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Category: Humor
Posted on: June 20, 2008 10:34 AM, by PZ Myers
So that's what the DI has been up to their "Biologic Institute".
(You might have to know the LOLcats tradition to get the joke).
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Comments
RESEARCH
UR DOIN IT RONG
Posted by: James F | June 20, 2008 10:48 AM
OK, own up - who has been wandering around the Discovery Institute in unauthorised possession of a sense of humour?
Posted by: Lilly de Lure | June 20, 2008 10:51 AM
Shouldn't it read "Imaginary Research"?
I would think that microbiologists would take offense to this...
Posted by: Stanton | June 20, 2008 11:07 AM
My favourite 'invisible' LOLcat is this:
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/01/26/invisible-bike/
Posted by: MH | June 20, 2008 11:08 AM
Gee, the last I heard about any Creationists doing research was this.
Posted by: mark | June 20, 2008 11:09 AM
It took me a second to get it, but I LOLed.
http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m124/Cappadocias/l_05d6d3e9f3637354cc86f7738f5b1652.jpg
Posted by: Josh West | June 20, 2008 11:15 AM
P.Z. wrote: "You might have to know the LOLcats tradition to get the joke"
P.Z., we are familiar with all intern...oh forget it. That meme is dead already. But it was a fun couple of days.
Posted by: David | June 20, 2008 11:18 AM
It should just say FAIL.
Posted by: Citizen Z | June 20, 2008 11:19 AM
OT, but on Ed Brayton's blog he has the released the findings of the investigation regarding John Freshwater.
The report shows the evidence that virtually all of the allegations against Freshwater were correct.
Word is that Freshwater will be fired tomorrow.
Posted by: Benjamin Franklin | June 20, 2008 11:31 AM
Invisible! Ha! At least the cat is going through the motions with the real stuff in front of him! Man, that freaking Deranged Institution is groping desparately for a modicum of seriousness and hilarity! Just like the old movies serial slogan, "Tune in next week for the next episode!" Don't they realize that they are providing us with moe cannon fodder? Fire away, you morons!
Posted by: Holbach | June 20, 2008 11:32 AM
(.)(.)
Posted by: wÒÓ† | June 20, 2008 11:38 AM
I CAN HAZ XTRA KROMOSOM?
Posted by: SMRT | June 20, 2008 11:40 AM
So, since they say god is invisible, and they are doing invisible reseach, when they find nothing will they admit god does not exist?
Posted by: mr_p1970 | June 20, 2008 11:40 AM
wÒÓ†, maybe a lolbooby?
Posted by: Dennis N | June 20, 2008 11:41 AM
#6
It's happy Wilkins!
Posted by: James F | June 20, 2008 11:45 AM
I KREATED U A LIFE
BUT I DEZINED IT
Posted by: Gruggach | June 20, 2008 11:46 AM
Josh West @ # 6 Good one! And wOO+ @ # 11; love your speechless avaian entries!
Posted by: Holbach | June 20, 2008 11:51 AM
CAREFUL, NEKKID MAN!
GIANT DNA IZ HOT!!1!!!1!
Posted by: James F | June 20, 2008 11:58 AM
I CAN HAS EQWAL TIME?
Posted by: Nick Tacik | June 20, 2008 12:04 PM
Benjamin Franklin @ # 9 Thanks for the update on Bilgewater: they should brand him with crosses before he is relased among his betters, the freaking moron.
And on an earlier post from you quoting from Isaac Asimov, "The Threat Of Creationism', I finally found it with my books on atheism and not with my books on Isaac.
For those interested: The above essay is from the book, "Science and Creationism" edited by Ashley Montagu, Oxford University Press, 1984. Good stuff in there!
Posted by: Holbach | June 20, 2008 12:05 PM
Discover the Invisible!!
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." [Delos McKown]
Posted by: Alex | June 20, 2008 12:09 PM
Ceiling cat sez invisible resurch rite for invisible cozes.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | June 20, 2008 12:12 PM
im n ur scienz
mekkin it holey
Posted by: Suze | June 20, 2008 12:13 PM
Holbach-
Thanks. If and when I ever start up my own blog, I am probably going to call it "The Feeble Lance", out of respect for Dr. Asimov.
Posted by: Benjamin Franklin | June 20, 2008 12:22 PM
First one to hack the Disco 'tute and put this one up wins a beer.
Posted by: Sili | June 20, 2008 12:56 PM
I lawld irl.
Posted by: zer0 | June 20, 2008 1:00 PM
but they just had that amazing paper about proteins looking like chinese characters:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0002246
seriously, does anyone know what, if any, significance this paper has?
Posted by: dmso74 | June 20, 2008 1:05 PM
Ben, I hear congratulations are in order.
Posted by: Kseniya | June 20, 2008 1:08 PM
dmso74-
I don't know. It's Greek to me.
Posted by: Benjamin Franklin | June 20, 2008 1:09 PM
dms074,
my guess, they are going to try and make the kind of argument like "chinese language can only have been the result of an intelligence, therefore, if proteins look like chinese characters, proteins can only be the result of an intelligence". Daniel Smith was making this kind of argument in another thread a while ago. They are moving slowly away from irreducible complexity, down the ladder, until they've got nothing left...
Posted by: negentropyeater | June 20, 2008 1:25 PM
College kids are going to starting getting 'Peace, Love, Wisdom' tattoos written in protein?
Posted by: Brownian, OM | June 20, 2008 1:37 PM
i can haz monies 4 reeserch?
Posted by: Richard Wolford | June 20, 2008 1:45 PM
#27
It's that Biologic Institute papers aren't automatically rejected by Big Science.
Posted by: James F | June 20, 2008 2:00 PM
TEECH TEH KONTERVERZEE!
or
I CAN HAZ AKADEMIK FREEDUM?
Posted by: Longtime Lurker | June 20, 2008 2:06 PM
I am a LOLcats fan and I didn't get the joke! O_o; I think it's because of what #10 said, LOLcats usually go through the motions of doing something.
Posted by: Ouchimoo | June 20, 2008 2:12 PM
We wants equal times for our soodoscienze!
Posted by: susan | June 20, 2008 2:18 PM
Well, the invisible thing IS doing something in theory (creating eyeballs and what have you), but since it's invisible, you can't see the thing doing it. So you're researching the invisible thing. AIDS research, market research, invisible research.
Posted by: Suze | June 20, 2008 2:24 PM
Invisible Stuck Pickle Jar
Posted by: Curt Cameron | June 20, 2008 2:25 PM
Kseniya re #28
LOL, thanks. Now if she could only speak French, if you know what I mean...
Posted by: Benjamin Franklin | June 20, 2008 2:37 PM
French ? you mean the language of what country exactly ?
Posted by: negentropyeater | June 20, 2008 2:47 PM
Hey, it's déjà vu all over again.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | June 20, 2008 2:51 PM
Real Invisible Research.
Posted by: Alex | June 20, 2008 3:02 PM
LOLscience on flickr can has? kthxbai.
Posted by: themadlolscientist | June 20, 2008 3:18 PM
@37
AIDS research, market research, invisible research.
What? AIDS research does not belong in this group.
Posted by: Bluegrass Geek | June 20, 2008 3:19 PM
This lets us get away with everything!
YES YOU CAN HAS 'NVISIBUL CHEEZBURGER.
YOURS. *Serves up thin air* Heh heh.
Don't have to feed the cat now, heh heh.
MISS YUR BUCKIT? RITE DERE!
YOU BLINDED?
IS TRANSPARINT!
Heh, heh, Love teasin' the animals.
DESIGN: INVISIBULL INVISIBULLITY.
I can do invisible research (and can haz grantz), too. Srsly! And BTW -
FAIL
Posted by: Kristine | June 20, 2008 3:20 PM
Science and Culture....would that be religion in a petri dish?
Posted by: RT NZ | June 20, 2008 3:41 PM
WTF IZ CHINEEZ FOR PAR... PARI... PAR-EYE-DOLLY-A?
CAN HAZ IG NOBEL?
(There's also a comment that points to a paper on the I Ching and DNA. Oy.)
Posted by: Owlmirror | June 20, 2008 4:25 PM
I looked at the link at #43, was this done by someone who frequents this blog?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/themadlolscientist/2424025874/in/pool-lolscience/
Posted by: Mena | June 20, 2008 4:38 PM
It shows that Confucius was the intelligent designer.
Posted by: Les Lane | June 20, 2008 4:48 PM
AIDS research, market research, invisible research.
-What? AIDS research does not belong in this group.
It wasn't a comment on the quality or existence or serious nature of AIDS research. It was just something you research, pulled out of the air. Substitute "banana."
Posted by: Suze | June 20, 2008 4:56 PM
P.Z., we are familiar with all intern...oh forget it. That meme is dead already. But it was a fun couple of days.
Oh, I almost wrote that! It's not dead yet!
Posted by: Carlie | June 20, 2008 4:56 PM
Posted by: Daniel Martin | June 20, 2008 4:59 PM
@47:
Strangely enough, Chinese writing and par-eye-dolly-a aren't a million miles apart. Some of the characters are supposed to look like what they mean: the character for "person" looks sorta like someone walking, that for "fire" looks like flames etc. So you can find yourself squinting at an unfamiliar character and thinking "uh, a dude kneeling down, perhaps?"
Posted by: Moggie | June 20, 2008 5:08 PM
@53:
Some characters do indeed. You get the simple ones like person, mountain, fire, etc. There are slightly more complicated ones that are composed of simpler characters that mean something akin to the depicted situation (tree+tree = forest, or the somewhat sexist roof+woman+woman = quarrel).
The rest of them, comprising the majority, are still made out of simpler characters, but one of the characters, the "radical", usually thinner and located on an edge, gives a "category" to the character, e.g. heart as a radical usually signifies emotion-related characters, like fear, happy.
The rest of the character, the "phonetic", is used for its approximate pronunciation when it's on its own, e.g. wang2 on its own is used as the pronunciation part in kuang2 (+dog radical=rabid dog), wang3 (+tree radical=grown crooked), wang4 (+sun radical=prosperous)
Chinese dictionaries have a section near the front where, once you count the strokes on the radical, look under that section for the radical. This gives you a reference number for the radical. Then, you count the strokes of the phonetic and look for the character under the radical's section. That will give you the romanized pinyin for the word, which you then look up alphabetically in the rest of the dictionary.
(Yes, it's a pain, but given the nature of the characters, I can't think of a much better system :)
Poke around on the Zhongwen site - it has a cool tree control on the page showing how Chinese characters derived from one another :)
Posted by: Ritchie Annand | June 20, 2008 5:55 PM
P.S. Remember that ICHC has "invisible" as a tag, so you can see their whole invisible catalog.
Posted by: Ritchie Annand | June 20, 2008 6:00 PM
""P.Z., we are familiar with all intern...oh forget it. That meme is dead already. But it was a fun couple of days."
Oh, I almost wrote that! It's not dead yet!"
Alright, Carlie, it's not dead. I just wanted to in at the start of the "it's dead" meme.
Jumping the gun, another internet tradition.
Posted by: David | June 20, 2008 6:58 PM
Reports of its demise are greatly exaggerated. :-)
Actually, IgNobels are given for the real thing.
At the ceremony, real Nobel laureates hand out the prizes.
One of my grad school profs (my ex's thesis advisor, in fact) won an IgNobel in 2005:
Crazy Ed and his partner both attended the ceremony, and Ed made the acceptance speech. Knowing him, I can say it was probably the proudest moment of his life.
Posted by: themadlolscientist | June 20, 2008 7:26 PM
#57
"Will Humans Swim Faster or Slower in Syrup?" American Institute of Chemical Engineers Journal, Brian Gettelfinger and E. L. Cussler, vol. 50, no. 11, October 2004, pp. 2646-7.
Awesome. Meanwhile, the cdesign proponentsists can't get data supporting ID published, although they've made great progress with computer programs involving Chinese characters.
Posted by: James F | June 20, 2008 7:38 PM
"Pareidolia" wasn't meant to refer to the seeing of shapes in Chinese characters.
It's the seeing Chinese characters in folded proteins...
Hm. I thought they were for "achievements that cannot or should not be reproduced."
Posted by: Owlmirror | June 20, 2008 7:44 PM
Noah's Ark:
ALL ABOARD THE FAILBOAT!
Posted by: MandyDax | June 20, 2008 8:08 PM
That reminds me, if you view the gram stained Corynebacterium genus under the microscope they are supposed to look like "chinese letters". The only conclusion, it must be God!
Wonderful, I guess that means Diphtheria (C. diptheriae) is a gift from the heavens?
Posted by: Lightnin | June 20, 2008 8:34 PM
Hey, on the Internet News 50 minutes ago, that Freshwater(Bilgewater) has gotten the axe (no, not the one I would give him). The photo with news story shows the crossed burned into the kid's arm! Now he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, in addition to a civil suit brought by the parents. Where's your god now, you moron?
Posted by: Holbach | June 20, 2008 8:46 PM
Geez, this is stupid. I mean, it's not even mildly funny.
Posted by: Alex | June 20, 2008 9:11 PM
For the last year a small group has been translating the bible into LOLCat speak. I especially like the site proving the xistance of teh Ceeling Cat:
http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Proof_of_Ceiling_Cat
Posted by: Bert Chadick | June 20, 2008 9:50 PM
Twanzfohmazzanal Gwammer blong dis kitteh she buggeremup worzen deh parliamentareh Pigin deh savvy in Papua
Tym PZ chosez anudder lingage profezor sides Knowem Chumbzi
Posted by: Polyester Mather D.D. | June 20, 2008 10:42 PM
I originally remember seeing the picture as "Invisible Curling" which was funnier.
Posted by: aporeticus | June 20, 2008 10:47 PM
visit
http://www.disclose.tv/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=94%20style=
to see how we stopped Randi's Challenge
Posted by: drmab | June 20, 2008 11:13 PM
ooo... Mabus iz so speshul. kitteh nots impressd.
Posted by: Die Anyway | June 20, 2008 11:23 PM
MABUSNIP. DO NOT WANT!
Posted by: LOLKSENIYA | June 20, 2008 11:43 PM
That was the old Journal of Irreproducible Results, which isn't publishing any more (or if it is, it's only sporadically - but anthologies of its articles are available). AIR was founded in 1994 by a former editor of the JIR.
u toktok long wanem? toktok pisin. yu mekim nogut. yu save? oke tenkyu lukim yu behain. :-)
Posted by: Witch Tyler, madlolscientist and leader of the Pedants' Revolt | June 20, 2008 11:58 PM
visit:
http://www.disclose.tv/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=94
to see how we stopped the MD paranormal challenge....
and FINALLY:
guess what is inside angel's ENVELOPE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YXHGGfeVzI
RANDI'S HEAD
Posted by: drmab | June 21, 2008 1:23 AM
So, the Biologic Institute exists, is kept secret for years, then it's suddenly revealed that they have done reasearch on... years old computer programmes by Axe. I mean, sheesh.
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/02/id-intelligent.html
Posted by: Adam Cuerden | June 21, 2008 1:50 AM
Whoah . . Mabus is back. . .
Invizibl Dragon sez:
Can I haz Scynz plz kthxbai.
Posted by: DLC | June 21, 2008 2:00 AM
PZ - please bring back some troll chow from TAM for a certain poster here. We're fresh out. Ceiling Cat is fresh out of smiting lightning right now and is no help.
Maybe LOLKSENIYA can help in the meantime...
kthxbai.
Posted by: szqc | June 21, 2008 2:09 AM
4chan is Not Great: How Internet Memes Poison Everything.
Posted by: Anonymous | June 21, 2008 3:39 AM
Don't know about all the rest, but I am sure it shows what can happen when you take transparency to an extreme.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | June 21, 2008 4:55 AM
#13, I think you missed the point. When they find nothing in their invisible search it will serve as proof that god does exist.
Posted by: shyster | June 21, 2008 6:35 AM
It's just pretty revealing that when a challenge gets changed to require at least one scientist to support you and some media attention for it to be considered, Mabus was left to conclude that the challenge is forever out of his reach and therefore "stopped".
Bitter much Mabus?
Posted by: Dutch Delight | June 21, 2008 7:52 AM
"Rogue Scientist Has Own Scientific Method"
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/49180
Behe?
Posted by: NRT | June 21, 2008 9:33 AM
While we're exchanging funnies, I came across this today.
http://www.wulffmorgenthaler.com/default.aspx?id=adff92c8-c84a-48ba-8b0b-45bc25e2b6fb
I totally need to learn HTML...
Posted by: Claudia | June 21, 2008 11:01 AM
I made the mistake of clicking on drmab's clickback. His writing resembles the rant of a petulant teenager, and an obviously distubed one at that. This loon obviously has major issues and the mentality of a twelve year old.
Move on... nothing to see there.
Posted by: jase | June 21, 2008 11:10 AM
Suze @23 wins the thread!
Posted by: ChgoLiz | June 21, 2008 2:33 PM
Holy crap, is that just LOOKING exactöy like a graphic I made, or did it travel the world. (Granted, it's not hard to come up with)!
Posted by: raiko | June 21, 2008 6:16 PM
*70
Ham wontoks blong bigeflla heresi, no save bok allsame fella tekem Jesus kaikai haus blong frannisman god.
Byeanbye Hamfella golong home Australia,him steppem off aiplan Niu Hebredis, Custom man blong Vanuatu tekem Ham long long pig lunch - Malekula wantem Creation Museum verimas
Posted by: Polyester Mather D.D. | June 21, 2008 8:44 PM
The mad spammer was here
claiming the great prize
his banishment will be celebrated
by the many-armed cephalopods
Posted by: Notsradamus | June 22, 2008 1:42 AM
Re: #81
If, as a male teenager, I was distubed, I'd be petulant, too.
Posted by: CortxVortx | June 22, 2008 1:50 PM
Re: #84
Ham had long pig? Yikes! He looks the type.
Posted by: CortxVortx | June 22, 2008 2:00 PM