…and this is a 
Going caroling this year?
Category: Creationism • Humor
Posted on: December 20, 2007 9:01 AM, by PZ Myers
Amadan wrote this amusing Gilbert and Sullivan parody, I Am the Very Model of a C-Design-Proponentsist. Now you can actually hear it sung by Karl Mogel! (by the way, Karl, you know you're a science nerd when you think the best way to tell people what the tune is is to mention that it's the same as Tom Lehrer's Elements song.)
I think this is one of those carols that is best sung drunk, I'm afraid; I'm picturing hordes of godless atheists and happy secularists stumbling into midnight mass on Christmas Eve and disrupting the services by trying to pronounce c-designproponents-ists very fast.
Comments
Ah, but if you go one layer deeper, the parody doesn't work. The major-general parodied by G&S was an extremely competent and knowledgeable individual; that's why the original parody worked so well.
In fact, I suggest that this one isn't a parody at all; it's just an accurate description in verse.
Posted by: Scott Belyea | December 20, 2007 9:47 AM
Posted by: Inoculated Mind | December 20, 2007 9:47 AM
Check out this version of I am The Very Model...
http://www.charliekam.com/images/I_Am_The_Very_Model_Of_A_Singularitarian.mp3
Posted by: Rahein | December 20, 2007 9:55 AM
I don't think I'd bother sending it to UcD (as Karl suggests)...they wouldn't find it funny. There are no fart sound effects.
Like Dawkins I'm a cultural CoEer, and was disappointed to read that the CoE is stopping its Xmas Eve midnight services. I have fond memories of attending them with my friends, all slightly "publicly tired", and belting out our favourite carols. *Sigh*
Posted by: MartinDH | December 20, 2007 10:10 AM
Will Cuttlefish go extinct now? :-(
Posted by: Chris Bell | December 20, 2007 10:12 AM
I'm taking the song to lunch with some friends tomorrow. We may get thrown out of the restaurant if we sing it too loudly. I keep stumbling over "proponentsist", but I'm improving. (This is a relative measure, you understand.)
Posted by: Zeno | December 20, 2007 10:24 AM
I've often thought of the other patter song from "The Sorcerer" by Gilbert & Sullivan would be a good target for satirising one Jonathan Wells, but I have to say it stands very well completely unaltered. Gilbert must be prescient.
For he can prophesy
With a wink of his eye,
Peep with security
Into futurity,
Sum up your history,
Clear up a mystery,
Humour proclivity
For a nativity - for a nativity;
He has answers oracular,
Bogies spectacular,
Tetrapods tragical,
Mirrors so magical,
Facts astronomical,
Solemn or comical,
And, if you want it, he
Makes a reduction on taking a quantity!
Oh!
If any one anything lacks,
He'll find it all ready in stacks,
If he'll only look in
On the resident Djinn,
Number seventy, Simmery Axe!
He can raise you hosts
Of ghosts,
And that without reflectors;
And creepy things
With wings,
And gaunt and grisly spectres.
He can fill you crowds
Of shrouds,
And horrify you vastly;
He can rack your brains
With chains,
And gibberings grim and ghastly!
Then, if you plan it, he
Changes organity,
With an urbanity,
Full of Satanity,
Vexes humanity
With an inanity
Fatal to vanity -
Driving your foes to the verge of insanity!
Barring tautology,
In demonology,
'Lectro-biology,
Mystic nosology,
Spirit philology,
High-class astrology,
Such is his knowledge, he
Isn't the man to require an apology!
Oh!
My name is John Wellington Wells,
I'm a dealer in magic and spells,
In blessings and curses
And ever-filled purses,
In prophecies, witches, and knells.
And if any one anything lacks,
He'll find it all ready in stacks,
If he'll only look in
On the resident Djinn,
Number seventy, Simmery Axe!
Posted by: Quiddam | December 20, 2007 11:46 AM
I like this version (not sure who wrote it):
The Hymn Of Kurtz "Randi" Shermer
(To the tune of "A Modern Major General.")
I am the very model of the modern thinker skeptical,
Each weird belief in tome or brief ends in my trash receptacle.
There's UFOs and Bigfoot's toes and wicca and the Chinese chi,
And all the silly psi claims that have never failed to displease me
I am quite sere and very grim of visage and of narrative,
And raising lots of money for more buildings is imperative,
To fight the Right's religious claims and medicine alternative,
To advertise my new book in our magazine, so won't ya give?
I don't subscribe to fen shui with it's energizing textiles,
I stand firm on my condemnation of bad shows like the "X-Files".
I'm atheist and skeptical and of my friends ask any pal,
They'll tell you I don't truck with prophets screaming doom millennial.
And speaking of my CSICOP friends admittedly there's not a few,
There's Klass and Nichols, Gardner, Blackmore, Randi, and there's Loftus too...
There's many more I must ignore for brevity and rhythmic flow,
As such don't seek a list like this for each and every CSICOP foe.
Now I must go to Buffalo to fill my trash receptacle,
For, I am the very model of the modern thinker Skeptical!
Posted by: Sastra, OM | December 20, 2007 11:48 AM
I've often thought the other patter song from "The Sorcerer" by Gilbert & Sullivan would be a good target for satirising one Jonathan Wells, but I have to say it stands very well completely unaltered. Gilbert must be prescient
My name is John Wellington Wells,
I'm a dealer in magic and spells,
In blessings and curses
And ever-filled purses,
In prophecies, witches, and knells.
If you want a proud foe to "make tracks" -
If you'd melt a rich uncle in wax -
You've but to look in
On the resident Djinn,
Number seventy, Simmery Axe!
We've a first-class assortment of magic;
And for raising a posthumous shade
With effects that are comic or tragic,
There's no cheaper house in the trade.
Love-philtre - we've quantities of it;
And for knowledge if any one burns,
We're keeping a very small prophet, a prophet
Who brings us unbounded returns:
For he can prophesy
With a wink of his eye,
Peep with security
Into futurity,
Sum up your history,
Clear up a mystery,
Humour proclivity
For a nativity - for a nativity;
He has answers oracular,
Bogies spectacular,
Tetrapods tragical,
Mirrors so magical,
Facts astronomical,
Solemn or comical,
And, if you want it, he
Makes a reduction on taking a quantity!
Oh!
If any one anything lacks,
He'll find it all ready in stacks,
If he'll only look in
On the resident Djinn,
Number seventy, Simmery Axe!
He can raise you hosts
Of ghosts,
And that without reflectors;
And creepy things
With wings,
And gaunt and grisly spectres.
He can fill you crowds
Of shrouds,
And horrify you vastly;
He can rack your brains
With chains,
And gibberings grim and ghastly!
Then, if you plan it, he
Changes organity,
With an urbanity,
Full of Satanity,
Vexes humanity
With an inanity
Fatal to vanity -
Driving your foes to the verge of insanity!
Barring tautology,
In demonology,
'Lectro-biology,
Mystic nosology,
Spirit philology,
High-class astrology,
Such is his knowledge, he
Isn't the man to require an apology!
Oh!
My name is John Wellington Wells,
I'm a dealer in magic and spells,
In blessings and curses
And ever-filled purses,
In prophecies, witches, and knells.
And if any one anything lacks,
He'll find it all ready in stacks,
If he'll only look in
On the resident Djinn,
Number seventy, Simmery Axe!
(I didn't paste the whole song in my previous post, would some kind moderator please delete it - Thanks)
Posted by: Quiddam | December 20, 2007 11:48 AM
#5--ye of little faith
chorus
Be-He
Behold the C-Design-Proponentist!
A person of imaginary title--
An ignoramus-obfuscationist
Whose explanations lean to elan vital!
Guffaw! Guffaw!
It's the C-Design-Proponentist!
Guffaw! Guffaw!
It's the C-Design, the C-Design,
The C-Design-Proponentist!
Taken to a county school
There to teach about creation
Knowing it's against the rule
Acting out of desperation
Dumber than a pail of drool
Put the "I" in sal-i-vation
Thinking I am oh so cool
Clearly an hallucination
Never has a duller tool
In this or any other nation
Acted as a bigger fool
It defies imagination
Taken to a county school
Taken to a county school
There to teach about creation
Dumber than a pail of drool
Never has a duller tool
Never has a duller tool
Acted as a bigger fool
Acted as a bigger fool
Guffaw! Guffaw!
It's the C-Design-Proponentist!
Guffaw! Guffaw!
It's the C-Design, the C-Design,
The C-Design-Proponentist!
Tee-Hee! Bee-Hee!
It's the C-Design-Proponentist!
Guffaw! Guffaw!
It's the C-Design, the C-Design,
The C-Design-Proponentist!
Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | December 20, 2007 12:10 PM
Yeah, it's the only English word with a [ts] in the middle. :-)
I recommend letting "cdesign" start with [kd]. Takes more practice, but sounds much cooler.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 20, 2007 1:24 PM
I want a video of it on youtube.
Posted by: Carlie | December 20, 2007 3:25 PM
Cthulhu Carols!
http://www.duke.edu/web/DRAGO/humor/coc-songs.html
Rudolph the Red Nosed Cultist
had a few insanities
and if you ever saw him
he'll be chanting with great glee
Cthulhu fthagn Ia - aa
He is sleeping 'neath the foam
as he stared out the window
through the bars where he made his home
Then one foggy moon streaked eve
Cthulhu came to say
Rudolph with your mind so brave
won't you be my eternal slave
then all the other cultists
join Rudolph the mighty high priest
has joined Cthulhu in his lair.
Posted by: Jay Hovah | December 20, 2007 4:30 PM
P.S. Don't forget A Very Scary Solstice
http://www.cthulhulives.org/Solstice/
Posted by: Jay Hovah | December 20, 2007 4:32 PM
Rumours of Cuttlefish's demise were fortunately unfounded!
Posted by: KiwiInOz | December 20, 2007 6:50 PM
Thank you, dear Kiwi--There was not a chance
I'd be stumped by a G&S parody
Though mine is Mikado, and his was Penzance,
Each one can be mined for hilarity
Whenever a poet pays homage to Gilbert
It's truly a test of his brain--
You'd have to be nuts (that is, more than one filbert),
You'd have to be fully insane,
To think that Creationist dogma would fit
In a piece of satirical verse;
If it's Gilbert and Sullivan, then, I submit,
That the IDiots' all will be worse.
I'm not at all threatened by singer or poet,
Although I can't claim an immunity,
It's just that (the readers here already know it)
True science is done in community
So read it, or listen--I know that I did--
And enjoy it, there's no need to rant;
Rejoice that you "got it", 'cos, heaven forbid,
(Or by random mutation) "they" can't.
Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | December 20, 2007 11:37 PM
Hilarious! I love it.
Posted by: Kevin L. | December 20, 2007 11:49 PM