Pharyngula

Sometimes you just have to sit and stare dumbfounded at the appalling stupidity creationists will state with absolute conviction. Here’s an example that will leave you awestruck, too: a site that declares there is a Darwin conspiracy, and cites three fatal flaws that they claim conclusively prove that evolution is wrong. You might expect that such a grand claim would be accompanied by arguments that are at least impressively sophisticated … but no, we get two claims that kids should learn the answers to in high school, and a third that is just flaky and weird.

Wow, but these are amazingly stupid claims.

Fatal Flaw #1

Evolution is missing a mathematical formula.

Every scientific law has a formula or formula equivalent. Theories that cannot produce a working formula are proven false. Darwinians have failed to produce an Evolution Formula.

Hmmm. So this kook has never heard of the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, doesn’t know the names J.B.S. Haldane, Sewall Wright, or Ronald Fisher, and doesn’t know that one of the major motivations for the development of the science of statistics was to mathematically describe variation in populations?

You’ve got to wonder where this fellow got his education in evolution.

Fatal Flaw #2

Darwinian evolution is missing a way to add genes.

Darwinian Evolution requires that organisms be able to add genes as they evolve to more complex organisms but there is no genetic mechanism for adding a gene — mutations do not create new genes they only alter an existing gene.

OK. Unequal crossing over. We’re done.

Seriously, your first term of college genetics will go over the list of modes of mutations: point mutations, insertions, translocations, deletions, and duplications, etc. This isn’t super-duper rocket science that only an Einstein-like genius can possibly understand — it’s basic biology.

Here you go: a paper describing the mutliple ways genes can be added.

Fatal Flaw #3

Helpless babies contradict ‘Survival of the Fittest’

The babies of nearly all birds and mammals are helpless at birth. Darwin could not explain this so he ignored babies but every helpless baby is proof Darwin was wrong.

WTF?

He expands this argument to claim that if evolution were true, every modern species ought to give birth to completely self-reliant offspring. Heck, why not go all the way: every human baby ought to leap right out of the vagina with razor sharp fangs and claws, ready to hunt down and rip the throat out of a gazelle.

Hey, how about the amazing idea that parental investment and care evolved as the mechanism to enhance the fitness of newborns? Our offspring may be helpless on their own, but they’re born into a family and clan and tribe and other complex social units that provide the security they need.

Would you believe this loon then blames biologists for lying to everyone?

We are not the only ones who thought about this. Evolution scientists know this, but they have suppressed the truth in a worldwide Darwin Conspiracy.

Right. We’ve been hiding the fact that babies are soft, limp, tiny, helpless blobs from The People.

This web page is a perfect example of the fact that creationism is based on ignorance shouted out boldly without regard for the facts. It’s a shameful disgrace — and it’s interesting to note that the author has hidden his identity. If I’d written something this stupid, I’d be careful to leave my name off of it, too.

Comments

#1 Ryan
July 7, 2008

*facepalm*
I’m speechless.
#2 Danley
July 7, 2008

Owww. It burns really badly.
#3 Arthur
July 7, 2008

The first words on the website give it away:

“If you are a person of faith who has always known in your heart that Darwin was wrong, the revelations on this website will help you to know with certainty that you were right all along, and that Darwin was wrong all along.”

First, it is impossible to know something in your heart, and anyone who asserts otherwise is deluded. Second, anyone who learns three basic claims and then is able to know with certainty has a very low standard for establishing truth.
#4 notthedroids
July 7, 2008

Creationists are stupid, unsophisticated, and willfully ignorant? Who knew?
#5 CanadianChick
July 7, 2008

please, please tell me this is a parody website?

please?

*crickets*

anyone?
#6 Andr�s Diplotti
July 7, 2008

I want to know what that guy is smoking. Then I’ll push for a worldwide ban of it.
#7 Nick
July 7, 2008

I have the perfect counter argument for evolution deniers, It goes something like this:

There may be some people who are convinced that PZ Myers is NOT descended from an ape.

There may even be some people who are convinced that Richard Dawkins is NOT descended from an ape.

But I defy any man to come forward and claim that George W. Bush is NOT descended from an ape.
#8 Kristine
July 7, 2008

It’s all about an inability to compete on an intellectual level (so naturally one wouldn’t accept competition in the biological sphere, either) – and the sense that one is “special” and has a “special” fate/message to give to mankind.

“They’re all lying! I’m the one who knows the truth!” Blah, blah.

People like this think evolution can’t be true, because otherwise it wouldn’t be all about them.
#9 S.Scott
July 7, 2008

I am stoopider now becuz I went their.
P.S. Don’t furgit to see Anderson Cooper 360 tonight. (Atheist soldier discriminated sgainst)
#10 Les Lane
July 7, 2008

It’s hardly surprising that amazingly naive reasoning (rationalizing) should lead to amazingly naive conclusions. Sadly, young creationists are educated in this sort of reasoning.
#11 MAJeff, OM
July 7, 2008

I can’t wait until the “authors” of that “site” get all fussy about PZ and the commenters being “rude” and completely miss the critique of their beyond stupid claims.
#12 Lynnai
July 7, 2008

Heck, why not go all the way: every human baby ought to leap right out of the vagina with razor sharp fangs and claws, ready to hunt down and rip the throat out of a gazelle.

Damn! Sometimes reading you is better then contraceptives!

*wince*

First, it is impossible to know something in your heart, and anyone who asserts otherwise is deluded.

I know something in my heart! It’s this funky rhythem that goes whoosh-thwub-whoosh-thwub-whoosh-thwub. The only problem is when you try to dance to it, it speeds up. [/ass]
#13 Wowbagger
July 7, 2008

I want to sign up to the Darwin Conspiracy. Do I get a black-ops stealth Darwin helicopter?
#14 Holbach
July 7, 2008

Hell, I’d like to read that another Darwin conspiracy is that Darwin never existed, just like those morons that claim the moon landings never took place. Idiot Stein proved it when he only stood in front of a statue of Darwin. “Hey, this is all made up. Just because we have statues of Santy Claus, Peter Rabbit, space aliens, jeebus, the virgin mary and all the other fictitious creations of our minds, doesn’t mean that they were real! Uh, duh, I don’t think I put it in the way I should have”
#15 Nick Gotts
July 7, 2008

Curses! Our evil plans discovered! (Twirls moustache so hard the ends come away.)
Flee, tentacled overlord! The forces of virtue are upon us! Back to the slimy depths!
#16 raven
July 7, 2008

This web page is a perfect example of the fact that creationism is based on ignorance shouted out boldly without regard for the facts.

Got that so wrong. This isn’t ignorance, it is just plain old lying.

While there are people dumb enough to think up such bogus claims and think they might be true, such people are generally too dumb to learn how to read and write much less get it on the web.
#17 zer0
July 7, 2008

You’ve obviously been lying about babies so no one will realize we’re eating them.
#18 Glen Davidson
July 7, 2008

Hey, how about the amazing idea that parental investment and care evolved as the mechanism to enhance the fitness of newborns? Our offspring may be helpless on their own, but they’re born into a family and clan and tribe and other complex social units that provide the security they need.

Transmission of knowledge from generation to generation is ispo facto an example of lack of fitness.

Everyone knows that. Er, that is, every idiot knows that.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
#19 Michael X
July 7, 2008

Ah, but he forgot fatal flaw number 4: Evolution contradicts what my social circle thinks is true. Therefore it must be false. As Frinktank would say: Q.E.D. bitches
#20 Wowbagger
July 7, 2008

What is the Darwin Conspiracy gonna make me do? Whack a guy? Off a guy? Whack off a guy? ‘Cause I’m married.
#21 Kyle S
July 7, 2008

Does Yomin Postelnik have anything to do with this? And will my typing of this make me guilty of ‘Google stalking’?
#22 astroande
July 7, 2008

People like this make me sad.
#23 Lago
July 7, 2008

This is not comedy?
#24 Nick
July 7, 2008

Seriously, Websites like that make me wish that every page on the internet was a wiki…

The “science” on that site is not worth the EPIC FAIL that created it.
#25 Glen Davidson
July 7, 2008

Hmmm. So this kook has never heard of the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, doesn’t know the names J.B.S. Haldane, Sewall Wright, or Ronald Fisher, and doesn’t know that one of the major motivations for the development of the science of statistics was to mathematically describe variation in populations?

You’ve got to wonder where this fellow got his education in evolution.

Probably Berlinski.

True, he rectified the situation by finding all 50,000 ways that cows differ from whales. Which, I believe, constitutes the only equations that ID has come up with, besides the ones Behe and Dembski claim can inductively show that miracles occurred (they say “design”, but clearly the assertions differ not a whit from older claims of miracles).

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
#26 Glen Davidson
July 7, 2008

Stupid they may be, but they give a very succinct reason why ID can never be science:

If a theory does not explain and fit the facts, the theory is invalid.

Sure, the projector was pointed at evolution, but it only fits the lack of explanatory ability of ID.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
#27 Paul Lundgren
July 7, 2008

This stupidity burns so hot, it should be measured in Scoville Units.

Discussion topic: has anyone ever done a psychological analysis on this kind of creationist crap? Dr. Myers, maybe one of your cohorts in the psych department (if Morris has one) would like to take a crack at this. It begs for words like “paranoia,” and “insecurity,” and (as Freud said) “spooky.”
#28 Wowbagger
July 7, 2008

You’ve got to wonder where this fellow got his education in evolution.

Hmm, I’m gonna go with…home-schooling?
#29 Scott
July 7, 2008

When I read the third one I burst out laughing. The first two were funny enough, but the third one made me almost piss myself.
#30 Holbach
July 7, 2008

TOP SECRET! TOP SECRET! You may think this is all a conspiracy to discredit Darwinism, but we have definite proof that Jesse Helms is not dead as the rabid rationalists would have you believe! He is in the Mississippi swamps posing as an alien to rile up the good ol’ boys!
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE
SUCKER!
#31 Kathy
July 7, 2008

I think the mathematics of miracles can best be addressed by calculus. After all, it’s a miracle that I got an A in it.

Seriously, though, even my non-biologist husband rolled his eyes in disbelief when I read out the three flaws.
#32 Glen Davidson
July 7, 2008

Oh, and the first two “arguments” have been heard by most (not all, to be sure) everyone even vaguely interested in these issues. They’re hardly new, let alone intelligent. Clearly the Darwin Conspiracy^TM has been rather lax in letting these telling arguments get through to honest IDists/creationists.

The third one is too stupid even for many of the IDists/creationists.

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
#33 SC
July 7, 2008

Helpless babies contradict ‘Survival of the Fittest’

Darwin could not explain this so he ignored babies but every helpless baby is proof Darwin was wrong.

I’m saving these. Laughed so hard I cried. Then I read the line about the razor sharp fangs and claws and ripping the throat out of a gazelle, and laughed/cried again. Thank you.
#34 Ken McKnight
July 7, 2008

The Expelled website is listed on the site as a source. That’s really all you need to know. BTW, the Expelled DVD is listed on Amazon and is accepting reviews. So far, the IDiots seem to be winning. Help! http://www.amazon.com/Expelled-No-Intelligence-Allowed/dp/B001BYLFFS/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1215114339&sr=8-4
#35 Quidam
July 7, 2008

As you read this, many of you are asking “What about mutations? Can’t they create a new gene”. The answer is “Absolutely not.” Mutations can change only existing genes. But mutations have nothing whatever to do with creating an entirely new gene. We invite you to google or yahoo terms such as “add a gene” and you will be able to verify that there has never been a case where a species added a gene.

Well they are correct that Googling “add a gene” doesn’t produce a useful hit, but Googling “mutations create gene” produces several links that document many occurrences. But that is obviously too challenging.
#36 SC
July 7, 2008

Hmm, I’m gonna go with…home-schooling?

Nooooooooo! Don’t bring the homeschoolers to the thread!

Homeschoolers: I’m sure that was just a joke. No one’s making any blanket statements about homeschoolers, nor will anyone be pressured to provide empirical support for any comments made about homeschoolers or homeschooled children.
#37 peacefully evyl
July 7, 2008

I can’t believe I just wasted time reading that. My head hurts now.
#38 NonyNony
July 7, 2008

I’m fairly certain that “The Darwin Conspiracy” is the title of the next best-selling Dan Brown potboiler. Or possibly the title of the next movie in the “National Treasure” series. And it should be the name of an indie band somewhere.

And isn’t “Fatal Flaw #3″ a restatement of “PYGMIES+DWARVES” in a more general (and more stupid) form?
#39 Kel
July 7, 2008

Oh wow. That is terrible.
#40 Jose
July 7, 2008

If babies developed from eggs, why are there still eggs?
#41 Noam
July 7, 2008

I think Monty Python said it best – “My brain hurts!”
Actually, now that I think of it – I�m not sure this wasn�t written by John Cleese as some sort of elaborate joke. It would certainly be sadistic and absurd enough for his penmanship!
#42 Ichthyic
July 7, 2008

well, at least whoever registered “darwinconspiracy.com” was smart enough to use a proxy registrant company.

http://who.godaddy.com/WhoIs.aspx?domain=darwinconspiracy.com&prog_id=godaddy

OTOH, on that company’s website:

http://www.domainsbyproxy.com/LegalAgreement.aspx

Defamation/Libel Complaints: If you believe a domain registration we hold contains offending content such as defaming or libelous statements, please click here

I’m so tired of seeing the “darwin consipiracy” label, I’m thinking I could make a case that it is indeed a defamatory label that impedes my ability to pursue my career in evolutionary biology.

I wonder how they would react to a case presented to them that the very domain: darwinconspiracy.com is defamatory and represents a form of libel?
#43 hubris hurts
July 7, 2008

I made the mistake of visiting the web site – yikes.

There is a box on the site with the header “More Athiest Lies Exposed.” The text reads “Some atheists are gentle and do not try to impose their atheism on anybody else. But there are millions of militant atheists who detest Christianity and want to de-Christianize the world. Militant atheists lie about everything.”

I find it interesting that the writer of this statement belongs to a group whose stated goal is to try to impose their religion on everyone. I find such hypocritical outrage absolutely breathtaking, especially when I also consider how many Christians detest people who don’t believe exactly the same way they do.

I’m not even going to comment on the last sentence, “Militant atheists lie about everything,” since just reading that sentence made my head hurt.

sigh.
#44 Mark
July 7, 2008

Nicely done!
#45 speedwell
July 7, 2008

“Homeschoolers: I’m sure that was just a joke. No one’s making any blanket statements about homeschoolers…”

No, of course not. I’m totally for homeschooling. I’m also for, say, hand made quilts. But all quilters are not equally intelligent, creative, talentend, or skilled, and sometimes they come up with appallingly bad projects not worth the effort. Such a botched job is our boy here, whether he was lovingly constructed at home by his totally unqualified mother, or in some faceless concrete bunker of a failing factory school.
#46 Wowbagger
July 7, 2008

SC wrote:

Homeschoolers: I’m sure that was just a joke. No one’s making any blanket statements about homeschoolers, nor will anyone be pressured to provide empirical support for any comments made about homeschoolers or homeschooled children.

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. I know that not all homeschoolers are fundy freak-shows. I’ve only ever met one person who I believe was homeschooled, and she had real social-skill (and other) issues as a result.

While out driving one day I saw a sign advertising a rodeo, and pointed it out. She turned to me and asked, ‘what’s a rodeo?’. I am not kidding – though i will point out I’m in Australia, where it isn’t quite as well-known; however, it’s not like it’s an alien concept either.
#47 Bride of Shrek
July 7, 2008

“every helpless baby is proof Darwin was wrong.”

every helpless baby is proof God is a total bastard.

…. Cause otherwise he would have made ‘em all big and strong and able to look after themselves.
#48 Rey Fox
July 7, 2008

“You might expect that such a grand claim would be accompanied by arguments that are at least impressively sophisticated ”

Now why would I think such a thing?

Darwin Derangement Syndrome. Note how often they attack the man, clumsily though they do. Sometimes it’s “evolution this, evolution that”, but most often it’s “Darwinism this, Darwin that”. It must be his beard that frightens them.
#49 speedwell
July 7, 2008

Wowbagger, it totally depends on where you are brought up. Here in Houston, you can’t breathe air without knowing what a rodeo is. Try explaining to some of the folks around here what exactly a wallaby is, though, and good luck to you.

Houston homeschooled kids, when they aren’t secular (and there is a fairly strong secular homeschooling population here), seem to have a very one-sided view of things like Hispanic immigrants and their language, and of public policy and Constitutional freedoms. And they have literal or figurative pillows tied to their asses by their doting immediate forebears.

There’s a secular homeschooler who is a fellow of ours… I think he’s a new deconvert… Daryl, I’m talking about you… Go read Daryl Cobranchi’s blog at http://www.cobranchi.com for a great example of a fellow who homeschools his kids because he’s more interested in teaching them the truth about science, humanism, and reasoning than in religious or political propaganda. Refreshing.
#50 Marius Vanderlubbe
July 7, 2008

Can we give all the God creeps their own island? Then we can engineer t-rex and turn them loose and have a hit reality T.V show. I would pay money for that.
#51 Wowbagger
July 7, 2008

My issue with homeschooling is that it tends to make the assumption that the only thing worth learning by going to school is what the teachers tell you as you sit at your desk (or behind your laptop in this day and age). The socialisation process, and what you learn from your peers (multiculturalism, for example), is also important.

Homeschooling is the intellectual equivalent of inbreeding if you don’t factor that in.
#52 Alex
July 7, 2008

“Heck, why not go all the way: every human baby ought to leap right out of the vagina with razor sharp fangs and claws, ready to hunt down and rip the throat out of a gazelle.”

Ahh, the mental image. It tickles me pink.
#53 Marius Vanderlubbe
July 7, 2008

Assuming you are a female, Alex, I guess it would.
#54 Jose
July 7, 2008

If Darwin were right, We’d all be able to fly and shoot laser beams from our eyes. Yet, it seems like I’m the only one who can do this.
#55 uray
July 7, 2008

Ouch, I made the mistake of reading some of the “read more” sections. Darn, my brain hurts. I just can’t turn off enough reason to make it make sense.
#56 Ichthyic
July 7, 2008

“Heck, why not go all the way: every human baby ought to leap right out of the vagina with razor sharp fangs and claws, ready to hunt down and rip the throat out of a gazelle.”

umm, maybe it’s been tried…

It’s Alive!

:p
#57 Ichthyic
July 7, 2008

… hey, it looks like at some point, you could even buy you own to experiment with…

http://www.gorestore.com/images/its%20alive%20puppet.jpg
#58 mandrellian
July 7, 2008

PZ said:

“Heck, why not go all the way: every human baby ought to leap right out of the vagina with razor sharp fangs and claws, ready to hunt down and rip the throat out of a gazelle.”

Mate, that is one fucked-up, rofl-inducing mental image

“Congratulations, Mrs Myers, it’s a boy! Now, everybody RUN AWAY! RUN AWAAAAY! FOR GODS SAKE LEAVE THE MOTHER AND RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!”
#59 Zeno
July 7, 2008

No math formula? Damn, why didn’t I notice that before! I am so embarrassed for taking evolution seriously all this time. Damn, damn, damn.
#60 Divalent
July 7, 2008

PZ: “Hey, how about the amazing idea that parental investment and care evolved as the mechanism to enhance the fitness of newborns? ”

Sounds like a “just so” story, you adaptationist, you.

In the words of Lewontin: “…no one has ever measured in any human population the actual reproductive advantage or disadvantage of any human behavior.” Everyone knows human behavior is not genetic. (And, in fact, according to that great science writer Lewontin, it is false and dangerous science to even study such questions.)
#61 Blake Stacey
July 7, 2008

It’s only a just-so story until it’s been tested.

Hold on a minute, I have 34,000 scholarly articles to browse. At least a few of ‘em gotta be worth keeping.
#62 kaje
July 7, 2008

There actually is a movie called “The Darwin Conspiracy”. It was as bad as you’d expect, and maybe more so. However, it was less right-wing Christian woo and more New Age Atlantis woo. Not even a telepathic ape could save it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185258/
#63 Blake Stacey
July 7, 2008

And since it’s relevant to a topic which came up a few threads ago, I can’t resist pointing to Lion and van Baalen (2007), “From Infanticide to Parental Care: Why Spatial Structure Can Help Adults Be Good Parents” American Naturalist 170: E26-E46. Hamilton’s Rule pops out as an emergent property of ecological dynamics!
#64 TheBlackCat
July 7, 2008

Seriously, your first term of college genetics will go over the list of modes of mutations: point mutations, insertions, translocations, deletions, and duplications, etc. This isn’t super-duper rocket science that only an Einstein-like genius can possibly understand — it’s basic biology.

College genetics? I learned this in freshman year of high school, if not junior high.
#65 Ichthyic
July 7, 2008

Everyone knows human behavior is not genetic. (And, in fact, according to that great science writer Lewontin, it is false and dangerous science to even study such questions.)

I’m assuming much of that was tongue-in-cheek?

seriously, though, could you do me a favor and post Lewontin’s actual quote on the subject?

I don’t have that one in my collection yet, and I can’t seem to track it down. In fact, all I can ever recall him arguing is that selection is limited in explaining the variability of select human behavioral traits. Don’t recall him ever saying anything about there being NO genetic basis for human behavior, especially considering that he was a geneticist.

IIRC, he was also originally a big critic of Hamilton’s Inclusive fitness theory, back around the time he (and others) published “Against Sociobiology”

that didn’t work out too well for him, practically or theoretically, as most of his complaints amounted to worries about the misusage of the then and still incorrect term: genetic determinism, and mostly didn’t relate to any of the actual theory or experiments themselves.

genetic determinism…a term which hasn’t had any real application for many decades now.

I’ll pause to see if you are being serious or not, before assuming you were and missed the resolution to the whole “nature-nuture” controversy.
#66 llewelly
July 7, 2008

But I defy any man to come forward and claim that George W. Bush is NOT descended from an ape.

Quite the disgrace for such a noble lineage.
#67 Blake Stacey
July 7, 2008

TheBlackCat (#64):

College genetics? I learned this in freshman year of high school, if not junior high.

I forget what our ninth-grade bio class covered and didn’t cover (we had the basketball coach as our teacher, so the answer is probably “we didn’t cover much”). However, in seventh grade my “integrated science” teacher made a mistake about DNA structure, and I had to get a college biochemistry book to convince her that she was wrong. I read a lot of it afterwards, so I probably picked up mutation mechanisms then.

(Oh, and about those spatial-ecology models. I’m not wedded to their analysis approach, since I’m pretty sure it fails in at least one epidemiological model of interest, but that’s a story for a different day, after I’ve done some sanity-checking work of my own.)
#68 Molly, NYC
July 8, 2008

. . . every human baby ought to leap right out of the vagina with razor sharp fangs and claws . . .

OW!
#69 Dark Matter
July 8, 2008

@28 and 51: Hey, now. I was home-schooled by a rational and non-secular mum for eight years and got a thorough (and realistic) science education, with plenty of socialization through volunteering with various groups, and I know plenty of people that went through 12 years of public school and still came out believing that “God done it.” Specify, please. Not all home-schoolers are Christians, or do so for wacko religious reasons – although, granted, we also met a whole lot of crazies at home-school events and ended up just avoiding them.

I always hated it when people lumped us in with them, just because we lived in a shitty school system and mum was afraid I’d be indoctrinated by Republicans.
#70 Amplexus
July 8, 2008

for one thing darwinism can’t explain why my brother spends so much time in the steamrooms of bathhouses.

Also does playing in a rock band represent differing reproductive success? Can you explain that Dr.Myers huh?

If it does then why do the beatles collectively break even? Huh? They are the most sucessful rock band of all time. If anyone was a success it was them!

If it doesn’t then why the hell do I play guitar if im not trying to get laid.?

See darwinism fails!

Sorry… poe’s law…
(BTW Jim Morrison had at least one son)
#71 Barry
July 8, 2008

Surely this is a hoax…
#72 Wowbagger
July 8, 2008

Dark Matter,

I understand, and apologise for making such sweeping generalisations. And if I was in somewhere in the US (like Louisiana) and had kids I’d be investigating the homeschooling option myself.

But, from what I can tell, you’re in the (fortunate) minority. It seems that the option is taken mostly by parents wishing to keep their poor, defenceless children away from teh evils of science and critical thought.
#73 Axolotl
July 8, 2008

Another fine example of Poe’s Law (if you’re not familiar with it, just do a Google search).

Axolotl
#74 Divalent
July 8, 2008

Ichthyic, I do think that many facets of human behavior are strongly genetic. My post was an attempt to point out how uncontroversial an adaptationist explanation can seem in some circumstances (i.e., correctly wacking a creationist) and yet in other, seeming similar circumstances, it runs afoul of the anti-adaptationist brigade.

I’m not sure what exactly you are seeking in terms of a Lewontin quote, although the part that I quoted can be found in a recent post by Larry Moran at Sandwalk (on Lewontin and his reputation as a good science writer). (BTW, I’m away from home for the next several days, so don’t have access to my books right now.)
#75 hje
July 8, 2008

They haven’t quite reached Ben Stein’s level of cluelessness–yet–as in: “What about gravity?”
#76 sng
July 8, 2008

Nick,

“But I defy any man to come forward and claim that George W. Bush is NOT descended from an ape.”

Ah. The Homer Simpson defence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey_Suit
#77 Ichthyic
July 8, 2008

I’m not sure what exactly you are seeking in terms of a Lewontin quote, although the part that I quoted can be found in a recent post by Larry Moran at Sandwalk

heh, I figured that was where you were grabbing that argument from. Moran definetly overstates Lewontin’s argument. In fact, it serves as the single biggest disagreement I ever had with the man (back when he wrote the first version of that and floated some of the ideas over on Panda’s Thumb). I’ve had several good arguments with Larry, and ended up being convinced by him more than once (how paleontologists use “macroevolutionary” comes to mind), but this one remains a bone of contention. IMO, Larry is wrong both about Lewontin’s position, and the issue of “genetic determinism” itself. By the time Lewontin started writing on the sociology of sociobiology, that term wasn’t even relevant, and the whole “nature/nuture” controversy had already been resolved in favor of: both.

My post was an attempt to point out how uncontroversial an adaptationist explanation can seem in some circumstances (i.e., correctly wacking a creationist) and yet in other, seeming similar circumstances, it runs afoul of the anti-adaptationist brigade.

but is the controversy scientific, or political/sociological in nature?

“the anti-adaptationist brigade” is both often misrepresented, and makes mistakes themselves about what even THEY mean when they talk about “limits of selection”.

just like the nature/nuture non-controversy, there really are no “pure selectionists” any more. every evolutionary biologists recognizes the role of other mechanisms, like drift, in producing heritable variation within populations.

again, I have always felt that the concerns of the so called anti-adaptationists are mostly misplaced, and in large part based on fear of misusage or implication of the kind we saw right after “Sociology” was published, rather than real critique of the actual science.

Coincidentally, we were having a discussion about this in another recent thread. You might want to join in there if you have a specific interest in the subject.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/altenberg_meeting_next_week_ex.php
#78 Ichthyic
July 8, 2008

“Sociobiology”
#79 Pandora Neurospora
July 8, 2008

‘every human baby ought to leap right out of the vagina with razor sharp fangs and claws, ready to hunt down and rip the throat out of a gazelle’

Funniest. Line. Ever.
#80 Azkyroth
July 8, 2008

My issue with homeschooling is that it tends to make the assumption that the only thing worth learning by going to school is what the teachers tell you as you sit at your desk (or behind your laptop in this day and age). The socialisation process, and what you learn from your peers (multiculturalism, for example), is also important.

Homeschooling is the intellectual equivalent of inbreeding if you don’t factor that in.

Well, on the bright side, if your kid isn’t a mindless drone, you can get the same experience by slathering them in steak sauce and earthworms and throwing them into a pen of starving rabid badgers.
#81 J. A. Baker
July 8, 2008

You’ve got to wonder where this fellow got his education in evolution.

The same place Bush got about half of his DoJ lawyers: Liberty University.
#82 craig
July 8, 2008

How is there not a global shortage of stupid with this guy hoarding so much for himself?
#83 Ichthyic
July 8, 2008

slathering them in steak sauce and earthworms and throwing them into a pen of starving rabid badgers.

is that an officially approved socialization technique?

I can’t recall having read that in “Baby and Child Care”

:p
#84 Donovan
July 8, 2008

PZ Meyers, you are a fool. I was an atheist. I was a supporter of science and evolution. I was certain of the ability of Darwin’s theory to expand science and human thought beyond all previous ability. But I have grown since just 1 short minute ago, when I visited the site you poke fun of. OF COURSE Darwin’s theory is wrong. There’s no mathematical formula!!! Oh, what a fool I was! There IS a God, and he loves me. I should go write a thank you letter the the writers of that site, and than you, PZ, for directing me there.
#85 blf
July 8, 2008

They haven’t quite reached Ben Stein’s level of cluelessness–yet–as in: “What about gravity?”

Is there some sort of clewlessness event horizon? On the rationale side of the horizon you’d observe progressively dumber and stoopdier the nearer to the horizon. At the horizon itself there’d be weapons-grade stoopid with an occasional particle(? meme? turd?) of utter inanity evaporating off to contaminate rationality. On the other side of horizon the stoopidity is so concentrated and dense that a coherent thought cannot escape. These unfathomly dense Stupid Holes occasionally collide with each and result in bizarre phenomenon such as the famous comment 14.

Ben Stein is, perhaps, a Stupid Hole mounted on a puppet’s body?
#86 Wowbagger
July 8, 2008

Azkyroth, #80:

Well, on the bright side, if your kid isn’t a mindless drone, you can get the same experience by slathering them in steak sauce and earthworms and throwing them into a pen of starving rabid badgers.

So you’re saying homeschooling is the better option? I guess that depends on how much effort the parents are prepared to put in – if the kids are just given a copy of the bible, Of Pandas and People and the url for Conservapaedia then I stand by what I wrote.
#87 Kseniya
July 8, 2008

Wow! That’s great!

O_o

How am I supposed to sleep with all that mind-numbing stupidity echoing around my head like the the scream of the butterfly?

Also: Point #3 Refuted. (h/t: Ichthyic)
#88 IBY
July 8, 2008

The last one was so stupid and nutty that there is no English word for it. Seriously… Babies born defenseless as evidence against evolution!
#89 Azkyroth
July 8, 2008

I’m saying that if you want your child to grow up to be a decent human being, the social environment of K-12 schools is, all things being equal, actively counterproductive.
#90 Ichthyic
July 8, 2008

PZ Meyers, you are a fool.

projection.

I was an atheist

false identification (could someone tell me what the proper term for this kind of debate tactic is?)

I laugh at your pathetic attempt.
#91 ngong
July 8, 2008

If argumentum ad hitlerium fails, there’s always argumentum ad infantia inops.

(hope that’s right…it’s from an online translator)
#92 Wowbagger
July 8, 2008

Azkyroth,

I’m not in the US, so I don’t have first-hand experience with your schools other than via television (which I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say probably isn’t very realistic) and what I read on the net.

So I’ll have to take your word for it – as much as that reality saddens (and angers) me. I’m not a mindless drone, and I went to a state school in Australia. While it wasn’t great it wasn’t a complete nightmare either.
#93 Ichthyic
July 8, 2008

…ah, here it is:

19. Claiming membership in a group affiliated with audience members: debater claims to be a member of a group that members of the audience are also members of like a religion, ethnic group, veterans group, and so forth; the debater’s hope is that the audience members will let their guard down with regard to facts and logic as a result and that they will give their alleged fellow group member the benefit of any doubt or even my-group-can-do-no-wrong immunity

http://www.johntreed.com/debate.html

actually I think “false identification” does indeed seem to sum up the tactic well enough.

the inevitable dishonest counter will be:

“prove I was not an atheist”.
#94 Kseniya
July 8, 2008

Methinks Donovan is Poeing/pulling our collective leg.

(Yes, I realize that’s a scary visual if taken literally.)
#95 Ichthyic
July 8, 2008

…btw, i do realize the above was parody, I just felt the need to break it down, as I’ve seen REAL arguments of the exact same nature posed on various threads several times.
#96 Kseniya
July 8, 2008

FWIW, I went to public school, K-12, and have no serious complaints. I admit my experience was probably not typical. I wonder if it’s possible to avoid the social pains of adolescence without either avoiding peer groups altogether, or tolerating a high degree of adult supervision.
#97 Kseniya
July 8, 2008

i do realize the above was parody, I just felt the need to break it down, as I’ve seen REAL arguments of the exact same nature posed on various threads several times.

Ok. Good. It did seem… obvious. It seems I was/am bleary to detect your detection.

And yes, we’ve seen real arguments of a similar type many times.
#98 Anton Mates
July 8, 2008

I can’t imagine how psychologically damaged I would be now if I’d had to spend more time with my parents as a child.

The people I went to public school with–particularly in high school–were the smartest, kindest, most interesting and dedicated group I’ve ever been around. (Also the hottest, for some reason. It had nothing to do with me and my friends–I go back occasionally to pick up my little brother and it’s still just a really cute and well-dressed bunch of kids.) They tolerated the weird kids, challenged and encouraged the talented kids, comforted the damaged kids. Antisocial as I am, I had an amazingly good time. And I’m not really sure why–there were some great teachers but some certifiable ones too. The student community just seemed to manage itself very well, although junior high was rather problematic.

Of course, that was Berkeley. I have no idea how the rest of you reactionary running-dog capitalist patriarchy-warped environment-raping little monsters made it through your inferior schools alive and sane.
#99 Bride of Shrek
July 8, 2008

So help me PZ, if I live to be a hundred years old, I would infinitely prefer to never see the words “razor sharp fangs” and “vagina” in the same sentence ever again.
#100 Ichthyic
July 8, 2008

I have no idea how the rest of you reactionary running-dog capitalist patriarchy-warped environment-raping little monsters made it through your inferior schools alive and sane.

who says we did?

Of course, that was Berkeley.

damn, I should have reversed my upbringing: grown up in Berkeley instead of Orange County, and done my grad work at Scripps instead of UCB.

:p
#101 Owlmirror
July 8, 2008

Y’know, I was thinking about “helpless babies disprove evolution”, when I remembered something.

About 15 years ago, DC Comics came up with a superpowered being called “Doomsday”, who ended up {SPOILER ALERT} killing Superman.

Here’s a description of Doomsday’s origin:

The nameless being later to be called Doomsday was artificially created in the distant past on Krypton, long before the humanoid Kryptonian race had gained dominance over the planet. During this time period, Krypton was a violent, hellish world where only the absolute strongest of creatures could survive (at the time, the world’s dominant lifeforms were said to be the most dangerous creatures in the universe). Doomsday’s creator was a mysterious alien named Bertron, who wished to create the ultimate life-form. To do so, Bertron and his team sent a baby onto the surface of the planet, where it would be instantly killed by the harsh environment or the vicious creatures inhabiting it. Each time, whatever of the lifeform’s remains that survived were harvested and used again, to create a better, stronger version than the previous. In short, the mad scientist was using the method of cloning to accelerate the evolution of the being he was creating. Through decades of this process, the being who would eventually become Doomsday was forced to endure the agony of death, thousands upon thousands of times; the memory of these countless deaths was recorded in his genes and drove it to hate all life. Eventually, Doomsday gained the ability to evolve against what killed him in his prior life without the need of Bertron’s technology. At this point he proceeded to hunt down and kill all of the lethal creatures that inhabited Krypton. Bertron himself met his death at the hands of his own creation.

So there you go. If evolution were true, it should be possible to evolve a maniacal killing machine by throwing helpless babies into lethal environments.

Since there are no maniacal killing machines with grey skin and bone spikes sticking out of their bodies, evolution must be a lie.

Because of course, DC Comics is the most authoritative source EVAR for information about how evolution works.
#102 Anton Mates
July 8, 2008

damn, I should have reversed my upbringing: grown up in Berkeley instead of Orange County, and done my grad work at Scripps instead of UCB.

Oh god yes. In terms of its administration and student body, UC Berkeley’s basically a little outpost of SoCal in the heart of the city. (I say this lovingly, while patting my diploma.) You can’t get proper radical liberal indoctrination there.

OTOH, my grad school friends in San Diego don’t seem to get much work done, in between the drugs and experimental sex and bodysurfing. So maybe it’s for the best.
#103 Helioprogenus
July 8, 2008

Wow, the depths of idiocy never cease to amaze me. If these fuckers ever condescended to Earth and actually cracked open introductory biology, genetics, and cell and molecular biology books, their minds would expand, and their contribution to society would increase substantially. All at the risk of being smited by their imaginary deity who cares nothing more then peeking into their sex-lives, dictating their rituals, and spreading deadly destruction on non-believers. Fanciful story, but leave it behind with your imaginary friends when you become old enough to actually ride a tricycle.
#104 Thaumas
July 8, 2008

“Theories that cannot produce a working formula are proven false.”
If we accept this premise, it leads directly to a proof of atheism with the formula god=0
#105 Rey Fox
July 8, 2008

You can tell that Donovan isn’t really a convert troll because he spells “atheist” correctly.
#106 JM Inc.
July 8, 2008

Wow, when are we going to start charging these shitheads exorbitantly for choking up valuable, scientifically derived information technology with this sort of mind numbing intellectual fecal matter?
#107 Ichthyic
July 8, 2008

You can tell that Donovan isn’t really a convert troll because he spells “atheist” correctly

I think you might be on to something there.

OTOH, my grad school friends in San Diego don’t seem to get much work done, in between the drugs and experimental sex and bodysurfing.

hmm, I think I would have liked to run the experiment to see if it was too much of a distraction.

oh, I can’t really knock UCB much; it was a tremendous resource with great facilities, even if many of them were out of commission or under reconstruction when I was there.

I got my fair share of “radicalism training” while I was there; I was our departmental representative for AGSE (Association of Graduate Student Employees), and was the primary one responsible for getting the bio grad students to go on strike for a week (to get health benefits) when I was there. Somehow, looking back on it, I think I would rather have had the distraction of more sex and less politics.
#108 melior
July 8, 2008

Helpless babies are therefore obviously created in the image of a benevolent omniscient god, who then allows many of them to die helplessly, because he planned it that way all along. Except not so much very recently, now that there’s finally lots of science about.
Wait, I thought this was an argument against atheism.
#109 Scott M
July 8, 2008

The sad part of all this is that there are people…and their children…who will believe this clown.
#110 Raiko
July 8, 2008

Right. We’ve been hiding the fact that babies are soft, limp, tiny, helpless blobs from The People.

Okay, I think this made my morning. Thank you!
#111 Stewy
July 8, 2008

this is a joke right?
I wish every creationist used these three things as their arguments… that would be fun, but maybe a little too easy…
#112 Ross Jensen
July 8, 2008

Further proof of the far reaching Darwin conspiracy, also with photographic proof that Dinosaurs still roam the earth. (Snort)
#113 Yoo
July 8, 2008

For a conspiracy which supposedly is so effective in suppressing all scientific evidence for intelligent design that no one actually gets to see the evidence, it does a really lousy job of shutting up people against evolution.
#114 IrishMauddib
July 8, 2008

I just dont understand it. If religious ideas WERE good ones surely they can stand up on their own without resorting to lies of this magnitude?

They dont just show their ignorance on a site like this but call into question the honesty in ANYTHING else they then say. They harm only their own cause. Pathetic is the BEST thing I can say about them.
#115 Dale
July 8, 2008

Marius wrote…

Can we give all the God creeps their own island? Then we can engineer t-rex and turn them loose and have a hit reality T.V show. I would pay money for that.

We did – it’s called continental North America. Happy?
#116 valdemar
July 8, 2008

Erm, why is there never a Wallace Conspiracy? Indeed, do creationists deliberately avoid mentioning Alfred Russel Wallace, because the fact that he came up with the exactly the same theory as Darwin at the same time, while working independently, might make this ‘evil atheist’ conspiracy stuff look a bit crazy? It’s worth a thought.
#117 John Phillips, FCD
July 8, 2008

valdemar: now stop it, you’ll only confuse the poor sheeple. It is hard enough for them to remember one man as the Godfather of the conspiracy.
#118 Ichthyic
July 8, 2008

Erm, why is there never a Wallace Conspiracy?

because “Wallacism” is slightly harder to pronounce than “Darwinism”?

meh, really it’s just because Darwin’s name is on the book that got published on the subject, and being nothing but authoritarian stooges, the religiots can only relate to the world via projection.

so, for them, they create the mental image of Darwin as Pope, and run with it.

no, it hardly matters if it’s not even remotely accurate, we’re dealing with near perfect projection, recall.
#119 Muffin
July 8, 2008

Poe’s Law? This has got to be a joke, right?
#120 Donovan
July 8, 2008

You can tell that Donovan isn’t really a convert troll because he spells “atheist” correctly

Damn, caught by correct spelling! I knew I missed something. I meant it to have more of a sarcastic tone, but I was at work, and tired…
#121 JonD
July 8, 2008

“Heck, why not go all the way: every human baby ought to leap right out of the vagina with razor sharp fangs and claws, ready to hunt down and rip the throat out of a gazelle.”

*sniggers* that made me laugh out loud at my desk

These ignoramuses clearly havent heard of Maynard-Smith either.

GAH!
#122 Nick Gotts
July 8, 2008

slathering them in steak sauce and earthworms and throwing them into a pen of starving rabid badgers. – Azkyroth

is that an officially approved socialization technique? I can’t recall having read that in “Baby and Child Care” – Ichthyic

You need the unexpurgated edition.
#123 MH
July 8, 2008

MAJeff (#11) wrote:

I can’t wait until the “authors” of that “site” get all fussy about PZ and the commenters being “rude” and completely miss the critique of their beyond stupid claims.

What, is the site in question The Intersection?!
#124 truth machine, OM
July 8, 2008

Every scientific law has a formula or formula equivalent. Theories that cannot produce a working formula are proven false.

Since the author surely knows that scientific laws and theories are not the same thing, he is clearly suppressing the truth as part of a world-wide conspiracy.

Surely this is a hoax…

Yes, exactly right .. God is a hoax.
#125 jim
July 8, 2008

Wow, that’s … not even “not even wrong”.
#126 MissPrism
July 8, 2008

The “Argument from Helpless Babies” and the “Argument from I’ve Never Heard Of Fisher Or Indeed Any Biologists Except Darwin And Dawkins And Never Read Them Either” are at least fairly original as creationist flailings go.
It makes a change to meet some steaming new arguments instead of the same ol’ why-are-there-still-monkeys and thermodynamics guff.
#127 negentropyeater
July 8, 2008

Whoever is behind this piece of shit is willing to spend money to pay for keywords and advertise for this site…

http://www.keywordspy.com/time/domain.aspx?q=darwinconspiracy.com&d=

It’s been increasing from 25 keywords in March to 117 in June.

http://www.keywordspy.com/ppc/domain.aspx?q=darwinconspiracy.com

Of course its main paid keyword is “intelligent design”

It’s so stupid that its ad appears even when one is looking for multimedia software :

http://www.bizrate.co.uk/multimediasoftware/products__keyword–intelligent+design.html

This is just the wonderful world of creationists, make up a completely ridiculous site, buy keywords, and try to maximize disinformation.

And the money probably came from tax free charities…
#128 linkthewindow
July 8, 2008

Probably written by someone who just read The Origin of the Species, thinking that that = evolution theory (forgetting 150 years worth of work) and now has gone out to make a spammy website.

Typical creationist ignorance.
#129 MissPrism
July 8, 2008

I’d bet a champagne cocktail that they haven’t read the Origin of Species. It has some long words in.
#130 djlactin
July 8, 2008

i call poe’s law!
#131 Vidar
July 8, 2008

I’m no biologist, or a scientist, but I don’t think that site is completely honest about something….
#132 MissPrism
July 8, 2008

Poe? Could be, but I reckon they’re serious. It ain’t got that swing of parody about it, and it’s too long-winded.
#133 Mold
July 8, 2008

HomeSkoolers tend to draw from the least able and they are active without oversight. A PS teacher that can’t teach is replaced during the probationary period and encouraged to seek other employ. This can be for many reasons; can’t grasp the subject matter, anger issues, lack of organization, discipline overuse.
Your public school teacher has, at minimum, a Bachelor’s. Many homeskool teechers are lucky to have a HS degree. Guess what, that retards the homeskoolers. Moms couldn’t unnerstan what the fuss wit spellin’ was, so she omits it. Moms is a SAHM with expeerience (WalMart-2 years) and that is the equivalent of going to Edinboro/Penn State/Shippensburg/etc. So the poor chile is given a world that exactly conforms to the world of the parent. Pretty good in the Middle Ages. Not so much when the student is expected to do more than procreate with cousins/siblings and till the soil.
Let them homeskool. But, like the Amish, it should have no value outside their community. Homeskool diplomas should never be equal to those of the PS system. Remove all accrediting from the homeskools.
#134 JohnB
July 8, 2008

Kirk Cameron’s crocoduck and now this. I think I’ve exceeded my stupid quota for the week.
#135 Rev. BigDumbChimp
July 8, 2008

They haven’t quite reached Ben Stein’s level of cluelessness–yet–as in: “What about gravity?”

Ask an you shall receive.
#136 alex
July 8, 2008

the Darwin Conspiracy: Darwin married Mary Magdelene and had mortal children, proving HE WAS WRONG. the Holy Grail is ACTUALLY A PERSON. “On the Origin of Species” was actually FORGED BY MONKS.
#137 DrDan
July 8, 2008

“Fatal Flaw #2: Darwinian evolution is missing a way to add genes”

Plants of course can quite happily duplicate their entire genome – so this moron is wrong approximately 40,000 times in a single sentence.
#138 rarus.vir
July 8, 2008

Beyond stupidity. Hey as long as there are folks out there with no education, people like this will always have an audience. It’s a good thing that they have no influence except with people of their own ilk.
Thanks for the article PZ, and all of your work.
#139 scooter
July 8, 2008

#116

do creationists deliberately avoid mentioning Alfred Russel Wallace,

Perhaps they know something you don’t, Alfred Russel Wallace plagiarized all his work from Thaddius J Gromit, and blew all the money on his Wensleydale cheese habit.

He died in a horrible pancake robot accident.

Dr Gromit died penniless, found in a sheep brothel, just north of where I live in Texas

bahhhhh
#140 Badger3k
July 8, 2008

Re: #62 – The Darwin Conspiracy Movie

Oh Noes! A sci fi movie that sounds like a TV pilot written by Glen Larson!

I must sees it!

Seriously, it sounds so bad that I have to watch. It may not be an evolutionarily sound strategy, but there ya’ go.
#141 Hessenroots
July 8, 2008

@ 135

Thanks for the link. As much as it hurts my brain, I do love a good “evo can’t explain X” argument.

It’s almost as good as Kirk Cameron’s disprove of the big bang (explosions don’t create things, they destroy things!)
#142 extatyzoma
July 8, 2008

its amazing just how CONFIDENT these dummies assert their nonsense.

thats common human trait i suppose, to talk shit but knowing you will get approval from your peers so dont feel theres an issue, rather like when british men laugh about not ‘eating all that foreign muck’ when they go on holiday…..as they tuck into a curry at the local indian restaurant.
#143 extatyzoma
July 8, 2008

oops, that should be how CONFIDENTLY these dummies assert their nonsense.
#144 Torbj�rn Larsson, OM
July 8, 2008

I’m not even going to comment on the last sentence, “Militant atheists lie about everything,” since just reading that sentence made my head hurt.

pro�jec�tion (pr-jkshn) n.:

[...]
8. Psychology
a. The attribution of one’s own attitudes, feelings, or suppositions to others: “Even trained anthropologists have been guilty of unconscious projection – of clothing the subjects of their research in theories brought with them into the field” Alex Shoumatoff.
b. The attribution of one’s own attitudes, feelings, or desires to someone or something as a naive or unconscious defense against anxiety or guilt.

[Amended]
9. Religion
Evacuation of the central nervous system. (Cmpr dejection.)

So this kook has never heard of the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium,

There’s that. There’s also maximum likelihood and other methods for analyzing phylogenetic trees, which direct description of speciation in action must infuriate a creationist even more. And, I must add, gives an impressively solid test of evolution every time one analysis is made.

I assume one could also add genome analysis, as they look for homologies, selective sweeps, and other evolutionary characteristics.
#145 Andrew Dart
July 8, 2008

“If a theory has, in the eyes of science, been proven, the theory then gets a promotion, and rises to the level of being deemed to be a law and not just a theory. In short, a scientific law is regarded by science to be a fact, whereas a theory may or may not be true at all.”

I got as far as that before concluding that not only does this person know nothing about evolution but they know nothing about science as a whole. I find it scary how many people out there will actually believe this rubbish. What’s more they accuse scientists of lying to cover their apparently flawed argument while they seem to have no problem what so every lying to promote theirs. The hypocrisy makes me sick.
#146 Lirone
July 8, 2008

Look a bit further in and there are even more gems:

Are the Darwin-lovers telling us that the ape was swinging from a tree in a lightning storm, got struck by a “fortuitous bolt of lightning,” then fell into a primordial pond, and instead of having its testicles fried, they started to produce sperm with a miraculous new gene?

See how absurd Darwinism really is?

Let’s challenge the Darwinists and see just how much faith they have in their own theories. We challenge them to simulate the lightning bolt idea in a lab and use their own bodies and see if they evolve into super humans.

You have to give them credit for the wild creativeness of their misrepresentation! And their compassionate regard for health and safety in the lab…

(Oh, and for any males wincing at the idea of lightning-fried testicles, that’s what the vagina/razor sharp claws image felt like to those of us without Y chromosones!)
#147 Chris Bell
July 8, 2008

Every human baby ought to leap right out of the vagina with razor sharp fangs and claws, ready to hunt down and rip the throat out of a gazelle.

That’s how I came out.
#148 Aquaria
July 8, 2008

My issue with homeschooling is that it tends to make the assumption that the only thing worth learning by going to school is what the teachers tell you as you sit at your desk (or behind your laptop in this day and age). The socialisation process, and what you learn from your peers (multiculturalism, for example), is also important.

Jumpin Jeebus on a pogo stick… There’s so much wrong with the assumption that home-schooled kids don’t get socialization opportunities, I don’t know where to begin. Do people really think homeschoolers lock up their kids in a basement 24/7/365? Do they not understand that kids live in neighborhoods, towns, or cities along with hundreds, thousands or millions of other children? Does anyone really think kids learn multicultural attitudes at school alone, that parents don’t have the most significant influence on those attitudes, and all schools can do is try to overcome negative parental indoctrination?

FFS, think before assuming things like that.
#149 dkew
July 8, 2008

Darwinconspiracy’s understanding of American history is as shallow as its understanding of evolution: http://darwinconspiracy.com/declaration.html, with the typical contortion of Deist phrases in the DoI (and ignoring the Constitution)to conclude the Founders were mainstream Christian god-botherers.
#150 Aquaria
July 8, 2008

Oh, and for any males wincing at the idea of lightning-fried testicles, that’s what the vagina/razor sharp claws image felt like to those of us without Y chromosones?

Childbirth felt an awful lot like the razor sharp claws if you ask me, except there was no leaping. Pity that; it would have made it more bearable.
#151 Benjamin Franklin
July 8, 2008

Of Course!

How could I have possibly missed this before. The thing that my batshit crazy creationist methodology has been missing is a formula!

Here it is – (6+1) = universe

Done! Now all I have to do is submit it to AIG for peer review & I’ll be able to post it on the Darwin Conspiracy website, then wait for that call from Stockholm. Nobel, come to papa!

And if Andy Schlafly wants to see my supporting data, I will just have to send him a copy of my Bible. No messing with cultures & petri dishes for me. I sure don’t know why all these “sciencey” types have such a problem with such a simple concept. Piece of cake. Just use the bloody Post Office!
#152 Rev. BigDumbChimp
July 8, 2008

Mr. Franklin, I appreciate all of your contributions to the founding of this great nation but I believe there you missed a niner in there.
#153 Pierce R. Butler
July 8, 2008

… every human baby ought to leap right out of the vagina with razor sharp fangs and claws …

Olivia Judson’s Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation reveals which organism is the Most Highliest Evolved of all:

“The sand shark, for example, practices intrauterine cannibalism. That’s right, the biggest fetus gobbles up its embryonic brothers and sisters while they are in the womb. Surely you know the rhyme:

The shark, he is a vicious beast,
Tears fin from fin at every feast.
But it’s no surprise he should do so –
He ate his sibs in utero.
#154 Benjamin Franklin
July 8, 2008

Dr. Myers

For a supposed Professor of Biology, I am ashamed that you got such a simple concept so very wrong.

Every fundamentalist knows that it is indeed the vagina that has the teeth and fangs. These divinely disappear when the proper marriage vows are invoked. Razor blades, are, of course, optional.

Please make the necessary apologies and corrections.
#155 Benjamin Franklin
July 8, 2008

Rev BDC-

I apologize, but I don’t get your reference.

Is that niner, as in – a keg of beer, formerly 9 gallons, but now 40.5 litres?

By the way, I read Ray Comfort’s confusation on evolution and gravity, but thought it just too inane to justify a comment. But as tasty as this Darwin Conspiracy deal is, I look for him to post at least one of these “fatal flaws” in 3..2..1..
#156 Glen Davidson
July 8, 2008

Heck, why not go all the way: every human baby ought to leap right out of the vagina with razor sharp fangs and claws, ready to hunt down and rip the throat out of a gazelle.

There’s been some comment about this statement, I see.

Quite seriously, rhinoceruses (and I believe all other animals as well) are born without horns, and porcupine quills are soft when born (it’s claimed that they harden within an hour).

For the obvious reasons.

Obvious to non-cretins, I mean. Cue the gibbering about how “wise” the Creator was to, well, to cause babies to be born smaller than their mothers, and without the appurtenances to damage or kill their mothers during birth.

They careen from stupidity to stupidity, in an apparent bid to come up with “creation science” by simply trying everything and keeping only what survives their version of “natural selection”.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
#157 Dr. Puck
July 8, 2008

Props for the conspiracy crew for its helpless baby argument. I can just see the light bulb burning brightly as the insight was followed by the declaration:

“I bet nobody’s ever thought of that before!”
#158 Azkyroth
July 8, 2008

Your public school teacher has, at minimum, a Bachelor’s. Many homeskool teechers are lucky to have a HS degree. Guess what, that retards the homeskoolers.

I love how there’s this implicit presumption that the only two options are “go to a classroom in a conventional K-12 school” and “parents serve as teachers drawing only on their own pre-existing knowledge.” You smug fuckheads ever heard of Distance Education?
#159 Joseph Fredette
July 8, 2008

…
…
…
PZ, I think I just had an aneurysm.

“Evolution doesn’t have a mathematical formula”

Damn, I knew they’d find our fatal flaw eventually. Sorry guys, lets pack it up and head back to the dark ages… Damn Mathematics, always getting in the way.
#160 Nick Gotts
July 8, 2008

Cue the gibbering about how “wise” the Creator was to, well, to cause babies to be born smaller than their mothers, and without the appurtenances to damage or kill their mothers during birth. – Glen D.

Of course he didn’t do too well with human beings – the guy’s grasp of geometry is clearly pretty poor. Note to all-wise creator: if object X has to go through aperture Y, it needs to be a bit smaller than Y to get through easily.

Oh, but of course – that was the “Fall”, wasn’t it? I suppose all that original sin makes babies’ heads bigger.
#161 StuV
July 8, 2008

So, we are comparing:

Genes + selection = evolution

to

God + ? = profit!
#162 Glen Davidson
July 8, 2008

I suppose all that original sin makes babies’ heads bigger.

Tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and all that.

At least there is congruence in defending a myth that prefers ignorance to knowledge by utilizing ignorance and prejudice in order to “argue for” said myth.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
#163 DaveG
July 8, 2008

How ironic that “God”‘s lowest lifeforms, bacteria and such, are born as adults, and our babies are arguably, of all species, the least fit at birth.
#164 Glen Davidson
July 8, 2008

and our babies are arguably, of all species, the least fit at birth.

Perhaps of placentals. I don’t know for sure about that–at least we are born able to see (if at a low resolution), although blind kittens and puppies almost certainly have better motor skills at birth.

But in any case, marsupials are born extremely helpless indeed, with far less development than ourselves.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
#165 Wes
July 8, 2008

Oh, but of course – that was the “Fall”, wasn’t it? I suppose all that original sin makes babies’ heads bigger.

Posted by: Nick Gotts | July 8, 2008 11:59 AM

This confirms my hypothesis that sinning against God makes you smarter.
#166 Mane
July 8, 2008

every human baby ought to leap right out of the vagina with razor sharp fangs and claws, ready to hunt down and rip the throat out of a gazelle.

Fuck yes.
#167 pvrugg
July 8, 2008

#38

The Darwin Conspiracy is already a novel, not terrbly good, but at least it was entertaining:

http://www.amazon.com/Darwin-Conspiracy-John-Darnton/dp/1400041376
#168 Bryson Brown
July 8, 2008

This guy really is thick– who could ignore the adaptive power of being tiny, helpless and utterly appealing? Mammalian babies are highly sophisticated specialists in cute (of course our adult/parental sense of cute itself is highly adaptive too).
#169 P.C.Chapman
July 8, 2008

Of course these morons never heard of neoteny !!
“Morons don’t know their morons ,because their morons.”
#170 CJO
July 8, 2008

our babies are arguably, of all species, the least fit at birth.

This makes no sense unless you consider the overall reproductive strategy. Survival rates of placental infants are vastly higher than, say, fish larvae.
#171 Whateverman
July 8, 2008

A bit of sleuthing revealed the email address to be “darwinconspiracy@yahoo.com”.
#172 Jonathan Rothwell
July 8, 2008

Someone send this idiot a GCSE textbook.

But then again, maybe natural selection is a good thing and he’ll be mowed down by a car or something.
#173 Pete
July 8, 2008

I don’t want to really give credit where it’s not due, but Flaw #3 raises the issue of trade-offs in biology. If the evolution of species was not confined by any restrictions, organisms would reproduce right after being born, produce the maximum number of offspring, and live indefinitely. These are known as ‘Darwinian Demons. Such demons are more than just ‘self-reliant’ offspring. HOWEVER… the real point is that THERE ACTUALLY ARE RESTRICTIONS (trade-offs in evolutionary life-histories), because we don’t live in an infinite universe with infinite resources etc. etc.

Helpless babies contradict ‘Survival of the Fittest’

The babies of nearly all birds and mammals are helpless at birth. Darwin could not explain this so he ignored babies but every helpless baby is proof Darwin was wrong.

WTF?

He expands this argument to claim that if evolution were true, every modern species ought to give birth to completely self-reliant offspring.

If evolution of species was not confined by any restrictions, organisms would reproduce right after being born, produce the maximum number of offspring, and live indefinitely. Such hypothetical organisms are dubbed “Darwinian demons.” Certain organisms do resemble this “demonic” ideal…
#174 Adam
July 8, 2008

For example, how did the ape that we all supposedly descended from add the genes needed to make the transition to Homo sapiens?

Are the Darwin-lovers telling us that the ape was swinging from a tree in a lightning storm, got struck by a “fortuitous bolt of lightning,” then fell into a primordial pond, and instead of having its testicles fried, they started to produce sperm with a miraculous new gene?

See how absurd Darwinism really is?

This is from the website in the section about not having a mechanism for adding new genes to the gene pool and how scientists have carefully avoided the topic. Whew, it takes your breath away.
#175 TomL
July 8, 2008

“mutations do not create new genes they only alter an existing gene.”

Pardon the oversimplification, but that seems an awful lot like saying, “Rearranging letters does not create any new words, it only alters an existing word.”
#176 Andro
July 8, 2008

Blimey.

The silliness is almost suffocating. And yes, the stupid burns.
#177 Get edu
July 8, 2008

No me chingues! This is so utterly unbelievable. Is it possible that this is some parody of fundamentalism, perhaps to test Poe’s Law?
#178 Ray
July 9, 2008

re #151 No, no, no. It’s 6×7=42 . It’s the meaning of life, the universe and everything! Haven’t you read Douglas Adams?

If having a mathematical formula is the test of a good theory, what is the mathematical expression of the bible, or the formula for religion in general? Is it: suckers – money = televangelists?

just wondering.

Cheers,
Ray
#179 Christophe Thill
July 9, 2008

Where did those morons read that science needs a mathematical formula ? Who told them ? What’s the logical relationship between lacking a formula and being false ?

Guys, one word for you : epistemology. I know, it’s long and complicated. But go and read a book about it. No, not the Bible.
#180 Longtime Lurker
July 9, 2008

I think this guy may be right… if evolution were true, wouldn’t babies be less delicious?

I hope it’s a parody.
#181 Lirone
July 9, 2008

I have to say this “no formula means a theory is false” idea is a stunning own-goal for anyone promoting religion.

How many long divisions has the Pope?
#182 (((Billy)))
July 9, 2008

So a theory is only valid if it has a formula? What’s the formula for Creationism? G+I(s)-L(E)=C where G is God, I is Ignorance, s is stupidity, L is logic, E is Evidence and C is creationism (I figure to be fully effective (and to eliminate the huge positive created by multiplying logic and evidence), ignorance MUST be multiplied by stupidity.
#183 Michael
July 9, 2008

I read the whole site not sure if it’s a parody or not — a perfect example of Poe’s Law. Then I filed it in Delicious and it even suggested the tag Humour before I could do it myself…
#184 Arnosium Upinarum
July 10, 2008

Michael #183: If it’s a parody, that device has gone way WAY over the line. Even if it is, it isn’t parody to kids or crap-gobblers. Believe it or not, lots of folks suck this kind of thing right up as if it was nutritious. And if it isn’t, it wouldn’t make it any worse.

Parody (especially on THIS topic) is best performed by those who are skillful at balancing on the tightrope stretched between humorously plausible reflection and the obviously absurd. Too many try it, only to fall into the chasm below. When it isn’t done well it’s every bit as bad as an advocation.

This looks like the Real McCoy batshit nuts. Nobody is THAT bad at parody. It’s too authentically stupid.
#185 Apasmara
July 10, 2008

I cringe, brethren, when I think of Cthulu’s reaction when he hears of our failure…
#186 Qwerty
September 11, 2008

Darwin probably ignored the babies because he didn’t want to change their diapers. If he only had Pampers….