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« Local reminder! | Main | Pseudonymity ≠ anonymity »
Calvin: Prophet, Genius, Victim.
Category: Humor
Posted on: April 19, 2008 1:56 PM, by PZ Myers
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Comments
Posted by: Mozglubov | April 19, 2008 2:18 PM
Oh, how I love Calvin and Hobbes... so poignant, yet so flippant.
Posted by: Kristjan Wager | April 19, 2008 2:32 PM
And Sternberg thought he was prosecuted.
Posted by: alex | April 19, 2008 2:39 PM
alas, if only all kids were allowed the academic freedom to refuse to learn owt at school. it would have made it so much easier to fail media studies.
Posted by: Bronze Dog | April 19, 2008 2:41 PM
Oh, that is just so perfectly appropriate.
Posted by: Zeno | April 19, 2008 2:44 PM
The Lio comic strip offered a macabre tribute to Calvin and Hobbes in a January 2008 strip, preserved here at Preypacer's Journal.
Posted by: Clinton | April 19, 2008 3:00 PM
http://xkcd.com/409/
Randall Munroe recently posted a funny Calvin and Hobbes comic of his own. His comment: "Unsafe vehicles, hills and philosophy go hand in hand."
I miss the days of C&H.
Posted by: zak | April 19, 2008 3:02 PM
Man alive. I love Calvin and Hobbes SO much. Basically, I judge people if they say they dont like it hahaha.
Posted by: J Myers | April 19, 2008 3:26 PM
He even has an imaginary friend. How apt.
Posted by: Rob Hinkley | April 19, 2008 3:32 PM
On the subject of persecution, I see Uncommon Descent's linking to the latest ID martyr site FreeGonzalez.com. They want to help "free Guillermo Gonzalez" - which came as a shock to me because I never realised he'd ever been imprisoned.
Posted by: alex | April 19, 2008 3:38 PM
ariba! ariba!Posted by: Eric | April 19, 2008 3:58 PM
...to good home, all shots, not neutered.
Posted by: Jsn | April 19, 2008 4:15 PM
/Gonzalez "...self described geek-scientist..."/
Well, he's half right.
Posted by: Copernic | April 19, 2008 4:23 PM
My seven year-old has read nearly 90% of Calvin and Hobbes via the book collection I've held for upwards of 15 years.
There's no better teaching opportunity when a child asks;
"Dad, why would suffering build character?"
"What does 'instant gratification' mean?"
"How about 'cynically manipulate the system'?"
And then the one I had no answer for "I notice your oeuvre is monochromatic." I had no idea what that meant.
And then, this gem..."Dad, I don't get this part....
'Yes, Calvin is a god of the underworld! And the puny inhabitants of earth displease him!'.....what does this mean?"
What does this mean, indeed?
Posted by: LisaJ | April 19, 2008 5:25 PM
Perfect!
Posted by: Starbix | April 19, 2008 5:25 PM
Free Gonzalez for everyone!
Starbix
"Don't Panic." -Douglas Adams
Posted by: Starbix | April 19, 2008 5:53 PM
Don't forget, Calvin is also a Math Atheist. This is just Big Math discriminating against the freedom to question whether 2+2 may or may not =4.
Starbix
"Don't Panic." -Douglas Adams
Posted by: Atomicmutant | April 19, 2008 6:02 PM
Contrary to popular belief, it would seem we're all Calvinists, here. :)
Posted by: Harrison | April 19, 2008 6:15 PM
I still haven't forgiven Sam Watterson for retiring the strip!
Posted by: Quidam | April 19, 2008 6:19 PM
Freegonzalez.com is owned by
Eaton, David
dmeaton@msn.com
20690 Linwood Rd
Excelsior, MN 55331
US
Phone: 952-470-8675
(Whois record 19 April 2008)
He's a well known Intelligent Design Creationist with a drive to circumvent the 1st Amendment.
I love this quote from the site:
Yes the only choices are Christian Colleges like Grove City College which are a real step down.
Has no one ever wondered why Christian Colleges, with their inside lock on the TRUTH do not lead the world in science? If ID creationism is true, then you would expect major new discoveries on a daily basis as unblinkered scientists use their Biblical worldview to uncover spectacular breakthroughs.
Oil Companies don't care about ideology - they want results. Flood Geology should enable them to better understand the Earth and pinpoint new deposits far better than Old Earth geologists labouring under the misapprehension that the Earth shows a long history of deposition, erosion and tectonic activity.
Understanding that the genome was designed should give creationists a huge advantage in genetics, we would expect the top geneticists to be Biblical literalists because they won't waste time researching dead-ends resulting from a Darwinian worldview.
Academic censorship is irrelevant if you produce results. If Ponds and Fleischmann had delivered a working cold fusion cell, who would have cared if it was powered by an genie in a magic lantern?
Instead EVEN CREATIONISTS recognise that a job in a Christian College is academic wasteland with no chance of a productive research program.
Posted by: JohnnieCanuck, FCD | April 19, 2008 6:54 PM
I'm more of a Hobbesist, myself. He often got the last word with droll punch lines.
It occurs to me now that some of the fun was that the tiger's imaginary character was more reality based than Calvin.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 19, 2008 6:55 PM
"Don't forget, Calvin is also a Math Atheist. This is just Big Math discriminating against the freedom to question whether 2+2 may or may not =4."
In fact, with God all things are possible, including a sufficiently large value of 2 such that 2+2=5.
Posted by: jsn | April 19, 2008 7:39 PM
/Academic censorship is irrelevant if you produce results./
Exactly! Are you listening, Ben Stein?
Posted by: Cleland | April 19, 2008 8:14 PM
Harrison
I still haven't forgiven Sam Watterson for retiring the strip!
Bill Watterson is Calvin's creator. Isn't Sam Watterson the guy on Law & Order?
Posted by: Dahan | April 19, 2008 8:35 PM
My favorite is when I see those little decals on vehicles that show Calvin praying before the cross. Just FYI, there are no licensed Calvin and Hobbes decals. Waterson fought a long legal battle against his publisher over that, believing that merchandising the strip would be wrong.
So every one of those "Calvin and the cross" decals you see are in fact examples of stolen artistic rights. Nice way to show your belief in god, by stealing.
Posted by: Jon | April 19, 2008 9:21 PM
This is kind of like what the Expelled movie was talking about. One apparent "silencing" technique is firing people.
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | April 19, 2008 9:25 PM
This is kind of like what the Expelled movie was talking about. One apparent "silencing" technique is firing people
Do you mean not granting tenure (Gonzalez) and not re-hiring once a contract has expired because of a demonstration of incompetence (Crocker) or not being employed (at the Smithsonian, for example) in the first place (Sternberg)?
Posted by: Jon | April 19, 2008 9:33 PM
Hmmm. I was not aware of this. But, I guess I'm just curious how many scientists work at large universities and believe in Intelligent Design. Thanks for this bit of important info.
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 19, 2008 10:04 PM
Hmmm. I was not aware of this.
http://www.expelledexposed.com/
But, I guess I'm just curious how many scientists work at large universities and believe in Intelligent Design.
it's a very tiny number.
OTOH, there are plenty of scientists working at universities who are xians.
Posted by: Cleland | April 19, 2008 10:52 PM
This is kind of like what the Expelled movie was talking about. One apparent "silencing" technique is firing people.
I believe that's why PZ posted it. The people complaining about having been fired (and such reports have been greatly exaggerated) are just as ridiculous as Calvin is being here. You can say whatever you want, but don't be surprised if people criticize you for spouting unscientific nonsense and trying to call it science. As far as anyone in the scientific community can tell, ID is pretty much as relevant to science as dinosaurs in rocket ships are to first-grade math.
Posted by: marc buhler | April 19, 2008 11:06 PM
Is there some sort of 'denial-of-service' attack going on directed at Panda's Thumb??
IT's been hours since I have been about to get their page to load.
(Oh - great comic, too!)
Posted by: NoniMausa | April 19, 2008 11:41 PM
"But, I guess I'm just curious how many scientists work at large universities and believe in Intelligent Design."
So far, I haven't seen any way for anyone to *believe* in ID. Like, I haven't seen any hypotheses and structures of understanding, no proposal as to how you would test, etc. (Old news, I know, but I don't get out much.)
Like they say, "You can lead a horse to water, but after that you have to hold him under."
Night night,
Noni
Posted by: Zeno | April 20, 2008 12:13 AM
I can't log on to Panda's Thumb either. It could just be struggling with unusually high traffic this weekend in the wake of Expelled's release.
Posted by: Jon | April 20, 2008 2:07 AM
Here's a question: What is love? (I'm not talking about that 80's song--first thing that popped in my head)
I should be sleeping right now.
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 20, 2008 2:18 AM
What is love? (I'm not talking about that 80's song--first thing that popped in my head)
muhahahahahaha!
http://www.clipshack.com/Clip.aspx?key=569D93DA82F9E782
now it will never leave your head!
Posted by: brokenSoldier | April 20, 2008 2:28 AM
now it will never leave your head!
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 20, 2008 2:18 AM
It doesn't happen often, but it is times like this that make suffering from short-term memory function loss quite a bearable concept...
As an aside, whenever I hear that song, it isn't just the movie in general that pops into my head, but - aside from the obvious and hilarious image of Chris Kattan holding the boombox over his head - it also reminds me of the part where Will Ferrell was doing the ambulance pick-up line. I have no idea why it reminds me of this, but it does, and I laugh...every time.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 20, 2008 5:57 PM
#26 MAJeff --
When I learned the actual details on these alleged cases of 'persecution' I was actually a bit disappointed that some of the people *weren't* fired for their ID activities. If you go against the scientific method to the extent that it is informing and/or interfering with your research and/or your teaching, you should be summarily fired. There is no reason a scientific journal, department, or school should continue employing people who do not understand the basic principles of the scientific method.
Posted by: Ray | April 20, 2008 6:17 PM
#34 your vid doesnt work, try this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBSLZuHYelI
Posted by: peter garayt | April 20, 2008 7:58 PM
What is love/
Love is what the creator of Calvin and Hobbes did for us.
Posted by: Kimpatsu | April 20, 2008 9:30 PM
@Copernic:
And then the one I had no answer for "I notice your oeuvre is monochromatic." I had no idea what that meant.
It means you only paint or draw in black and white.
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 20, 2008 9:39 PM
but it is times like this that make suffering from short-term memory function loss quite a bearable concept...
sorry to hear that, but yeah, I'd say that could be quite a benefit given how much 80's music and pop-culture gets endlessly recycled these days.
Posted by: Michelle | April 21, 2008 8:49 AM
Ah yes. Calvin and hobbes... Maybe I should start reading them back! That thing was such pure genius.
Posted by: Howard Appel | April 21, 2008 7:39 PM
Quite a number of years ago I had my heart broken (very badly and into many small pieces), after which I vowed that I would never again become involved with a "married Mormon woman who went to USC undergrad, who was my study partner in law school and who DID NOT KNOW WHO CALVIN AND HOBBES were." She also didn't know about Doonesbury.
Obviously, I made a mistake and I paid for it. Never again. If they don't about Calvin and Hobbes or Doonesbury, we have no frame of reference.
Posted by: Greymalkin | April 22, 2008 4:44 AM
Calvin & Hobbes is the coolest comic ever. Period.
Posted by: Legal Question | April 22, 2008 12:10 PM
You described it as sleaze for the producers of Expelled to use a clip from a song without permission. (The fact that the movie may be stupid and lame is irrelevant.) Do you have a license to reproduce this Calvin & Hobbes strip? Do you have a license to reproduce the cartoon in the more recent post?
If not, why? What excuses the reproductions?
One difference is that suing you would probably be wasteful, but this does this make any acts of infringement okay. Is it obvious that this use is fair use and the use in the movie is not? How so? There is no special fair use provision for blogs. There is no firm rule that non-profit reproductions are fair. There is no Supreme Court case saying bloggers may fairly reproduce whatever.
Like the makers of a movie, you can't really know if something is fair use until you spend bucket-loads of money litigating the question. So, again assuming you have no licenses for these acts of copying and assuming you didn't get a declaratory judgment from a court that these uses are fair, why haven't you done something sleazy?
Posted by: Heather kuhn | April 24, 2008 6:00 AM
I've been wanting to do a Cthulhu/C&H parody of an old Campbell's Soup ad campaign. The one with the slogan "Soup that eats like a meal." Now, isn't that just begging for it?