You might have wondered, like I did, how Ken Ham was going to deal with the revelation that his prize Allosaurus specimen was the gift of a freaky neo-Confederate crank. We now know: he's going to ignore it indignantly.
Rachel Maddow had a segment on the allosaur, the creationists, and the neo-Confederate. She makes some good points: why is this kook being given tax incentives to build another pile of bullshit in the state of Kentucky? How can they claim that this ancient fossil supports their claim of a young earth? And what about Michael Peroutka? Watch it yourself and see.
title="MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show 5/27/2014">
border="0" class="video-image" />Ken Ham calls that "Rachel's Rant", and claims that she was obviously upset and angry, but, in reality, she is angry at God
. I don't know about you, but what I saw was Maddow laughing at the folly of Answers in Genesis. He only tries, feebly, to reply to two of her points.
He declares that no Kentucky taxpayer money is being used to construct the Ark Encounter
, but that is a claim no one made. Maddow says quite clearly several times that the Ark Park has been given $43 million in tax incentives -- that is, Answers in Genesis has been exempted from a requirement to pay taxes on their for-profit enterprise, and will also receive rebates on sales taxes. So all Ham has done is rebut a claim that Rachel Maddow did not make.
Maddow mentioned how dinosaur fossils ought to be awkward for creationists -- they're millions of years old, and these loons claim the earth is only about 6,000 years old. Ham's answer: Nuh-uh, nope. That's it. He has declared by fiat that the fossil allosaur is only 4500 years old, ignoring all the evidence, so therefore it's no problem for creationists. It's remarkable how many problems they solve by closing their eyes very, very tightly.
What about Peroutka, and the association of their "museum" with a treacherous racist neo-Confederate and political weirdo? That gets one sentence. One dismissive sentence.
In one part of her rant, she uses a sleazy tabloid approach in her attempts to bring disrepute to creationists.
He will not dignify the facts with a response, apparently, and my, but isn't it rude of this woman to reveal the actual facts behind the donation?
Deny, deny, deny…pretend the facts aren't out there. It's the standard creationist play.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
we have a far-right government very similar behavior to ham's i.e. deny/ignore the facts (our govt lied to their back teeth and broke promise after promise). AFTER ALL they have a HIGHER TRUTH (according to them).
What a sad sad world we live in.
No wonder far-right politics go so well with fundamentalism.
Well, that's me convinced.
I've just discovered that I'm nowhere near angry and obnoxious enough to become a creationist.
My, Vince Goidrum must keep a set of these rants for easy cutting and pasting.
Who was Jesus? I love how Maddow mentions His name during her spiel, then skips over Him as if His place in human history is insignificant. "It’s remarkable how many problems they solve by closing their eyes very, very tightly". Nonbelievers do their best to take God out of the beginning (which is impossible) but cannot omit His Son from the record books-or from their personal future. The immense fame, the positive impact, the increasing resonance that this Individual had/has is BEYOND and the echo of His life proves that He was here in a serious way. Therefore His ancestors were (obviously) here and that I can remember, He never mentioned monkeys as a part of His family tree. "Deny Him, deny Him, deny Him... pretend the facts aren’t out there. It’s the standard atheist play." The Man's significance (and existence) is indisputable, as is God's. The same cannot be said for evolution.
@Feelgood Goodman: You really need to "bone" up on your logical skills. You and that other ranter guy above are typical lumpy thinkers, falling for the standard YEC tactic of the false dichotomy. There is more that could be addressed from what both of you wrote, but for now I'm just going to address your fallacy of the false dichotomy.
Is Ken Ham = Jesus? What does accepting an Allosaurus fossil from a white supremacist have anything to do with the philosophy of "love thy neighbor", etc.?
Ken Ham and other creationist racketeers use a trick I call "Godbranding": basically, by lumping an association between the idea of "God" and his own personal interpretations/opinions of the Bible, he tricks gullible people like yourself into believing that he is speaking for God/Christianity (when in fact, thousands of denominations demonstrate that Christians don't all have the same interpretation of the Bible). "Godbranding" allows creationists to get away with any idea they come up with -- no matter how illogical or contrary to scientific facts their ideas might be. It's like they're using Jesus more like a figurehead or mascot. Go Team, yay. Subsequently, confused gullible people like yourself lump all these ideas together, indiscriminately, to the point of assuming those who criticize the ideas and interpretations of YECers like Ham are also criticizing the idea of God and Jesus.
Actually, I wouldn't call you or the ranter above "Christians". You are "Usherists" or "Hamists", seeing that you place such an overriding importance on Bishop Usher/Ken Ham's interpretations to the point of believing that you have the understanding or authority to judge and condemn others. FWIW, Maddow was not addressing the concept and principles of Christianity; she was addressing Ken Ham and his acquisition of a dinosaur fossil donated by a white supremacist.
Actually, Maddow said on her program that AIG would "build" the ark using state tax incentives. Listen at about 1:55 into her segment. She is wrong—the incentive instead is a possible rebate of sales tax when the park opens and collects sales tax.
Is this the same Vince Goodrum? http://anabolicmayhem.com/ :(
Can one be a creationist and a Christian?
http://testiculation.blogspot.co.uk/
So many things confused and entangled here.
Basically, some of you are pissed that Creationists are getting a tax break; pissed that you didn't get some dino bones.
Tax breaks for that which is approved of, but not for 'immoral' Creationists.
Why are we not celebrating diversity?
@CurbYrDogma
"Gullible"? Who me? Other believers in God? NO NO NO!!! If you're of the opinion that creation manifested without a Creator, that shoe fits you. You're "gullible and confused" if you buy that nonsense or any other contradictions to truth-hopefully you don't. Truth is all that matters at the end of the day isn't it? Screw theories.
I never mentioned Ken Ham, dinosaur bones or the white supremacist in my post because none of that concerned me. Tax incentives, who cares? What does concern me are people with platforms "attempting" to shoot down the validity of the bible whether they say it directly or imply it. In order for such an attempt to be successful, a critic needs to destroy the credibility and legacy of Jesus Christ which cannot be done. Over the last 2000 years it's been tried often I'm sure, but no such luck and evolution is just the latest 150 year old tactic aimed at confusing the "gullible". This Man Jesus is arguably the most important Person in history (which would make sense if He's God incarnate) and to question the Genesis account of creation is to question Him. If you can't erase Him from history, you can't erase Genesis as there are no monkeys or transitional forms of men in His genealogy. The point of my post; Jesus "ought to be awkward for atheists (and evolutionists)" and the only interpretation of the bible that matters is the one the Author intended.
Attempting to calculate the earth's age and dinosaur bones are irrelevant when it comes down to Who made everything. Who made everything?
...if he's only got a bachelor's degree, and otherwise only degrees in education, why does he try to use those degrees to show off when he's talking about science?
I feel sorry for him. Honestly – I do.
Nice name, though. ;-)
Hm. When was that?
Name one. Fondi does not count – I've never heard of him, and I'm a paleontologist myself.
I've already spent several hours today explaining the holes in the falsehoods you spew here. I refuse to reply to the rest of a Gish Gallop you haven't even composed yourself – especially considering the fact that each and every "point" it makes is a PRATT.
1. Not true. We quibble about tiny details; while there were several different theories of evolution a hundred years ago, there's now consensus on each point where they differed.
2. Creationism cannot explain a single champsosaur.
3. Name any.
My, aren't we projecting today. *pats on Vince's head*
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
So? Does this pick your pocket or break your leg?
This is a lie. It's not a quote from Gould, it's a paraphrase of a misunderstanding of the theory of punctuated equilibrium.
Read this to understand what it's really about.
And perhaps develop a sense of shame, liar.
Yet another assertion of the same without any evidence.
BTW, do you want me to explain the evolution of the mammalian middle ear or the lungs of birds? It's quite well understood today. And while I have no idea what Sodera may have meant by his mention of chimpanzee genitalia however many decades ago, I can even say a few things about the mammalian diaphragm.
Are you interested, or would you rather continue to post ignorant rants?
Those were the times in 1948. Nowadays, the science of evolutionary development biology exists. Read up on it already.
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
Not remotely true. It's as if I wrote "some Christians only believe in Jesus, others only in the Holy Spirit"...
Your source is bullshitting you, and you don't notice because you have no idea of the topic.
What an entertaining misunderstanding! Is your unacknowledged source too stupid to read the Wikipedia article on genetic drift?
O RLY.
*eyeroll* Define "different theories". How different do they need to be to count as different theories and not as different historical stages of the same theory?
Outside of England, how many even use the word Darwinism? In my experience, creationists use it far more often than biologists do; creationists love the word because it makes biology sound like an ideology based on the blind following of one man...
Well... no. Read this post and the four it links to. Too bad National Geographic still hasn't restored the comments.
Wow, that's entertaining. What next? Are the moon landings hoaxes, too? :-)
Show us how they've been debunked! I crave entertainment!!!
Pointing at the fossils isn't exactly "arguing our asses off", is it.
I'm also sorry to inform you that Alan Feduccia is a crackpot who, like you, loves to make grandiose statements about topics he knows way too little about. He keeps arguing even today as if next to nothing had been learned or discovered since the early 1970s. I've corresponded with him; he's nice, but a sad case.
Again, that's a massive misunderstanding of punk eek. Read the paper I just linked to.
As it turns out, all these more recent developments support it beautifully. You just haven't noticed.
...but only a creationist would be so stupid as to postulate "linear evolution"!
The very point of the theory of evolution is to explain biodiversity. Populations that find themselves in different environments, or more generally under different selection pressures, evolve in different directions – they split. The tree of life isn't a pole, it's a tree. It branches into all directions it can.
Wrong. Indohyus (remember?) is a bit younger than the oldest known whales, and the hippos are still enjoying great health.
You're assuming that everything was made.
Why?
Oh dear.
Yet another one of those boring claims without evidence.
Fixed link.
Looks like all the fuckwits stayed at Science Blogs.
Hey, Vince, come drop this bullshit over at FTB and watch how hard you get laughed off the Internet, you stupid fucking piece of human garbage.
Vince, old bean, you still haven't explained why whales have vestigial pelvises and rear limbs. We're all ears....
proto cetacean land animals.did become whales... the front leg bones basically shortened and widened &.......webbing between the digits that was already there basically stayed there instead of disappearing during fetal development ....more modern whales also have extra finger bones...all of this easily seen in the fossil record
Vince, old boy, I asked you to explain why cetaceans have pelvic girdles and rear limbs, even though these structures are completely pointless and unnecessary in a sea-going animal. You haven't answered the question.
*Speechless*
So according to you whales DON"T have vestigial pelvic girdles and rear limbs? So the skeletons of whales have been FAKED?? Please inform all the zoologists out there!
What is the function of the human appendix? Many people (myself included) seem to manage perfectly well without one.
Vince, me old mate, you might like to have a look at this link on the pelvic girdles of whales:
http://bergenmuseum.uib.no/fagsider/osteologi/hvaler/e_bekken.htm
The Norwegians know a thing or two about the anatomy of whales, having hunted them and cut them up for centuries. Care to suggest why they would fake such bones?
Of course, you could just close your eyes really, really tight and pretend they don't exist.
@Vince Goodrum
You appear to have learned nothing in life beyond junior bible class. That should be as alarming to you as it is creasingly funny to the rest of us.
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
OK. Show me the last 5 papers in this war that you're so certain is happening. :-)
I'm sorry to inform you that, like most creationists, you have misunderstood what Gould was saying. He was saying that because environments change chaotically rather than steadily, we should see – in the fossil record of a single species or two – episodes of stasis when the environment is stable and selection is stabilizing for a few hundred thousand years, interrupted by episodes when the environment changes and selection is directional for a few thousand years. By creationist measures, all of that counts as gradual!
In most environments, Gould's punctuated equilibrium indeed happens. In a few others it does not, and it makes sense that it doesn't happen there. Read this paper, which I already linked to in comment 19 of this thread, or you'll never understand what I'm talking about.
It's... entertaining when you throw the tempests in a teapot of yesteryear at me after sending them through creationist-colored glasses. You just have no idea what you're talking about. :-)
Good! Pick one of the two, I don't have all day. :-)
Narcissistic personality disorder.
I have, with several. You're full of shit.
It's not exactly a scientific attitude to declare information fantasy before even looking at it. It's a narcissistic attitude.
Are you really worshipping a god? I think you're worshipping yourself. You've created a god in your own image, so you can worship yourself without it being quite that obvious... till you declare your word gold, LOL!
You haven't read that post or what it links to. *slow clap*
...Have you heard of resistance to antibiotics? Or of viruses that evolve fast enough that a new vaccine is needed every year because the old one doesn't work anymore?
No?
Well, you've hardly heard of anything outside your well-resonating skull, so I'm not surprised.
Where do you get "rodent-type" from? :-D
"Flippers and fins" don't grow out of nowhere. What is a whale's flipper? It's a short forelimb where the fingers keep growing for longer than usual, the tissue between them doesn't undergo apoptosis as it usually does, and the layer of connective tissue in the skin is much thicker than usual. Four mutations, and you're just about there.
Not so much "there could be no" as "it simply isn't necessary to assume one, because what we see can all be explained without making that assumption".
This – the principle of parsimony: don't make more assumptions than you have to – is an important part of the scientific method.
This isn't about National Geographic, you dolt. I've read papers in the actual scientific literature (in case you really didn't know, Nat Geo is a popular magazine) and seen whale skeletons.
Remember that the concept of homology was discovered by the creationist Richard Owen.
Michel Laurin, Mary Lou Everett & William Parker (2011): The cecal appendix: one more immune component with a function disturbed by post-industrial culture, The Anatomical Record 294(4): 567–579.
That's an open-access paper.
Um. We didn't pick our names ourselves, you know; our parents did.
As for "estimable names", Paul the Apostle was an asshole who hated women and had a phobia of sex while being totally OK with slavery. King David, if he ever existed, has been greatly exaggerated together with his kingdom; I'm surprised you like him so much, considering how unashamedly his love affair with Jonathan is described in the Bible...
Where's my money, then? :-D
There is no devil. The assumption that such a thing exists is wholly unnecessary. Scientific theories aren't received by revelation, they're derived from and tested by the evidence everybody can see.
Isn't it obvious that this is an inside joke about people like you?
Vince, keep shooting yourself in the foot with your abuse. You're making new converts to the Evolutionist cause daily.
Finally! I got some meds that work. Sorry about all of my past nonsense fellas! Hopefully there are no hard feelings.
David really? "There is no devil." 100% sure? You confirmed it? If you can't disprove God, how can you disprove the devil? I hope you're right but I feel an "OOPS!" is imminent where both are concerned. Atheists are admittedly blind - take no offense, but it's true if they can't acknowledge a Creator's hand in creation. That being said, who (along with their own suppression of the truth) is doing the blinding and deceiving? As Vince shared, "you are gravely mistaken" if you deny the supernatural war between good and evil, truth and lies, heaven and hell (fulfillment of potential and destruction).
Mr. Badrum, glad to hear that the doctor's referral I gave you has worked out. He is a good man, and thorough. That carbamazepine + escitalopram + risperidone trio seems to be just the right combo for some people.
@45 Feelgood Goodman
How about you come back to us when you have disproved 100% that there aren't EXACTLY 5 gods and 2 devils.
Vince, you fuckwit retard shit for brains redneck cretin, I put the burden of proof on you, a fuckwit retard shit for brains redneck cretin, because that is where it belongs. The mere existence of a fuckwit retard shit for brains redneck cretin such as you is proof enough that there is no creator, even one with a really warped sense of humour, and that evolution has bypassed your corner of North Carolina for many centuries. I'm guessing you and your cousins have many remarkable physical similarities/deformities.
Vince, help me out here. You're the expert on the Bible, which says quite explicitly that there is only one God, with Jesus the Son of God. Yet here you are telling us that the Indian Gods Vishnu, Krishna, Brahma, Kali and so forth exist! So what's going on? Are Gods local, with your one for North Carolina, and the Indian ones for the Subcontinent?
Vince: So the Hindus are all wrong? Their Gods don't exist? You compare them to Elvis impersonators? You must tell them! Their souls are in danger!
Why is there no mention of the Hindu pantheon in the Bible?
@Roger
I do wish I could prove God for you sir, but it doesn't work that way unfortunately. The burden isn't on me or on Vince, but on God to ultimately convict you and on you to yield (as He desires a contrite heart). Outside of pointing you to the wonders of creation, to your own life/soul and to Jesus Christ, I don't know what we can tell you. If you refuse to see the proof of God in all that provision, what can men on a blog demonstrate for you? All we can do is give an account for our faith. You're guaranteed to die however, at which point you'll get all the proof and evidence you need.
Asserting that "there is no devil" (or God or souls or heaven or hell) doesn't make it so. "The Son of God was revealed, that He might destroy the works of the devil." Therefore, if we can't erase Jesus from history, we can't erase who He came to defeat as His purpose was fulfilled, and His life and mission accomplished. What are you thinking when you read about Hitler, Bin Laden, serial killers and such? Where do you say evil comes from? If you don't recognize God for all His good and genius creativity, I can't expect to get a stimulating answer but I do wonder your thoughts. Is evil purely psychological in your book, or do these characters just evolve from bad apes or something?
Speaking of evolution in closing, where do human beings go from here? Are we at the pinnacle of evolution and if not, what do we transform into next? I don't think we get many more centuries before the foretold "end", but in case I'm wrong, what's the forecast? The Ray Comfort film Vince mentioned - http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U0u3-2CGOMQ - challenged atheists and evolutionists to come up with a documented-observable transition from one kind into another, and none (including PZ Myers) could. THEY ALL GOT STUCK. Can anybody in this forum explain what they could not?
@Feelgood Goodman
You're a cop-out and a coward, because you can't prove a damn thing and you know it. Pointing at the natural world and saying "god did it" is just proof of your stunning ignorance, laziness, and apparent inability to learn anything newer than that which was believed 2,00 years ago by superstitious hebrew peasants. Pathetic. Try harder, please.
Just to paraphrase your words, ....Asserting that “there is a devil” (or God or souls or heaven or hell) doesn’t make it so....
Anthropomorphising human behaviour to account for 'good' or 'evil' by inventing fantasy gods and demons is a primitive and ultimately useless way to understand human behaviour, which may explain why the more religious societies are so utterly dysfunctional.
As for your legendary "foretold end", what a crock. The early christains assumed it would be in their lifetimes, to rescue them from Roman occupation , and that's all there is to it. You dumbasses have been waiting for it ever since. Again, pathetic, truly pathetic.
Why so angry?
@Vince Goodrum#50
Too late Vince, I got my argument straight and my insults in first, so YOU LOSE. Did you know, by the way, that before 500 BCE the Hebrews of the bible worshipped a pantheon of gods (including your buddy jehovah) just like the Hindus. Of course you didn't. You get all your information from fat fuck Tele-evangelists, who take donations from simple-minded clowns like you and spend it on cocaine and rent boys. LOL!!!!
About these demons, do they just come to you by night or in the day as well? Never mind, you can always calm yourself down with some more masturbating. Then maybe your Mom will read you another bedtime story after she's cleaned out the trailer and fed the chickens.
@Feelgood Goodman#55
Maybe because you and your kind duck the question. Evasiveness is understandable but not forgivable in naughty children. In adults it is unacceptable.
@Feelgood Goodman#55
I could add that people like you, entertaining apocalyptic belief systems that anticipate with apparent relish the end of humanity, are basically sick and twisted.
In fact, humans who avoid the inevitable wars and natural disasters to come will continue to exist, as the environment permits.
Evolution is adaptation to the environment. The Nepalese, for example, have evolved more efficient oxygen absorption to enable them to thrive at higher altitudes.
If the planetary environment changes, humans being no different from any other living organisms would adapt accordingly. Rapid change would be a different matter ........