Mike the Mad Biologist

Yes, they are, and they unfortunately voted for President and sit on school boards...

Posted by: J-Dog | March 30, 2007 3:33 PM

On the other hand, this clip proves evolution. Because not all Creationist talking heads can get attention and money from the fundamentalist base, they are in a "struggle for subsistence". Those who are more simpleminded, idiotic, obsequious of fundamentalism and disparaging of science than their colleagues will survive. Dumb ideas must be continually adapted to an increasingly irrational environment; differential illogical success rewards the most nonsensical ideas. "Peanut butter disproves evolution" is a transitional absurdity between "bananas are proof of design" and the next even more ludicrous sound bite that this hominid sub-species will think of.

Posted by: Ex-drone | March 30, 2007 6:03 PM

You know, maybe they do find new life periodically, it's just very small and they eat it unknowingly...

Posted by: Dave | March 30, 2007 6:52 PM

This is typical "if I havent seen it, it must not be true" kinda of hypocritical speak that fundies love so much. My question, is how many times have you opened a jar of peanut butter and scientifically examined it for new life? Life starts on a microscopic level.. so his statement is really absurd, just on many levels...

On another note, those Fundies sure do make me hungry.. this guy with his peanut butter, roy comfort with his banana... mmmm peanut butter and banana....

Posted by: el soupy | March 30, 2007 6:55 PM

Anyone who has never found God inside a jar of peanut butter has clearly never had a peanut butter and 'shroom sandwich...

Posted by: Breklor | March 30, 2007 7:00 PM

You have to understand that the people spouting this nonsense don't actually believe it themselves, but they want the stupid morons of the world to vote republican and not care about invasions of other countries for their resources. It's all about thought control.

Posted by: Dan | March 30, 2007 7:26 PM

thanks for the link, mike!

i want to say, i've often thought something similar to what ex-drone said:

ideas must be continually adapted to an increasingly irrational environment; differential illogical success rewards the most nonsensical ideas.

i find it highly ironic (and rewarding) that the anti-evolutions had to evolve their approach to disproving evolution, as in the creation of the discovery institute, and in the "teach the controversy" agenda, instead of teach the gospels.

ignorance must evolve!

Posted by: skippy | March 30, 2007 8:01 PM

Video aside, could you guys point me in the direction of some real proof of abiogenesis?

There must be proof ,otherwise you are just 'fundies' too.

Posted by: DM | March 30, 2007 8:48 PM

How are we fundies if theres no direct proof for it? We're not saying it 100% did happen, we're saying that this is the best theory we have about what happened. There have been numerous experiments which have shown that abiogenesis is plausible given enough time.

Posted by: SS | March 30, 2007 9:03 PM

Wow, that is one amazing string of non sequiturs! (Nice ant, by the way!)

Of course, any video that opens with a quote from Duane Gish is suspect from the beginning.

Posted by: Julie Stahlhut | March 30, 2007 9:22 PM

If "GOD" is light, as the mystics and prophets claim, then both creationists and evolutionists are partly wrong, partly right. Both seem, at the present, mired in their ideologies.

Posted by: lucifer | March 30, 2007 10:16 PM

Oooo! Oooo! I know! I sneezed, therefore god made me.

But while we're free associating, if grape juice and a wafer can transubstanciate by being asked to, why not everything we eat? I could be eating jesus right now.

Do you think god likes Thai? Is it soylent green, if god is involved, or just holy soylent?

Posted by: the_leper | March 30, 2007 10:47 PM

Show some somw respect!

Those peanuts died for your sins!

Posted by: Mobius loops breakfast cereal | March 30, 2007 11:12 PM

making fun of creationists doesn't give evolution any proof or credibility, yknow?

That's what science is for.

Posted by: Patrick | March 31, 2007 12:02 AM

Great... he HAD to be an engineer!! Thanks buddy...

Posted by: uskimaaki | March 31, 2007 12:13 AM

I guess that "banana as proof of intelligent design" video also proves that god doesn't want us to eat pineapples, or oysters, or artichokes, or...

Posted by: Woody | March 31, 2007 12:34 AM

It would have been great if he opened the peanut butter and those fake coiled spring snakes popped out.

You know, I think I could have lived with them being proved correct if some horrible nut mutant had leaped out of that jar and eaten the guy's face.

Posted by: dan mcenroe | March 31, 2007 1:18 AM

As always, Stephen "MC" Hawking has the final words:

Creationists always try to use the second law,
to disprove evolution, but their theory has a flaw.
The second law is quite precise about where it applies,
only in a closed system must the entropy count rise.
The earth's not a closed system' it's powered by the sun,
so f*** the damn creationists, Doomsday get my gun!

("Entropy" MC Hawking, DJ Doomsday.)

Posted by: Chris Tucker | March 31, 2007 1:23 AM

Hey, don't knock this guy. That may be a pretty poor disproof of abiogenesis, but it's not a bad disproof of spontaneous generation. On that basis, what you've got there is a creationist at the cutting edge of 19th century science! Which is quite good when you consider he's got their by reason alone, without reference to the body of knowledge available to scientists.

Posted by: Gareth | March 31, 2007 3:40 AM

Hm. Lots of funny comments about this one. But there is an interesting point. According to evolution, some special ooze was somehow stimulated to form the forst lifeforms. Did evolution say "OK, now that there's life, all I will do is mold it and change it, I don't need to start from scratch any more?" Supposedly, there is a fossil record that shows evolution, but is there a record of evolution beginning again, occasionally? If it happened once, and it's all up to chance, then it should happen again, right?

Posted by: Jolly Roger | March 31, 2007 8:06 AM

This is completely irrelevant to evolution because evolution only seeks to explain the diversity of life. The creation of life, according to evolution, absolutely may have been up to who set up a D.N.A. template. But the experimentally believable theory (remember, a theory is a collection of facts connected by one overall idea) is abiogenesis.

No one here answered the abiogenesis question yet, which is a valid question. The Miller-Urey experiment asked this question, and came up with the idea, that if we took early-Earth conditions, then something that resembles life should form. The experiment resulted in a 10% yield of organic compounds, including 13 of the 22 amino acids which are absolutely crucial for the proteins which do life's work, enzymes which take stable molecules and get energy from them, and D.N.A. which is the very basis for life's replication. An interesting side note, studies of the oldest parts of our D.N.A. are mostly composed of only the amino acids available in primordial conditions.

So what are the chances of this happening? Pretty great considering this was happening all over Earth, constantly, for a few million years at the least. What these experiments, and evolution, don't make the assumption of, is that all this only happened once. Most nucleotides formed would have been destroyed, but we do know at least a few of them survived to make life. It is interesting to note that in further experiments, it was assumed that actual ocean conditions would have destroyed the nucleotide chains, but when the experiment was performed on clay, nucleotides of about 50 chains of amino acids have been formed.

Now why doesn't life grow in your peanut butter? Because its chemically stable. If it is satisfied in its current state, then there won't be any spontaneous reactions. If it was chemically unstable, then you would see a change no matter what, whether it produced life or not, but because our peanut butter is always the same, it is unsuitable for making life. What would prove god though, is if there was life in the peanut butter when I opened it...

Now the reason life can live on peanut butter, but not form from it, is because we already have enzymes. Molecules take a certain amount of energy in them before they will react, which is what cooking does. Enzymes create a specific area where a molecule will be reactive at normal temperature by changing things like pH, polarity, among others. This allows your body to store molecules which won't react until needed.

Posted by: David | March 31, 2007 9:02 AM

Holy Crap, you won't imagine what I just found in my peanut butter!

Posted by: Rob | March 31, 2007 10:36 AM

Evolution doesnt deal much with the creation of life. I think biochemistry is a better scientific field to study that.

And just the mere presence of matter and energy doesnt mean life will arise from nonliving matter. You need the right chemicals and the right conditions.

Posted by: vince | March 31, 2007 11:46 AM

Using similar logic, we can now prove once and for all that God exists scientifically.

We buy a number of peanut butter jars and divide them in half. The first half we put is a warehouse as a control and the rest we give to various religions to perform their rituals asking God to bring forth new life.

If new life appears that doesn't conform to our current understanding of life on earth, then we know God exists.

If the new life appears in a jar for single religion then we know that that is the one true religion and we should convert with out delay.

If other hand if no new life appears in any of the jars then we know that God doesn't exists.

But, If new life appears in a control jar then we know that God exists, but religion doesn't matter.

Posted by: James | March 31, 2007 12:13 PM

Seems to me like this invites a whole sub-industry of peanut butter jars with leeeeetle tiny plastic babies inside.

It could be especially cool if there was a small microchip imbedded that said: CLOSE THE JAR!! CLOSE THE JAR!!!

Posted by: Mighty Rex | March 31, 2007 12:51 PM

A jar of peanutbutter does not contain enough of a variety of elements to create life. (By elements I mean molecules of different elements in the periodic table).

The simplest one-celled organism on this planet, according to a staunch creationist, only has 300 or so lines of DNA. He compares it to a computer program and says that computer programs do not program themselves.

However, consider the argument - a million monkeys on a million typewriters will eventually write a novel. If you agree that this statement is true, you must also agree that, over millions of years on the earths surface, over millions of pools of water, eventually, elements would combine in such a way as to form the first single-cell organism. After all, 300 lines of "code" is a hell of a lot easier to randomly get randomly than an entire novel.

So I find it entirely plausible that life could be, and perhaps is still, being created randomly on Earth. But if life were created randomly today, it would again be an extremely simple single-celled organism. This would make it extremely difficult to detect to the naked eye. And as these cells would be very simple, they would be very likely immediately destroyed by the more advanced neighboring single-celled organisms and become that organisms lunch.

This is why, to date, scientists have been unable to create life in a laboratory - because it would take millions of experiments over millions of years for such an experiment to actually suceed. By the time the experiment would suceed, the researchers childrens childrens childrens (etc) would have to have died from old age. But the argument that the fact that we have not yet been able to create life in an experiment can not disprove that life was not created by random chance... in the same way that we can not prove that God created everything can not disprove that he does not exist.

Posted by: Loren J. Fisher | March 31, 2007 1:55 PM

parachutegirl:

Trying to view all theories as equal would quickly lead to insanity, if you followed this thinking to its logical conclusion. Many theories are mutually contradictory, and it would be difficult to think at all without some structure to the thinking.

The problems that people have with the video are manifold.

For starters, it is confusing abiogenesis with evolution. Evolution is the theory that populations of living organisms change over time. It is at this point indisputable to anybody who knows the first thing about biology. We can witness evolution happening for starters.

The second problem is that, having conflated abiogenesis with evolution, this man demands that abiogenesis happen under the conditions that he proscribes, during the time period he allows for it to happen. Well over fifty years ago it was demonstrated that complex organic molecules could spontaneously form in an atmopshere similar to what was believed to be the atmosphere of the Earth.

How can I phrase my criticism of this peanut butter jar correctly? Well, suppose you took 100 men and kept them in an isolated environment for 5 years. At the end of that period, you observed that none of the men had been pregnant. Would it be reasonable to conclude that human beings didn't give birth to babies, and that instead babies were delivered by storks?

That's about the level of logic we're dealing with in the video. The speaker is inventing a hypothesis of how an event should happen, demonstrating that his own hypothesis is not valid, and then substituting instead his own magical hypothesis.

It's utterly silly from a scientific perspective.

From my standpoint, I just wish people would stop conflating questions about evolution with questions about common descent and/or questions about the origin of life. That evolution has happened during history and that distinct species living today have shared ancestors in the past are both theories that are indisputable in the field of science.

Posted by: RickD | March 31, 2007 2:55 PM

Parachute girl says

I think it's important to constantly challenge and question ideas and theories believed by majority rather than blindly accepting what 'experts' think is the truth.

not so long ago, the brightest and most respected minds thought the Earth was flat supported by turtles and elephants.

I don't understand why people get so pi**ed when someone questions the evolution theory.

Posted by: Richard Simons | March 31, 2007 4:09 PM

Sturgeon's Law ("95% of everything is crap") applies here. I think probably the Fundies are 95% right: 95% of the population never evolved beyond the simian stage; Fundies somewhat lower). (And by saying this I am not being either anti- or pro-simian.) See the film "Idiocracy" for the logical conclusion to the current state of Amurikan Edukation.

Posted by: Eklektech | March 31, 2007 4:39 PM

I am an independent researcher/scholar of science. I would like to offer a few comments:

1] 'abiogenesis' is a term rarely used in modern biology. 'Spontaneous self-organization' (of molecules, for example) is more appropriate and accurate.

2] regarding the Miller / Urey experiments conducted in the 1950's....using a mixture of methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3) and water (H2O), and applying an elctrical discharge to the mixture, the researchers found that a percentage of the base molecules had 'spontaneously self-orgnized' into an amino acid (adenine; an important precursor molecule). However, these amino acids did NOT spontaneously link up (to form primitive polypeptide chains, e.g.) or replicate. i.e., they were 'inactive' isolates.

So, these experiments were able to prove 'self-organization' of 'complex' molecules, but not 'bio-genesis'. What was lacking in these experiments was a true/accurate mixture of basic elements (inclusive of sulphur, phosphorus, magnesum, iron, etc.), and, probably, a continuous energy flow (source to sink). Also, it would seem that ENZYMES would be necessary to catalyze a complex (large molecule) reaction scheme (a subject/field of contemporary research).

Also, without a MEMBRANE (a closed, lipid, amphiphillic bi-layer barrier aginst diffusion) to offer 'safe harbor' for any self-replicating molecules (probably an RNA polymerase-like molecule), such molecules would be destroyed (succumbed to entropic forces) or prevented from interacting sufficiently, etc.

An earlier poster referred to clay crystals providing the necessary environment...this is a reference to the Cairns-Smith hypothesis, which does offer an important clue to an 'inorganic', structural matrix (i.e., replication 'machinery') that could provide the template for replicating molecules, but is still incomplete in terms of the integration of structural components and the origin of enzymatic processes.

Now, it has been shown experimentally that hydro-carbon (oily) bubbles will spontaneously form on the surfaces of certain liquid environments (possessing hydro-carbon 'slicks' or residues). So then, we have evidence that SOME of the key, structural ingredients for life can spontaneously arise (via some fundamental 'chemo-geometry', if you will)...it only needs to be shown that these components can link up with each other, and then, given the correct (early earth-like) chemical mixture and energy flow/source, form a 'living' cell (capable of autopoiesis).

"Sensitive dependence upon initial conditions"


Given the astounding complexity of a single cell--and the odds against such a complex thing 'spontaneously' emerging (as a complete structure)-- we can only propose that a complex, self-replicating structure (being a product of both its constituent chemical properties and environmental conditions), can only arise in steps, or through transitional stages of development. At some point in this development, a form could emerge that kicks (self-catalizes) the whole process into 'over-drive' (such as a 'dissipative structure', i.e., a 'higher order re-organization' ala Prigogine) and bio-genesis hence afterwards becomes both practical and necessary.


Science is an active, knowledge-seeking endeavor. Religion is a static, 'received' truth system.


One interesting historical note: in Darwin's time, much of the religious opposition to evolution was not focused on the 'monkey ancestry' issue, nor even on the putative ancientness of the earth, but on Darwin's claim that new species can arise (implying that God's creation was incomplete), and that some spieces go extinct (implying that God's creation was imperfect). Embarking on his famous voyage on the HMS Beagle, Darwin took two books with him: Lyel's Principles of Geology, and the Bible.

MRikoman

Posted by: mikos rikoman | March 31, 2007 4:46 PM

Dosent the theory of evolution also state that it takes time. I highly doubt that the 5 seconds that peanut butter jar was open qualifies as enough time for evolution to occur

Posted by: remix | March 31, 2007 4:49 PM

Randy you might want to do some fact checking before quoting your sunday school teacher.

Posted by: Charles | March 31, 2007 4:54 PM

If you look closely it looks like the peanut butter jar has been previously opened and the seal lifted a bit. Perhaps the new life was allowed to escape before this was filmed...

I can just imagine him before they rolled film, opening the jar, lifting part of the seal, and peeking underneath just to make sure that no new life was inside.

Posted by: jared | March 31, 2007 5:06 PM

We're doomed. If the muslims don't kill us all the christians will.

Posted by: Tom Boucher | March 31, 2007 5:11 PM

The Anti-Christ has no chance of fooling people that smart!

Posted by: George | March 31, 2007 5:17 PM

I recently bought a sealed jar containing grated parmesan cheese. When I got it home and opened it I found inside a huge green colored ball of what appeared to be mold. It never occurred to me to question how the mold got in the jar. I was just pissed off that I got screwed again! Duh, if you think the video clip was stupid, I can't believe that I threw away the proof to the theory of evolution. Of course only a creationist would believe my previous statement. However, I may make a trip to the dump in an attempt to recover my treasure and stake my claim to fame.

Posted by: Kevin Meizies | March 31, 2007 6:00 PM

i believe in creation and evolution. there's nothing wrong with saying that a higher being caused the big bang. everyone gets so riled up with trying to disprove the other side when both sides could be right.

though, yeah, literal interpretation of genesis gets in the way. but you shouldn't beat up on them for it. everyone has faith in something.

Posted by: Frank | March 31, 2007 6:30 PM

IT'S SO EASY A CAVEMAN COULD DO IT

Posted by: CHARLY DARWIN | March 31, 2007 6:35 PM

Frank...the sad thing is, the crazed evolutionists don't realize that MOST people are like you. They think that the 90% of people who believe in God all think it was done like the bible said, which was NEVER intended to be historically accurate. MOST people who believe in God believe that God is responsible for the Big Bang and evolution.

And then these sad idiots call the Christians losers based on THEIR OWN erroneous beleifs.

Posted by: JK87 | March 31, 2007 6:43 PM

he should be wearing a clown suit and then i'd take him at his word.

Posted by: drcharles | March 31, 2007 7:09 PM

JK87
Tha Bible wasnt historically acurate because it was only meant to provide some order. The big bang was shunned by religion when first suggested and I have yet to hear any creationist admit in any way that evolution is involved here. But true to form as a creationist you change your story to fit the arguement.

Posted by: George McCafferty | March 31, 2007 7:22 PM

"If you believe in evolution, Your just as dumb as this guy. Just thought I would make a point. Take a moment to reflect and have a good day knowing this."

Oh my golly me, I'm as dumb as this guy. My entire reason for living, my years of learning have been blown away. THANK YOU SIR! I only wish I had know this before.

"I don't understand why people get so pi**ed when someone questions the evolution theory."

Ah, so classic. If you can't win a discussion, come back with "Well, why do you get so upset about this?" -- total change of subject anyone? I've never seen anyone get "pissed" when asked to discuss the evolutionary theory (as much a theory at this point as gravity) -- disappointed, yes: there are people who will "choose to believe" despite all facts to the contrary (people who, in general, it's really not worth discussing much of anything with, outside perhaps of who will win this season's ANTM.

Does evolution disprove god? No. It doesn't have to. The burden of proof lies with the proposer of the theory: there is no, nil, zilch, not an iota of proof in any "creator" of divine form. The big bang theory cannot simply be equated into the creationist/religious creed with the simple "god did it!" mantra -- the big bang requires no god, no creator: every universal aspect requires no god, no creator. If you "choose to believe", fine: just please, try and keep it to yourself until you have something to bring to the table.

Posted by: dimmer | March 31, 2007 7:54 PM

dimmer,
are you dim or dimmer?

Posted by: George McCafferty | March 31, 2007 8:23 PM

I can prove to you that theere are no stars, using the same logic.

Look up. Do you see stars? Nope, it's a ceiling. See, stars don't exist.

Posted by: Deena Larsen | March 31, 2007 10:10 PM