Memorable procrastination : Pharyngula

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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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Contemporary Christianity, diverse and complex as we find it, actually may show more unanimity than the Christian churches of the first and second centuries. For nearly all Christians since that time, Catholics, Protestants, or Orthodox, have shared three basic premises. First, they accept the canon of the New Testament; second, they confess the apostolic creed; and third, they affirm specific forms of church institution. But every one of these — the canon of Scripture, the creed, and the institutional structure — emerged in its present form only toward the end of the second century.

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« Intelligent Design is warmed-over creationism | Main | That explains a lot »

Memorable procrastination

Category: Creationism
Posted on: April 30, 2009 12:06 PM, by PZ Myers

Wow. I thought it was amazing that Paul Nelson had taken 5 years and counting to get around to explaining ontogenetic depth, but that's nothing: he has been promising a monograph on common descent for eleven years. If his wife sends him out to the store for a gallon of milk, does he come back a year later with cheese?

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Comments

Posted by: buried | April 30, 2009 12:19 PM

Aw, give him a break...maybe he's had a lot of grading to do.

Posted by: Holbach | April 30, 2009 12:21 PM

Of course he will come back with cheese instead of milk, after having fermented into cheese for a year, at least looking like cheese but perhaps tasting like anything but cheese.

Posted by: James F | April 30, 2009 12:23 PM

Meanwhile, Dembski and Marks have two papers coming out...somewhere. Even Casey Luskin didn't say where.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | April 30, 2009 12:24 PM

Gee whiz, if all I had to do was to write a paper, and would get paid to do it full time, it would be worked on diligently. Now, five years later, and neither a paper nor an acknowledgement that there is nothing there? How deep is hole he dug (drops rock to see how deep the hole is).

Posted by: Fred the Hun | April 30, 2009 12:25 PM

If his wife sends him out to the store for a gallon of milk, does he come back a year later with cheese?

Sure, it would give him time to study lactobacillus cultures and how they evolve ;-)

Posted by: Moggie | April 30, 2009 12:28 PM

Well, apparently he worships cheeses, though I admit I may have misheard that.

Posted by: Glen Davidson | April 30, 2009 12:32 PM

Of course he had to help write a textbook made up of many creationist canards. No doubt repeating that junk took up many hours.

And it could be that he's found refuting evolution a tad difficult. Hard to believe, you know, but surely it's just possible.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592

Posted by: murgadroid | April 30, 2009 12:39 PM

"Blessed are the cheesemakers? Why them?"

Posted by: Feynmaniac | April 30, 2009 12:44 PM

Well, I thought Alan Clarke's 3 weeks (and counting) delayed response to Josh was bad. He can't use the "I'm doing my taxes" excuse anymore.

#10

Posted by: James F | April 30, 2009 12:45 PM

"Well, obviously, it's not meant to be taken literally; it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products."

#11

Posted by: lose_the_woo | April 30, 2009 12:52 PM

I just got done reading the brief over at Panda's Thumb. I waited 5 years to have that explained? And why does this seem like deja vu? Seriously. When I got near the end where it talks about the unattributed quote from China, I had a solid deja vu experience. Hmmm.

This just seems like more of the same. Whether it's blood clotting, or flagella, it all seems like hand waving.

Why don't they just start with the straight forward stuff, like explaining why there are no fossils of deer along those of dinosaurs? Have they done that yet? Does anyone know of their "explanation" for that?

#12

Posted by: Kobra | April 30, 2009 12:53 PM

Eleven years of dishonesty, grandstanding, and douchebaggery. Way to go, Nelson.

#13

Posted by: Ahnald Brownshwagga the Monkey | April 30, 2009 1:06 PM

@8...Well it's not meant to be taken literally. It really refers to anyone who works in the dairy industry.

#14

Posted by: NewEnglandBob | April 30, 2009 1:20 PM

I am about to post a comment here...but I will get back to you shortly.

#15

Posted by: Moggie | April 30, 2009 1:26 PM

The dog ate his homework... a lot.

#16

Posted by: bob | April 30, 2009 1:31 PM

Now now now, maybe he's just being a good scientist and still testing his hypotheses. Oh, wait, nope ... he already believes his ideas have merit, and is a fellow of the ID propaganda machine DI. Oops.

#17

Posted by: Loc | April 30, 2009 2:04 PM

Seriously, he can't decide on a font.

#18

Posted by: Emmet, OM | April 30, 2009 2:13 PM

Of course he had to help write a textbook made up of many creationist canards.

So, when his wife sends him out to the store for a gallon of milk, he comes back a year later with a duck.

#19

Posted by: Victor | April 30, 2009 2:14 PM

FTA: "the mysterious unitless number"

Why are ID's hypotheses so funny? I almost feel a bit sorry for them.

#20

Posted by: Pdiff | April 30, 2009 2:15 PM

Moggie @6

That was good! Damn good! Now all I can think of is "cheeses on a cross". I think I'll work on an appetizer of that name :-)

As for Nelson, I'm sure he's working in Biblical time. For him, it's only been a few seconds ......

#21

Posted by: blf | April 30, 2009 2:16 PM

When he goes out to get a litre of milk, he… well, we don't know what he comes back with. We're still waiting…

#22

Posted by: squal25 | April 30, 2009 2:19 PM

Sweet. Shirley Manson of Garbage is one of us. I guess that proves the atheists are the Terminators of the future.

#23

Posted by: Geoff | April 30, 2009 2:37 PM

Well done and informative.

Is ID anything but bad metaphors?

#24

Posted by: Fred the Hun | April 30, 2009 2:50 PM

Pdiff @ 20

Found this via google "Cheese Hot Cross Buns"

#25

Posted by: Bokanovsky Process | April 30, 2009 2:54 PM

No, no, you're all misreading this. Darwin took something like, what, two decades to go public with his ideas about evolution? I'm sure Nelson's doing something similar, only his theory will be much better than anything Darwin ginned up, and thus will take that much more time to do well. "Ontogenetic depth" is just that important.

Or maybe not.

#26

Posted by: Plummet | April 30, 2009 2:55 PM

Happy Valborg's Eve to all

#27

Posted by: Bill McElree | April 30, 2009 3:03 PM

It looks like he was trying to cash in on the Christian Distraction Machine bandwagon. They come up with this crap to appear to support their forgone conclusion. Then they provide enough of it so one can move from distraction to distraction to keep themselves from doing any heavy thinking.

We should all be thankful his contribution to the creationuts meme didn't catch on so we don't have to waste any time on it.

#28

Posted by: MosesZD | April 30, 2009 3:41 PM

Only if he goes to the store with some rennet.

#29

Posted by: 'Tis Himself | April 30, 2009 3:46 PM

What a friend we have in cheeses.

#30

Posted by: Andy Groves | April 30, 2009 7:40 PM

About 5-6 years ago, Paul told me that one of the reasons for his "demotion" from a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute was his failure to come up with the published monograph. It turns out that the Evolutionary Monographs series at UChicago is basically defunct (it was a one-man show even in its palmy days), so it's unlikely that Paul's work will ever see the light of day. I think he should just publish it online, but I guess that wouldn't be as prestigious as being published under the University of Chicago banner. And fake prestige is all the IDiots can hope to gain.......

#31

Posted by: Felix | April 30, 2009 9:39 PM

Well, if I believed I had an eternal life in front of me, I'd have no problem taking eleven years to write down a phone number. Kind of changes perspective on a lot of things, not just the value of life and how to spend it. If you believe you're going to be forever, what does anything matter that involves any finite time frame?

#32

Posted by: JeffS | May 1, 2009 2:13 AM

So when I'm done my undergraduate degree in biology (health professions focus =/) will I be able to understand this stuff?

I feel dismayed I can share the smirks at reading the complete drubbing that Nelson is probably recieving since I don't really understand the material being discussed.

#33

Posted by: JeffS | May 1, 2009 2:18 AM

#32 should read

"I feel dismayed I can't share the smirks..."

#34

Posted by: John Phillips, FCD | May 1, 2009 11:28 AM

Moggie #6 FTW. Though saying that, this thread is full of win :)