Creationist cowardice
Category: Creationism
Posted on: November 24, 2007 5:20 PM, by PZ Myers
Both Larry and Shalini have picked up on this most excellent comic — it's perfect.
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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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Comments
Poetic (if visually crude), and oh so to the point.
Posted by: Martin | November 24, 2007 5:41 PM
Aww, PZ, you should not have chopped up the comic like that. It reduces a lot of its artistic merit. There is a reason cartoonists are quick to complain when newspapers hack up their comic to, for instance, display it in a vertical orientation when it was not originally drawn like that.
Probably better to just use an embiggen link in this circumstance if it is too wide to fit your blog format.
Posted by: Cyde Weys | November 24, 2007 5:54 PM
Man, that's perfect.
Posted by: BigHeathenMike | November 24, 2007 5:56 PM
This one has an octopus
Posted by: woozy | November 24, 2007 6:04 PM
Unfortunately, my column width here isn't enough to squeeze it in completely, without either reducing it to illegibility or chopping it up. Instead of embiggening, click on the cartoon and see it descramblified!
Posted by: PZ Myers | November 24, 2007 6:17 PM
Hey, where are the chemists?
Aw well...
Posted by: Aa | November 24, 2007 6:32 PM
Posted by: SEF | November 24, 2007 6:38 PM
I am a computer scientist....for effective computability, she calls to me.
Oh well, not every field of science can sound incredibly sexy in soundbyte form.
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | November 24, 2007 6:45 PM
...and already, a "YOU WILL ALL BURN IN HELL FOR BELIEVEING IN SCIENCE" troll has popped up on Shalini's end. Way to prove the comic's point, annonytard.
Posted by: Laser Potato | November 24, 2007 6:49 PM
All nothing against this one!
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 24, 2007 6:54 PM
My personal favorite of Muiznieks' comics is this one. It's a great take on an all-to-familiar situation, and bonus points for artistic style.
Posted by: Master Mahan | November 24, 2007 7:31 PM
I've been going through the archives, and this one is just really amazing.
Posted by: Stogoe | November 24, 2007 8:02 PM
I think with the way it's cut here, you don't have as much danger of spoiling the punchline before you're done with the rest of the comic. It preserves the ideal timing for this sort of joke.
Posted by: Rey Fox | November 24, 2007 8:06 PM
I think the qualification of "young earth" creatitionist ruins it, because it implies that it doesn't apply to other forms of creationism.
Posted by: Sebastian | November 24, 2007 9:49 PM
"I've been going through the archives, and this one is just really amazing."
That's an awesome one, if only for the Star Trek goodness.
Posted by: DamnYankees | November 24, 2007 10:17 PM
Stogoe, I'm with you on that one. I especially enjoy the Star Trek reference :)
Posted by: Kevin L. | November 24, 2007 10:17 PM
For about the past two weeks or so on talk.origins, people have been posting links to their favourite Cectic comic, often in response to one or another science denier. Thons is my fave,for the Exapnding Earthers. :-)
Posted by: Cory Albrecht | November 24, 2007 10:19 PM
Wait a minute. Did he just reduce physicists' work to answering the call of nature?
Posted by: Epikt | November 24, 2007 10:49 PM
So why is it that all of the amazing, humbling unknowns are "she"?
Oh.
Never mind.
Posted by: Anon | November 24, 2007 11:07 PM
This is awesome. Thanks, PZ! I just subscribed to this comic's feed.
Posted by: Josh | November 24, 2007 11:10 PM
#19: Because the mysteries of the universe, they are sexy. Like women, if you see what I mean (you know, we live in a phalocentric society and stuff).
Posted by: Valhar2000 | November 24, 2007 11:55 PM
The operative phrase. Many times, I've felt sorry for creationists. I know what it's like to be afraid.
Unfortunately, none of us can afford to be so broadminded that we let them take over the schools or the government and run them according to their fears.
I think I'd feel a lot more compassionate about those fears if they just didn't act them out so aggressively.
Posted by: Hank Fox | November 25, 2007 12:13 AM
What, Valhar2000--
Ze menz-zey are not zexy?
T'ink outside ze box! Baby!
Posted by: Rjaye | November 25, 2007 2:17 AM
The cartoon seems to be a reverse take on the table of contents from the book The End of Science by John Horgan.
Table of Contents:
1 - The End of Progress
2 - The End of Philosophy
3 - The End of Physics
4 - The End of Cosmology
5 - The End of Evolutionary Biology
6 - The End of Social Science
7 - The End of Neuroscience
8 - The End of Chaoplexity
9 - The End of Limitology
10 - Scientific Theology, or The End of Machine Science
- Epilogue: The Terror of God
The latest book by Horgan is Rational Mysticism, which seems an oxymoron. I wonder what the cartoons for that will be, or if there will ever be a middle ground? Can mysticism be rational anymore than rationalism can be mystical? Actually, it's mystical rationalism that really scares me. That's what Unintelligent Designers use when they attempt to teach creationism as science. I don't think America has ever properly thanked our scientists for not letting that one slide into home plate, and thereby saving our asses. On behalf of every rational American, thanks!!
Posted by: Kanaio | November 25, 2007 2:37 AM
I rather like this one on Pascal's Wager.
Posted by: Patrick Quigley | November 25, 2007 3:22 AM
And this one about parenting is great.
Posted by: Patrick Quigley | November 25, 2007 3:32 AM
I thought it would have been more fitting if it ended with, for my hallucination, he calls to me.
Posted by: Jan Chan | November 25, 2007 3:59 AM
"I am an ID advocate. Truth, she calls to me... but I quickly hang up and unplug the answering machine."
Posted by: Michael X | November 25, 2007 4:27 AM
"I'm a credit controller. Some lady with a 16 grand debt, she calls to me."
Sorry.
Posted by: Scrofulum | November 25, 2007 7:00 AM
I've rarely come across a creationist who claims to be (or even considers themselves) scared of science. In fact they all claim to be complete masters of the discipline already. Apparently, to a creationist, sciences like molecular biology or astrophysics are a bit like breathing - they are programmed into you automatically so theres no need to actually go to the trouble of 'learning' anything. That way you can laugh at the idea of biologists who spend years studying aspects of this topic without realizing the ridiculousness of the whole effort (don't you realize, God did it all and any patterns you find were put there by HIM for his own mysterious reasons! End of story.)
Posted by: MartinC | November 25, 2007 7:26 AM
Cectic in general is just pure skeptical-comical genius, especially "King me, biatch!".
Posted by: Monty | November 25, 2007 10:41 AM
Wasn't this an episode of House?
http://cectic.com/014.html
Posted by: Rich | November 25, 2007 11:03 AM
The "Legion" troll popped up at my blog to complain about me taking exception to a comment by "FtK", when I had not similarly complained about humor at Pharyngula. It turns out that "FtK"'s comment is, if humor, based on endorsing eugenics directed at critics of antievolution:
Given how obsessively "Legion" tries to tie any support of evolutionary science to an implication of considering eugenics a live option, I thought it was a nice case of real hypocrisy on "Legion"'s part showing through a false claim of hypocrisy on someone else's part.
Posted by: Wesley R. Elsberry | November 25, 2007 1:31 PM
The first panel reminds me of the following:
A minister and a geologist are standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon.
The minister says, "I wish I could have been here to see God create this."
The geologist replies, "It's your lucky day!"
Posted by: DH | November 25, 2007 10:43 PM