
    Tiktaalik

  5. #5 Rhetoreek
    July 26, 2010

    Don’t feed the trolls!

  6. #6 Tyler DiPietro
    July 26, 2010

    “Otherwise some of them there fossils would have proven it to be a fact. Where are the trillions of transitional fossils that should be lying everywhere?”

    Not sure if serious.

  7. #7 Brad Thiessen
    July 27, 2010

    I call Poe’s Law on Mr. Majestic’s comment.

  8. #8 Skip
    July 27, 2010

    Re; Poe’s Law, a couple of guys talking to Larry and Kevin the Creationists decided they were sociology professors doing an experiment to see how people reacted to complete nonsense presented as fact.

  9. #9 peter
    July 27, 2010

    I will pray for you all.

  10. #10 mousedude
    July 27, 2010

    Did anyone else get an ad for some creationist magazine website under this post? Good news magazine or something?

    I’ve been noticing these sorts of ads a lot on any posts discussing evolution.

  11. #11 Science Avenger
    July 27, 2010

    Thanks Mr. Majestic, for linking global warming and evolution. It helps in the political arena to keep in mind that the groups denying these sciences greatly overlap.

  12. #12 Craig McQueen
    July 27, 2010

    That’s a scientist’s contribution to the topic?

    It rates fairly highly on the emotively loaded language scale, but doesn’t contain much useful content.

  13. #13 Mr. Majestic
    July 27, 2010

    Archeaopteryx? Are your kidding? This is your prized “transitional” fossil? A dead bird with claws on its wings? HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAA! This is classic! It’s just another species of bird for crying out loud.

    And Yes I do get Good News magazine.

    When you come up with a real example of a transitional fossil, let me know. Maybe a bird with a lizard tail? A monkey with the face of a human (congressmen and the president doesn’t count) Maybe a fish with hair. Or maybe a turtle with feathers? get me a real good one. The ones you named are just extinct relatives of modern animals – other species of already existing animals. I guess the next thing you will tell me is that humans evolved from ape-like creatures? Well, I guess that explains uncivilized/socialist monkey business in Washington anyway.

    Humans are different than apes in so many ways – the most important being that we have a sould and are accountable to our creator. I guess “transitional” fossils aren’t so lucky eh?

    Thanks for the laugh. I needed it.

  14. #14 Owlmirror
    July 27, 2010

    I’m still waiting for Creationists to come up with a human that’s half made of dirt. Oh, and a talking snake. And that magic tree! Where’s that magic tree, creobots?

  15. #15 Mr. Majestic
    July 27, 2010

    The “magic tree” was destroyed in Noah’s flood. I though you would be more literate, Darwiniobot. Half, man half dirt? well, when people die and are buried, that does kind of happen. Talking snake? Well, you know snales used to have legs, until Satan took over and God took away the serpent’s legs. Now they crawl on the ground.

    oops. I sorry. I forgot, you don’t read. And, there was this one talking donkey …
    No I am not talking about your president in Washngton.

    Parrots can’t talk either can they?

  16. #16 Owlmirror
    July 27, 2010

    Oh, that’s very funny. You fix questions about your made-up tree with a made-up flood! Man, you have nothing but stupid excuses for your blithering nonsense.

    So, you’re saying that your made-up Adam was a dead man? Right, so a woman made from a dead man’s rib ate a fruit from a magic tree that very conveniently disappeared in a magic flood.

    Who cares about whether snakes had legs or not? That isn’t even what I asked for, you illiterate moron! Show me a real live talking snake. Legs are optional.

    Oh, and if you butcher a parrot to make it look like a snake, it doesn’t count. And I will sic PETA and the ASPCA on your sociopathic ass.

  17. #17 Mr. majestic
    July 27, 2010

    The flood was real.

    PETA? Get real. I do not pay attention to fascist freaks like PETA. They better stay away from or I’ll sick my dog on them. Peta is a terrorist organization just like the freaks at ELF. PETA constantly harrases people and so do the nuts at ELF and other fascist terror organizations. Treehuggers? Ever seen a treehugger tied theirself to a tree to keep it from being cut down? They better be glad I’m not the man with the saw. Tied to the tree or not, it’s coming down. Move or be squashed.

    Oh, by the way most of the terrain including the seven continents that drifted apart are a result of you so called “non-existant” flood. Peta that.

    Adam was alive when the rib was taken, or didn’t you comprehend that part? he wasn’t dead until over 900 years later. That’s right people lived longer when the canopy existed. I bet fascist population control freaks are glad the canopy disappeared. I bet you libs would hate to see conservatives having kids for over 600 years of our life eh? Oh well, we still outnumber you. You just have a bigger mouth than we do and a more violent way of getting what to want – control, fascism, socialism, communism, etc. It’s all going to burn when Christ comes back and destroys it anyway, so what do I care? Seek PETA on me. I have loyal bodygaurds by the name of Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson and Mr. Taurus, and Mr. Rossi, and so on. Self defense against insane violent nuts like PETA is not illegal. I will not have those thugs protesting me. I can clear them from my yard in less than 3 seconds. Ever heard of Grizzly Bear strength pepper spray? A good cloud of that stuff will clear a protest real quick. It it don’t, flying 12 guage buckshot will.

    You can protest all you want, but keep it away from me and my property. My toleration of that crap lasts approximately 10 seconds. After that I turn into a talking Dragon and eat them. What I don’t eat, I poop on. Keep your PETA blowholes where they belong.

    Oh, by the way if you call PETA on me I will call the fascist EPA and have PETA given a citation for un-necessary CO2 mouth pollution – after they finish running from my pet talking rhino. Give up owl man. You shall not win this round.

  18. #18 Wowbagger
    July 27, 2010

    Have we got ourselves a real, live delugionist? Damn. Say, Mr Majestic, how do you feel about Catholics?

  19. #19 NJ
    July 27, 2010

    Poe. Definitely Poe.

  20. #20 Miles
    July 27, 2010

    The only reason I think Mr. majestic is a troll is that surely creationists have learned not to mess with Scienceblogs by now. Otherwise I could easily believe it. Sad.

  21. #21 Mr. Majestic
    July 27, 2010

    I do not know many catholics. Most people here are Southern baptist or Methodist. I know one Mormon.

  22. #22 wayne
    July 28, 2010

    Majestic is the kind who swears there aint no heaven, but prays there aint no hell

  23. #23 wayne
    July 28, 2010

    I believe in creation, 100 %. And can back it up in this science blog. Right now im making home made pizza dough and im starving so i dont have the energy to go into detail. So, evolutionist, you believe a molecule of DNA accidently formed in some water somewhere. Tell me, you big scientific thinkers, how long would this molecule be if you stretched it out?

  24. #24 Owlmirror
    July 28, 2010

    LOL.

    I broke his tiny little creobot brain with the power of PETA!

    Watch out, creobot, I’ve got black helicopters and fascist One World Government Illuminati Trilateral spooks who will laugh at your piddling little “armament” and who will slash your credit rating, put you on America’s Most Wanted list, kidnap you, drug you, probe your tender orifices, and implant a brain chip and a spy beacon, and generally ruin your life — just for kicks!

    Meanwhile, all you have is a half-dirt man who is dead and not-dead at the same time — obviously, a zombie-golem — that you can’t even show me, and now a magic canopy that you can’t show me either, which turned the half-dirt golem into a zombie in the first place, followed by a magic flood that you definitely can’t show me, and magical fire from a magic man that you can’t show me either.

    And a magic talking rhino. Obviously the fascist One World Government Illuminati Trilateral spooks have already started with drugging you. Are your tender orifices particularly sore? Do you have strange headaches? Do you hear voices?

  25. #25 Snoof
    July 28, 2010

    So, evolutionist, you believe a molecule of DNA accidently formed in some water somewhere.

    First: Calling someone an “evolutionist” is somewhere between ignorant and stupid. Evolution isn’t a religion, it isn’t a philosophy and it’s certainly not a political system. It’s a set of observations and an underlying theory with explanatory and predictive power. You might as well call me a “relativityist” or “ionist” or “germist”, since I also subscribe to General Relativity, Ionic Theory and the Germ Theory of Disease.

    Second: the _origins_ of life is a matter of abiogenesis, not evolution, although the moment life does exist, evolution applies.

    Third: and it wasn’t DNA. It wasn’t RNA, either. It was probably (and I say probably because there’s half a dozen competing hypotheses, none of which violate the laws of physics or chemistry as we understand them, unlike spontaneous creation) a very simple protein which self-assembled from amino acids and was able to catalyze processes other assembly processes such that it was effectively a replicator. None of this is hard – amino acids turn up all the time in all kinds of chemical environments, and proteins routinely self-assemble from amino acids.

  26. #26 SLC
    July 28, 2010

    Re Owlmirror @ #24

    Hey, don’t forget the Bilderbergers, the Masons, and the Zionists.

  27. #27 Ray Ingles
    July 28, 2010

    Mr. Majestic – What’s the point of pretending to be stupid? Putting a lot of effort into it? Stupid people can do it effortlessly. It’s like trying to be “world’s greatest stumbler” or something.

    Is it that you don’t think you can make a positive contribution to a conversation?

  28. #28 Mikey
    July 28, 2010

    I use to see quite a few enthusiastic people in my school commanding people to follow them or be an eternal sinner. It was quite annoying. I guess that’s how a lot of people at the farmer’s market felt (annoyed)…

  29. #29 Mr. Majestic
    July 28, 2010

    we see evolution as a religion. So, we will continue to call you evolutionists or darwinists.

    One Wolrd Government. I think George Soros, van Jones, Cass Sunstein, and others often wish for a one world government. At least that’s what they claim they want anyway. We all know they just want socialism spread worldwide. Socialism is misery spread equally. All the elite evil men like these mentioned all want marxism. We are the resistance movement. We will destroy marxist socialism one day. When Christ returns with His immortal army and wipes out marxist from the world, we can then get back to normal. I hope he gives me a sword and I get a wack at some of these evil theives.

  30. #30 Wowbagger
    July 28, 2010

    Mr Majestic wrote:

    we see evolution as a religion. So, we will continue to call you evolutionists or darwinists.

    If you call a dog’s tail a leg, how many legs does it have?

  31. #31 Owlmirror
    July 28, 2010

    Wotta maroon.

    So now you have a magic army you can’t show me to go with the magic man you can’t show me, who is going to give you a magic sword you can’t show me… to kill real, live people with.

    Man, the Reptiloid Conspiracy must have spiked your water with the bad psychosis-inducing drugs, and you’ll probably end up on the nightly news for massacring a school-yard full of kids.

      Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

  32. #32 Tyler DiPietro
    July 28, 2010

    Still not sure if serious.

  33. #33 Catrina
    July 29, 2010

    The good thing about Property Magazines is that they show you the essence of being wise in investing in profitable properties.

  34. #34 Mr. Majestic
    July 29, 2010

    It’s almost a shame that an apparently sincere and pretty decent part of humanity has fallen into the evolution trap. They have been gullible enough to hitch this marxist satanic wagon to the complete and utter stupidity that is sociopathic darwinism. They have been duped into believing, along with denying a staggering amount of legitimate science of creation. All the animals alive today did descend from thousands of KINDS floating around on a massive boat for over a year and being brushed, fed and taken care of by God’s hand picked environmentalist and his family. There’s no evolution, no sanity and probably no good normal people in the world.

  35. #35 Owlmirror
    July 29, 2010

    The writing is the writing of a creobot, but the voice is the voice of … a FAKE.

    I can just see the Onion article:

    “Performance artist pretends to be a Creationist troll for the lulz.”

    “I’m actually studying for a evolutionary biology degree, but after reading Answers in Genesis, and FSTDT, I couldn’t stop laughing. Then I saw how much attention Creationists received when they demonstrated their profound ignorance and religious fanaticism on evolutionary biology blogs, and that was funny too. Since I’m a complete attention whore, I decided to pretend to be a Creationist on those same evolutionary biology blogs. Being deliberately stupid and getting reactions is funny!”

  36. #36 Mr. majestic
    July 30, 2010

    How silly. How can you get a degree in a subject that does not exist?

    I see how much attention evolutionists received when they demonstrated their profound ignorance and anti-religious fanaticism in everyday life, and that was dangerous. Since I’m a complete attention person, I decided to pretend to be a evilutionist and try it out a while. It sucked. Being deliberately stupid and getting reactions is fun though.

  37. #37 Tyler DiPietro
    July 30, 2010

    “Being deliberately stupid and getting reactions is fun though.”

    Well played, sir.

  38. #38 Wowbagger
    July 30, 2010

    Mr Poejestic wrote:

    How silly. How can you get a degree in a subject that does not exist?

    Ask a theologian.

  39. #39 Owlmirror
    July 31, 2010

    Since I’m a complete attention person Whore of Babylon

    Fixed.

    I decided to pretend to be a evilutionist FAKE

    Fixed.

    “Mr Poejestic” — heh — needs to have a battle/intimate encounter with Floyd Rubber.

  40. #40 tütüne son
    August 2, 2010

    I use to see quite a few enthusiastic people in my school commanding people to follow them or be an eternal sinner. It was quite annoying. I guess that’s how a lot of people at the farmer’s market felt (annoyed)…

  41. #41 rob
    August 3, 2010

    i love how creationists deny science but use the tools they use to spread their fucking lies have been created by human ingenuity and the use of the scientific method.

  42. #42 eric
    August 3, 2010

    It’s almost a shame that an apparently sincere and pretty decent part of humanity has fallen into the evolution trap. They have been gullible enough to hitch this marxist satanic wagon to the complete and utter stupidity that is sociopathic darwinism.

    Trying to parse these two sentences, you seem to be saying that the marxist satanic wagon was originally sincere and pretty decent. Until, that is, it was hooked to sociopathic darwinism.

    Do you long for the days when we can return to a purer, non-darwinian marxist satanism? Or were you just making word salad?

    Why do so many creationist rants sound like a conspiracy theorist using Mad Libs?

  43. #43 Modusoperandi
    August 3, 2010

    Mr. Majestic “Treehuggers? Ever seen a treehugger tied theirself to a tree to keep it from being cut down? They better be glad I’m not the man with the saw. Tied to the tree or not, it’s coming down. Move or be squashed.”
    Which Gospel is that from?

    “That’s right people lived longer when the canopy existed.”
    The “Vapor Canopy theory”? That’s still around? Does it still posit an atmosphere so magically full of water that the resulting pressure would make the surface of the Earth much like the surface of Venus?

    “I bet you libs would hate to see conservatives having kids for over 600 years of our life eh?”
    If you’re representative of type, not really. Somebody has to work the McDonald’s drive-thru.

    “You just have a bigger mouth than we do and a more violent way of getting what to want – control, fascism, socialism, communism, etc.”
    I can’t speak for all of “us”, but we use protest, analysis/criticism and democracy. Oh, and facts.
    …
    Pick up a copy of Your Inner Fish, for starters. Then, in the very least, you’ll know a little about what you’re arguing against.

    “I think George Soros, van Jones, Cass Sunstein, and others often wish for a one world government.”
    Did you ever notice how the only rich people the Right (and, within them, the Christian Right) hates (like Soros) are the ones who aren’t greedy, immoral douches?
    Did you ever notice how the only groups the Right (and, within them, the Christian Right) hates (like ACORN) are the ones that help poor people? (And extra bile is reserved for those that are either lead by or help brown people)

    “Socialism is misery spread equally.”
    Then you’d better get the heck off those socialist public roads! When your house is on fire, don’t call the Fire Department! And, for God’s sake, turn off that tap! That water is pure SOCIALISM!!!

    “It’s almost a shame that an apparently sincere and pretty decent part of humanity has fallen into the evolution trap.”
    No. What’s a real shame is that a significant part of the population decided to ignore everything after Charles Lyell.

    peter “I will pray for you all.”
    I would prefer that you put a coaster under that mug. And be a dear and make me a sandwich.

    wayne “Right now im making home made pizza dough and im starving so i dont have the energy to go into detail.”
    You’re making foreign food?! And you call yourself an American!

    “…Trilateral spooks…”
    Pah! I was involved with them back when they were Bilateral. My pappy, in fact, started their ancestor, The Lateral Commission.