…and this is a 
The Darwin Conspiracy
Category: Creationism • Stupidity
Posted on: July 7, 2008 9:51 PM, by PZ Myers
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.
Politics
Comments
Posted by: Ryan | July 7, 2008 9:56 PM
*facepalm*
I'm speechless.
Posted by: Danley | July 7, 2008 9:58 PM
Owww. It burns really badly.
Posted by: Arthur | July 7, 2008 9:59 PM
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.
Posted by: notthedroids | July 7, 2008 9:59 PM
Creationists are stupid, unsophisticated, and willfully ignorant? Who knew?
Posted by: CanadianChick | July 7, 2008 9:59 PM
please, please tell me this is a parody website?
please?
*crickets*
anyone?
Posted by: Andrés Diplotti | July 7, 2008 10:02 PM
I want to know what that guy is smoking. Then I'll push for a worldwide ban of it.
Posted by: Nick | July 7, 2008 10:02 PM
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.
Posted by: Kristine | July 7, 2008 10:02 PM
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.
Posted by: S.Scott | July 7, 2008 10:02 PM
I am stoopider now becuz I went their.
P.S. Don't furgit to see Anderson Cooper 360 tonight. (Atheist soldier discriminated sgainst)
Posted by: Les Lane | July 7, 2008 10:06 PM
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.
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | July 7, 2008 10:08 PM
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.
Posted by: Lynnai | July 7, 2008 10:09 PM
Damn! Sometimes reading you is better then contraceptives!
*wince*
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] ;)
Posted by: Wowbagger | July 7, 2008 10:09 PM
I want to sign up to the Darwin Conspiracy. Do I get a black-ops stealth Darwin helicopter?
Posted by: Holbach | July 7, 2008 10:10 PM
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"
Posted by: Nick Gotts | July 7, 2008 10:11 PM
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!
Posted by: raven | July 7, 2008 10:14 PM
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.
Posted by: zer0 | July 7, 2008 10:14 PM
You've obviously been lying about babies so no one will realize we're eating them.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | July 7, 2008 10:17 PM
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
Posted by: Michael X | July 7, 2008 10:18 PM
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
Posted by: Wowbagger | July 7, 2008 10:19 PM
What is the Darwin Conspiracy gonna make me do? Whack a guy? Off a guy? Whack off a guy? 'Cause I'm married.
Posted by: Kyle S | July 7, 2008 10:19 PM
Does Yomin Postelnik have anything to do with this? And will my typing of this make me guilty of 'Google stalking'?
Posted by: astroande | July 7, 2008 10:21 PM
People like this make me sad.
Posted by: Lago | July 7, 2008 10:22 PM
This is not comedy?
Posted by: Nick | July 7, 2008 10:22 PM
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.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | July 7, 2008 10:22 PM
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
Posted by: Glen Davidson | July 7, 2008 10:26 PM
Stupid they may be, but they give a very succinct reason why ID can never be science:
Sure, the projector was pointed at evolution, but it only fits the lack of explanatory ability of ID.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Paul Lundgren | July 7, 2008 10:26 PM
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."
Posted by: Wowbagger | July 7, 2008 10:27 PM
You've got to wonder where this fellow got his education in evolution.
Hmm, I'm gonna go with...home-schooling?
Posted by: Scott | July 7, 2008 10:28 PM
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.
Posted by: Holbach | July 7, 2008 10:30 PM
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!
Posted by: Kathy | July 7, 2008 10:31 PM
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.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | July 7, 2008 10:32 PM
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 ConspiracyTM 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
Posted by: SC | July 7, 2008 10:34 PM
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.
Posted by: Ken McKnight | July 7, 2008 10:38 PM
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
Posted by: Quidam | July 7, 2008 10:39 PM
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.Posted by: SC | July 7, 2008 10:39 PM
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.
Posted by: peacefully evyl | July 7, 2008 10:40 PM
I can't believe I just wasted time reading that. My head hurts now.
Posted by: NonyNony | July 7, 2008 10:41 PM
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?
Posted by: Kel | July 7, 2008 10:43 PM
Oh wow. That is terrible.
Posted by: Jose | July 7, 2008 10:44 PM
If babies developed from eggs, why are there still eggs?
Posted by: Noam | July 7, 2008 10:45 PM
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!
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 7, 2008 10:45 PM
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
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?
Posted by: hubris hurts | July 7, 2008 10:51 PM
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.
Posted by: Mark | July 7, 2008 10:52 PM
Nicely done!
Posted by: speedwell | July 7, 2008 10:53 PM
"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.
Posted by: Wowbagger | July 7, 2008 10:54 PM
SC wrote:
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.
Posted by: Bride of Shrek | July 7, 2008 11:00 PM
"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.
Posted by: Rey Fox | July 7, 2008 11:01 PM
"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.
Posted by: speedwell | July 7, 2008 11:02 PM
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 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.
Posted by: Marius Vanderlubbe | July 7, 2008 11:02 PM
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.
Posted by: Wowbagger | July 7, 2008 11:08 PM
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.
Posted by: Alex | July 7, 2008 11:10 PM
"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.
Posted by: Marius Vanderlubbe | July 7, 2008 11:12 PM
Assuming you are a female, Alex, I guess it would.
Posted by: Jose | July 7, 2008 11:20 PM
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.
Posted by: uray | July 7, 2008 11:22 PM
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.
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 7, 2008 11:29 PM
"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
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 7, 2008 11:32 PM
... 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
Posted by: mandrellian | July 7, 2008 11:32 PM
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 :D
"Congratulations, Mrs Myers, it's a boy! Now, everybody RUN AWAY! RUN AWAAAAY! FOR GODS SAKE LEAVE THE MOTHER AND RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"
Posted by: Zeno | July 7, 2008 11:33 PM
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.
Posted by: Divalent | July 7, 2008 11:35 PM
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.)
Posted by: Blake Stacey | July 7, 2008 11:45 PM
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.
Posted by: kaje | July 7, 2008 11:47 PM
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/
Posted by: Blake Stacey | July 7, 2008 11:50 PM
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!
Posted by: TheBlackCat | July 7, 2008 11:50 PM
College genetics? I learned this in freshman year of high school, if not junior high.
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 7, 2008 11:55 PM
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.
Posted by: llewelly | July 7, 2008 11:58 PM
Quite the disgrace for such a noble lineage.Posted by: Blake Stacey | July 7, 2008 11:58 PM
TheBlackCat (#64):
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.)
Posted by: Molly, NYC | July 8, 2008 12:06 AM
. . . every human baby ought to leap right out of the vagina with razor sharp fangs and claws . . .
OW!
Posted by: Dark Matter | July 8, 2008 12:08 AM
@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.
Posted by: Amplexus | July 8, 2008 12:08 AM
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)
Posted by: Barry | July 8, 2008 12:16 AM
Surely this is a hoax...
Posted by: Wowbagger | July 8, 2008 12:18 AM
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.
Posted by: Axolotl | July 8, 2008 12:21 AM
Another fine example of Poe's Law (if you're not familiar with it, just do a Google search).
Axolotl
Posted by: Divalent | July 8, 2008 12:33 AM
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.)
Posted by: hje | July 8, 2008 12:38 AM
They haven't quite reached Ben Stein's level of cluelessness--yet--as in: "What about gravity?"
Posted by: sng | July 8, 2008 12:56 AM
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
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 8, 2008 12:59 AM
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
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 8, 2008 1:00 AM
"Sociobiology"
Posted by: Pandora Neurospora | July 8, 2008 1:03 AM
'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.
Posted by: Azkyroth | July 8, 2008 1:07 AM
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.
Posted by: J. A. Baker | July 8, 2008 1:08 AM
The same place Bush got about half of his DoJ lawyers: Liberty University.
Posted by: craig | July 8, 2008 1:09 AM
How is there not a global shortage of stupid with this guy hoarding so much for himself?
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 8, 2008 1:13 AM
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
Posted by: Donovan | July 8, 2008 1:16 AM
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.
Posted by: blf | July 8, 2008 1:20 AM
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?
Posted by: Wowbagger | July 8, 2008 1:21 AM
Azkyroth, #80:
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.
Posted by: Kseniya | July 8, 2008 1:24 AM
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)
Posted by: IBY | July 8, 2008 1:33 AM
The last one was so stupid and nutty that there is no English word for it. Seriously... Babies born defenseless as evidence against evolution!
Posted by: Azkyroth | July 8, 2008 1:37 AM
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.
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 8, 2008 1:42 AM
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.