…and this is a 
Somebody, quick — snatch that fruit out of creationist hands before they speak again!
Category: Creationism
Posted on: February 22, 2008 11:29 AM, by PZ Myers
I suppose it's good that I have an opportunity to take a chop at the third big branch of the Abrahamic tree, but I really take no joy in being so thorough. Enjoy the spectacle of a delusion Jewish 'teacher' misleading his students and lying out of ignorance.
What is it with creationists and fruit? I really don't get it. This guy is just rehashing Paley, though, claiming that finding a seed in an apple is a more miraculous event than finding a silver dollar in one. Guess what, guy: we can describe the developmental events that produce seeds in fruit, and they don't involve angels flying in and inserting them. We have entirely natural mechanisms, making the supernatural superfluous.
(via Atheist Media Blog)
Comments
Enjoy the spectacle of a delusion Jewish 'teacher' misleading his students and lying out of ignorance.
You meant "delusional teacher"???
Posted by: Bureaucratus Minimis | February 22, 2008 11:34 AM
Once Ray Comfort had found design in fruit,
Lots of other creationists followed suit.
An apple inspired a Jewish teacher,
And made him a more effective preacher.
Some kook in Florida used an orange,
and... um... er...
Dammit, Cuttlefish, how do you do that!!!???
Posted by: gg | February 22, 2008 11:37 AM
Ah, good ole' personal incredulity.
Posted by: Fred | February 22, 2008 11:41 AM
I love real-word-typo corrections... *waggles finger.* I think we know what he meant.
Re: silly teacher.
It's somehow not so comforting to have reaffirmed my suspicion that it wasn't just the Baptist congregation raising me who gets it wrong.
I'm going to start calling this the "sparkly, wondrous think-naught blindfold". Because my dad is sure wearing it, and so is this guy -- and everyone he teaches how to strap it on for life.
Posted by: Holydust | February 22, 2008 11:41 AM
I find this post rather condemning of a simple man. I wonder if you have a lot of baggage that has led you to hate the misled, or perhaps you're just looking to shut down a guy who doesn't know any better because it helps you beat off at night.
Posted by: flannery | February 22, 2008 11:42 AM
"Enjoy the spectacle of a delusion Jewish 'teacher' misleading his students and lying out of ignorance."
Since a lie, definitionally, is a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive, the idea of lying out of ignorance is incoherent. To be in ignorance is a lousy condition, and willful ignorance is a major moral failing, especially when the guilty party is in a position of trust and influence. It may well be no better than lying. But it's not lying, no matter how righteous the cause and/or how beneficial the rhetorical advantage for claiming it to be so.
Posted by: Sinbad | February 22, 2008 11:45 AM
I don't get the appeal to science when they talk like this. Why even mention DNA?
If they're going to stop thinking at some point -- and they obviously will, i.e., with "Goddidit" talk -- then why even bother starting with the science-talk in the first place? Don't talk about DNA if you have no idea what the hell you're talking about. You'll save us all a lot of time.
Talk about something else -- like, you know, fairy dust or something.
Posted by: Bob | February 22, 2008 11:46 AM
PZ said:
Having perused some of the screeds you've put up for our enjoyment I am forced to the conclusion that this is due to a certain similarity of IQ.
Or is that reply in the wrong frame? :-)
Posted by: Lilly de Lure | February 22, 2008 11:48 AM
That's a good point, Bob -- but I think the recent desire to pull science into Creationism talks is in order to take advantage of the ignorance of science that their audience generally possesses. Take Kirk Cameron and his buddy (whose name escapes me) and their "Way of the Master" videos. Present your own anti-science ideas as correct, and ignorant kids don't know any better. Their immediate reaction is "oh wow! He must be right." And it prevents them from questioning it.
On the level they're trying to achieve, bringing up science (no matter how incorrect they may be) gets the job done.
Posted by: Holydust | February 22, 2008 11:51 AM
Is this simple man saying stupid things or not?
Should people who say stupid things be called out for it?
Should people who don't bother to research responses before opening their mouths be called out for their ignorance?
Posted by: Bronze Dog | February 22, 2008 11:57 AM
Has there ever been any research done to see if creationist brains are wired differently to the rest of us ?
Posted by: Matt Penfold | February 22, 2008 11:58 AM
Matt Penfold @ #11
See http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,995465,00.html
Posted by: healthphysicist | February 22, 2008 12:00 PM
@flannery#5 and sinbad#6:
I wouldn't normally consider being ignorant the same as being malicious, but when you purport to teach something, and are ignorant of the subject, that transcends simple ignorance into the realm of malicious lying.
Posted by: Braxton Thomason | February 22, 2008 12:01 PM
And not even just saying stupid things, but trying to teach stupid things to children (and adults) who don't know any better.
Posted by: kmarissa | February 22, 2008 12:02 PM
"I find this post rather condemning of a simple man. I wonder if you have a lot of baggage that has led you to hate the misled, or perhaps you're just looking to shut down a guy who doesn't know any better because it helps you beat off at night."
It is one thing to be misled, that can simply be considered misfortune. It is quite another to teach those misunderstandings to others. Anyone who wants the privilege of teaching others has a duty to understand what it is they are teaching. This man does not understand, and has no business teaching.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | February 22, 2008 12:02 PM
Flannery (#5):
I find this post rather condemning of a simple man.
OK, if he's a "simple" (ie, simpleton=stupid) man, then why has his community entrusted the teaching of their young to him? Their business, of course, but that makes them fair game.
If he's not actually a simpleton, but merely willfully ignorant and MSU, then he's fair game.
Sounds like you're trying to give him a pass based on presumed piety. That's a non-starter, here.
I wonder if you have a lot of baggage that has led you to hate the misled, or perhaps you're just looking to shut down a guy who doesn't know any better because it helps you beat off at night.
Almost-clever attempt to shield all reality-deniers from criticism: They don't know any better, so we can't criticize them.
And the ad-hominem: Classy (not).
Posted by: Bureaucratus Minimis | February 22, 2008 12:04 PM
But what about the chickens!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ej13paGUQN8
Posted by: healthphysicist | February 22, 2008 12:04 PM
I think we should also consider it to be lying if you recklessly repeat something that whilst you may not know it to be untrue you have failed to take sufficient steps to ensure that it is true.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | February 22, 2008 12:05 PM
If he doesn't know any better then he should have found out better before mouthing off in public.
The fact that he didn't, and indeed displays his ignorance with the kind of monumental certainty I've come to associate with people who are completely flat-out wrong is his look out.
This is particularly true considering the fact that, whether through ignorance or otherwise, he is not the misled but instead has chosen to become the misleader.
Mock away people.
Posted by: Lilly de Lure | February 22, 2008 12:06 PM
The most interesting part of that video for me was the rabbi's last, 'throwaway' line. After going on about the wonderful "blueprint" found in the seed he concludes:
"...And everything is here for the grand purpose of opening up our eyes to recognize a Great Designer. Masterpiece.... (almost looks natural)."
And that's a laugh line. "Almost looks natural." Because he's been arguing that it isn't really natural, after all. It's supernatural. It only "looks" natural. But it also is natural. Delicious irony is that it's both.
That's the fatal flaw in the argument, of course. In order to claim that some part of nature requires a supernatural explanation, you have to demonstrate how the whatever-it-is simply doesn't occur naturally, it requires artifical intervention, every time. But of course, you picked out something which DOES occur in nature, and does happen without apparent intervention, all the time. There's no human intervention. And there are no common examples of supernatural intervention, so that we can compare nature with, and without, supernatural intervention. When is nature unnatural? Would apples and apple trees make much more sense without seeds, so we know God stepped in to make them?
No, it's all a miracle. Which makes the entire concept of "miracle" completely vacuous. Interesting that the pleasant rabbi telling the story seems to understand this, and it doesn't phase him. There's no real argument here, it's just one big incredulous sigh.
Posted by: Sastra | February 22, 2008 12:08 PM
Bronze Dog,
Granted, while I might be wrong, it sounded like the guy was espousing not so much the ID argument against Evolution (though I have no doubt he would if given the chance) but the argument of first cause for a Designer.
If that is the case, I have little reason to condemn the man as the Cosmological argument is so time-tested that the matter is still being mulled over by the likes of Swinburne.
Posted by: flannery | February 22, 2008 12:09 PM
Holydust (#4): I love real-word-typo corrections... *waggles finger.* I think we know what he meant.
OK, I presumed PZ meant "delusional teacher," but "delusion teacher" reads more humorously -- like he's knowingly teaching delusional mind-sets to his students.
I'm appropriately chastened by the finger wagging. :::hangs head in shame:::
Posted by: Bureaucratus Minimis | February 22, 2008 12:09 PM
If he is a simple man, what in the hell is he doing teaching other people about religion, science, or anything? Generally we just call morons morons and give them simple jobs within their capabilities to do.
Or used to anyway. Nowadays we elect them president and then wonder how things got so screwed up.
Posted by: raven | February 22, 2008 12:09 PM
I actually found his discussion interesting right up until the very end. In fact, he never really mentions God, and if not for the crack about "nature" at the end of his discussions, it very well could have been a generally instructional talk. Swap the obviously religious man with a smart dressed middle aged woman and have her saying the exact thing to a bunch of 5th graders and you would all be praising her, right up until the nature crack, that is. Instead of making the nature crack and he said "isn't nature wonderful?" this little youtube would never have made a blip.
Posted by: Binkyboy | February 22, 2008 12:11 PM
I find it interesting how he anthropomorphizes the apple tree growth. It includes the factories and laboratories, yadda yadda yadda. I suppose he thinks his TV is filled with tiny people...
Posted by: True Bob | February 22, 2008 12:12 PM
...wound up looking like the round thing on the side opposite the door-hinge.
OK, that sucked.
Perhaps the neurons required to operate all those appendages get co-opted into searching the possible rhyme-space? Must be something special, anyway....
Posted by: Eamon Knight | February 22, 2008 12:12 PM
"Almost-clever attempt to shield all reality-deniers from criticism: They don't know any better, so we can't criticize them."
Having grown up in a Fundamentalist area of America, I look back on my upbringing not with resentment but with a certain degree of sadness. While I am presuming this Rabbi has shares a intellectual "bubble" like mine, I sadly think this man is really living in his reality that the community has created for themselves. There is no denying, because what they hold to be so manifestly true and self-evident is everything they believe.
Posted by: flannery | February 22, 2008 12:15 PM
"Granted, while I might be wrong, it sounded like the guy was espousing not so much the ID argument against Evolution (though I have no doubt he would if given the chance) but the argument of first cause for a Designer.
If that is the case, I have little reason to condemn the man as the Cosmological argument is so time-tested that the matter is still being mulled over by the likes of Swinburne. "
Swinburne would have trouble mulling over what to have for dinner. Why should take any notice of a man who thinks the holocaust was good for the Jews as it gave them a chance to be heroic ?
Posted by: Matt Penfold | February 22, 2008 12:15 PM
This "simple man" has set himself up as an authority and is lecturing an audience on a topic on which he is manifestly ignorant. There are good grounds for recognizing him as both a fool and a liar.
Posted by: PZ Myers | February 22, 2008 12:20 PM
Posted by: Stanton | February 22, 2008 12:30 PM
"This 'simple man' has set himself up as an authority and is lecturing an audience on a topic on which he is manifestly ignorant."
Indeed, and he's morally culpable for doing so.
"There are good grounds for recognizing him as both a fool and a liar."
Fool? Surely. Liar? Only if we should all be free to make up definitions as we go along (for rhetorical advantage in support of a worthy cause I'm sure).
Posted by: Sinbad | February 22, 2008 12:31 PM
I get the message :this video no longer available"
Posted by: Dahan | February 22, 2008 12:37 PM
I sadly think this man is really living in his reality that the community has created for themselves. There is no denying, because what they hold to be so manifestly true and self-evident is everything they believe.
This is where I have to part company with you. His 'community' doesn't get to create their own 'reality'. There might have once been some vital community function served by religious decrees on how the world works, but that day is long past.
As a scientist, this is a point that I sometime find contentious with unscientific, though otherwise rational, intellectuals- some grave and solemn respect for 'other ways of knowing', or a decrying of the 'fascism of evidence-based medicine' are examples off the top of my head- which seem to be some ideological problem with there actually being a reality that, however imperfectly we know it, we can interrogate and refine our understanding of.
In the case of fundamentalists, the problem is that they see science as usurping what belongs to their god(s) or magic holy books. With woo-begones, it is an unhappiness (I hypothesize) with nature for not bending to political or personal will, and for scientists for persistently pointing out that this is so.
In either case, I don't think it makes sense to sit still for bullshit. Not out of a misplaced sense of pity or manners, certainly.
Posted by: Dave Eaton | February 22, 2008 12:41 PM
Works fine for me.
Posted by: Don | February 22, 2008 12:42 PM
Sinbad, maybe "fraud" would be more accurate and precise than "liar". While he's not speaking words he consciously knows to be untrue, his is engaged in a dishonest enterprise and has some responsibility for presenting himself as something he is not.
Posted by: Kseniya | February 22, 2008 12:46 PM
I don't know why I felt compelled to click on this link in the video PZ linked to, but it was worth it. This was one of the funniest things (albeit in a painful sort of way) I've seen on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP-XW4b_2JA&feature=related
Admittedly, I should probably feel a little bad for this guy (he's not likely to be doing any real damage to anyone), but he's just so damn hilarious. It'd be easy to believe he's high on more than Jesus. My favorite part was the end when he bites the head off of the match and says "That's what God does with a human being."
Posted by: Escuerd | February 22, 2008 12:55 PM
"Sinbad, maybe 'fraud' would be more accurate and precise than 'liar.''
Perhaps. Defamation law covers intentional falsehoods as well as instances where there is "reckless disregard for truth." I have no disagreement with equivilent moral blame and culpability, but much disagreement with going along with the Humpty Dumpty-ization of the language for rhetorical advantage.
Posted by: Sinbad | February 22, 2008 12:59 PM
Oh look, another creationist has found evidence of design in a product of human intervention. If he tried planting that seed, he would get a gross crabapple tree - suitable only for cider. Even so, the plant is the result of natural evolution + human design.
These creationists are traipsing into my field - back off!
Posted by: Inoculated Mind | February 22, 2008 1:02 PM
Nope, still get the same "We're sorry, this video is no longer available." message. Oh well, from the comments, I can guess what's said.
Posted by: Dahan | February 22, 2008 1:04 PM
Odd that they would use personal incredulity as an argument against science (especially when history has shown us that science is so far the best method for turning one generation's incredulous fantasies into another's mundane reality), when they don't accept it as an argument against faith.
I personally find it incredible that a loving God who wants us all to join Him in heaven would spend all His time speaking to a douche like Hovind and couldn't bother to spare a kind word for a sweet young Catholic boy who only wanted to do right by his deity. I guess God never heard that it takes ten times as much work to gain a new customer than to keep an old one.
Ah, but God works in mysterious ways....
Posted by: Brownian, OM | February 22, 2008 1:27 PM
New Pharyngula tagline?
Posted by: J Myers | February 22, 2008 1:32 PM
Interestingly, at the same time these individuals in the richest country in the world are exercising their choice to remain ignorant, there are other people in far more resource-poor places who are doing their best to do science to the degree they can with what they have available.
I have a friend who works with HIV/AIDS researchers in Sénégal, for example, and the Indian Health Service's Research Page greets visitors with: "Welcome to the Indian Health Service Research Program: Scientific Inquiry and Practice-Based Evidence for the Health of American Indians and Alaska Natives". These programs, and many similar ones, do the best they can under very tight financial constraints.
So when someone who clearly has the resources to choose his path, and to gain real knowledge if he should choose to, decides to pontificate about matters he knows nothing about, and sets himself up in opposition to those who do, or spends $27 million on a "Creation Museum", or whatever, I think it's totally appropriate to call those individuals out as liars.
Unlike many people around the world, they have the resources and the choice to find out about the world around them, and they simply don't have the interest in it. They deliberately choose not to, and they deliberately choose to set themselves up in opposition. If they just didn't care about learning for themselves, however, I wouldn't give a rat's ass about what they believed in their own homes.
But in addition, they damage the children they teach, and they divert scientific resources into damage control for the mess they make on school boards, like Dover, instead of making those resources more available to scientists in low-resource areas who are starving for them, and they bring down this country's competitiveness in the future of science and technology. I see no problem in insisting they take responsibility for their public actions and the subsequent consequences.
(I'm still waiting for FtK to answer my 3 questions; I'll repeat them here, to save her the trouble of going back so many threads to find them: 1) what about the kids whom $27 million could feed, clothe, and educate; 2) what about the young minds whose education is being stunted by efforts like this guy and the Creation Museum, and 3) what about the kids with craniofacial deformities, whose syndromes Matsuoka and Shubin, among others, link to evolutionary developments in our anatomy, and point out how evolutionary developmental biology can shed insights into common causes and possible treatments? Is spending $27 million dollars on lies really a better use of funds for the kids, and if so, why and how do you rationalize that? 'S ok; I can continue to wait for your answers.)
Posted by: thalarctos | February 22, 2008 1:38 PM
Every time I see one of these bits with fruit, I'm reminded of the good, succinct summary of genetic similarities that was in the Cracking the Code of Life special on PBS. Robert Krulwich and Eric Lander discuss how similar genes are across all species, and it starts with Robert holding up a banana and saying "50% of the genes in a banana? I feel very different from a banana!"
Video here, part 6, about halfway through, you have to watch through a bit of Craig Venter first.
Posted by: Carlie | February 22, 2008 1:42 PM
I call David Hume against this person.
In other words, any natural event that happens in a predictable is not a miracle. The very premise is flawed. But than, so is Paley's premise.
Posted by: Janine | February 22, 2008 1:45 PM
the jewish apple video doesnt come close to the level of stupid of this christian apple video
http://tiny.cc/bigbang
Posted by: veganerd | February 22, 2008 1:50 PM
Fruit don't bite back if they feel compelled to it, just because some ignorant creo uses it as an example to promote ignorance and superstition. That's why xD
Posted by: Mytho | February 22, 2008 1:52 PM
How's this quote:
"Putting the Superfluous back into Supernatural"
Posted by: Inoculated Mind | February 22, 2008 2:06 PM
gg wrote:
But Ken Ham prefers pig minge.
Posted by: Tosser | February 22, 2008 2:12 PM
I thought it was delightful. Scientists want to protest against a fun little talk like that! Good Grief.
Posted by: Louise Van Court | February 22, 2008 2:15 PM
"I thought it was delightful. Scientists want to protest against a fun little talk like that! Good Grief."
Yeah aren't scientists weird, thinking it would be better if people accepted things based on evidence rather than superstition. Next think you will be telling me that they claim the earth is not 6000 years, but about 4.7 Billion.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | February 22, 2008 2:26 PM
Perhaps you'd like to read See Spot Run as your intellectually stimulating book for the week. It's a delightful read.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | February 22, 2008 2:28 PM
@thalarctos,
FtK is in the dungeon; you'll have to seek her out elsewhere if you really want a response (seriously, do you actually care what she has to say?).
Posted by: J Myers | February 22, 2008 2:36 PM
From his tone, I would conclude he was aware of the stupidity of what he was teaching, and he did not took himself too seriously. Nor did the children. He never even mentioned God. But, well, there is no way you can teach the Bible without Creation (chapter one, page one). At least he didnt have to explain the dinosaurs.
Posted by: j | February 22, 2008 2:39 PM
At least the rabbi is rather jolly and his congregation seem to have a sense of humour. Quite a change from dour protestantism.
Of course he's a delusional whackjob who owed it to his audience to have done some research before pontificating about apples and their designer. So 6/10 for presentation and 0/10 for content.
(Comfort gets 2 for unintentional humour).
Posted by: MartinDH | February 22, 2008 2:45 PM
Eamon Knight & Tosser: Okay, you've proven that everyone is a better rhymer than me! I didn't think there were any passable ways to rhyme with orange! :)
Posted by: gg | February 22, 2008 2:48 PM
Granted, while I might be wrong, it sounded like the guy was espousing not so much the ID argument against Evolution (though I have no doubt he would if given the chance) but the argument of first cause for a Designer.
Here, here! It actually seemed to me that his point was veering towards a denouncement of the idea of a pathetic God who must constantly tinker with creation. That finding something obviously created in an apple, like a silver dollar, would be LESS sublime than a prime mover who in one act of creation umpteen millennia ago caused such an impressive thing as an apple seed (much less conscience beings 'in His own image' as it were) to eventually come into being.
But that's treading upon the ragged edges of naturalism and that shit ain't going to get any love around here.
Posted by: Sarcastro | February 22, 2008 2:49 PM
Drat! 'Conscious' beings not 'conscience' beings.
Posted by: Sarcastro | February 22, 2008 2:50 PM
Oddly, finding a pinworm egg on an itchy anus doesn't have quite the cachet of an apple seed found in an apple, although it is exactly equivalent.
Finding an apple seed inside a pumpkin, now that would be something.
Posted by: Ken Shabby | February 22, 2008 2:52 PM
I don't know, MartinDH. I usually take that laughter in Creationist lectures as the collective laughter at silly scientists. You often hear laughing as the people listening giggle at how stupid the rest of us are, not believing in the "obvious truth of Creation".
Posted by: Holydust | February 22, 2008 2:52 PM
I really enjoy reading your blog, it always has great insight. But I am very frustrated with the media's lack of questions to the presidential candidates about global warming. Now that it is down to just a few candidates I would think that this would be a bigger issue.
Live Earth just picked up this topic and put out an article ( http://www.liveearth.org/news.php ) asking why the presidential candidates are not being solicited for their stance on the issue of the climate change. I just saw an article describing each candidate's stance on global warming and climate change on earthlab.com http://www.earthlab.com/articles/PresidentialCandidates.aspx . So obviously they care about it. Is it the Medias fault for not asking the right questions or is it the candidates' fault for not highlighting the right platforms? Does anyone know of other websites or articles that touch on this subject and candidates' views? This is the biggest problem of the century and for generations to come...you would think the next president of the United States would be more vocal about it.
Posted by: alex | February 22, 2008 3:07 PM
The ignorant don't know they're ignorant. If they did they wouldn't be ignorant.
denying knowledge they wish to destroy their own foundations.
then blame everyone else when their house falls.
Posted by: tsig | February 22, 2008 3:11 PM
What is it with creationists and fruit?
For people obsessed with Genesis, you'd think they'd have learned their lesson about using fruit as teaching aids.
What do these idiots learn in Sunday school anyway?
Posted by: Brownian, OM | February 22, 2008 3:11 PM
@#2 & #26--aw...thanks for thinking of me!
The apple gets my sympathy; it's been abused so long
From Genesis, where Eve is blamed for turning us to wrong
Through childhood tales of razor blades to ruin Halloween,
And now this silly video--the one that you've just seen.
(Ironically, the hybrid fruits he uses in his screed
Are products of technology, not grown from wild seed;
The touch of Man is evident in root-stock and in grafting,
But truth should never interfere with moral story-crafting.)
The story as he tells it is amusing, but absurd,
But that won't stop Rabbi Appleseed's attempt to spread the word.
A teacher spreading falsehoods? It may seem a little odd,
But a little apple-polishing should set him right with God.
And once again the apple is the patsy in this game;
I despair that "spreading ignorance" might be its claim to fame.
But then, a recollection comes upon me like a snap,
A story that's so obvious, my forehead gets a slap:
The apple holds a special place in science, as you know,
Cos it fell, and hit the head of Isaac Newton down below,
And that alone, if I were judge, would outweigh all the bad;
The apple's reputation once again is ironclad--
Let rabbis or creationists continue their pursuit;
We know which one's the apple, and which one is just a fruit.
http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2008/02/apple-of-my-eye.html
Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | February 22, 2008 3:19 PM
Cuttlefish, you rule!
Posted by: MartinDH | February 22, 2008 3:22 PM
Cuttlefish: Aargh! How do you do that?
(For a audio clip that faithfully reproduces my "Aargh!", look here, particularly the very end... :)
Posted by: gg | February 22, 2008 3:24 PM
I don't think it says in the bible that it'S an apple... who the heck decided it was an apple? :P
@#62 :"What do these idiots learn in Sunday school anyway?"
Well he's jewish, so that's saturday school. And I guess they learn faerie tales :)
Posted by: Michelle | February 22, 2008 3:26 PM
And these people wonder why their dress, speech, and beliefs are ridiculed?
There are a lot of jewish comedians out there with parodies of unintentional jewish clowns like this, and many are even funnier and even more sly: Woody Allen's transformation into a rabbi due to side effects of a prison medical experiment was the one that immediatly came to mind (and Joe Frank's blues guitar rabbi after that.)
Posted by: So Laris | February 22, 2008 3:36 PM
Well he's jewish, so that's saturday school.
Oops, good point.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | February 22, 2008 3:37 PM
He's correct - the great designer is evolution,,,a natural process, which may or may not be the product of a supernatural being, which explains why anything exists to evolve at all,,but then that's not what he is "adducing", since he is wearing a religious hat,,,
Posted by: PeteK | February 22, 2008 4:10 PM
I am still waiting for the creotards to come up with a video with a steak, stating that it's an irrefutable proof of god because animals are made out of meat.
Posted by: Jason B | February 22, 2008 4:15 PM
This rabbi may be ignorant, willfully so, even, but, he is still trying to promote falsehoods in order to maintain the ignorance of his flock. Last I checked, the Old Testament did have a little blurb about Moses being told "THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS," and last I checked, most Jewish people tend to regard the idea of ignorance being vital to piety to be an extraordinarily unwholesome thought. (I mean, if this isn't true, then why have Jewish mothers always badgered their daughters into marrying nice medical doctors for the last 10 millennia?)
Posted by: Stanton | February 22, 2008 4:38 PM
now if they add walnuts, cashews, pecans, rolled oats, and pressed wheat to the arguments from apples and oranges, and then publish the whole thing, the combined title could be "Fruits, Flakes, and Nuts Against Evolution"
they're missing a golden opprotunity, if you ask me
Posted by: skyotter | February 22, 2008 4:42 PM
what is it with creationists and fruit, i dont get that. dont they get that pretty much every fruit and vegetable we eat has been selectively bred for US, that all food products prove evolution not creation.
you think they would stear as far away as they can. is this some variant of the go proverb "my enemies strength is my strength"? maybe they should opt instead to "play away from the thickness"
Posted by: tus | February 22, 2008 4:44 PM
And even worse for creationists, the seed plant life cycle makes no sense what so ever unless in an evolutionary context. Why else would there be vestiges of a sexual haploid generation unless seed plants had a common ancestry with organisms that have separate, free-living haploid and diploid phases to their life cycle. All the goofy incorrect names date from when biologists misinterpreted the seed plant life cycle and thought it like that of animals, thus the ovule (but its a sporangium, not a gamete).
Posted by: DrA | February 22, 2008 4:53 PM
Rabbi Miller was a brilliant talmudist, but his science was for crap. I find it fascinating that all of the creationists/id'ists/anti-evolutionists etc will point to things like the brilliant design of the banana but are seemingly ignorant that almost every fruit that humans eat today were originally barely edible by humans as they needed to be attractive only to other animal & insect species in order to propagate. And it is by HUMAN design that they exist in their current form! (Of course, some fruits are again barely edible because they have been bred for production and shelf-life rather than taste!)
Posted by: zach | February 22, 2008 4:59 PM
Ah yes, I remember from the old Flanders and Swann tune about the rebellious teenage cannibal, whose father argues: "Well if the Great Ju-JU hadn't meant us to eat people, he wouldn't have made us of MEAT".
Posted by: MikeK | February 22, 2008 5:03 PM
J Myers, you're absolutely right; I totally forgot about her getting herself banned. It's not fair to taunt someone who can't answer, so I take back my challenge.
Up until she got herself banned, of course, she was evading the question. But as of her banning, my question no longer stands, since I don't care enough to seek her out on other fora.
Posted by: thalarctos | February 22, 2008 5:35 PM
It is indeed wondrous how well a banana fits in your palm. It is almost
as if... oops. My bad. My very very bad.
Posted by: barks | February 22, 2008 5:43 PM
re #2
Some kook in Florida used an orange
door-knob with a matching door-hinge
Posted by: George Atkinson | February 22, 2008 5:45 PM
I wish these religious fuckers realized just how similar they all are to each other. They're hypocrites who never cease to break their own laws when it comes to spreading their reprehensible parasitic memes to children. Hey rabbi, how about you open a biology book and actually read it? It's a shame that with all the evolutionary changes required to reason and properly communicate with each other, some people are reduced towards extrapolating fantasy. A lot of what makes these morons think the way they do is the assumption that since certain things have existed for a while, then there must be some truth to it. This idiot probably believes that his way is the one true path because it's been practiced by ignorant morons like him for a few thousand years. Tradition is meaningless when trying to reason and think critically.
Well, I think we're all better off without christians, jews, muslims, hindus, buddhists, etc, poisoning the minds of the ignorant. Should we awaken tomorrow and find that these ministers, rabbis, priests, imams, gurus, monks, etc have all but vanished, the world would amount to a more tolerant place. Granted, religion isn't the root of every ill, but it sure does manage to place itself in all aspects of those ills.
Posted by: Helioprogenus | February 22, 2008 5:51 PM
The Jolly Rabbi was doin' his job by telling a teaching story about G-d the designer of All. Hasidic rabbis rarely climb away from the Community that they serve. The Community would not support a [Rabbi= Teacher] who poisoned children against modern science. The parents wouldn't pay him. Unlike the Christian megachurches where the "board" owns the property the Jewish Congregation holds the deed. The youngsters just heard the story of a marvel in the here-and-now. The kids won't become Creos or Baptists on this guy's watch. They will learn Biology in school.
Posted by: Skeptic8 | February 22, 2008 6:04 PM
Can someone give him one of Ray Comfort's bananas and explain how it's triploid, so it's sterile and doesn't have any seeds and has to be grafted. Then give Ray a wild banana and ask why it's not perfectly designed for fitting into Kirk's
anusmouth. How about a coconut or even better a cashew with it's corrosive and toxic apple? How about giving them all some nice almonds. In fact, lets give them some non-domesticated strains, yes some wild almonds would do the trick. The fruit of the wild forms contains the glycoside amygdalin, "which becomes transformed into deadly prussic acid (hydrogen cyanide) after crushing, chewing, or any other injury to the seed Definitely evidence of the great beneficent designer.Posted by: AlanWCan | February 22, 2008 6:06 PM
I find this post rather condemning of a simple man. I wonder if you have a lot of baggage that has led you to hate the misled, or perhaps you're just looking to shut down a guy who doesn't know any better because it helps you beat off at night.
flannery
Flannery, are you calling this Rabbi "simple"? Are you saying he "doesn't know ant better"
Calling Jews stupid or simple-minded is anti-semetism, and I won't put up with it!
Why do you think he's not intelligent? This is an outrage!
Posted by: Mooser | February 22, 2008 6:19 PM
I wish I could find some silver dollars in an apple. If it's so much harder for God to stick seeds in there, it wouldn't be that much trouble to do this. Or just cut out the middle man and materialize the cashy money right in my wallet.
Posted by: October Mermaid | February 22, 2008 6:29 PM
last I checked, most Jewish people tend to re