…and this is a 
Ray Comfort gets it half right
Category: Creationism
Posted on: December 1, 2008 3:28 PM, by PZ Myers
It's remarkable. Comfort gets something right.
The contention between Darwin's theory of evolution and the Bible's account of creation is extremely significant. This is because if evolution is true, the Bible is a fallacy.
I know, it's unbelievable. Comfort's remarks usually set the bar for stupidity, so it's astounding to find two sentences in his usual babble that actually make sense — yes, it is a significant conflict, and yes, the Bible is fallacious.
It would be nice if we could just stop there, allow the poor man a moment of glory, and leave him to bask self-contentendly in the belief that he is educable, but we can't. That's because his next paragraph departs from that brief high-water mark to plunge into the abyss of obtuse inanity.
If you have webcams, turn them on now. I'd like to record the multitudes sitting before my blog, jaws gaping like fish, followed by peals of laughter. This one is for the creationist record books.
Darwin theorized that mankind (both male and female) evolved alongside each other over millions of years, both reproducing after their own kind before the ability to physically have sex evolved. They did this through "asexuality" ("without sexual desire or activity or lacking any apparent sex or sex organs"). Each of them split in half ("Asexual organisms reproduce by fission (splitting in half)." Ask A Scientist, Biology Archive, http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/bio99/bio99927.htm.)
Wait, what? Darwin "theorized" no such thing. Humans reproduce sexually, as do all primates, as do all mammals, as do most vertebrates, as do a great many animals. There was no period where males and females evolved separately. The nice quote from Ask a Scientist refers to single-celled organisms — no human being has ever reproduced by splitting in half. We evolved from precursor populations containing both males and females.
This is often the most difficult thing about trying to argue with creationists. You get discombobulated by their most profound misconceptions, and you really do have to be prepared to start the discussion with the simplest, dumbest basics — it's like trying to have a serious conversation about biology with a preschooler, although usually the preschoolers are far more open-minded and willing to learn. And these are the people who feel qualified to set the high school science curriculum.
Comments
Posted by: Guido | December 1, 2008 3:49 PM
Are you sure that this is not on purpose? It may well be that he is writing this for people who will believe everything he reads, so he is not being stupid (no more than usual), but dishonest.
Posted by: BMS | December 1, 2008 3:52 PM
My brain just leaked out my ears.
Gah.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | December 1, 2008 3:53 PM
As a former daily reader of Ray's blog I can tell you that Ray is primarily composed of two characteristics.
Dishonesty and mindnumbly proud ignorance.
It varies day to day which is the more prominent.
What Ray doesn't know he attributes to his vast knowledge. Yes. I know that sounds strange but Ray assumes all of the things he doesn't know about science is actually all the things he does know about it.
He's not worth debating because his dishonesty will always creep into any discussion when you correct him on his glaring ignorant and stupid mistakes.
Posted by: Ouchimoo | December 1, 2008 3:53 PM
Wow. . that's just F#cking WOW.
If you have webcams, turn them on now. I'd like to record the multitudes sitting before my blog, jaws gaping like fish, followed by peals of laughter. This one is for the creationist record books.
You warned us and everything, yet I did exactly what you predicted. But, I don't have a webcam :(
Youtube vids anyone?
Posted by: Iron! | December 1, 2008 3:56 PM
Maybe he read something about sexual dimorphism and... just is really, really quite exceptionally stupid.
Posted by: Forsaken | December 1, 2008 3:56 PM
Comfort is both intellectually dishonest and lazy... his ramblings are an embarrassment to both believer and non-believer. I have a lot of friends and acquaintances whom are believers and most of them think that evolution denial and the ramblings of people like Comfort are both ridiculous and unrealistic. But yes, it is unfortunate that so many folks seem to get behind 'blatherings' of such monumentally imbecilic proportions...
Posted by: the Petey | December 1, 2008 3:57 PM
ummmmmmmmmmm
well, I...
You see...
Maybe...
ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm
I got nothing
Posted by: João | December 1, 2008 3:58 PM
PLAF!!!! My brain just exploded. Thank you very much.
Posted by: Am I Evil? | December 1, 2008 3:59 PM
I won't post a vid, but I'll describe my look. Think Morpheus when he whispers 'It cannot be!' followed by Brian Blessed during any of his laughing fits.
Comfort is a plank.
Posted by: Shaden Freud | December 1, 2008 4:00 PM
I ain't kin to no rotifer!
Posted by: Magnus | December 1, 2008 4:01 PM
I'm sorry I didn't cam myself laughing.
Posted by: bunnycatch3r | December 1, 2008 4:01 PM
I disagree. What's at stake is not whether the bible is a fallacy but rather how this book has been interpreted. In other words it is crass literalism which is in danger.Posted by: bob | December 1, 2008 4:01 PM
Wow.
Posted by: Zeno | December 1, 2008 4:03 PM
It sure was tough in the days before sexual reproduction, just waiting for the genitalia to develop sufficiently to allow males and females to get it on. Our ancient ancestors must have been astonishingly patient.
Flashback
F: Oh, don't worry about it, dear. It just doesn't work yet.
M: But this has never happened before.
F: Well, that's certainly true. Maybe in a few more generations of asexual reproduction we humans beings can try again.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | December 1, 2008 4:04 PM
Sure, you read the surface of Darwin and you don't find it.
But the same people who recognize that Hitler's beliefs as well as communism came straight out of the Origin know full well that all of that was also implied by Darwin in his writings.
It's your unwillingness to admit that all evil and bad science stem from Darwin and Cain that keeps you from admitting the truthiness of Comfort's statements.
After all, the man who single-handedly disproved Darwin and proved that God exists would hardly get the trivial details of Darwin's statements wrong.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: moo | December 1, 2008 4:05 PM
(smile turns to chuckle, then to raucous laughter)
Posted by: SteveM | December 1, 2008 4:05 PM
Sounds like ol' Ray just saw "Army of Darkness" and thought it was a documentary.
Posted by: Tualha | December 1, 2008 4:06 PM
Well, actually, he didn't say the Bible was fallacious. He said, if evolution is true, then the Bible is a fallacy. This is poorly stated (the Bible isn't a logical argument, so while it can be factually erroneous and can [and does] contain fallacies such as self-contradiction, it can't be a fallacy itself), and also too inclusive (evolution contradicts the creation account in Genesis, but has few if any implications for the rest of the Bible).
Posted by: The Science Pundit | December 1, 2008 4:06 PM
Boy did he screw that up; it shows that he knows nothing about Darwin!
Darwin theorized that mankind evolved as a strictly male species over millions of years, reproducing after their own kind before the need to physically have sex evolved. Man did this through "asexuality". He would split in half to reproduce, until one day, a random, accidental, highly unlikely, freak incident caused man to split off just a rib. That rib grew into a woman and sex spontaneously happened.
Comfort needs to reread The Origin of Species!
Posted by: Cephus | December 1, 2008 4:06 PM
Actually, Ray is exactly right if you remove the single extraneous word in his statement:
"This is because evolution is true, the Bible is a fallacy."
Removing that "if" makes all the difference in the world.
Posted by: Steve_C | December 1, 2008 4:10 PM
Any bets when Ray shows up at the emergency room with a ________ needing to be removed from his bottom?
Posted by: Ubi Dubium | December 1, 2008 4:13 PM
Yup, jaw drop followed by guffaw. I called Ubidubikid#1 and Ubidubikid#2 over to the computer to read it, and there was another huge round of laughter. PZ, you're doing a wonderful job of helping me vaccinate my kids against catching this kind of stupid in the future.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | December 1, 2008 4:13 PM
I may need something more emphatic than the Picard facepalm. I mean, Comfort is basically taking random things he reads, feeding them through a Markov process and spewing them out again. . .
Posted by: Dinosaur Teacher | December 1, 2008 4:14 PM
Glen,
A) Hitler had Darwin's books BURNT because he didn't want to attribute a lowly origin to the Aryan race. He also was an avowed Roman Catholic.
B) Stalin's scientists followed Lysenko, not Darwinian principles. That's why they wasted so much time trying to crossbreed apes & human: bad understanding of biology.
I'd love to see him read the last 50 or so Nobel Prizes is medicine and physiology, 47 of which directly reference evvolution, and PROVE them wrong in a lab.
This is not abstract. This is a practical knowledge applied in epidemiology and genetics that saves lives. You can't unreason a scientific idea. It's not a philosophy. You have to put your data where your mouth is.
I know that's why I'm proud to teach it in the public school. I may be inspiring the scientist who cures cancer.
Posted by: Richard Harris | December 1, 2008 4:15 PM
....mankind (both male and female) evolved alongside each other over millions of years, both reproducing after their own kind before the ability to physically have sex evolved. They did this through "asexuality" ("without sexual desire or activity or lacking any apparent sex or sex organs").
Yeah, & then Eve grabbed that apple, & Adam ate it, & then they got f*cked, just like it says in the bible. See, it makes sense. Duhhhhhhh!
Posted by: Nick Gotts | December 1, 2008 4:16 PM
evolution contradicts the creation account in Genesis, but has few if any implications for the rest of the Bible - Tualha
The contradictions between evolutionary science and the Bible go well beyond the creation story; but even if this were not so, the creation story is a vital component of Christianity: if no "Fall", then no need for a "Saviour". Non-fundamentalist Christianity has looked for ways round this, but none that I'm aware of are even remotely plausible.
Posted by: blf | December 1, 2008 4:17 PM
His head's already stuffed so far up it I doubt there's room for anything else. Though I suppose since there's nothing inside his skull, the ________ might wind up there?
Posted by: Doug Little | December 1, 2008 4:17 PM
Forget evolution, what about a few other theories that if they are true (which they are to the best of our knowledge) the bible is a fallacy. I'll start out with
- General Relativity
Posted by: Glen Davidson | December 1, 2008 4:18 PM
DT @ #24, #15 was meant to be a completely transparent Poe.
Which may not be the case for a newbie--always the risk one takes when one tries to parody IDiots/cretins.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: BlueIndependent | December 1, 2008 4:19 PM
You can't fault them for succeeding...succeeding at becoming dumber every time they open their faces. W...T...F. When has science ever said what Comfort just said it said? This is some crazy extension of perhaps the Noah's Ark fairy tale. That, or some scheming new way of casting the chance aspect they always carp about as being evermore difficult to achieve so their apologists eat it up and tell themselves "yeah! see??!! God had to have done it because how can two human creatures chance to evolve separately and then later merge? Idiot scientists who don't say the things we say they do!!"
Ray Comfort gets the Creobot award for inventive reinventing of facts for the day.
Posted by: Dr. J | December 1, 2008 4:20 PM
Give a whole new meaning to the statement, "Go F yourself" - who knew!
Wow, just wow. People listen to idiots like this?
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip | December 1, 2008 4:21 PM
No webcam, sorry, but my lop ears are even more limp than usual after reading that.
Posted by: Jim | December 1, 2008 4:22 PM
In the Catholic Church I was taught that the creation stories were not to be taken literally, but rather they were stories told that tried to explain that God created ever thing. Catholics are not fundies in their interpetation of the Bible.
Posted by: Penguin_Factory | December 1, 2008 4:23 PM
That is, and I say this witout hyperbole, the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my entire life.
Posted by: liveparadox | December 1, 2008 4:24 PM
Hear that? that's the sound of my brain running out my ears. Too bad I don't have a webcam; I, too, reacted exactly as predicted.
Posted by: Chris Davis | December 1, 2008 4:25 PM
I suppose the mystery is not that this guy is a moron, but that such a moron has an audience.
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | December 1, 2008 4:28 PM
*chuckle*
You say that almost like you think that the current story is plausible.
Lucky we know you better.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | December 1, 2008 4:28 PM
If you can even ask this question, there might be hope for you yet. Run, flee, away to your bubble of rational sanity! It's too late for the rest of us, but you've apparently still got a shred of hope for humanity.
Sometimes I think those of us who've been on Pharyngula too long are like the fifth business in a Romero movie: it's ten minutes to the end and we've been mortally tainted by the zombies so all we can do is try to valiantly hold 'em off with our last breaths while the survivors run for safety.
Posted by: Forsaken | December 1, 2008 4:29 PM
Comfort is both intellectually dishonest and lazy... his ramblings are an embarrassment to both believer and non-believer. I have a lot of friends and acquaintances whom are believers and most of them think that evolution denial and the ramblings of people like Comfort are both ridiculous and unrealistic. But yes, it is unfortunate that so many folks seem to get behind 'blatherings' of such monumentally imbecilic proportions...
Posted by: Dutch Delight | December 1, 2008 4:40 PM
Is this one of those weaknesses they keep talking about?
Posted by: Interrobang | December 1, 2008 4:40 PM
One good thing about discussing biology with preschoolers -- they don't have an entire adult lifetime's worth of disinformation, propaganda, and bullshit to unlearn, at least. The bad news is, you're still discussing biology with a preschooler.
Posted by: Horwood Beer-Master | December 1, 2008 4:44 PM
When I read "This one is for the creationist record books", I was thinking "yeah right, how bad can it be, I've read all the dumbest things these people say before, I won't be shocked..."
Boy was I ever wrong!
Posted by: SOCR-4735 | December 1, 2008 4:45 PM
I have no idea what that means (maybe because I usually don't watch zombie movies), but I've noticed that I've changed a bit since lurking here at pharyngula.
It's made me much quicker to just say "that's bullshit" to 'spiritual' things (like alternative medicine that has no basis in real science, ghost stories, etc.), instead thinking that 'well, since so many people say it's real maybe it has some basis in reality?' (It might have - but I won't believe it with just anecdotal evidence and no real science to back it up. Now I just think 'well, lots of people are just real stupid')
I've also become far more skeptical about well, all authorities, religious as wel as governmental. (The latter more thanks to finding out that the EU had directives for the shape of cucumbers of banana's than reading pharyngula, but still)
Also I hate telemarketers even more than I did before, and no longer see any reason to even attempt stay polite towards them.
Posted by: Sastra | December 1, 2008 4:46 PM
Okay, you got me. I laughed out loud, even though I had been warned. Sometimes if you tell people in advance "Now, this is really funny..." you kill what's coming. Sometimes, you don't.
I'm trying to figure out how Comfort thinks his explanation makes any sense at all -- I mean, he must be picturing something in his head when he writes these words, something he thinks the "Darwinists" believe. If you substitute the words "living things" for the word "mankind" in the above sentence, and eliminate his attributing sex to asexual organisms, then there's a grain of rationality there. There was asexual reproduction before sexual reproduction, which evolved later. As Ask-a-Scientist explains.
How he managed to take this general idea and apply it specifically to human beings, I don't know. Suddenly, human men and human women reproduce asexually like bacteria, then evolved the sexuality that made them male and female. We evidently go through ALL the stages of evolution on the history of the planet, because we're so important. It's as if he assumes human beings are the only species that counts, and anything anyone says about anything has to do with human beings. Talk about being self-absorbed.
Maybe this makes sense to someone who believes that God, an eternally existing Being which has no body, no sex organs, and no female counterpart, is still somehow a male.
Comfort constantly confuses evolution of species with the development of a single individual, and so ends up with a view of evolution which seems like it came from a comic book talking about aliens. It's not like explaining evolution to a preschooler. It's like explaining evolution to someone who's really, really into science fiction, and that's where he gets his free association of ideas and analogies.
Posted by: Shamars | December 1, 2008 4:47 PM
Damn it!! PZ called it to the letter!
I started laughing for the first several words...but then, after that first comma, my jaw just dropped and I read in amazement at the stupidity.
I wish I DID have a webcam, I could have recorded my reactions and sent them to PZ with a "thanks for the laugh" note :-)
Posted by: SOCR-4735 | December 1, 2008 4:48 PM
That should be the shape of cucumbers and bananas in my previous post, obviously.
Posted by: Capital Dan | December 1, 2008 4:48 PM
I'm still not convinced that Ray Comfort isn't actually pulling one of the most elaborate and long-lasting examples of Poe's Law of all time.
Seriously. It's hard to believe that someone could be so horribly and so dysfunctionally dense as Ray and still manage to negotiate his daily life without killing himself.
I sometimes think it's an act.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself | December 1, 2008 4:48 PM
Comfort is so wrong that he and wrong are going in opposite directions. He's past negative wrong and into complex, even transcendental wrong.
Posted by: Jason A. | December 1, 2008 4:48 PM
I've heard a less stupid version of this once before. A girl asked where she could see a chart of the evolution of woman, because she could only find the evolution of man.
It was stunning then, and this takes it to a whole new level.
Posted by: Lago | December 1, 2008 4:48 PM
That was fucking painful
Posted by: Darth Wader | December 1, 2008 4:49 PM
Wow, thats so stupid. Thats quintessentially stupid. If I were asked by someone to define stupid, I would just tell them that.
Posted by: Victor | December 1, 2008 4:49 PM
He's either:
A: Real, real stupid
B: A deceitful liar.
C: All of the above.
Posted by: Shirley Knott | December 1, 2008 4:49 PM
Ah, #19 -- let's take that notion just a tiny bit further and you'll quickly see why Ray can't go there.
The clear implication is that the snake is actually a talking penis. Satan lives in men's pants!
And generally tempts women to do things that just would never, ever, ever, no matter what, cross their minds...
While I'm sure Ray wants to picture women as the secondary source of all evil, I doubt he'd be happy with the notion that Satan lives in his very own personal pants.
no hugs for thugs,
Shirley Knott
Posted by: mothra | December 1, 2008 4:50 PM
Maybe Ray Comfort after reading E.E. 'Doc. Smith Lensmen series got humans mixed up with Eddorians. Nah.
You know, it could be worse. We could have been living on a world where the most august international organization endorses proposals demanding respect for fairy tales. We could have been living for 8 years under a president who hallucinates voices from god and starts wars. We could be living in a country where Joe Plumber/ Six-pack decides scientific issues in school board meetings, or where public educational cum zoological exhibits partner with scam carny museums. It's a good thing we live in America. /containment bubble bursts and slavering lunatic lurches away from keyboard.
Posted by: Rey Fox | December 1, 2008 4:51 PM
I had to read that a few times before realizing that Ray really was saying that human beings used to reproduce asexually. I've clicked through to his blog a few times, but this time certainly not. There will be a bunch of people trying futilely to try to impart on Ray the very basics of biology and evolution (and not using the tone of voice one would use with a preschooler, because who has the damned patience to anymore?) and a whole bunch of his supporters just lapping it right up. It really is completely worthless to argue with someone so doggedly determined to get it all wrong.
The bit about the bible was like the stopped clock showing the correct...no wait, more like the unused daily calender actually showing the correct date and day for that one time in seven years or so.
Posted by: Neil MB BCh | December 1, 2008 4:52 PM
ok.... i had not got my webcam on... but lets just day i nearly choked on my dinner despite being for warned.... scary scary ignorance
Posted by: Pen | December 1, 2008 4:53 PM
It seems he has understood we have asexual organisms somewhere back in our evolutionary ancestry, but is having a hard time with the idea that those ancestors were a) not members of the human species, b) not divided into males and females (on account of them being asexual).
Didn't Dawkins write something in that Ancestor's Tale book of his about the difficulty with the discontinuity of words and the continuity of reality. That seems to be one of the creationist's major stumbling points.
Posted by: Jeff Mark | December 1, 2008 4:55 PM
I saw his blog this morning and stopped after I read the paragraph about males and females evolving separately.
It's so ridiculous the way these people give completely false statements about science. You have to wonder if Ray ever worries that some of his smarter Christians will do as I did (when I was a Christian) and start exploring the science in more detail, only to find that what people like Ray says is wrong and eventually do as I did and abandon their faith altogether.
One can hope!
Posted by: inkadu | December 1, 2008 4:56 PM
And the asexually reproducing veterbrate is? Anyone? Anyone?
Someone needs to take Ray aside, maybe an educated Catholic, and carefully explain to him what parts of the bible are retroactively meant to be understood as poetic metaphor in the light of modern science, and which are meant to be the Literal Word of God And He Really Means It This TIme (Until We Can Show that He Was Wrong In Which Case That Too Will Be Poetic Metaphor And You'd Be a Fundamentalist Fool To Not Realize It).
Hi, Lynn.
Posted by: E.V. | December 1, 2008 4:56 PM
Some people just have to hold onto archaic/irrational concepts no matter what.
"A dog is a dog, a duck is a duck and a cat... is a PERSON." Wow... just wow.
Posted by: Longtime Lurker | December 1, 2008 5:00 PM
I think Ray's banana obsession is what started his preoccupation with asexual reproduction.
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | December 1, 2008 5:04 PM
The EU has directives creating standard classifications for different classes of almost every product, including cucumbers and bananas, to facilitate trade. The idea is that an Italian wholesaler can buy 42 tonnes of "Class I bananas" from a Belgian banana importer and know (more or less) what they're getting: bananas suitable for retail sale, rather than inferior bananas for canning or other purposes. These EU regulations have been introduced as part of harmonisation measures to eliminate differences between member states, so that a "Class II banana" in Ireland is the same as a "Class II banana" in Sweden. The errant notion, promulgated by British tabloid newspapers, that overpaid EU bureaucrats with nothing better to do invented silly regulations on the curvature of bananas for no reason is, and always has been, entirely false. Standards harmonisation measures, even for bananas, are perfectly reasonable once you understand their purpose, which the tabloids omit in order to ensure that they elicit the "right" anti-EU sentiment from their underinformed readership.
Posted by: Darth Wader | December 1, 2008 5:05 PM
I wonder if there is anyone out there who truly has a grasp on what evolution is (and isn't) and doesn't accept it?
I guess acceptance of it is the best litmus test for comprehension.
Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | December 1, 2008 5:06 PM
Ray Comfort's thick skull holds a whole lotta shit;
I'd like to write more, but right now--gotta split!
Posted by: dave s | December 1, 2008 5:07 PM
http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-1924.html
"Darwin, an absolute & eternal hermaphrodite"... "The indecency of the process is to a certain extent in favour of its probability, nature becoming very low in all senses amongst these creatures". What a book a Devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low & horridly cruel works of nature!
Posted by: Brandon | December 1, 2008 5:08 PM
Ray Comfort is a troll...
Posted by: LadyH | December 1, 2008 5:10 PM
Ok, I have to say I did have this very idea that I came up with on my own. . . when I was 5!!! I stated at the dinner table that girls came from girls and boys came from boys. What my parents had to have done to keep from laughing their asses off I don't know, but I was disabused of that notion fairly quickly.
Comfort wins at fail.
Posted by: Lago | December 1, 2008 5:10 PM
"And the asexually reproducing veterbrate is? Anyone? Anyone?"
Numerous lizards like the ones in Madagascar who reproduce by pathogenesis?
Posted by: ggab | December 1, 2008 5:12 PM
I don't have a webcam so I was going to post a youtube vid that most resembled my reaction.
The problem is that every match i found had the title "2 girls 1 cup reaction".
A lot of laughter and shock, followed by a little vomit.
Posted by: Lago | December 1, 2008 5:12 PM
I mean parthenogenesis.
Not the first time I have done that...
Posted by: Boomer | December 1, 2008 5:21 PM
Darth Wader @ #63
That's an excellent point, any time I have talked to someone who doesn't accept it, I have eventually found that the root of their disbelief is rooted in a fundamental misconception about the basic mechanism of the theory.
Posted by: inkadu | December 1, 2008 5:23 PM
I was really wondering if there were any vertebrate species that reproduced primarily through asexual means. Parthenogenesis seems to be largely for the rare spinster who can't find a male to mate with.
And wasn't Jesus Christ himself the result of parthenogenesis? Hm.
Posted by: BdN | December 1, 2008 5:26 PM
"And the asexually reproducing veterbrate is? Anyone? Anyone?"
"Numerous lizards like the ones in Madagascar who reproduce by pathogenesis?"
There are also a few cases of "virgin birth" in sharks.
Posted by: Keenacat | December 1, 2008 5:27 PM
Nah...
I did not burst into laughter.
Are you familiar with this feeling of complete, utter disbelief that sets your normal bodily functions (e.g. breathing, thinking, moving) out of order for quite some time?
Luckily I did not pee myself because at least my sphincters resisted this hypernova of... well... THIS!!
I don't think mankind has yet invented a word for this state of malignant brain-death-in-the-living Comfort is showing.
Cheezuz.
I took me halfway through the comments section until I finally returned back to normal human behavior and giggled all my way down here.
Posted by: mothra | December 1, 2008 5:30 PM
@59 There are species of fish, amphibians and lizards that reproduce asexually. There are two or three such species of lizards in the southwestern U.S. The term here is parthenogenesis. It can be found among many orders and families of the Hexapoda .
Posted by: Qwerty | December 1, 2008 5:32 PM
Next, Ray Comfort will be telling us bananas split! *ba dump bump!*
Posted by: Alex | December 1, 2008 5:32 PM
"And wasn't Jesus Christ himself the result of parthenogenesis?
Actually, I think impregnating a married woman without her consent goes by a different term.
"These people's God has shown them by a million acts that he respects none of the Bible's statutes. He breaks every one of them himself, adultery and all." ["Mark Twain and the Three R's, by Maxwell Geismar, p.124]
Posted by: Ross Nixon | December 1, 2008 5:33 PM
Well Ray certainly mispoke that time!
He needs to get his speeches on evolutionism proof-read by any YEC that passed high school science.
Ken Ham, please have a word with our friend Ray!
Posted by: Gary | December 1, 2008 5:34 PM
I guess at least now I know why he's so against evolution. I mean, yeah, he has that whole crocoduck thing going too, but a lot of people have that "y r thar monkeyz still!?" thing with evolution. That's a... *somewhat* understandable mistake.
But this... man. That's just completely over the top wacked out loonery. Seriously, the man could pick up a highschool bio book, read 3 pages, and be proven wrong.
This is a recurring pattern with Comfort, though, unfortunately. He repeatedly misinterprets/lies about things and presents it as if he's fully researched it and knows what he's talking about. Either that, or he smugly asks "questions" such as this:
http://raycomfortfood.blogspot.com/2008/11/evolution-and-beginning.html
in a way that implies the topic is stupid and obviously wrong. But, as people in the comments point out, if he really wanted an answer he could spend literally 5 minutes on google and get one.
He doesn't want an answer. He doesn't care about actually researching things or telling the truth. What he cares about is hammering home how great god and jesus are, and you'd better believe in them too, or else you go to hell.
He misinterprets, misrepresents, quote mines and outright lies his way through his blog to meet this goal. He is an annoying combination of stupidity, ignorance, smugness and boldness and unfortunately, a lot of people listen to him.
Posted by: woody | December 1, 2008 5:35 PM
the Bible is fallacious.
Me, i'd say "phantasmagorical." It's "Fantastic," that is the product of fantasy. There is no relevant truth condition that can to pertain to any 'text,' the fundamental attribute of which is to be the immutable word of a trans-temporal, trans-spectral, omnipotent and omniscient "God."
Truth and falsity are not relevant considerations. This document is to be read as "universal" psycho-drama.
Beyond that, we may say that, on evidence the literal interpretation of the biblical account of creation is "false to fact." And we may say that to argue from the biblical account of creation to discredit an evolutionary understanding of the (roughly) same events is (at minimum) specious, because there is no evidence of the literal biblical account other than the bible itself.
what they call begging the question, petitio principii, circular reasoning, etc. That's what's "fallacious," nest paw?
Posted by: E.V. | December 1, 2008 5:35 PM
Lessee... XX chromosomes, Uh, without a Y chromosome, wouldn't Jeebus have been a she?
Posted by: Riman Butterbur | December 1, 2008 5:35 PM
My roommate reminds me of that constantly. Meow... just meow.
Being a total ignoramus, I won't be embarrassing myself much if I'm wrong, but I understand some birds lay parthenogenetic eggs that hatch.Posted by: inkadu #59
Posted by: Ross | December 1, 2008 5:35 PM
That should have been "misspoke", not "mispoke". (Apologies to Mrs Clinton.)
Posted by: Owlmirror | December 1, 2008 5:36 PM
Hm.
Whiptail lizards do not live in Madagascar. If there is another parthenogenetic species that lives on that island, well, I had not heard of it.
Wikipedia reminds me of the virgin Komodo dragon that laid and hatched eggs, as well as the virgin sharks that reproduced.
( Are sharks chordates but not vertebrates? )
Posted by: Alex | December 1, 2008 5:40 PM
"He doesn't want an answer. He doesn't care about actually researching things or telling the truth."
This I think is a fundamental truth for those protecting their comfortable myths. Regarding Evolution, they argue against it not because they have legitimate concerns, but because they simply don't want it to be true.
Posted by: pete | December 1, 2008 5:41 PM
The man obviously has an asexual dog turd reproducing in his skull right now.
It makes Karl Pilkington sound like a fekking brainiac.
Posted by: woody | December 1, 2008 5:41 PM
I think it useful this time of year to be reminded that "jesus of nazareth" probably looked a LOT like Yasser Arafat...
Posted by: Andrew | December 1, 2008 5:44 PM
HAHAHAHA this is funnier than the banana!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHA
Posted by: Cerberus | December 1, 2008 5:46 PM
Maybe he found this site and assumed that's what the scientists were talking about.
Or maybe we should stop truncating our Biology classes so that no more people grow up to be that pig ignorant about basic biology.
Posted by: Telford | December 1, 2008 5:46 PM
1 Corinthians 13:11
When I was an amoeba, I split as an ameoba, I understood as a ameoba, I thought like Roy Comfort: but when I became a man, I put away amoebish things.
Posted by: Holbach | December 1, 2008 5:48 PM
A lot of us have been saying the bible is a fallacy long before moron Comfort. Perhaps he thinks we are on to something that he cannot yet grasp? Wake up.