…and this is a 
Coulter fan flaunts foolishness
Category: Creationism
Posted on: December 27, 2007 8:11 PM, by PZ Myers
Scarcely do I mention Ann Coulter and my challenge to her fans, than one such fan shows up in the comments. You will not be surprised that this person didn't even try to meet the challenge, which is to cite some specific paragraph in Coulter's drecky book, Godless, that they considered to be making a solid scientific point. Here's all he could cough up.
For all of you that buy into the evolution answer for where we come from, I have the following question; How is it that science cannot demonstrate or replicate species change yet we have so many species. Please dont mention finches either. Inspite of all the documented changes, every one of them is still a bird. Chromosomes are still the same number. Although a dog could possibly mate with a cat, science knows that it is not possible for conception to occur. So I am at a loss as to how we have so many different species.
So much of the evolution evidence has been proven to be a fraud. Admittedly, some of it is not....but one can hardly adopt evolution as fact on evidence that is merely suggestive.
All documented cases that I am privvy to fail to even demonstrate how an observed change in a species appearance was an improvement on its previous form. Based on that, I feel that mutations are freak events that always produce an inferior model. Mutation don't ever produce a new species.
I am not ready to embrace evolution as science. If you do accept it as fact, then you do so on faith. Its safe to say that your religeon is evolution. An unwillingness to even consider intelligent design is not sufficient reason to promote a theory to the level of factual science.
He's almost as ignorant as Ann Coulter.
Let's take it apart piece by piece, shall we?
Scientists have demonstrated species change. We have observed distributions of subspecies that are best explained by a macroevolutionary transition, such as for the Kaibab and Albert squirrels. The patterns we see in the fossil record are best explained by common descent; God snapping his fingers is not an explanation.
Why shouldn't we mention finches? Just because that is an example so thoroughly documentd that it makes this creationist uncomfortable?
"Bird" is a broad category, covering everything from hummingbirds to ostriches. This creationist wants to arbitrarily exclude all changes within the class Aves from consideration? Why? Again, because he can't rebut the evidence?
Chromosome numbers are relatively fluid: there are plenty of mechanisms that change the number. Organisms are remarkably tolerant of variation in chromosomal organization.
Matings between very different animal species are not a significant mechanism of evolution, so there was no point in mentioning cat/dog hybridization. In plants, though, there are instances of such speciation events: look into allopolyploidy.
He may be at a loss, but his personal ignorance is not evidence for an absence of the process.
No, very little of the evidence for evolution is fraudulent. There are a few instances, such as Piltdown man, that are prominent for their rarity and that they are loudly deplored by the scientific community. Our sins are not swept under the carpet.
The evidence for evolution is more than merely suggestive — it is overwhelming. This creationist has already made it clear that he knows none of it.
He hasn't mentioned what cases he is "privvy" to, so how are we supposed to respond to his claim that they fail to demonstrate an improvement? This is standard operating procedure for creationists: be so vague that there is no possibility of actually addressing their arguments with evidence.
Mutations are accidental events, but the majority are neutral, some are deleterious, and a few are beneficial. The process of natural selection is a kind of sieve, though, that filters out the few successful ones; it only takes a few.
That some clueless non-biologist does not want to accept evolution as a science is irrelevant; the people who actually know the evidence and who do the experiments are well satisfied that it is a science. It takes an amazing amount of arrogance for someone who is so clearly lacking any knowledge of the discipline to declare it a non-science.
Evolution is not a faith or religion. There is no dogma, no church, no ritual, no belief in things unseen. We accept the theory only on the strength of the evidence.
We are willing to consider intelligent design. Darwin himself was an early fan of William Paley, and praised his work; what he found was that premise of design was unnecessary. ID is dismissed not because we don't consider it, but because we have considered it in detail, and have found it deficient.
That load of tripe was familiar, boring garbage. I got the impression, though, that the writer thinks he's actually being clever and fair — he's not, though. He's simply parroting a kind of close-minded denial.
It's very similar to what Coulter accomplished in her book, so it's not surprising that her followers would be no better.
Politics
Comments
All documented cases that I am privvy[sic] to
ah, therein lies the rub.
this is what happens when AIG becomes the source of the "documented cases" such morons are privy to.
It's like someone who has never left a dark room, trying to tell everyone how wrong they are about sunsets.
Posted by: Ichthyic | December 27, 2007 8:20 PM
It is obvious that he does not understand the definition of what a species is.
Posted by: Corey Schlueter | December 27, 2007 8:21 PM
This is a little off topic but... I can't help myself. Best. Headline. Ever!
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/12/27/clashing.clergy.ap/index.html
Posted by: mk | December 27, 2007 8:26 PM
LOL, sounds like the main event for a sunday monster truck rally!
Posted by: Ichthyic | December 27, 2007 8:28 PM
This fan of evil Coulter very stupid sounding and also very ignorant, Noh?
Me not biologist but me lover of tropical fish.
Me interested in Genetic Maps.
Me thinks studies of African Chiclids good example of scientific proof of TOE. Granted they not really finches...
http://hcgs.unh.edu/cichlid/
Posted by: Fernando Magyar | December 27, 2007 8:29 PM
In the creationist's world, the evidence for Intelligent Design is just now beginning to be examined by serious scientists, the cracks in evolution are beginning to force it apart, and honest men everywhere are starting to find themselves unable to reconcile any world view that doesn't account for a supernatural creator. Things are poised at that perfect moment right before an enormous and irrevocable paradigm shift. The fact that none of these things ever come to pass doesn't keep the Creationist from considering all of them perpetually about to.
It's like the movie Groundhog Day. Scientists spend the whole day explaining to the creationist why the theory of evolution is firmly evidenced, and yet they wake up the next day back on the same beginning square they started on. Sonny and Cher blare from the radio as the creationist begins yammering about why evolution is a theory in crisis. It's as if they're chronic amnesiacs. Every day they wake up knowing today is the day evolution is going to fall, and every day they're wrong. Yet they never learn why.
Posted by: H. Humbert | December 27, 2007 8:33 PM
Thanks a bunch, Humbert. Now I've got that damned song trapped in my head.
Posted by: Dan | December 27, 2007 8:46 PM
That's because creationists fundamentally misunderstand common descent. Humans and dolphins are both mammals, therefore by creationist logic, we are the same species.
Posted by: Craig Pennington | December 27, 2007 8:47 PM
Humans and dolphins are both mammals, therefore by creationist logic, we are the same species.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baraminology
most creobots aren't even aware their insano brand of "logic" has been "formalized".
Posted by: Ichthyic | December 27, 2007 8:54 PM
HH: these are mostly the same people who expect the world to end Real Soon Now despite a couple of millennia of wrong predictions based on the same sources -- anyone who prefers logic to wishful thinking has already self-selected out of that group.
Posted by: Chris Adams | December 27, 2007 8:56 PM
Jeopardy:
Contestant: "I'll take "how stupid can you get,' for $500, Alex."
Alex: "And the answer is, Finches are Still Birds."
Contestant: "What is 'An Anne Coulter Reader?'"
Alex: "Yes! And now it's on to Double Jeopardy."
Posted by: shrimplate | December 27, 2007 8:57 PM
I was just reading scienceblogger Orac's recent post on "Skepticism and the scientific consensus" and this just blends right in. People who do not understand a highly technical field somehow think that "studying both sides" and "thinking for themselves" gives them the expertise and understanding to go against the overwhelming scientific consensus -- a consensus which was hard won over time through a rigorous and competitive process of demonstration.
No, they read a book, so they're perfectly capable of sorting out the truth on their own. With creationists, there seems to be a weird blend of meekness and arrogance. On the one hand, they see themselves as the obedient children following God's authority, unafraid of bowing their heads and surrendering their will. And yet, on the other hand, they're renegade cowboys, takin' no one else's word fer it, but doing the hard, callus-makin' work all by themselves an' makin' up their own minds -- the true freethinker.
I'm reminded of Christoper Hitchins statement to the effect that religion manages to combine the maximum cringing humility with the maximum self-centered arrogance.
Posted by: Sastra, OM | December 27, 2007 9:04 PM
Or that it requires (at least in the young-earth variant) a much faster rates of what actual scientists call speciation than evolution.
Posted by: Craig Pennington | December 27, 2007 9:05 PM
Craig said, #7:
"Humans and dolphins are both mammals, therefore by creationist logic, we are the same species."
I agree. I think that that is the crux of their misunderstanding. they interpret "species" to mean the biblical word "kinds". I.E., they feel that all birds are the same "kind" and that therefore there has been no evolution. Maybe a little, simple, explanation of the definition of "species" would help.
Probably not, but maybe.
Posted by: Karl | December 27, 2007 9:06 PM
I've been reading up, lately, on the evolution of the immune system. It's fascinating stuff: clonal selection of B-cell lineages is almost like a little evolutionary process of its own, non-random survival of randomly varied replicators thrown into competition in an environment of their own making. When I look at the sheer quantity of technical detail that has been uncovered in answering questions like how the adaptive immune system in vertebrates evolved from the older innate immune system — or any one of umpteen other deep topics — and I compare that level of detail to the paltry smattering of trivialities offered by creationist Coulter fans, I just want to hang my head and sigh.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | December 27, 2007 9:08 PM
Yeah, the evo-creo wars are boring. After you've whacked these guys down a few dozen times ...
But, I do admire your tenacity. And I'm glad someone's doing it.
Posted by: Stephen | December 27, 2007 9:16 PM
I agree. I think that that is the crux of their misunderstanding. they interpret "species" to mean the biblical word "kinds". I.E., they feel that all birds are the same "kind" and that therefore there has been no evolution.
damn, it's like I didn't even post.
see #8
the term was formalized by another complete idiot in the late 80's/early 90's:
Baraminology
Posted by: Ichthyic | December 27, 2007 9:21 PM
If the very few intelligent intelligent design buffs out there were earnest, they'd be just as quick to heckle these morons as any evolutionist. Instead though, Dembski and crew dab vaseline on their supporters' cuts, and send them back for a fresh pummeling.
Posted by: ngong | December 27, 2007 9:29 PM
It is obvious that he does not understand the definition of what a species is.
Unless you've read something I haven't of late, neither do we.
Posted by: SEK | December 27, 2007 9:29 PM
What a tiresome task you take on PZ. Addressing these claims of ignorance may be important, but I marvel at your fortitude.
This commenter would be well served by taking a few college-level biology classes at a nearby university. There is a social importance to getting a well rounded education so that the truly evil people of the world (read Ann Coulter and the like) cannot take such easy advantage of their ignorance.
Posted by: George | December 27, 2007 9:36 PM
*sigh*
There is probably no point in *trying* to educate the stupid but, it's amaizing to what extent they are willing to take the same comments from creationists at face value.
For all we can tell (though I doubt it[*]) this guy could be "averagely intelligent" (as I am), but lacking in facts and knowledge (as I am), and thus taking the following statements as facts (as I *DON"T*) and finding his babble a reasonable conclussion (as I theoretically might if I were to somehow take the following statements as facts which I *really* do not ever want to believe myself capible of doing...)
*Science can not demonstrate species change.
*The "finches" are not of considerably different enough species as to demonstrate "species change"
*Much of evolution has been demonstrated to be false. (I'll be generous and assume he meant "false" rather than "fraudelent")
*All observed mutations have been shown to be weaknesses.
I have been led to believe (but as I freely admit that I am *not* knowledgeable, I will freely admit I can not claim with certainty) that each and every single one of these statements is patently false.
My question: Why does it seem so friggin' easy for the creationist kooks to float these comments as a "meme" so that people accept these at face value as true yet the, I assume, actual true facts of:
*species change has been observed and demonstrated.
*fossil record demonstrates "common descent" which verifies "large" species change (between say a cat and a dog or a turtle and a human or a flat worm and a redwood tree)
*positive mutations have been observed many times
*evolution, as are all sciences, is being modified and advanced as data and hypothesis are presented. Many predictions of evolution have been later verified by data.
seem to be so difficult to "infect" people with? Why can't we just make our set of "facts" and get them to stick? Why is it people are so ready to accept things that are outright lies, or wrong but not things that are every bit as simple but actually true?
[*] "averagely intelligent" = as smart as your typical intelligent person. I'm a typically intelligent person. I'm not particularly brilliant and don't really know anything but I can follow an argument and argue my way out of a paper bag.
I, however, doubt this guy is actually "averagely intelligent" because an averagely intelligent person ought to know enough not to cite "facts" he neither understands nor knows how to verify, nor should he accept anything purely on face value.
Posted by: woozy | December 27, 2007 9:39 PM
I claim quote mining:
Admittedly, some of it is not....but one can hardly adopt evolution as fact on evidence that is merely suggestive.
I wonder what Myers is hiding in that elipsis.
Posted by: kwandongbrian | December 27, 2007 9:45 PM
It's like someone who has never left a dark room, trying to tell everyone how wrong they are about sunsets.
--Ichthyic
Exactly! And if points 1 through 4 (speciation never observed, most evolution shown to be false, all known mutations harmful, etc) were true, then, yes, evolutions indeed would be in trouble. But every single one of those points is false.
What I don't get is why given a dark room and a shiny box saying "rooms on demand" and a room with lots of light with a bunch of blueprints of the room scattered across the hallway and inspectors inspecting and reinspecting and approving it, why do so many people chose the dark room.
Posted by: woozy | December 27, 2007 9:49 PM
And how could anyone expect him to understand it? Species as a definition is not as fixed and discrete as even I would like. There was great resistance to the Linneaus classification system because naturalists thought it bent too easily towards convenience and away from accuracy.
I mean, at what point does one create a distinction between ring species examples such as green warblers? Geographic isolation makes the definition of species rather hard to pin down. This person didn't make the "I accept micro-evolution like the adaption of novel traits, but I just can't accept macro-evolution" claim. Perhaps even that would be a bit too nuanced for this cretin. While PZ can deconstruct these comments without any heavy lifting, it would have been more fun to see him engage someone who does try to make that compromise between evidence and religion.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich, FCD | December 27, 2007 9:53 PM
PZ, I'm betting that second one is a slight typo that you meant to be "Abert's squirrel".
Posted by: Hank Fox | December 27, 2007 9:57 PM
Because he couldn't care less what the differences are among birds, and thus assumes there are no such differences.
I tend to think creationism is rooted less in religious faith -- which is merely the proximate cause -- than in blinding apathy toward the natural world, and, in fact, most other things.
Posted by: Chris Clarke | December 27, 2007 9:57 PM
Prof. Myers asks for a single paragraph to vet, naively unaware that Godless is, like much of Ms. Coulter's ouevre, a highly sophisticated acrostic.
Rather than a simple formula such as stringing together the first letters of each word, the depths of Coulter's revelations can only be understood by techniques derived from superstring theory and the Bible Code, analyzed by Tibetan Qabala transforms.
Take it easy, Prof. Myers. Dr. Dembski will reveal the irrefutable (even unfalsifiable!) truth soon after a supercomputer capable of his advanced Coulter Calculus (tm) has been created.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | December 27, 2007 10:10 PM
So I am at a loss as to how we have so many different species.
I think it has something to do with Phylogeny.
"The notion that all of life is genetically connected via a vast phylogenetic tree is one of the most romantic notions to come out of science. How wonderful to think of the common ancestor of humans and beetles. This organism most likely was some kind of a worm. At some point this ancestral worm species divided into two separate worm species, which then divided again and again, each division (or speciation) resulting in new, independently evolving lineages. Little did these worms know, those hundreds of million years ago, that some of their number would end up evolving into beetles, while their brothers and sisters would end up as humans or giraffes."
http://www.tolweb.org/tree/learn/concepts/whatisphylogeny.html
"Over the course of hundreds of millions of years, the splitting and subsequent divergence of lineages has produced the Tree of Life, which has as its leaves the many species of organisms we see around us today."
http://www.tolweb.org/tree/learn/concepts/geneticconnections.html
Posted by: CalGeorge | December 27, 2007 10:17 PM
I truly thank the cdesign proponentsists' Imaginary Friend for encouraging them to be such (as H.Humbert so politely stated) "chronic amnesiacs". If it wasn't for them, scientists would be off doing science ALL the time instead of MOST of the time, where SOME time is now spent creating glorious blogs and websites such as Pharyngula, Talk Origins, Panda's Thumb, RD's website, UC Berkeley's Evolution site, NCSE's site, etc, etc, etc. Not to mention the glorious comments and links posted by science folks on the blogs!
However, too much of a "good" thing can be bad. Take chocolate or red wine for example. A little bit is good for you and a lot makes you fat and sick. Expanding the analogy, a few cdesign proponentsists are great because they annoy the scientists enough to share the science in cool ways. Too many and the society collapses into ignorance,stupidity and a situation where the scientists all probably go work elsewhere rather than deal with the IDiots.
I'm asking MY imaginary friend, the FSM, for a showdown: Ann Coulter vs ERV Abbie. Not that PZ hasn't done a most excellent job in this post. It's a personal wish...being female, I'd just love to see Abbie wipe the smirk off Coulter's face.
Posted by: foxfire | December 27, 2007 10:18 PM
C.C. It's worse than apathy, it's antipathy. rb
Posted by: arby | December 27, 2007 10:20 PM
kwandongbrian:
Those ellipses were part of the original comment, not a "quote mine" by PZ.
Seriously, it takes like ten seconds to check that sort of thing out.
Posted by: James | December 27, 2007 10:31 PM
In one of his books Dawkins talks about the "discontinuous mind" -- the tendency to see things as either one thing OR another, but no gradients between. Daniel Dennett uses the example of the "First Mammal" fallacy:
1.) Every mammal has a mother.
2.) If there have been any mammals at all, there have been only a finite number of mammals.
3.) But if there has been even one mammal, then by (1), there has been an infinity of mammals, which contradicts (2), so there can't have been any mammals. It's a contradiction in terms.
Again, a pseudo-problem, because nature doesn't have sharp boundaries.
I think people have a tendency to approach hard or important subjects by drawing lines, and thinking in terms of "essences." The idea of gradual transitions and intermediaries is hard to grasp -- sometimes. We don't seem to have that problem figuring out how babies become teenagers. But religion seems to kick in the essentialist part of the brain, the Discontinuous Mind -- which divides and classifies, and then appeals to "common sense."
Posted by: Sastra, OM | December 27, 2007 10:32 PM
I think part of the problem with understanding species is that, in ID, there seems to be this idea of "kinds" in relation to Noah's Ark. It'd be cute if it weren't so annoying.
Posted by: Chaz | December 27, 2007 10:36 PM
Oh YEAH?!
If we have Ann Coulter, how come we still have monkeys you evolutionist wiseasses!!?!?!?!
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | December 27, 2007 10:37 PM
...{/lurk}
In response to Sastra, OM comment #11 and PZ's post in general:
One of the techs where I work recently displayed exactly this sort of dichotomous thought. He makes no attempt to hide the fact that he's a YEC and takes "Religious Studies" courses online. At our holiday party he was the one that said the obligatory opening prayer. In a recent conversation he revealed that he used to practice the occult (he wasn't too clear about what he meant by that) and that he was "one of the most skeptical people in the world."
After I recovered from my fit of laughter and put out the smoldering flames of my irony meter, I decided to break my rule about not discussing religion in the work place and attempted to have a rational conversation. It was a complete waste of effort.
It seems that, as far as he was concerned, being a skeptic meant questioning all temporal authority and blindly accepting every conspiracy story that came along. Religious leaders were also not to be questioned. When pressed, he retreated into the "Micro not Macro" stance on evolution and some sort of Argument from First Cause as justification for his beliefs. Every objection he raised to modern science and free inquiry seemed to come straight from AIG, completely unfiltered.
I wanted to steer him towards the TalkOrigins archive but he wouldn't have bothered reading it. After all, he took high school biology and anything else might threaten his immortal soul.
The real kicker here is that this guy is a laboratory technician in a Microbiology research lab.
{lurk}
Posted by: sdej | December 27, 2007 10:38 PM
Olbermann delivered a wonderful quote that was actually about Bill O'Reilly, but easily generalizes to describe these nitwits:
"...comedy, farce, slapstick, unconscious self-mutilation...forever stepping on the same rake, forever muttering the same grunted, inarticulate surrender, forever resuming the circle that will take him back to the same rake..."
Posted by: Epikt | December 27, 2007 10:49 PM
"All documented cases that I am privvy [sic]
to..."
You must be referring to the secret evidence kept in a top secret church location that only you and a few select creationists can access. Of course, you want to keep this evidence "privy" so that scientists will forever believe in evolution.
Shhh... It's a secret
Posted by: Jesty | December 27, 2007 10:56 PM
don't antibiotic immune bacteria pretty much prove evolution?
Posted by: thadd | December 27, 2007 11:00 PM
All documented cases that I am privvy to fail to even demonstrate how an observed change in a species appearance was an improvement on its previous form. Based on that, I feel that mutations are freak events that always produce an inferior model.
But enough about himself, his family, and his church group...
Posted by: Mena | December 27, 2007 11:02 PM
why do so many people chose the dark room.
it's simpler?
they're afraid of a world that in reality is actually quite complicated?
black and white are simpler to parse than rainbows.
they just want a world where they can substitute simplistic fantasy for reality, and then feel justified in doing so. Nobody likes being singled out, whether we are talking about being smart, or stupid. if you surround yourself with peers of like mind, you don't feel singled out. BTW, this is why the fundies are such an excellent voting block to manipulate - they congregate in like minded groups that are extremely easy to manipulate with just the slightest poke. It's also why Mike Judge did the film "Idiocracy"; to point out what the logical end result of letting those who prefer dark rooms get what they want.
It's like a schizophrenic that, rather than accept the fact that his world is one of delusion and seek redress, prefers instead to seek out the company of those that share similar delusions in order to reinforce his own.
In my mind, that's always been the function of churches: a place to reinforce shared delusions to make one feel good about choosing fantasy over reality.
harsh?
maybe.
wrong?
I don't think so.
Posted by: Ichthyic | December 27, 2007 11:04 PM
thadd writes:
don't antibiotic immune bacteria pretty much prove evolution?
Only if you're not a complete idiot.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | December 27, 2007 11:07 PM
I refuse to believ that Ann Coulter wevolved out of a perfectly good monkey. That is an insult to monkeys everywhere.
Posted by: Bride of Shrek | December 27, 2007 11:13 PM
If the very few intelligent intelligent design buffs out there were earnest, they'd be just as quick to heckle these morons as any evolutionist. Instead though, Dembski and crew dab vaseline on their supporters' cuts, and send them back for a fresh pummeling.
IOW, they have unceasingly loyal, if moronic, troops.
"Onward Xian soldiers... marching as to war."
I'm sure they think they are like glaciers, slowly wearing down the mountain of materialism.
except they refuse to realize that the mountain itself is still growing far faster than they are wearing it down.
Posted by: Ichthyic | December 27, 2007 11:13 PM
woozy wrote: "I, however, doubt this guy is actually "averagely intelligent" because an averagely intelligent person ought to know enough not to cite "facts" he neither understands nor knows how to verify, nor should he accept anything purely on face value."
Very true; I never even make it to the evolution arguments of commenters such as this one, because he's demonstrated enough absence of rational thought that one can pretty much discount anything he says beyond it as a fallacy. PZ hit a few gems, though one can look at a whole list:
"Please dont mention finches either." Why should we discount what we consider good evidence?
"So I am at a loss as to how we have so many different species." Not just an argument from ignorance, but an argument from personal ignorance.
"All documented cases that I am privvy to fail to even demonstrate how an observed change in a species appearance was an improvement on its previous form. Based on that, I feel that mutations are freak events that always produce an inferior model." To paraphrase: I have limited understanding and information about a phenomena. Based on that, I draw an unjustified conclusion.
"I am not ready to embrace evolution as science. If you do accept it as fact, then you do so on faith." So if our commenter doesn't consider it science, it must be faith. He is apparently the ultimate arbiter of scientific merit. That's a pretty big ego, isn't it?
Posted by: gg | December 27, 2007 11:15 PM
Arby beat me to the point, but still:
Not so much apathy as antipathy towards people perceived as being members of the so-called intellectual elite, I think. There's always been a strain of anti-intellectualism in the US, a kind of egalitarianism-gone-wrong, epitomized by the notion that one's opinion holds sway over all things. You get to pick out your own socks; why not your own "theory" of creation?
Once you attain that level of hubris, you can easily dismiss the work of generations of scientists, because you know your opinion is just as valid as theirs. Given most people's lack of understanding of the scientific method, they see no reason to believe some geek when he/she tells them that what their favorite holy man has been spouting is flat wrong.
The alternative--the acknowledgment that the universe is the way it is, and cares not at all what anybody wants--terrifies them. As Ichthyic says, they cluster together in churches, listening only to each other, imagining that if they just howl their hymns loudly enough, the universe will wrench itself into alignment with their fantasies.
Posted by: Epikt | December 27, 2007 11:20 PM
I love this!
Posted by: Kseniya | December 27, 2007 11:25 PM
"I'm sure they think they are like glaciers, slowly wearing down the mountain of materialism."
Glaciers? That's ridiculous. God filed down the mountains of materialism six thousand years ago.
Posted by: Numad | December 27, 2007 11:41 PM
filed them into nasty, sharp teeth...
sorry, i watch too much Python.
Posted by: Ichthyic | December 27, 2007 11:46 PM
"I'm sure they think... like glaciers."
Posted by: Kseniya | December 27, 2007 11:47 PM
Makes me wanna rock out with my Glock out!
Posted by: Jeb, FCD | December 27, 2007 11:56 PM
kwandongbrian:
Those ellipses were part of the original comment, not a "quote mine" by PZ.
Seriously, it takes like ten seconds to check that sort of thing out.
Seriously, it takes like an IQ of 10 to figure out that was a joke.
Posted by: truth machine | December 28, 2007 12:10 AM
The location of the church privy is a secret?! No wonder creationists are so full of shit!
Posted by: Azkyroth | December 28, 2007 12:18 AM
The location of the church privy is a secret?! No wonder creationists are so full of shit!
ROFLMAO!
winner!
Posted by: Ichthyic | December 28, 2007 12:19 AM
It's so very simple though.
Read The Ancestor's Tale. :)
Posted by: Spinoza | December 28, 2007 12:22 AM
Truth Machine (#50)- Thanks.
James (#30) - It was a joke, but perhaps not that good a one.
Posted by: kwandongbrian | December 28, 2007 12:26 AM
Information that he's "privvy" (sic) to...
Is this an admission that creationism is a pile of crap?
Or that he's feeling flushed?
Posted by: Kimpatsu | December 28, 2007 12:30 AM
Were it ethical to perform it, I admit I'd like to see a little psychological experiment where people like AC, Bill Oh'Really!, Dumbski and others of their ilk were strapped into a chair and forced to read their works out loud. Each time they uttered something that was false they would receive an electrical shock. Each time they uttered something where it can be proven that they knew it was false when they wrote it they get two shocks or a higher voltage.
Yes, I think it is a character flaw of mine, but I'm quite biased against liars and panderers. I would say I'm biased against religious zealots, but then I'd be redundant.
Posted by: Ray S. | December 28, 2007 12:32 AM
I wish science could prove evolution or explain the inception of the universe to me. Believing in God and trying to be a good christian is hard work.
I barely have enough faith to support my belief in God yet here you are walking around like evolution and the big bang are facts. I have to give you guys credit though, your faith in science is exceptional.
Posted by: Douge | December 28, 2007 12:36 AM
I wish science could prove evolution or explain the inception of the universe to me.
Get an education.
Believing in God and trying to be a good christian is hard work.
Believing in fairies and gremlins is hard work too ... why bother?
I barely have enough faith to support my belief in God yet here you are walking around like evolution and the big bang are facts. I have to give you guys credit though, your faith in science is exceptional.
It's not faith, it's knowledge. Just because you lack it doesn't mean everyone else does.
Posted by: truth machine | December 28, 2007 12:41 AM
Epikt (44),
Right on; it seems to be a "cluster fork" of imitativeness and submission whilst proclaiming cowboy independence and daring stature. "My opinion is jest as good as yers" is a signature of an abused mind striving for dominance. Sorry, mate, the monkey games don't work in the here and now. Some of us have declared independence from traditional mind-abuse systems just from licking the drops of the Enlightenment. That doesn't require submission at all. We're all journeymen in a universe not delimited by a Book contrived by our ancestors. Unquestioning Belief is the fatal sin. Skepticism is salvation.
Posted by: Skeptic8 | December 28, 2007 12:45 AM
What the fuck is the "inception of the universe"?
Posted by: Spinoza | December 28, 2007 12:47 AM
**** note: Spinoza means it is absurd to assume that there is an inception that requires explanation a priori, not that he doesn't know what the word "inception" means.
Posted by: Spinoza | December 28, 2007 12:49 AM
What the fuck is the "inception of the universe"?
The meaning of the phrase seems quite clear to me.
"inception: an act, process, or instance of beginning"
Posted by: truth machine | December 28, 2007 12:52 AM
What the fuck is the "inception of the universe"?
An event that occurred on December 8, 1961.
Posted by: lone pilgrim | December 28, 2007 12:55 AM
Spinoza means it is absurd to assume that there is an inception that requires explanation a priori, not that he doesn't know what the word "inception" means.
I don't see where Douge made that assumption. And in any case, I don't see why such an assumption is absurd -- if there was an inception, it "requires" an explanation as a matter of intellectual inquiry. And it takes rather sophisticated physics to conceive of a universe that both has a Big Bang and doesn't have a beginning.
Posted by: truth machine | December 28, 2007 12:56 AM
Douge: this subject is right up my alley, so here you are:
Outr universe, which is only one of an infinite number of universes in the multiverse, arose from quantum fluctuations in Wheeler foam (the good ol' "subspace" from Star Trek). This is because, as Victor Stenger pointed out, asymmetry is more likely than perfect equilibrium in any closed system. Consequently, the Big Bang was not only likely, but inevitable given the inherent instability found at the quantum level. And before you ask, there was no "before" the Big Bang; time started at the BB, as time is the recognition of entropy, which does nto exist in a singularity.
I hope thta makes things clear for you, but I fear that it will not. At least there's evidence to support my preceding paragraphs, whereas there is none for Thor, Zeus, Baal, Allah, or whichever sky fairy you follow.
Posted by: Kimpatsu | December 28, 2007 1:08 AM
If evolution was true, how come sharks haven't evolved to walk on land and have bigger brains to take over the world?
Posted by: Ann Coulter = GODDESS | December 28, 2007 1:13 AM
yet here you are walking around like evolution and the big bang are facts.
I hear ya. Until last year, I always thought the Big Bang sounded kinda silly. How could they possibly know what they claim to know? How could something that bizarre be scientific consensus?
Then I read a few popsci books on the big bang, relativity, etc, and hey guess what, the scientists are right. The big bang still sounds crazy to me, but it's supported by facts. Actual predictions, actual measurements. Cosmic background radiation, red shift, etc. There's areas to quibble about, but the scientists are not playing a hoax on us.
And really, I haven't done that much reading. I'm not an expert. But the facts are there, at your local library. I recommend a book titled The Big Bang.
Evolution I never had an issue with... it seems too obvious.
Posted by: Abbie | December 28, 2007 1:22 AM
And before you ask, there was no "before" the Big Bang; time started at the BB, as time is the recognition of entropy, which does nto exist in a singularity.
And yet you say the universe "arose". There's a lot that's highly speculative and controversial in what you wrote.
Posted by: truth machine | December 28, 2007 1:26 AM
*fossil record demonstrates "common descent" which verifies "large" species change (between say a cat and a dog or a turtle and a human or a flat worm and a redwood tree)
Um, there's no "species change" between any of these pairs. Of course they each have a common ancestor, but then so does every pair of organisms.
Posted by: truth machine | December 28, 2007 1:30 AM
Wheeler foam (the good ol' "subspace" from Star Trek)
Um, Star Trek subspace has nothing to do with Wheeler's quantum foam.
Posted by: truth machine | December 28, 2007 1:34 AM
RE#6 by H. Humbert/Dec27,07@8:33PM:
Your post was one of the funniest things I've read about this topic in a long time. This is really a good illustration of the neurosis of creationists.
I can't wait to share this with my rational friends.
Good job!
Posted by: Logician | December 28, 2007 1:45 AM
Um, there's no "species change" between any of these pairs. Of course they each have a common ancestor, but then so does every pair of organisms.
Um, did you miss the part where I said I don't really know anything?
Likewise neither does the original guy... But he seems to believe they don't have common ancestors, and nothing in the universe ever demonstrates that the could.
Posted by: woozy | December 28, 2007 1:50 AM
Um, did you miss the part where I said I don't really know anything?
Um, so that precludes anyone pointing out errors in the "actual true facts" that you listed?
And do you really not know that redwood trees didn't evolve from flatworms?
Posted by: truth machine | December 28, 2007 2:06 AM
There have been several recent letters to the editor concerning the teaching of evolution and creationism in the public school curriculum. Proponents of evolution say it is based upon scientific evidence and creationism is not, therefore, creationism should not be taught. I would ask those who favor only evolution to consider the following questions derived from the Discovery Institute in Seattle concerning recognized icons of evolution.
Why do textbooks claim that the 1953 Miller-Urey experiment shows how life's building blocks may have formed on Earth, when conditions on the early Earth were probably nothing like those used in the experiment, and the origin of life remains a mystery?
Why don't textbooks discuss the Cambrian explosion, in which all major animal groups appear together in the fossil record fully formed instead of branching from a common ancestor, thus contradicting the evolutionary tree of life?
Why do textbooks use drawings of similarities in vertebrate embryos as evidence for common ancestry, even though biologists have known for over a century that vertebrate embryos are not most similar in their early stages, and that the drawings are faked?
Why do textbooks portray the archaeopteryx as the missing link between dinosaurs and modern birds even though modern birds are probably not descended from it, and its supposed ancestors do not appear until millions of years after it?
Why do textbooks use pictures of peppered moths camouflaged on tree trunks as evidence for natural selection, when biologists have known since the 1980s that the moths don't normally rest on tree trunks, and that all the pictures have been staged?
Why do the textbooks claim that beak changes in Galapagos finches during a severe drought can explain the origin of species by natural selection, even though the changes were reversed after the drought ended and no net evolution occurred?
Why do textbooks use fruit flies with an extra pair of wings as evidence the DNA mutations can supply raw materials for evolution even though the extra wings have no muscles and these disabled mutants cannot survive outside the laboratory?
Why are artists' drawings of apelike humans used to justify claims that we are just animals --when fossil experts cannot even agree on who our supposed ancestors were or what they looked like?
Perhaps the most important question to be asked is why are students told that Darwin's theory of evolution is a scientific fact, even though many of its claims are based upon misrepresentations of the facts?
I have always been under the impression that Darwin's theory of evolution is just that -- a theory. Darwin himself, in his work, Origin of Species, said, "For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in the volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I arrived."
Reflecting on his work near the end of his life, Darwin stated, "I was a young man with unformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them." I find it interesting that Darwin compares his work as a religion to those who reveled his work. Based upon what he said, if other concepts such as creationism should not be allowed in the public schools, neither should the theory of evolution.
Is Darwin's theory of evolution worthy of discussion and investigation? Of course. Should it be given scientific law status? More conclusive evidence needs to come forth before that can ever happen, which appears unlikely, since some of the critical "evidence" for evolution has had to be altered. For more indepth information, get a copy of "Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth?," authored by Jonathan Wells.
Since education is to be a quest for learning, it is proper to investigate any queries to creation. Our Forefathers would approve, why can't we?
Posted by: anon | December 28, 2007 2:30 AM
I would ask those who favor only evolution to consider the following questions derived from the Discovery Institute in Seattle concerning recognized icons of evolution.
Ignorant arrogant troll. We know all about this dishonest garbage.
Posted by: truth machine | December 28, 2007 2:33 AM
Yet you haven't answered any of them.
Posted by: anon | December 28, 2007 2:52 AM
I wonder if perhaps creationists would better listen to evolutionists who also believe in