I caught most of South Park tonight, and it certainly was topical: it wasn't so much about evolution as it was RIchard Dawkins and The God Delusion. Unfortunately, as South Park seems to do whenever I see it, there wasn't much thought behind it at all. Richard Dawkins is made to have sex with Mr Garrison, there's something about intelligent sea otters, and a future world where everyone is an atheist and different factions are having a war. Trey Parker and Matt Stone aren't exactly masters of subtlety, I'm afraid, and it was their usual frenetic mish-mash.
Oh, well. It's a two-parter, so there'll be more gay/transexual sex-as-some-kind-of-satire next week. I didn't see much to trigger either outrage or interest this time, so I suspect I'll miss it.
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The parts about the Nintendo Wii and Cartman not being able to wait for it were pretty funny. Other than that, the show was pretty bad. It's basically their treatment of global warming all over again. Somehow I don't find completely mis-characterizing something and tossing in some kind of outrageous sex-scene is funny, but oh well. There's no arguing over taste.
Yeah, I'm afraid that Parker and Stone are reduced to just trying to be more and more extreme in each episode, and it's lost any edge it might have had.
I have to agree that South Park often loses itself in its attempts at poking fun at recent events. I mean it's wonderful that they have the technology to produce a cartoon (albeit a crappy one) that can comment on something only a week or two after it's been blown up in the media, but the scripts and jokes often feel as rushed as the more obviously lacking animation.
Also the excess of sex and poop jokes seem to hurt it in my opinion. Those subjects are funny, but the jokes have to be executed expertly, not as filler.
I miss the days when Matt and Trey just tried to be funny, back before they tried to make a political or social point with every episode.
Yeah, creating controversy seems to have become more important than the topic.
"Somebody please take offence to this."
Dawkins having sex with Mr. Garrison???!!!! hahahahahahahaha
Middle age burnout come early and too soon for my hopes. Now, about the Rolling Stones---oh right, sorry.
I think it's important to note: this is a cartoon made out of construction paper. Sometimes I'm disappointed with how they approach subjects, but it doesn't matter, because that's not the point. They aren't there to approach subjects, they just take subjects and get silly with it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but social commentary it is not.
It's actually made entirely on Flash now, and has been since like the second season.
I laughed, I cringed, I waited for statements along the lines of there are lots of transitional species or the like. The FSM shout out was kind of funny, though. The high point was Ms Garrison saying that she isn't a monkey, and didn't throw crap at people, followed by doing just that. Very appropriate behavior for a creationist. Other than that, the guys have really been spending too much time listening to recent Howard Stern shows...
BaBaBooey!
Ah, yes, 'abortion photos' - the ultimate troll.
I thought it was actually quite funny and I am a huge fan of Dawkins. Sure, I disagree with Matt and Tray often -- their libertarianism is so obvious and I believe that libertarianism will only lead to chaos due to greedy human nature -- but it's their opinion. The points they often try to make are rather shallow, not thoroughly tested (might be the Libertarianism), but funny.
This doesn't seem to stir great a controversy in atheist circles, unlike their religious jokes (the bleeding virgin Mary or Scientology for instance) which, according to me says enough about religion and non-religion.
But couldn't they at least fake Professor Dawkins' accent a bit better?
Now you have something to talk about ...
er, sorry, wrong thread.
Yeah... ho hum. As usual, the best line was "Oh HAMBURGERS!"
I think they were trying to offend atheists, but they forgot that we're not as easily offended as the religious.
it's lost any edge it might have had.
For real. I lost interest a long time ago, but the episode where they specifically made fun of transsexuals by using Mr. Garrison, that was not only offensive, it was ignorant and completely missed the point. And wasn't funny at all.
PZ is right. They've crossed the threshold from "edgy" to over-the-edge and falling fast".
I once saw someone, probably on Pandagon, refer to Parker and Stone "occasionally clever assholes". That's basically accurate, and given what I know of them, they might not even disagree with it too forcefully. As long as you keep that in mind and don't try to read too much into it, South Park is a great show.
"I miss the days when Matt and Trey just tried to be funny, back before they tried to make a political or social point with every episode."
Me too. South Park has been one of my favorite shows for quite some time, but the past two seasons have been really sub-par in my opinion. The show has always been a place for Matt and Trey to preach their particular philosophies (while making fun of everybody else's), and but that's never particularly bothered me because the show has always been so damn funny. Alas, as of late it seems like they've ratcheted up the preach dial, but lost a lot of the funniness along the way.
Oh well. Tonight's episode had some funny moments. The poo flinging, while characteristically juvenile, had me in stitches.
I dunno... I thought that the description of evolution as conceived by a Creationist was just about right, and they got the last scene right where, in a world full of atheists, they would ultimately factionalize and have power struggles just like everyone else.
Except, of course, that us atheists don't tend to be quite so group-oriented in the first place... ;-)
I just watched the rerun, and yeah, that was kinda bad.
Kinda bad? It just sucked.
Tyler DiPietro:
I enjoyed the global warming episode (Manbearpig) quite a bit. Although they made fun of Gore's cries for attention, the boy's problems mirrored global warming pretty well.
They were trapped, rising water and all, while the greedy Cartman begged the others to help his resource-hogging heavy ass. Just as those responsible for the majority of the CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere will force others to deal with the problems it creates.
It may just be that I read far too deeply into every episode (I seem to get different messages from Trey Parker's work than those around me) but I think (hope) the latest installment will end with a moral lesson that either will be contrary to what the characters will accept, or Dawkins will be killed by the sea otters from the future in a cop-out.
Trey and Parker jumped the shark with this one. A transexual school-teacher taking a dump in an elementary school classroom and throwing the shit in Richard Dawkins' face, followed by Dawkins' butt-fucking the school-teacher, followed by exploding atheists' heads in the 25th Century? I'd suggest that Dawkins sue the assholes, but it would be best if this episode were never seen or talked about again, and not because it was a tasteless, pointless piece of shit (who doesn't love pieces of shit especially if they're tasteless?) but because they're just phoning in the "who the can we witlessly degrade this week?" schtick. What's next? Lyndon Johnson fucking JFK's corpse's neck wound on the trip back to D.C. in Air Force One while blood-soaked Jackie watches and masturbates? Oh, wait, I think that's already been done. Never mind.
This is really just the latest in a long series of "Atheism is a religion too, and so is science, so there" shit that Parker and Stone have been pulling for a while. They misrepresent what it means to be an atheist, treat lack of faith like faith in itself, and pretend that "Hey, everyone believes in God. Just do it. Come on." Not only that, the scene with Dawkins and Garrison at dinner was obviously custom-tailored to make Dawkins' arguments look stupid. Parker and Stone's argument for theism is roughly equivalent to a Bill O'Reilly "Come on! Come on! You can't be serious!"
I don't mind tastelessness and juvenile humor. I, in fact, kind of adore it. What I do hate is inaccuracies and ignorance.
My prediction is that the second part will reveal that the factions are fighting over who was the 'creator' of their faith-i.e. Dawkins or Mrs. Garrison. I think the point is that atheism is as much a faith as Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Budhism, etc. They are all existential choices.
I also liked how they made Dawkins' make Mrs. Garrison pass the "atheist" test before he sodomized her. Having her refer to him as "Dick" was classic too. Perhaps that is why it looked like the future atheist group that unfroze Cartman were "dickheads"?
I haven't noticed a decline in the show's creativity just new targets.
Well, the UD-chewers are glowing about it, and were, even before they saw it, saying that Parker and Stone have dealt Dawkins a big blow etc. I guess we can see how classy the ID folks are. I positively cringed (the FSM mention was the high point), but let's face it, I stopped watching South Park long ago.
It is funny to imagine, though, Dembsko'leary & Friends settling down in front of the TV with cheer, only to have their Christian morals offended and lunge toward the set to turn it off.
This thread is the lamest thread ever.
The Joke that Killed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQkY5ykjifg
Too bad it's too late to make that into an ad. So instead pass it onto EVERYONE you know!
I don't mind tastelessness and juvenile humor. I, in fact, kind of adore it. What I do hate is inaccuracies and ignorance.
Flintstones destroyed America.
rAmen. Let's not forget, Flintstones is reality TV to the creationists.
"I believe that libertarianism will only lead to chaos due to greedy human nature..."
Yeah, you're right. Big government statism has been doing wonders for our country and the world in general. Bush, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler, Than Shwe, Castro, Putin, Ahmadinejad, Gaddafi, Kim...they're all so much more capable of ruling millions than those millions are capable of ruling themselves.
i'm wearing south park undies right now. they're a little worn out, and likely to be retired soon. i haven't gotten anything useful out of that show (or watched a first run) in a few years.
i don't know if that says more about my undies or about the show, but there it is.
The only episode of South Park shot with construction paper was the "Xmas Card" piece done as an intro for Matt and Trey-- once it landed them their series they immediately went to the dying tech of SGI boxes running Alias, at the time a very expensive proposition per animator. I don't really care what they're using these days, as the premise that nobody seems to grasp is that they're adding little or no value with their pictures to what is essentially radio, which is an art form taking only slightly more time to die than 2D hand animation.
Speaking of radio, San Francisco's KQED FM hosted Richard Dawkins November 1st for an hour, with some fielded emails and phone calls. If you hurry, you can download the mp3 here.
And, since there appears to be no escape from entropy, KQED goes from the sublime to the ridiculous by hosting Deepak Chopra the very next day.
It would appear there was no time to address the question I emailed, which I may also send tomorrow:
I owe many thanks to Richard Dawkins, whose books since the seventies have slowly but surely dissolved my god delusion.
In America, nonsense is the null hypothesis: ayurvedic homeopathic snakeoil peddled by gurus jiving us with their cosmic debris.
Why is it considered so rude for somebody like Dr. Dawkins to prefer that people confine themselves to positions for which there is more evidence than their mere credulity?
"Dick"?? hahahahaha
Wanna see what a truly boring tasteless cartoon is like? That was "drawn together"
Or the latest two episodes of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
EK,
I don't think so. If you look into past episodes you'll see that Trey and Matt are squarely in the denialist crowd.
What Trey and Matt write into the show is colored by a kind of narcissistic libertarianism. I have nothing against that mindset per se, my own political thinking has been influenced to a large a large degree by classical liberalism. But at the very least, political inclination is not a sufficient pretext to deny reality. Even Penn Jilette, who was reflexively denialist no more than two years ago, has come around on global warming. Trey and Matt are arguing pseudoscience, and it unfortunately has a lot of influence over many of their younger viewers.
If South Park is the sort of show that might have Fred Phelps sucking off George Bush, why shouldn't they have Dawkins fucking Mr Garrison.
Crass comedy material for south park doesn't work for being true, it works because you know a sizeable number of people think like that.
I think having a go at South Park for what it seems to be advocating is missing the point.
Anyway it's more publicity for Dawkins and the God Delusion.
I'll watch it when I work out which channel is showing new south park these days in the UK, if I haven't missed it already.
As an ardent fan of Evolution, I found it absolutely hysterical hearing Mr. Garrison's description. If you can't find humor in that... then south park is not the type of comedy for you. And sure creationists will all cling to it like some great truth, but in my mind, it was just an awesome way to show what the average religious idiot thinks about Evolution.
I always notice people love south park when it makes fun of others, but hate it when it makes fun of themselves. It doesn't bother me either way, but I do appreciate that they stand outside the bounds of typical TV. I mean, I'm a huge WoW fan, and that was still probably the funniest episode I have ever seen (even though it was just making fun of people who play Wow).
The part about the atheists dividing in to factions and having a war was hilarious.
You get a taste of it when you see how much Dawkins despised Gould, despite posthumous praise to the contrary.
Quetion:
Dawkins says most scientists are atheists; scientists keep providing the worlds leaders with all the nuclear weapons they could want!
Do the scientists have blood on their hands. (Oppenheimer did, but hes dead, so you can't count him.)
Dawkins despised Gould? "Despite poshumous praise to the contrary"? Despite having maintained a civil correspondence?
Care to support this argument, Duke?
Duke: Obviously, the scientists who had nothing to do with weapons research have none on their hands whatsoever. Science is not this monolithic hive entity that you seem to be implying by blanket statements like that. And considering the enormous number of lives saved, and general quality of life improved, by scientific advances, even if one had the puerile view of moral responsibility that you seem to, science clearly comes out ahead.
Now, if you want to talk about blood on hands, consider religion, in whose name more people have been killed than any other cause in history, by a long shot (and don't start in on Hitler or Stalin, because A. Hitler was a Christian, believed he was doing "the Lord's work", and justified his atrocities by specific references to the will of God; B. Stalin's ideology, despite a lack of supernatural elements, had more in common with fundamentalist religion in its general mindset than with Freethought, and C. by some estimates, the Taiping Rebellion *alone* killed as many people as Stalin and Hitler *combined*), in many cases *still* fails to denounce (or even praises) the atrocities, and has had no conneection whatsoever with lifesaving and life-improving discoveries except to delay them for as long as (in)humanly possible.
Libertarianism is a greedy white teenager's attempt at rationalizing his greed.
As for South Park, feh. The cycle of edginess has long outstripped Stone and Parker. Even Drawn Together is a little better, and that show's a train wreck raped by a vomiting giraffe. (Even worse, I hear that's part of the next episode)
For Tyler DiPietro: I hadn't heard that Penn Jillette had changed his mind about global warming. Do you have a reference?
You have to remember that the show is parody and should be watched in that context. It's not meant to be taken seriously.
@ Heterocronie (November 2, 2006 01:59 AM
I wrote "I believe that libertarianism will only lead to chaos due to greedy human nature..."
and you responded with
Am I saying anything about "big government statism" or the government fully ruling our lives? No, you just read what you want to read, sign number one of you being uncapable of actually using higher brain functions. And your counter argument: straw man.
In a libertarian world power and money would even rule society more than it does now, and that is my point. Libertarianism could be a great system if humankind would be morally advanced enough to not only think about their own wallet, but also about the lives and wealth of others.
I saw this coming, and frankly I'm surprised so few of you did. The episode years ago that had people as atheists stuffing food up their ass and shitting out of their mouths gave it away. Parker and Stone have never been totally about rationality. Their targets have always been anyone with the audacity to say that someone else is wrong.
And frankly, as one who has spent a lot more time watching the first four seasons on DVD than the new episodes, the general quality of the show has gone down a bit. The voices have become much more homogenized for one thing, and that intangible quality of humor known as "timing" just isn't what it used to be. But it is still head and shoulders above most TV fare.
I mean come on, if you didn't laugh at Garrison's idiotic reaction to Dawkins' lecture (acting like a monkey, complete with the requisite shit tossing) you are too much of a prude to be watching South Park in the first place.
The sequel will go something like this: Atheism became the mainstream ideology, with those favoring Dawkins' variety wearing the phallic headpieces being the "Dicks", with those favoring Garrison's varient being the transgendered group (notice the attacking atheists are difficult to distinguish as male or female).
Cartman will then tell them how stupid they all are, and how they are just another religion, and they will then send him back, where he will confront Dawkins, telling him he is as much of a zealot as Pat Robertson, Dawkins will come to some simplistic realization that will make all in Atheismland vomit, and they will all join hands and sing "Tra la la".
I love South Park, and it can be so good (witness this season's "World of Warcraft" episode), but I hate how they feel like if they're going to make fun of people, they have to fire from the center. It's this idea that they can be clever by saying, in example, "you global warming scientists are so crazy, and so are you global warming deniers - we're the sensible ones and we can make fun of you". Pick a freaking side, and while you're at it, pick the right one.
"It's not meant to be taken seriously."
Sorry, Steve, I can't buy that. Sure, Dawkins + Garrison monkeylove isn't meant seriously, but their attacks on various ideas and ideologies, c'mon. This isn't "just joking," and it's a cheap excuse to claim so.
I really only had time to pay attention to the latter half, so I can't comment much on the anti-creationist portions. My gripe is that it offered a cop-out of an approach, seeking a false middle ground in order to offend everyone equally...although I'm not so sure they weren't seeking the audience's favor with the tired old "everyone's a theist, atheists just don't admit it" rag.
I don't mind them offending "evolutionists" and atheists, but I don't consider the crap they presented about evolution = atheism and atheism = religion as satire or insult comedy. It's simply false information, and I don't think they were JUST doing it to be funny. I think they believe it. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the anti-creationist stuff I missed was equally shallow and "false." Admittedly, it's hard to find a silly idea creationists don't hold, but there are plenty of positions you can get the DI and such to vehemently deny, such as if they had Dembski going back in time to help Noah stock his ark.
All in all, it was pretty much a snarky, stumbling, occasionally funny jumble, which I'm hearing is what to expect from SP. :/
The first lecture Mrs Garrison gave on evolution was FUNNY as hell. You 5 times retarted ass sex monkey fish squirrel mutant. Then when Dawkins got there and everything think he said she would reply "oh ya, your a fagot." That sums up ID arguments to a tee.
It's easy to be right on target when you aim scattershot barbs at everyone and everything, but you rack up even more misses. The real art of humor is hitting the bullseye with one well-aimed satirical shot, and not aiming at easy targets, This is where South Park fails. It's essentially the creation of two young males with the mentalities of fifteen year olds (and the animation ability of four year olds) producing a show aimed at young males with the mentalities of twelve year olds. (Hence all the "eww, gross, dude" homo- and transphobia, and I don't know any females who like it.) Cartman represents the embodiment of their audience's collective mentality, and look what a little creep he is! Basically, a young, very young Republican in the making.
In all honesty, I finally stopped actively watching SP, not because of topics like last night's, but due to backstory of the Family Guy eps. Nothing they satirized (no matter how clumsily) bugged me, but when I found out that mocking FG wasn't just friendly jostling but a bit of a temper tantrum due to people daring to compare it to SP, it kind of tainted any fun. If your ego is so bloated about your goofy cartoon that you take offense to being compared to another goofy cartoon, well...
I saw this coming
Yeah, I saw the "atheists at war" thing coming, too. It's about as original as a college freshman's essay against deer hunting in Lit 101.
I mean come on, if you didn't laugh at Garrison's idiotic reaction to Dawkins' lecture
I saw that coming, too (I'm not saying that our mouths didn't turn up a little). I'm no prude, but I like to be surprised.
The whole "faggot" thing is said (in different words) all the time at UD and I'm sick of it.
How about South Park depicting Dembski having sex with a hot militant atheist? Hm? (No, no, please don't...)
Clearly, what the world needs is. . . .
. . . Pharyngula, the animated TV show!
@ Rienk
"Am I saying anything about "big government statism" or the government fully ruling our lives? No, you just read what you want to read, sign number one of you being uncapable of actually using higher brain functions. And your counter argument: straw man._In a libertarian world power and money would even rule society more than it does now, and that is my point. Libertarianism could be a great system if humankind would be morally advanced enough to not only think about their own wallet, but also about the lives and wealth of others."
What I thought you were saying is that limited government necessarily leads to chaos and that the alternative is better. I'm not assuming that you want to live under any of those people I mentioned, I just think that history has shown that their evils are the inevitable result of a government-knows-best approach, just as you conclude (without apparently any historical evidence) that chaos is the inevitable result of libertarianism. A government with the power to regulate what's in people's wallets might be a great system if government officials were any more intelligent or moral than the average person on the street. And speaking of the average person, non-governmental donations to southeast Asia tsunami relief reached nearly $5 billion, so what is the basis for your assumption that most people don't care about their fellow man? Kiva, an organization that provides 0% interest loans to low-income entrepreneurs in developing countries, recently had their website crash from the interest generated by their appearance on PBS' Frontline. Government aid in many poverty-stricken countries mostly pays for new Ferraris for local government thugs, whereas private aid actually has a chance of reaching the people and enpowering them to generate their own wealth. Apparently there is a lot of interest in this approach and I think it's a fairly good model for how aid and welfare should work.
I thought it was a spot on episode. They demonstrated that on both sides of the debate, some actors tend to debate only by berating their opponents, calling them morons and providing irrelevant arguments. Also, they show that neither science nor religion will answer humanities real problems as we are caught in the eternal competition of evolution. Finally, remember the show is about the boys and Stan has the most prescient observation of the episode that evolution is the answer How not Why. Humanity will most likely never know the answer to Why.
One last point, Atheism and Theism are two sides to the same coin. Both claim to know the unknowable. Militancy on either side results in militancy on the other. The reality is that there is no valid evidence for or against God. It is beyond the ability of science to deduce the answer. Occam's razor is applied to the ancillary argument of whether life exists to determine if there is or isnt a God and this argument is irrelevant. The real questions are what caused the Big Bang, is our universe one of many and if so is there a larger structure encompassing the multiverse. Since we cannot escape the uni/multiverse and gain the appropriate perspective we will eternally be cogs in a great machine. Who can truly answer the question of what is the purpose of the great machine? I am surprised that so many scientists consider the God debate a settled issue. I am not surprised by the reactionary conclusion that is atheism due to the historical oppressiveness of organized religion; however, I am surprised that scientists can conclude anything about what created our universe. It is a meaningless conclusion. Call me agnostic or a Deist or whatever you want, but you cannot provide any argument with a meaningful conclusion regarding the matter.
I have never really watched this show because the couple of times that I tried I found it lame because there was some obvious trying-too-hard. I didn't find the movie to be that bad though, maybe because it was a one time thing. One thing that I'm wondering about though is why every cartoon seems to be teenage boy gross out contest material. Is that demographic that important to advertisers? Feh.
Mena, the movie was considered the greatest musical of the nineties by Steven Sondeheim. I am sure you have to fall in an appropriate demographic, but I am surprised to fall into the same demographic as Steven Sondeheim. You may not like the material or the presentation, but Matt and Trey have serious talent which is why Comedy Central lets them get away with their over-the-top approach. Most of my peers agree that South Park is the most meaningful commentary on modern life on TV. You don't have to agree of course, but I do not know anyone my age who disagrees. I am just glad that there is one show that demonstrates the innanity that is humanity.
It's ironic that Matt Stone and Trey Parker should hate environmentalists, because South Park is the preachiest television series since Captain Planet And The Planeteers. Every other episode always seemed like a campaign ad.
Is it just me, or does anybody just not care that South Park tried to mock Richard Dawkins. They did it, but...well, I don't find it that incisive or particularly care very much. Dawkins will have the class to let it roll off his back and...well, that really negates the effect Parker and Stone are trying to have.
And I like Drawn Together: nasty, but effective.
Other than the juvenility and lack of funniness, it was fine for our side. I'm saying that this is the first South Park I've watched in years, because it didn't make me laugh any more. But for those who do watch, Dawkins comes in with the real version of science, keeps his own atheism out of the lesson on evolution, and sets the anti-evolutionist straight (so to speak).
I hate to differ with Stan's pious sentiments about "why" and "how", but I'm afraid that when we see the meaninglessness of evolutionary processes we have probably answered the "why" as much as we are able to discover, other than the valuations that we ourselves put on life and its origins. In fact the reason people have little problem with science until one gets to evolution is that it is not very difficult to believe that "gravity is the way it is" for the sake of people and maybe the animals, and all of the rest of the sciences may be interpreted as being "for" our existence. God's interest resided in life alone at the end, then Darwin (and others) kicked out the prop that gave meaning to the rest of the universe/science.
The IDists are right about that one thing, that the "how" of life's origination suggests that there is no "why", other than ordinary classical causality in a universe not very suitable for life. If you have a precious "why", a non-empirically based god, or Raven, or some such thing, evolution does nothing to prevent such a belief. However one should note that the stories were originally made in order to explain something, not to explain nothing. Evolution shows that the myths do explain nothing, except the psyches of the minds that produced the myths.
No real harm to Dawkins, of course, since he isn't misrepresented professionally, and the whole screwing Ms. Garrison (and no, it is not buttfucking as some have suggested--she is fully transgendered as far as I know) thing is, well, just stupid. Wars among atheists are not surprising (communists fighting each other, for instance), but atheist sects per se fighting each other is rather absurd, kind of a stock "everything is the same" notion that fails in real life. And Stan's "how" and not "why" is insipid pandering to the lowest common denominator.
Trey and Matt seem to have simply woven some current events unremarkably together, recycling pretty much the same "fag" and turd jokes, while exhibiting an orthodox conception of evolution and how it is supposed to be compatible with religion (which it is, so long as religion is treated as if it tells us essentially nothing). It seems lame in just about every category, from its "humor" to failing to tell viewers anything interesting about evolution. No real harm to anyone, which is why it is inadequate as satire.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm
Mena - Of course that demographic is unbelievably important to advertisers. Who else is that dumb, egotistic, and easily manipulated as those who enjoy such fare? I used to be a teenage male and I know from whence I speak. The show is fitfully amusing but generally very lame and witless, mostly because of its peurile, emotionally stunted nature. It also doesn't help that the two clowns doing the show seem to think they're smarter than anyone else, when it's clearly obvious they're not. Hell, they even flubbed the Scientology episode, which could have been much, much funnier. I think the phrase ho hum is pretty much spot on.
I have to say, after watching their FG episode, their analysis of Family Guy is dead on.
That's because there is no answer to why. Teleology is just wrong. Give it up.
Re Dawkins on Gould: the one example I can quickly remember and find of Dawkins commenting on Gould is the following from _Unweaving the Rainbow_.
He then goes on to criticize Gould for strained analogies between schools of thought Dawkins regards as only superficially similar; calling the Cambrian special because the lineages that diverged then are *now* called different phyla, and possibly thinking that they were as different *then* as their modern descendants are now; and apparently assuming (and/or giving the misleading impression) that if the earliest known fossils of several groups are close together in time, the groups themselves must have originated and split off from one another close together in time.
He also quotes Maynard Smith's much less favorable opinion of Gould ("a man whose ideas are so confused as to be hardly worth bothering with"..."giving non-biologists a largely false picture of the state of evolutionary theory".)
Now, of course, you could argue that quoting Smith's opinion constitutes an endorsement of it and therefore an attack on Gould by proxy, despite his earlier disclaimer of hostility; but this is, at best, weak. The tone of Dawkins's discussion of Gould is criticism of the way he expresses his ideas, not necessarily even criticism of the ideas themselves (let alone an attack on their author).
Well i haven`t seen the episode yet but regardless, Southpark is the last show that actually dares to show just how ridiculous we human all are by our very nature.
Why should they all of a sudden assume stances on any position. Their neutrality is their hallmark - they really make anyone look bad even themselves.
IMHO southpark was never meant as being satirical, this market is dominated by other shows. It is mostly extreme, frenetic ridicule of homo sapiens/... - in fact several other species as well as actually nature at large - from our human perspective.
Pharyngula, the animated TV show!
Now we're getting somewhere.
Stogoe: "I have to say, after watching their FG episode, their analysis of Family Guy is dead on."
Too, too true. And I will give them credit for the character commenting that at least FG isn't "all preachy and up its own ass with messages."
If only the boys were that honest with themselves all the time.
"Then when Dawkins got there and everything think he said she would reply "oh ya, your a fagot." That sums up ID arguments to a tee."
You're very right, the UD crowd frequently calls Dawkins female epithets or suggest that he wears female underwear. That sums it up indeed.
In case anyone wants to download the episode to watch, you can go to http://www.southparkx.net
"I hate to differ with Stan's pious sentiments about "why" and "how", but I'm afraid that when we see the meaninglessness of evolutionary processes we have probably answered the "why" as much as we are able to discover, other than the valuations that we ourselves put on life and its origins." Glen D
Only as far as life is concerned. It doesn't address the most curious question of why does the universe exist. I let go of the "Why am I here" question a long time ago as Why questions generally result in less than satisfactory answers. How, What, Where and When are much more quantifiable and realistic and are generally approachable by science, but Why is the will-o-wisp. The Why question places meaning on humanity, when our species is only a humble node in an evolutionary tree. Life is an infestation of the universe and could possibly be just a side-effect. Why may not factor humanity in at all or there may be no Why. Humans are such nervous bundles of neurons that even though we all may comprehend this we spend immense effort trying to give meaning to it anyway.
James Taylor:
You sound like a college freshman who just took his first intro to philosophy class. Stop spouting pseudo-meaningful gibberish about "Why" and "When" and "What-the-fuck-ever."
Humanity will most likely never know the answer to Why.
Could that be because there is no answer? No answer presents itself, no way of finding the answer presents itself, and the question itself is just silly.
Call me agnostic or a Deist or whatever you want, but you cannot provide any argument with a meaningful conclusion regarding the matter.
Really? Here's one: There is no evidence whatsoever that any type of divine superbeing exists. Therefore there is no reason to believe in one. Just because you assign non-testable hypothesis status to God doesn't exempt him from this. I'm not a Bigfoot agnostic, or a Loch Ness Monster agnostic. There is no evidence to support the claims that these creatures exist, repeated searches over decades have failed to turn up anything whatsoever, and therefore I believe they do not exist. "God" is the same way, except we've been searching for millennia. If I can make a meaningful statement about the existence of Bigfoot based on the evidence, I believe I can make a meaningful statement about God.
Unless you're a Bigfoot agnostic.
Funny stuff Akusai. You describe things that are on the same plane as us. Do you have a crystall ball capable of viewing our universe from without? Until you do, there will never be a satisfactory answer. That is why the whole debate is moronic in the first place. We don't have enough information about the system to understand it. The information can only come from without. Is there a without? I don't really know, but neither to you. I am however, willing to admit that I don't know.
So you are a Bigfoot agnostic.
Just because you want these things to be metaphysical and outside the universe doesn't mean they're exempt from evidential treatment. I believe I said that above when I said that non-testability doesn't somehow make something more possible or more likely to exist. You're asking for a special outside-the-universe exception and it just doesn't work like that.
For Tyler DiPietro: I hadn't heard that Penn Jillette had changed his mind about global warming. Do you have a reference?
I don't know of any testimonial of his part, a la Shermer's recantation in SciAm a while back. But on his radio show he's made several references to global warming and "solving the global warming problem" (one I distinctly remember was during a show on gas prices). So it is at least highly likely that he has come around, unless everything on his part that I've heard is simply a subtle use of hypotheticals.
The information can only come from without. Is there a without? I don't really know, but neither to you. I am however, willing to admit that I don't know.
first, you claim relevant information can only come from without, then you claim you don't know if "without" even exists.
riiiigggghhhhtttt...
sure looks like a "god of the gaps" argument to me.
Sorry, at the end of that second sentence in my last post I meant to write "that indicate he thinks it's really happening and needs to be solved." I suck at blog commenting.
Akusai, I am a programmer by trade, so from a programming perspective we deal with the question of scope. Code running within a certain scope is only capable of accessing information at the same scope or below. Code running outside of a subroutine's scope is inaccessible and undefined. A subroutine isn't "aware" of the scope of other subroutines or of the parent subroutine.
Our universe may be one subroutine and we would be incapable of seeing the broader scope of the greater application. To paraphrase Sagan, our entire universe may be no more than an atom in another. We cannot know this because we are within the frame of our system. We must step outside to be aware of purpose. From inside it will be a falacious conclusion. Is it possible to gain such perspective? Probably not. I don't expect an exception, I am just stating that it is foolish to draw a conclusion from zero evidence.
PS. Bigfoot is a scam.
sure looks like a "god of the gaps" argument to me.
Or, like I said, silly freshman philosophy nonsense. Sophistry and illusion.
James,
My point is that the proper conclusion to draw from zero evidence is zero existence. This is, of course, a tentative conclusion. Should evidence show up, then you can reverse it.
Yes, we might be part of a larger multiverse, but Sagan's musing was little more than the great astronomer waxing metaphysical and poetic.
I doubt we can agree on this point, and there really is no reason we should. At least I'm now clear on what you mean, and hopefully vice-versa.
Yes, I believe so. When in a metaphysical argument, it is impossible to have absolute certainty. Thanks for engaging Akusai.
Should evidence be presented then I would happily re-evaluate, but the absence of evidence in this case does not necessarily result in a negative conclusion (as the evidence can likely only come from outside). It simply means we don't have the ability to measure it (and may never will). This is the only position that I have intended to represent. As a community of scientists, I hope the distinction is clear.
I hope the distinction is clear.
clear as mud.
good luck with your imaginary dichotomies.
James:
I'm still confused as to how you can make the distinction that you do. What reason have you to think that Bigfoot and God must be approached in two different ways? The fact that most people say God is "outside the universe" and say Bigfoot isn't?
I'm just contemplating nature's engine. We do have Brane theory. If there exists a multiverse then there are more parameter's to study. We can only study what we can observe, but we may never be able to study beyond our own due to scope. What is God anyway? Bigfoot is human legend like crop circles and dragons.
What is God anyway?
you should go take a gander at the definition of god thread.
much more ammenable to silly metaphysical posturing.
You're an idiot, Mr. Taylor. You don't even begin to grasp how little you understand of the concepts you're invoking. I will give you one last chance to shut your noise hole and prevent yourself from looking like a total and utter moron.
As nonanswers go, James, that was one of the non-est I've ever received. :)
We do have Brane theory.
Uh, yeah, this is mathematical (and also not exactly proven via empirical data yet). Are you saying some bullshit to the effect that "there's God in the numbers"? Why impart a human construct lacking definition into a tightly mathematical framework lacking evidence for said construct? Because if you think M-theory and such have any evidence for God, simply because they describe more dimensions to reality than four, you aren't using science, but, as Ichthyic says, bullshit metaphysics that are purely part of your own delusion.
Of course it's bullshit metaphysics. In things non-physical, James makes the claim that lack of evidence is not reason for lack of belief. I can see there are many of us who disagree with him here, and for good reason, but I doubt that anything will get him to come to our side or us to his.
Code running within a certain scope is only capable of accessing information at the same scope or below. Code running outside of a subroutine's scope is inaccessible and undefined. A subroutine isn't "aware" of the scope of other subroutines or of the parent subroutine.
I've been programming since I was 8 and am now double majoring in comp sci and applied math, and I can't make heads or tails of this. What basis is there for saying that subroutines (which are a concept within imperative and procedural programming, not physics, cosmology, etc.) can only access "information" within their "scope or below". Do you even know what the mathematical definition of "information" is (or the difference between Shannon-Wiener interpretations and Kolmogorov-Chaitin ones)? This seems to be technobabble and mental masturbation.
"let me see your beautiful breasts"
hahahahahaha
In other news, one also cannot disprove that we're all just plugged into the Matrix or are the dream of an autistic boy.
"If there exists a multiverse then there are more parameter's to study."
Ikkeda - Jefferys argument shows that multiverses and finetuning argues for a naturalistic universes. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_universe ) Now, that model may be no more than organized plausibilities or beliefs. But even so it is better than an ad hoc belief.
"Ikkeda - Jefferys argument shows that multiverses and finetuning argues for a naturalistic universes" -
Ikeda - Jefferys argument shows that multiverses and finetuning argues for a naturalistic universe.
Caledonian says what I was thinking, and even more pithily than I could have possibly been. This is what I mean about South Park fans: Pseudointellectual bullshit for self-involved teenage assholes. With "fag" fucking jokes for that outrê touch.
Guys, you need to be more comprehensive with Mr. Garrison. He fell madly in love with Dawkins too.
Ah, but there's an even greater point. There are an infinite number of possible systems that could be running our universe, but as long no event in them interacts with our universe in any way (which is a necessary condition for their being outside our universe), they are all equivalent. Our entire reality being the dream of a Hindu god has the same implications and truth value as our entire reality NOT being the dream of a Hindu god.
I fail to see hy some of you guys are so angry... Dawkins was portrayed as a brave man who is not afraid of using a pump to enlarge his penis and satisfy his transgender girlfrined. If that is not progressive, I don't know what is.