Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
…and this is a pharyngula stage embryo.
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[In reference to a creationist book which has a picture of a man and a dinosaur together and states, "Adam wasn't scared to watch dinosaurs eat because all the creatures ate plants and not meat"]: "The kind of thing you're characterizing certainly is silly, just almost as silly as the work of Richard Dawkins, and as damaging.
Philip Johnson in "Resolved: That evolutionists should acknowledge creation" Firing Line, 4 December 1997, p. 39.
Vertebral variation, Hox genes, development, and cancer
Upstream plasticity and downstream robustness in evolution of molecular networks
Generic bumps and recycled genetic cascades
Why are flounder funny-looking?
« Creationist email | Main | Good, but mislabeled »
Category: Creationism • Weirdness
Posted on: November 13, 2006 7:55 PM, by PZ Myers
Cody visited the creation science "museum" near Glenrose, Texas, and came back with a photo of the mural portraying Adam and Eve. Adam looks…familiar.
I knew he was old, but that old?
I'm not sure who Eve resembles. Anita Bryant? Skeletor?
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Comments
Posted by: speedwell | November 13, 2006 7:59 PM
Heck with that. I want to know who does their hair.
Posted by: Great White Wonder | November 13, 2006 8:04 PM
Looks like Mark Wahlberg.
Posted by: Coragyps | November 13, 2006 8:05 PM
Oh. Shit.
Baugh must be even stranger than I had imagined.
Posted by: O-dot-O | November 13, 2006 8:05 PM
The one thing Adam doesn't look like is Middle Eastern.
Posted by: Ronald Brak | November 13, 2006 8:08 PM
To me that's Ronald Reagan. Correct me if I'm wrong. (The guy that is, not Skeletorette.)
Posted by: Mike Haubrich | November 13, 2006 8:09 PM
Taxes were low in Eden... That is why it was called Paradise.
Posted by: stand | November 13, 2006 8:10 PM
Brooke Shields, maybe?
Posted by: Dunesong | November 13, 2006 8:11 PM
Egad! It's the Gipper!
http://www.foundersofamerica.com/Reagan_p14.htm
Posted by: 386sx | November 13, 2006 8:12 PM
Looks like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to me.
Posted by: Fortunato | November 13, 2006 8:17 PM
What, no vitamin C in paradise?
Posted by: Calladus | November 13, 2006 8:20 PM
The Gipper's hair is parted on the wrong side - but still... yikes!
As for the woman, I know who it is! Maria Shriver!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e5/MariaShriver.jpg
I wonder if Arnold knows about this?
Posted by: 386sx | November 13, 2006 8:21 PM
Looks like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to me.
That, or a young Martha Stewart. I'm not sure who the lady looks like, though.
Posted by: Babbler | November 13, 2006 8:22 PM
Adam looked like Ted Haggard to me. Adam and Steve, indeed.
As for Eve, her ugliness maybe the personification of the religious right's view of women and womanhood.
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | November 13, 2006 8:30 PM
Eve looks sort of like Amy Poehler on SNL.
Posted by: Chris | November 13, 2006 8:30 PM
This is almost worthy of Bram Stoker. Notice Adam is looking up, pure joy on his face. Eve is skeletal by comparison, and noticeable less appealing. Note the deep-set eyes, and her mouth is less a smile than a leer. They don't seem to go so far as to make her explicitly sexual but look at the use of shadow on her face compared to Ronald-Adam's. While Adam has a handsome, square jaw, Eve has a virtually disembodied head, floating over a pencil-neck.
Man, there's some sick sexist scum at work in the cretinist camps.
Chris
Posted by: Cody | November 13, 2006 8:30 PM
Goodness, PZ, every time I get a link from you my website seems to automatically sense the deluge of coming traffic and shuts down before anything can happen.
Posted by: Stephen | November 13, 2006 8:34 PM
No no, you have it all wrong. It looks like Ted Haggard. Notice how he's not interested in Eve in the least? Maybe he found the meth tree...
Posted by: Keanus | November 13, 2006 8:35 PM
Mike Haubrich is only half right. Eden was considered Paradise because it offered the largest casino in the Middle East. What the Bible doesn't tell is that Adam was addicted to craps and rolled dice incessantly at that casino, known as Paradise. His sin is probably the root of all the wailing against gambling.
Posted by: craig | November 13, 2006 8:48 PM
Adam and Eve were white people? Wow, what a surprise.
And Adam is looking heavenward while Eve is coming on to us. That dirty little minx.
See, we wouldn't have fallen from grace or whatever if it weren't for those women. Bad women. Baaaaaad women!
This all brings to mind the Ted Haggard thing though I'm not sure exactly why.
Posted by: Steve_C | November 13, 2006 8:58 PM
They had plastic surgery in Eden? And body waxing?
That's a TV/Model Actress... can't remember her name... or what show though.
Posted by: Steviepinhead | November 13, 2006 9:02 PM
Yeah, the "reference" to Ronald R. is there for sure.
And the woman with the eating disorder is certainly intended to suggest some sort of weird Schriver/Kennedy chimera, as others have suggested.
So on top of the usual white male-domination ethos, we've got a particularly twisted strain of we-Rethuglicans-stole-your-women thing aimed at the Dems.
Pretty funny, actually, if you can--very temporarily, please!--twist yourself in the same direction.
Posted by: the amadaun | November 13, 2006 9:03 PM
What? Clearly Adam looks more like Kevin Bacon than Reagan.
Makes sense... if we're all going to be connected to someone by six degrees, it might as well be the first man on earth.
Posted by: Corey Schlueter | November 13, 2006 9:07 PM
The guy looks like Dick Clark only with more hair. But why is he is looking up and the woman is looking straight at you? And are they naked?
Posted by: George | November 13, 2006 9:17 PM
Eve looks like she has a black eye. Probably got belted by old Adam. Adam looks like he's on something.
Posted by: Ichthyic | November 13, 2006 9:19 PM
lower on the woman's green "wrap" it says:
"I'm with stupid"
Posted by: kurage | November 13, 2006 9:34 PM
One of Christianity's few redeeming points is the fact that, historically, it has produced some breathtaking art. But man, this isn't it. Whatever happened to the Sistine Chapel?
P.S. - I'm seeing shades of Ann Coulter in the woman, but perhaps I'm just paranoid.
Posted by: Great White Wonder | November 13, 2006 9:36 PM
More than anyone else, the woman reminds me of the strange makeup worn in DEVO's "Freedom of Choice" video.
Posted by: Great White Wonder | November 13, 2006 9:38 PM
The expressions on their faces is best understood when you realize that they are standing amongst giant pot leaves.
Posted by: Rhampton | November 13, 2006 9:41 PM
Mark Wahlberg & Brooke Shields
Posted by: Fernando Magyar | November 13, 2006 9:48 PM
What the heck is that line going across the picture and casting a shadow on Adam's forehead? Is it their clothes line?
I'm sure that look on Eve's face must be because she's already met the serpent and had a bite of the forbidden banana from the banana tree in the background...yummy!
Posted by: RedMolly | November 13, 2006 9:56 PM
Why are they glowing? Did humans lose their bioluminescence after the Fall?
Posted by: Monado | November 13, 2006 10:04 PM
She looks like a Stepford wife - a semi-animated puppet, with a loosely re-attached head.
Posted by: Mark | November 13, 2006 10:05 PM
Not that she would have ever taken a nibble from the bad banana, but the woman looks a lot like Ann Coulter. You know, except that this one appears sane. I guess back then God hadn't gotten around to inventing psychotic paranoia.
Posted by: Mooser | November 13, 2006 10:07 PM
Mike Haubrich is only half right. Eden was considered Paradise because it offered the largest casino in the Middle East.
You get kicked out of any casino if you're caught card-counting.
I can just hear Adam as they toiled and sweated post-ejection: "Some system!".
Posted by: Jaquandor | November 13, 2006 10:09 PM
I take it I'm the only one looking at Adam and seeing Wink Martindale?
Posted by: Tommykey | November 13, 2006 10:09 PM
Adam looks like a combination of Ronald Reagan and Mark Wahlberg.
Posted by: Monado | November 13, 2006 10:11 PM
I think the reference is 1950s domestic bliss. He does look eerily like Reagan on E.
Posted by: Todd O. | November 13, 2006 10:16 PM
Why were A&E nordic? And did Jehovah offer paradisiacal coiffures? Most fabulous!
Posted by: Daephex | November 13, 2006 10:24 PM
I'm surprised that nobody commented on the girl's eyes. I mean seriously-- she looks like that green dude from the Troma movies... one eye is WAY lower than the other. She has a very un-bilaterally symmetrical face-- if those are the appropriate words for it. As for the guy, he's kinda Mark Wahlberg-y, but with worse hair. Clearly, another satisfied MasterCuts customer.
Posted by: jimbo | November 13, 2006 10:39 PM
Found her!
Posted by: Brian X | November 13, 2006 10:46 PM
kurage:
As much as anything else that was a matter of state- and church-sponsored arts, picking the best people to do the job. The modern Right doesn't like supporting the arts, or basic science, or anything that doesn't fit their slant, so we don't get so much state-sponsored art.
The problem is that modern Christianity has become so isolationist that they have to make do with what they can get -- smart people, as a rule, stay away from them, so they get unwatchable "movies", music lacking in personality and originality, and Thomas Kincaid. Hell, L. Ron Hubbard was a better writer than LaHaye and Jenkins, and that really isn't saying much.
Daephex:
I have never gotten a haircut from a chain salon that I really liked. I go to SuperCuts once in a great while, and it's still never as good as the barber shop I go to the rest of the time. And Eve is creepy. Very creepy.
Posted by: Aerik Knapp-Loomis | November 13, 2006 10:56 PM
Yes, yes it does! I stared at it for like 2 minutes trying to figure it out before looking down and seeing the comments. Ah, relief.
Yup, Christian Nationalism is closely tired to 'Christian Identity,' yup yup yup!
No she does not! And I should know. I've been a fan of Amy Poehler since Upright Citizens Brigade, the improv troupe she was a part of, had a short stint on Comedy Central, years before she hit SNL.
Posted by: Ick of the East | November 13, 2006 10:58 PM
Reagan and Jackie Kennedy. No question.
But hey, at least his hair isn't oiled.
Posted by: Ian H Spedding FCD | November 13, 2006 11:04 PM
I don't remember the Bible mentioning razors in the Garden of Eden so beards must have been another of those sneaky little punishments God inflicted on men after the Fall.
Posted by: Oxhead | November 13, 2006 11:22 PM
I'm in the Mark Wahlberg camp. That's him, for sure. Are you sure this isn't a movie poster for Planet of the Apes?
"How'd these monkeys get like this?"
Posted by: Rainbow Serpent | November 13, 2006 11:30 PM
Well, "Adam" is definitely Ronnie Raygun, but "Eve"...? Maybe she's the long-lost love child of Helena Christensen and Sloth Fratelli?
Posted by: Nathan Perrier | November 13, 2006 11:46 PM
Adam and Eve white...
Didn't see that one coming.
Posted by: Bryn | November 14, 2006 12:01 AM
Ah, c'mon! Eve simply has to be....Ann Coulter. Okay, so they touched up the Adam's Apple a bit, but maybe it's depicting them *before* they ate the apple, so Ann's lack thereof makes sense. In a Creationist, delusional sort of way, I mean.
Posted by: Observer | November 14, 2006 12:42 AM
A young, skinny Ronald Reagan and an aged, crow's-feet'ed Brooke Shields. Is that supposed to be an aura around them, or just the afterglow of sex?
Posted by: John Wilkins | November 14, 2006 2:48 AM
You're all wrong. It's Kevin Bacon. You just know he got that gig before he became famous...
Posted by: jholbo | November 14, 2006 2:55 AM
I thought Dick Clark as well.
Posted by: 386sx | November 14, 2006 4:08 AM
I figure Kevin Bacon or Dick Clark too. Still trying to figure out who the guy looks like, though.
Posted by: 386sx | November 14, 2006 4:17 AM
By the way nobody has mentioned Tom Cruse yet.
Posted by: Silmarillion | November 14, 2006 4:31 AM
Adam reminds me of Patrick Swayze. I was wondering what he was up to.
Posted by: idlemind | November 14, 2006 5:23 AM
Check this out. That's Ronnie, fer sure. In fact, give her straight long hair and Doris would look a lot like Eve, too.
Posted by: George | November 14, 2006 9:09 AM
So the limbo stick game originated in Eden?
Posted by: Warren | November 14, 2006 10:10 AM
Chris:
Of course she looks sinister and troubled. She's the mother of original sin, remember? It was Eve eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge that led to the downfall of all mankind.
So you'd expect the Christian fanatics to make her look like a plotting, psychotic bitch. Death incarnate, dragging poor helpless Man along with her.
Posted by: The Squid | November 14, 2006 10:17 AM
Am I the only one that thinks that Adam is getting a reach-around from Eve?
Posted by: misterbowen | November 14, 2006 10:31 AM
Mark Wahlberg and Cameron Diaz?
Posted by: Steve_C | November 14, 2006 10:41 AM
The woman is a B-list actress... I've seen her in various made for TV movies and or dramas in the 90's. But I can't for the life of me remember her name.
Posted by: Kristine | November 14, 2006 10:42 AM
Hey, everyone:
Sin once more for the Gipper!
Posted by: eric | November 14, 2006 10:44 AM
As it happens, there's a nuclear power plant near Glen Rose (yes, it's two words) as well. Let's hope the creationists aren't also the technicians there....
Posted by: Rick @ shrimp and grits | November 14, 2006 10:58 AM
Maybe that's why the two in the picture are glowing.
Posted by: Digital Lifeforms | November 14, 2006 11:18 AM
Looks like Mr G. W. Bush to me. Something about the smarmy grin.
Posted by: Bob | November 14, 2006 11:21 AM
So you'd expect the Christian fanatics to make her look like a plotting, psychotic bitch.
Sorry, I just thought this was hilarious...
Hear, hear, Brother Warren!...
Posted by: cleek | November 14, 2006 11:36 AM
Ronnie Raygun and Juliette Lwwis ?
Posted by: Carlie | November 14, 2006 12:09 PM
I think she looks like Julianne Moore at the end of the movie "Safe". He's definitely the Gipper.
Posted by: Steve_C | November 14, 2006 12:13 PM
It's not Julianne Moore. It's driving me nuts... but I could pick her out in a B-list line up.
Posted by: Nemo Ramjet | November 14, 2006 12:16 PM
Apparently there was a never-ending supply of grade A crack cocaine in the garden of Eden.
Posted by: Madam Pomfrey | November 14, 2006 12:18 PM
It's Ronny with a bad toupee.
Posted by: Interrobang | November 14, 2006 12:32 PM
Ronald Reagan and Ann Coulter, for sure. Copying that facial expression from that one still of Michelle Malkin that everyone puts on their website, because it captures her inner derangement so beautifully, but definitely Ann Coulter.
Posted by: Steve_C | November 14, 2006 12:46 PM
NO! That female doesn't have an adam's apple like Coulter.
Posted by: Dan | November 14, 2006 1:06 PM
I say she resembles Calista Flockhart.
Posted by: Judy L. | November 14, 2006 1:16 PM
yes, eve's crazy-eyes are quite assymetric here...kinda like shannen doherty's.
technically, adam and eve (and lilith) were jewish, no? so where's the beard and body hair on adam?
Posted by: Steve_C | November 14, 2006 1:19 PM
NO. NO. NO. She's not that famous. Always plays the semi-badgirl after someone else's man...
Posted by: Keith Douglas | November 14, 2006 2:10 PM
I don't know about the woman, but the man is definitely recognizable as Reagan, to me at least.
Somewhat oddly, too, since it looks like a combination of Reagan as he appeared as president, and a younger version. (But not the younger version of the actual Reagan.)
Posted by: Madam Pomfrey | November 14, 2006 2:30 PM
Isn't she the one who played that rat-eating female alien on the old "V" series? Although iirc the hair was darker.
Posted by: 386sx | November 14, 2006 2:31 PM
I'd say the guy looks a lot like Bea Arthur, and the lady bears a striking resemblance to Tiny Tim.
Posted by: George | November 14, 2006 2:52 PM
Maybe that's Lilith and Adam is coming to the realization that he doesn't have to do it with cows anymore.
Posted by: Mena | November 14, 2006 3:17 PM
Actually I kind of thought that she looked like a blonde Terry Farrell (Jadzia Dax) painted by someone who wasn't very skilled.
Posted by: boltgirl | November 14, 2006 3:32 PM
Reagan yes. As for the woman, I'm certain it's Jodie Foster in The Accused. The museum must not have gotten the memo that she's gay.
Posted by: Bunjo | November 14, 2006 3:37 PM
I'll go along with Ronald Regan, she is obviously a rib.
Posted by: Umilik | November 14, 2006 3:38 PM
It's the gipper. Just after Eve (defintitely the rat-eater from V) told him she was going to reomove that banana leaf....
Posted by: mark | November 14, 2006 3:54 PM
Isn't that the guy who had a chimp as a son? Had trouble going to bed or something.
Posted by: Steve_C | November 14, 2006 4:09 PM
HA!
This is her.
http://www.tracyscoggins.com/auto/framauto.htm
Posted by: Steve_C | November 14, 2006 4:27 PM
It's a badly painted Tracy Scoggins! Damn I'm good.
Posted by: MYOB | November 14, 2006 4:43 PM
Adam & Eve sure look white?
I didn't know the Garden of Eden was in Germany?
MYOB'
.
Posted by: RedMolly | November 14, 2006 5:05 PM
According to her trading card, Tracy Scoggins is a "political junkie."
Dare I ask?
Posted by: Ksenkiya | November 14, 2006 5:14 PM
You're thinking of the Garden of Vreden.
Posted by: Soozez | November 14, 2006 6:16 PM
Besides the Reagan thing and the Western European theme going on here, this is just one of many visions of human history that really catch my attention because THEY LOOK SO DAMN CLEAN. And, except for the 21st century American anorexic look of Eve, HEALTHY. Don't people have the faintest clue of how brutal and short life was for most of humanity until, oh, about 90 years ago? (Not to mention that it's still that way today for the majority of people on the planet). Adam and Eve would have been matted, parasite-ridden, and likely had severe dental disease.
Posted by: The Ridger | November 14, 2006 6:52 PM
Oh, come on. You can't buy into it halfway. If they're Adam and Eve they're in Paradise, for crying out loud. Of course they're clean and healthy. And white. And Reaganesque. It's a FANTASY of white, gun-toting, middle-American fundies. You can't pretend that there really was an Adam and Eve except they'd be parasite-ridden, etc. That's just stilly.
As opposed to this museum, which is deeply disturbing.
Posted by: George | November 14, 2006 8:42 PM
Maybe?
http://www.fredapayne.com/images/MichaelFredaTracy.jpg
Posted by: JJR | November 14, 2006 8:51 PM
Haggart and AMY GOODMAN!? Talk about your Yin and f*cking Yang!
Poor Amy...we never knew..Sheesh...what a burden...
-JJR
Posted by: Cathy in Seattle | November 14, 2006 9:26 PM
I think I found the identity of our gal...
Barbara Steele
Hammer Vamp!
Posted by: Cathy in Seattle | November 14, 2006 10:25 PM
The third picture of her actually shows her in the Garden of Eden.
Posted by: Akira Konya | November 15, 2006 2:27 AM
I thought it looked like Regis and Kathy Lee.
Posted by: llewelly | November 15, 2006 3:30 AM
hm, I agree that Adam looks a lot like Reagan. But to me, Eve looks nothing like any of the suggestions in this thread. She resembles a grotesque stereotype more than any woman I've ever seen.
Posted by: Andreas | November 15, 2006 9:32 AM
The first name that popped up in my mind was Ted Haggard, and then George W. Bush. But I see now that he also resembles Ronald Reagan.
Posted by: Steve_C | November 15, 2006 10:33 AM
It's Tracy Scoggins damn it.
Posted by: dzd | November 16, 2006 10:38 AM
The manic grin is 100% Haggard, the rest of the face is definitely the Gipper.