Disco. ‘Tute descends into self-parody

Posted by Josh Rosenau on May 2, 2011
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It’s a running joke that any time some horrible person is in the news, Discovery Institute fellow David Klinghoffer is sure to pen a piece trying to link that person to the nefarious ways of evolution-defenders. He’s written such pieces about Hitler, the Columbine killers, the Holocaust museum shooter, and many other modern monsters.

Today’s headlines are dominated by talk of Osama bin Laden, so we get, on the DI twitter feed:

David Klinghoffer explains the connection between Osama bin Laden and “junk” DNA

And indeed, the post over at the Disco. ‘Tute complaints department is titled “The Osama/’Junk DNA’ Connection.” The connection seems to be that Klinghoffer doesn’t know much about either topic.

If you want a good run-down on the DNA testing that is reported to have been run on bin Laden’s corpse, check out the excellent Christie Wilcox’s explainer.

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Comments

  1. #1 Larry Yudelson
    May 3, 2011

    My specialty is Jewish, not Muslim, theology, but wouldn’t Bin Laden have been a Creationist? Probably Young Earth, no?

  2. #2 John Kwok
    May 3, 2011

    Yes Larry, Bin Laden was probably a YEC. Fundamentalist Muslims tend to embrace that and reject sound mainstream science like biological evolution.

  3. #3 Josh Rosenau
    May 4, 2011

    Islamic creationism is not generally YEC. The Quran is not specific about the timing of creation, so I’m not aware of Islamic creationists disputing a multi-billion year old earth.

  4. #4 MacTurk
    May 4, 2011

    The silly article starts with this sentence “President Obama is said to have known the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden since September but chose to wait until May to authorize action against him”. Sez who? Evidence? Oh, stupid me, this is the Creationist alternative, and we don’t need no steenking evidence.

    The rest of the screed is in two parts. First, there is a lot of puffery which tries to link the alleged “delay” in getting UBL to the forthcoming publication of the book the world has been waiting for, blah, blah, by Jonathan Wells. Google the idiot if you feel the urge.

    The second part is a sad attempt to kill a straw man. Mr wells has, it seems, overthrown Evolution by “proving” that junk DNA is not junk, and this is the kiler app for “Darwin’s defenders”…or something or other. More silly blah, basically.

    Muslims, generally, do not dispute tha t the world is old. Most regard the YEC, if they have ever heard of them, as idiots.