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"A statement of fact cannot be insolent." The miscellaneous ramblings of a surgeon/scientist on medicine, quackery, science, pseudoscience, history, and pseudohistory (and anything else that interests him)
Orac is the nom de blog of a (not so) humble pseudonymous surgeon/scientist with an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his miscellaneous verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few will. (Continued here, along with a DISCLAIMER that you should read before reading any medical discussions here.)
Orac's old Blog is archived at Archived Insolence.
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Category: Evolution • Humor • Intelligent design/creationism • Religion • Science • Skepticism/critical thinking
Posted on: March 27, 2007 10:01 AM, by Orac
Really, this guy is making that very argument with a straight face!
My brain hurts after seeing such unbelievable stupidity presented as a viable argument by Chuck Missler, the minister who founded the Koinonia House. This makes Dr. Egnor's blather seem intelligent by comparison. It's even more idiotic than the now-infamous video that claimed that the banana disproves atheism and evolution:
(Hat tip to: Stupid Evil Bastard.)
11:27 AM, 07.05.2009
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Comments
Note this observation about the banana by the speaker. "Notice it as a point at the top for ease of entry."
Yeah, buddy, so why don't you take that point and use it to easily enter your...
...what a complete moron. Creationists are just so much fun.
Posted by: Skip Evans | March 27, 2007 10:34 AM
Holy crap. You said it was stupid but.......I mean.......
How would you know?? If there was life in your peanut butter? There's bacteria in there anyway but.......
I'm dumbfounded. Plus they didn't mention anything about evolution! That was abiogenisis. Plus it's not just matter and energy. If it did happen then it would need to be very specific chemical environments that....well........arn't in a jar of peanut butter!
I hate using full stops in writing like this but........Damn!
I mean...........Damn!
Posted by: Josh | March 27, 2007 10:38 AM
Hmm, Maybe we need some war videos, or some videos of kids dying to disprove the theory of God? I mean, the whole industry of evil depends on the non-existence of omnipotent good.
Posted by: Beez | March 27, 2007 11:13 AM
If I'm keeping my kook sites straight (rather hard to do when they are twisty than a corkscrew in a tornado), it was the Kookonia House that was recently "recommended" to me as a "very scientific" site. At the time I checked, the main article was some gibberish about the mitochondrial eve proving Mr Noah's worldwide mass murder-by-deliberate-flooding really happened--that was last year, and my brain still hurts...
Posted by: blf | March 27, 2007 11:14 AM
If these are such obvious refutations of abiogenesis/evolution, why do they think biologists have not noticed or are keeping quiet about them? Do they really think a conspiracy that involves hundreds of thousands of individuals, trained to think for themselves, is remotely possible? A conspiracy, moreover, that includes people like Richard Dawkins yet has managed to convince popes. I cannot begin to imagine what it must be like inside their minds.
Posted by: Richard Simons | March 27, 2007 11:22 AM
Neglecting all of the other flaws in his argument I must ask how on earth I would know if novel organic compounds had formed into simple life in my peanut butter? I'm pretty sure if abiogenisis did occur in my peanut butter I would never know.
Posted by: Jim RL | March 27, 2007 11:34 AM
I'm pretty sure we rediscovered the synthesis of Bakelite in our refrigerator my freshman year of college. I wouldn't be surprised if an RNA world started brewing itself in the back, too.
Posted by: Blake Stacey, OM | March 27, 2007 12:11 PM
Peanut butter and banana sandwiches, mmmmmmm. Add bacon, deepfry, and you account for the Evolution of Elvis. The later, Fat Elvis. The original Elvis was Intelligently Designed. Don't Be Cruel!
Posted by: Jonathan Vos Post | March 27, 2007 12:24 PM
So, what creature did God invent the carrot for? Since man's hand is made only for bananas, then what creature was made to eat the orange, the Brazil nut, the peanut, the cabbage, the turnip, or the pineapple? What creature was made to eat the cod, the crab, and the catfish?
I'm against happy-slapping on principle, but I'll make an exception for these fools.
Posted by: Roy | March 27, 2007 12:31 PM
Jim RL: I'm pretty sure if abiogenisis did occur in my peanut butter I would never know.
HA! I eat novel life forms for breakfast. Or lunch. On bread. Sometimes with grape jelly.
Posted by: gravitybear | March 27, 2007 12:34 PM
I think I actually saw something in that peanut butter...
Posted by: Matt the heathen | March 27, 2007 12:43 PM
To help think about evolution he should consider the size of his very large hands.
On second thoughts he probably knows a popular song that implies God must also have very big hands and use this as further proof of his ideas.
Posted by: monaxle | March 27, 2007 2:35 PM
I wonder if anyone knows what bananas looked like before the horticulturalists started working on them? (Using evolution of course) I bet they had way better seeds.
Posted by: sailor | March 27, 2007 2:37 PM
Sailor: They're full of large seeds and only a bit of flesh. Require a great deal of work to eat. Not at all designed for man's consumption.
Posted by: Adam Cuerden | March 27, 2007 5:47 PM
The Peanut Butter Argument and So-Called Alternative Medicine share the common underlying assumption that the common sense of the common person is all you need to understand everything important. This is because they also share the common underlying assumption that Nature and everything in it was carefully designed for the benefit of the common person. Let your ordinary rational instincts guide you the way they were meant to, and you will all naturally arrive together at a common natural conclusion. Nature was all rationally designed to make rational sense to everyone, and not just favor those elite folks with education.
Anti-intellectualism gussied up as common sense for the common guy will always win by popular appeal.
Posted by: Sastra | March 27, 2007 7:12 PM
I already watched the peanut butter argument at richarddawkins.net and my brain hurts too much to watch it again.
His argument is, quite literally, that abiogenesis should occur when any matter is exposed to any form of energy in any amount-- even heat, which can't be used due to the laws of thermodynamics. (You know, the laws they like to quote as some absurd "evidence" against evolution, which they promptly ignore when they work against them.)
Apparently, he believes that evolution must be false because pre-formed macroscopic animals are not spontaneously popping into existence in a manner shockingly similar to what he believes to be true.
Creationists, it has been said, believe that evolution means watching a donkey turn into an octopus in about four hours in your backyard. This one, however, believes that evolution is identical to the Genesis story, except without God.
*goes to soak brain*
Posted by: Maronan | March 27, 2007 10:29 PM
Sadly, I'll never be able to split a banana and slather the middle with peanut butter ever again. Curse you Orac!
Posted by: epador | March 28, 2007 12:43 AM
Hmm ... you know epador that sounds quite tasty. I must try that some time.
Besides which everyone who reads Terry Pratchett knows that bananas were intelligently designed for Orangutans who, and I must emphaise this, are definitely NOT monkeys.
Posted by: James | March 28, 2007 1:14 AM
The banana is actually evidence God supports women's use of sex toys.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | March 28, 2007 5:13 AM
Those videos are spoofs ar'n't they? They're not real! They're sends ups, sketches from a comedy show, I mean they can't be real, can they?
Posted by: Thony C. | March 28, 2007 5:30 AM
Sastra said: "The Peanut Butter Argument and So-Called Alternative Medicine share the common underlying assumption that the common sense of the common person is all you need to understand everything important."
The common person ought to have sense enough to know that folks who've spent years learning about a thing, whether it's auto repair or the development of life on Earth, may know more about it than you're able to figure out on your own in a couple of minutes. Unfortunately, that sort of "common sense" is all too rare. Lack of knowledge about *anything* is right up there with being bad at golf on the list of things no male American wants to admit to.
The smartest folks I know are the ones who understand how infinitely much they have left to learn.
Posted by: Jud | March 28, 2007 7:26 AM
Apes, sir, not the m-word. Never the m-word.
Posted by: blf | March 28, 2007 9:14 AM
All those billions of jars of peanut butter opened, and not one specially created (or designed) new life form has ever been found inside one. He's unwittingly disproved Creationism.
Posted by: Mustafa Mond, FCD | March 28, 2007 2:04 PM
Anyone else notice that he's an Engineer? Isn't there some 'law' statement about creationism and engineers?
Posted by: Stephen | March 29, 2007 2:44 PM