This month's Mad magazine (I know, I'm probably the only person over 14 who doesn't like vomit jokes who ever cracks the magazine open) has a feature on the the 20 dumbest people, events, and things of 2007, and guess what won a slot on the list?
(click for larger image)
Finally there is compelling evidence that the theory of evolution is wrong! For proof positive that man's intelligence has not evolved in eons, consider the Cro-Magnon brained imbeciles behind the recently opened Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. The museum's exhibits don't merely challenge science, they ignore it completely! It's the only place in the world you can see man riding bareback on a dinosaur — except, of course, in an old episode of The Flintstones.
Too bad it only made #14. Ken Ham needs to try harder and bring on the dumbth.
(Coming in ahead of the Creation "Museum" are Michael Vick, GW Bush, Don Imus, Britney Spears, the Walter Reed Army Hospital, the Anna Nicole Smith paternity trial, Paris Hilton, Lisa Marie Nowak, toy recalls, Isaiah Washington, Keith Richards, Scooter Libby, and the Sopranos finale. I admit that the competition at the top is awfully fierce, but it should have placed higher than 14.)
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Bill Nye the Science Guy, humanist of the year, science educator and entertainer, and all-around interesting fellow, apparently stopped briefly at the Creation "Museum" to take a quick picture of the exterior, and then moved on. How do we know? Ken Ham was watching.
Bill Nye ("The Science Guy" of…
Shorter Ken Ham: Other museums have dinosaur models with saddles, so why does everyone pick on my "museum"?. Ham seems to have been scrambling to save face by finding a few other places that put out exhibits of dinosaurs with saddles, but he, as usual, misses the point.
Yes, other places will…
Tomorrow is the first anniversary of the big Creation Museum in Kentucky. They grow up so fast, don't they?
To recognize the occasion, the Northern Kentucky Enquirer offers us this article. It's a sadly typical representative of the genre.
All 280 staff members of the museum and founding…
Poor Ken Ham is getting mocked everywhere for his Creation "Museum" and proposed Disneyland for Dummies, so he has put up a post defending Kentucky. It's a remarkably weak argument (no surprise there, that's all he can do), which mainly lists famous people who have been born there and occasional…
Thank you for the excellent Gift Idea. I especially like the line "The museum's exhibits don't just challenge science, they ignore it completely!"
from this can we assume that Mittler is off the chart?
The Sopranos finale was a masterpiece I tells ya.
I don't read the newer incarnation of MAD, but own the complete collection on DVD which even has the old EC color versions that was published in the 50s. And keep a good stock of MAD bathroom companions in the bathroom...
The image I got of "a man riding bareback on a dinosaur" is definitely not work appropriate.
imagine if Moses has actually descended Mt. Sinai, with the ten commandments, on a tyrannosaurus. badass!
"thou shalt not eat coconuts!".
I think mad magazine should sell that Moses riding a t-rex as a t-shirt, that's a wonderful illustration. I can't help looking at it and laughing, every time.
The image of the monkey walking a triceratops is a nice touch.
The Creation Museum is an insult to the human imagination. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
When the story upon which it was based was first told, it was reasonably imaginative - well, better than 'turtles all the way down'. But when you think of all the advances in knowledge since then, what kind of idiot can fall for that crap now?
Having asked that, Prof Andy McIntosh of Leeds U is a highly intelligent man, & at the same time, a Young Earth Creationist. (He's one of the leaders of 'Truth in Science' in the UK.)
It amazes me that people's minds can be hijacked by such obvious nonsense, & high intelligence is no, or little, protection.
Not to be pedantic (okay, to be pedantic and proud of it!): that isn't a Triceratops. Even though it is done in a cartoon style, the shape of the frill, the frill ornamentation, and the relative proportions of the postorbital vs. nasal horn show it is one of the Chasmosaurus species: the cartoonist did their homework!
You are not alone in your MAD fandom. A lot of us more "senior" types still appreciate it. While not as consistently hilarious as in "the good old days" (What is?) it still contains a few gems of near-genius satire in nearly every issue. MAD and Pharyngula are very much alike in that you can count on both to expose stupidity and hypocrisy on a regular basis.
Is this the December issue? I can't find this list...
Actually, Mad Magazine is one of my earliest memories of introduction to free thinking, satire, humor, skepticism and not holding anything in life above criticism and needed ridicule. Glad to see they're still enlightening the young... OK, I admit it, I still read it too.
oh man, ROFLMAO (and that't the first time i've EVER used that acronym!!!! [one short of 'five exclamation points = wearing underwear on head']. the caricature of CD is priceless!
MAD was my favorite mad in my youth. my strict conservative stepmother bought me a subsciption for cephalopodmas one year, and i often caught her reading it before i got it.
the only objection i have to the 'new' version is that in 'spy vs. spy', the white one (now) always wins.
p.s. Don martin was GOD.
(sorry, no other adjective suffices.)
best thing EVER, is it just me or does "Adam" look like Amadinajad (Iranian President)?
Is it just me or does "Eve" look like Miss September?
I'm headed straight to a newsstand after work to get a copy. Maybe two!
'Nother grateful MAD fan here. "The Night People vs. Creeping Meatballism" saved my life when I was seven years old.
Count me in re: the apotheosis of Don Martin too. (Genuflects, with appropriate creaky knee sounds and resounding 'skrunk' on floor.)
I subscribe to MAD just to get that extra protective cover (the one with your shipping address on it.)
"consider the Cro-Magnon brained imbeciles"
That's an insult to the Cro-Magnon people, whose artistic and tool-making abilities surely exceeded that of the creationists and cdesign proponentsists.
I'm still holding out for Congress avoiding a Bush veto to make an official holiday of National Gorilla Suit Day.
I must be out of touch. Isaiah Washington? Who's he? Sounds like a sports star or something. I'm smart enough NOT to Google him, however, saving my beautiful mind for the smartness of Tom Tancredo, diapered astronuts, every fundamentalist on the planet, Dana Perino, Magic Mormon underwear and Alan Greenspan.
Oh dear! I am not sure if I can recover from the embarrassment! It is a good thing I did not even try to guess what species the monkey is. I can hear the reaction: "How could this idiot not recognize her relative!"
I stopped reading MAD when Gaines died, but maybe I should pick up a copy.
What Christianjb said.
People who diss the Sopranos finale don't understand things.
Oh, those were the days...
"The Towering Sterno"
and the MAD fold-in.
Indeed the mascot for Liberty University should be Alfred E. Neuman
Stuart
The hilarious thing is that the headline over at richarddawkins.net is "Creation "Museum" honored by Pharyngula." Yes, it's easy to figure out what happened, but it gives me a chuckle.
My s/o and several good friends were REALLY into the Sopranos. While I enjoyed the show, I enjoyed even more the fact that I correctly predicted the (approximate)way it would end, and when they would theorize prior to the airing of the show, all I would do is quote a line from an episode: "And on it goes, this thing of ours."
More to topic, Mad went through a couple of rough years after Gaines died, but on the whole, it's still going in the same spirit and is as funny(and silly) as it ever was. Good stuff, and good for them for helping point out what should be obvious.
Any fellow Austinites want to join me in sending a copy to each member of the Texas State Board of Education?
"Walter Reed Army Hospital"
I must be out of touch as well. What is the issue with the Walter Reed Army Hospital?
I remember there was something about cases of outpatient neglect. Not sure if thats the reason.
Wrong. I've been a reader for 30-odd years. FWIW, Cracked also still exists and has a website; recently there was a thoughtful blog post there (!) on the religion/atheism schism. It actually made some fairly balanced, fairly good points.
Warren, that post was by David Wong. I think he's left Cracked online, but you can catch some of his other stuff at PWoT (http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/ (Sorta NSFW)) but very often funny.
He's great.
@John Canada (#30):
Not just neglect. And not just the Walter Reed hospital
Buildings that would normally get renovated (rot, mold, etc) but due to the massive influx of wounded veterans are still used.
But the main problem of cramming to many veterans into the hospital for the staff to cope with, to the point where patients were put into hotels close to the hospital if not to seriously injured. This gave rise to basically most other problems.
best thing EVER, is it just me or does "Adam" look like Amadinajad
You must mean "I'm a dinner jacket"...
the museum is only the 14th dumbest thing of 2007. I wonder what the other nominees are.
Yeah, I hate that, since the Cro-Magnons were anatomically modern and probably no less intrinsically intelligent than you or I. I've been to Les Eyzies, where the first Cro-Magnon remains were found, and seen firsthand some of the cave art there, not to mention masterworks like Lascaux (which I saw only in replica, at Lascaux II, since when I was there the waiting list to get into the real Lascaux caves was on the order of 15 years). Cdesign proponentsists should aspire to that level of artistry.
I haven't subscribed to Mad in years, but from what I remember, the 20 Dumbest Things list wasn't a ranking, but just a list from 1 to 20 (with some of the more high-profile stuff in front, naturally, but no other order to it). Did they change that?
Here's my review of the museum from its opening weekend. enjoy.
http://crazytalk.typepad.com/bluegrassroots/2007/06/fun_at_the_crea.html
@Rational Jen (#29):
Sure, count me in on the gift for TEA. I'm in South Austin; you wanna come by and pick up a check? I just had both knees replaced, so I'm likely to be home.
Probably won't do those numbnuts any good, though. McLeroy is too dumb to understand satire. We might do better to encourage Texas Freedom Network to do a mailing to all the science profs in the state and go help them with it.
Bill Gaines. Don Martin. Sergio Aragones.
The Trinity.
They also have a "Pirates of the Constitution" poster.
They've been skewering hypocrisy since I was a wee tadpole.
PZ you gotta delete that spam. It's starting to rot and smell up the place.