Aren't letters to the editor fun? They publish some of the craziest stuff.
One of the many problems with Darwin's theory of evolution pertaining to mankind is that neither Charles Darwin nor his worshippers take into account extra-terrestrial life.
It's pretty hard for someone to draw conclusions on mankind when Darwin had never seen nor heard of UFOs. That's kind of like teaching math but not understanding trigonometry.
Most of us in the Niagara Region live on a lake bed (Lake Iroquois). The Indians cannot be blamed for having an effect on this major geographical landscape change anymore than modern man can be blamed for the weather patterns we see today. There is such a thing as pole shifting, and according to people who have studied Mayan culture we are quite possibly in the midst of a pole change -- which many people believe will be in 2012.
In his letter, Keith Wigzell ironically contradicts himself when he says that man as part of the animal kingdom is one of the last to appear.
Does this mean evolution stopped at man, or that God stopped creating his creatures?
I certainly believe that all life evolves consciously and spiritually; however, to suggest that man evolved from a monkey is simply silly.
John Kocsis
Beamsville
I have heard many arguments against evolution before, but to disqualify Darwin because he hadn't seen a UFO is a new one to me. How about Bigfoot? Do you also have to score a Sasquatch sighting in order to be credible?
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I'm having trouble parsing this statement:
"It's pretty hard for someone to draw conclusions on mankind when Darwin had never seen nor heard of UFOs. That's kind of like teaching math but not understanding trigonometry."
Those are certainly words, but they don't make any sense arranged in that order.
I've seen stupid, but I have no response to this but 'what?' Every paragraph was completely senseless and insipid.
Lets just hope *this guy* isn't the last to appear. We'd all be slurping tard soup.
crazy is as crazy does.....
Chuck: I'm having trouble parsing any of it!
I, for one, would find it awesome if we actually evolved from Bigfoot.
May I be the first to say What the Fuck? What is this bastard blathering on about? I'm extremely confused at what he's trying to say, let alone how error prone his assertions are. How would aliens effect the evolutionary process on Earth? There are so many nonsensical notions to attack here that it's obvious this meat puppet is psychotically delusional.
That's nothing.
There is a girl in my high school who knows the world would end in 2012 because the mayans predicted it. And she knows the mayans are right because the mayans were originally from atlantis, but were transplanted by aliens (you could tell because of comparative palmistry) and because the Mayans were notorious for having strangely colored auras.
"That's kind of like teaching math but not understanding trigonometry."
You can teach arithmetic without knowing trigonometry. Sure, trigonometry is helpful, but arithmetic is not dependent on trigonometry.
"Does this mean evolution stopped at man, or that God stopped creating his creatures?"
Apparently, this person doesn't even know what the word "last" means: it means latest.
"There is such a thing as pole shifting, and according to people who have studied Mayan culture we are quite possibly in the midst of a pole change -- which many people believe will be in 2012."
... yeah. I'll just leave it at that.
Also, how does Darwin explain the evolution of psychic powers? Apes aren't psychic, so we couldn't have evolved from them.
And what about Atlantis? Clearly mankind is not to blame for the sinking of Atlantis, except perhaps for the bad feng shui they used in planning their cities, but their homeopathic medicine kept them healthy and they always had EMF detectors to see if their houses were haunted. Silly Darwin!
I'm scared.
oh man, the DO occasionally come up wit new stuff! whee!
ahem. anyway, what does natural selection have to do with aliens? are earth organisms in any way competing with alien ones for habitat/energy/anything at all really? no? then UFO's are irrelevant
and who says ancient cultures haven't caused permanent changes to their environments? What about Easter Island? what about the fact that northern Britain used to be forested, once upon a time, but is now virtually barren, acidic bog?
weirdness. it's like UFO-logy, AGW denialism and creationism mixed into a barely intelligible mush
Does that letter make absolutely no grammatical sense to anyone else?
Gack, the illogic hurts. But his problem is right in the middle. god has mixed up his thinking to the point where he is barely coherent.
@Helioprogenus said:
"How would aliens effect the evolutionary process on Earth?"
Well, there's the possibility that most life here was actually "planted" by beings from another planet, implying that we're actually the testube baby of another civilization. Think Vandread, or Macross (Protoculture)
...I gotta lay off the anime...
I like those who simply pool a huge portion of the anti-knowledge in this world into one incomprehensible mess.
It's far more consistent than, say, Behe doing biochemistry, then writing woo and whining that woo isn't treated like science is.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
I suspect that had he realised that, 150 years after he proposed the theory, there would still be humans so stupid as to be unable to grasp the concepts he was espousing, he might have included a caveat regarding the possibility that certain individuals within a species may be able to resist the intellectual advances of evolution out of of sheer, blockheaded contrariness.
He's from Beamsville, huh. Let's see:
Could he be effected by extraterrestrial beams of stupid rays.
or Beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life in Beamsville.
or The the beam in my eye prevents me from seeing that contradicts my world-view.
I agree with you Helio @ #6
What The Fuck indeed gentle reader, What The Fuck indeed.
"What is the smell of hope?" - Richard Dawkins
Grammatically correct English sentences (and questions) can be completely meaningless. "That's kind of like teaching math but not understanding trigonometry." If his argument was against teaching integral calculus, it might not be so absurd.
This guy is all over the place. He probably needs to refill his Prozac prescription.
I expect it's because (as these dorks claim) aliens have been visiting this planet for millions of years, and are bound to have affected the evolution of life, if not started it off.
There's a kind of logic to it given their assumptions. Unfortunately for this sort of woo, the failure of ID to come up with any evidence strikes equally hard against the "aliens must have changed the course of evolution" BS.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
oh, and even tough humans are one of the youngest species on earth, there's younger ones; like the mosquitoes of the London Underground, for example
No, the grammar's fine. I don't see anything wrong with the grammar.
Spelling looks ok too.
Beyond that...
Well, you know what they say: "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."
Just remember everyone, this person has the right to vote. And reproduce. And home school their offspring.
Suddenly democracy doesn't look like such a great idea.
Wow. Just... wow.
The CIA must be experimenting with additives to the water supply again...
I wonder if they have a problem keeping tin foil in stock at the stores in Beamsville.
BTW, in linguistics, the typical example we use for a sentence that is grammatically correct but meaningless is Noam Chomsky's "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_furiously
Her and the History channel. I swear, those idiots have taken off where early Enquirers left off, or to put it another way, Weekly World News readers needed a replacement once that dispenser of swill went out of business.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
I thought PZ had posted excerpts from four or five different letters to the editor. That's just one in its entirety? Whoa.
The DI needs to give this man a fellowship.
@Patrick
It's times like this that I wonder if ethnic cleansings are really that deplorable. I mean, we torch livestock afflicted with Mad Cow, right? What's so different about doing the same for those afflicted with a severe case of stupid?
This post wraps up my day wonderfully as I had a big argument with my otherwise rational sexytime-friend earlier about bigfoot. I was, of course, on the side of AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
This is a little late, but are we sure this letter's serious? Discrediting Darwin just because he didn't see any little green men seems pretty out there, even for creationists.
Evidently, someone has changed the PoMo generator's vocabulary list.
WTF?
#27
Speaking of Noam Chomsky...
"Now listen up, be well clever like 'im, and start speakin' proper!"
Bill Hicks on why aliens seemt to visit rednecks in the USA:
@Twin Skies,
I'm not talking about panspermia, and I appreciate your anime background, but the fact that our DNA pretty much ties us down to Earth and implicates our evolution based on this little near-spherical rock throws a wrench in the whole advanced civilization coming to Earth and somehow effecting our evolutionary history. It must be those alien spacecraft that look like worn hieroglyphs in the entrance to a particular Egyptian tomb, or the fact that Plato happened to mention a lost civilization as an allegory to the pitfalls of the direction in Athenian democracy, when in fact, he was relaying lost information from a mysterious continent that was populated by alien-influenced human hybrids who walked the Earth influencing all our archaic history and somehow disappearing to reappear again just as the Mayans predicted when the world would end, and then jesus would come down from his heavenly carousel to save the souls of those who killed and poisoned enough people whilst 72 virgins covort naked waiting for another insane group to lay claim to their lofty prizes, and calvinists, with their predestined notions laughing at the chaos, while Valhalla becomes entombed in ice just as the Vikings predicted, and if you read the bible, koran, torah, rig veda, confuscious and the rest correctly, including Nostradamus and Da Vincis secret papers from his gay affair with the pope, you'll all know the truth.
Well, does that sound any less plausible than the bullshit from Beamsville?
The poles are going to change in 2012? My god, is Palin going to be president?
The Indians cannot be blamed for having an effect on this major geographical landscape change anymore than modern man can be blamed for the weather patterns we see today.
What does that non sequitur even mean? That since the Indians didn't suck the lake dry, global warming is a hoax? Did the pole shift apparently create the lakebed, and is now leading to global warming.
And most importantly, why the hell did you, PZ, put this schizophrenic rambling in my head. I'm trying to get work done, and I'm distracted enough by eating fresh meat!
Einstein never saw a UFO either. Does that mean that aliens invented relativity? Or maybe aliens invented swiss cheese and developed gregorian chant just to confuse us.
I think I'll have a lie-down now.
23% of Canadians are atheist according to a recent poll. Most Canadians accept evolution. Please don't judge Canadians by that guy's commentary.
@Helioprogenus
Just as crazy, apparently.
The Mayans were right about the world ending on 2012 though, at least if the GOP's serious about fielding Palin as a presidentiable
@#29
That's exactly what I thought. Although I don't quite follow any one of the points he makes, putting all those sentences together in one letter seems more like someone put letters from half a dozen idiots together in a blender.
I figure, this is someone who is simply against evolution without knowing why and is using his feeble brain to come up with arguments.
Basically that letter seems to boil down to: "I can believe all sorts of wacky shit, I just can't swallow the one thing I've mentioned that's actually supported by mountains of evidence."
If only we could somehow get the discovery institute people to post this on their website or the anti-evolution school districts to make a sticker with this guys letter.
I am going to get a shirt that says there is no god but evolution and charles darwin is his prophet. Convert or die.
"I certainly believe that all life evolves consciously and spiritually; however, to suggest that man evolved from a monkey is simply silly."
Oh, the irony!
The only pole shifting going on is up his ass.
I would imagine this writer is a Raelian. They tried to infiltrate the Transhumanist community a few years ago and were soundly rebuffed. I will be amused to see how they fare glomming onto the ID folks.
Good grief. I know people like this. Basically, they’re so open-minded that their brains have fallen out. It’s like a club they belong to where they pat each other on the back for being more aware about how the world works than those dogmatic religionists, or scientists, or sad, average people who are too intimidated by the vast government conspiracies that try to keep the truth from people.
They believe in “The Secret,” crystals, von Däniken’s theories about space aliens, Atlantis, that movie “What the bleep do we know?” 911 coverups, etc. Everything is about ‘Higher consciousness” and other levels of reality, and they use the word “infinite” a lot.
But they are colorful.
To be fair to the letter writer, he seems to be replying to two different LttE: "Taking a look through Darwin's lens" and "The earth will be pristine once we are all gone." That may account for why he seems to be hopping around.
As for his point re aliens and UFOs, I peg him as a New Age-ish variety of intelligent design advocate, defending the idea that evolution involves a progression through levels of spirituality. Space aliens are "advanced beings" coming here with the important message that we humans are about to undergo a shift to the next level. Since Darwin didn't know about these aliens from other worlds, his ideas were stuck in lower materialism. His understanding of evolution therefore isn't "holistic."
And yes, I've seen this sort of argument before. sigh
@wowbagger #37
That is fucking hilarious. I guess that means the aliens are saucer trash.
Here is the article from the St.Catharines' Standard that prompted John Kocsis' letter:
www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1373124.
Especially noteworthy is the author's description of intelligent design, "little more than fundamentalist creationism playing dress-up in a lab coat."
Allow me to interpret - the UFO comment is a reference to Frances Crick and the idea of panspermia, that UFOs brought the first life forms to earth. Of course, this in no way refutes Darwinian principles but I didn't say the writer's intent was any more rational-sounding than his garbled presentation.
Conflating anti-global warming and mockery of evolution is further evidence that this guy is just attacking science generally. This is not an unusual stance. These people have not been taught to think critically.
I had to stop and take a deep breath after reading the first sentence of that. That was a sad letter from a deluded mind...
Allow me to interpret although I don't guarantee his actual meaning is any more rational than his garbled word salad: by "UFO" he means Crick's panspermia hypothesis, that space beings might have brought the first life forms to earth.
Hey, UFOs make more sense than Intelligent Design.
So. I'm trying to figure this character out. Does he think humans are descended from Grays, or from Reptoids? Myself I'm fond of the Pak theory but I doubt this character has heard of it.
Mayhempix,
If you liked that, here's some more:
Yep - looks like the DI and jebus types got ID all wrong. Turns out this is the real intelligent design.
The fact that there is more than one Raelian is very scary.
Seeing that the writer of that letter is Canadian makes me wish we had better mental health services up here.
-mark.
Hah! What does John Kocsis of Beamsville know?
He left out how the Illuminati's chemtrails led to 9/11!
I am wondering about the motives of the editor(s) who saw this letter as fit to print.
QUOTH: "The Indians cannot be blamed for having an effect on this major geographical landscape change anymore than modern man can be blamed for the weather patterns we see today."
If American Indians aren't "modern man," then what are they? Neanderthals?
Oh, and: We baking with arms cake underpants now lady.
I think this guy's anti-evolution letter is refreshing and illuminating. I mean dismissing Darwin because he didn't know about UFO's...isn't that just as well-reasoned as any other argument? And of course he doesn't qualify for a Canadian psyych ward, he isn't proposing that the world is going to end in 2012, according to the Mayan calendar, which a lot of other people (also not in psyc wards)are. Clearly he is eminently sane and a fine representative of argument against things like, evolution, a heliocentric solar system, etc. Are you sure he was serious?
Wuzzup with the Tangled Bank?
LN @ 65
"Are you sure he was serious?"
If this guy is Poe, he's smarter than Chomsky
Y'all are missing one particular point: Who here can prove that Darwin did NOT see a UFO? Does he specifically STATE in any of his writings "I have never seen a UFO"? No!
So maybe he DID and maybe he IS getting his information from the Raeleans and....
What? I can't be as completely left-field whacko as this clown and get respect?
What IS this place coming to...
JC
kamaka #63 wrote:
Of course it's fit to print: it's not slandering anyone, and it's coherent enough for us to argue against it.
The newspapers in smaller cities and towns will print letters which would never get printed in major newspapers. I know a former editor who explained that, some days, they have nothing. Virtually everything gets in. So a LtE which complains about dog messes on the sidewalks or gives thanks to whoever returned their lost hat will get printed, and actually generate interest and feedback.
They want local people, preferably on some legitimate news topic, but if they have to they'll put out a rant on what's wrong with kids today, or how space aliens need to be included in the Theory of Evolution, or something.
I once saw a site listing the all time greatest hoaxes. Bigfoot was third. Number 1 was the Apollo Moon landing.
@Wowbagger
I can just see the sequel...
"Deliverance 2:Revenge of the Swamp Aliens"
As the alien with the missing upper proboscis mounts the fat guy from behind,
he grabs an ear with a tentacle and yells out, "Squeal like a Snrkzzisizz!!!"
I noticed Canadian news websites never allow comments. They can publish all the nonsense they want and nobody can point out it's bullshit.
I find it amazing that people can confuse a calendar ending with the world ending. The Mayan calendar resets on Dec 21, 2012 so therefore the world ends? Why don't these people freak out every Dec. 31st when our calendars reset?
In other news, here's a letter to the editor of Discover magazine (Feb. 2009) that is of some relevance to this blog:
Damn...I think I hurt something trying to make sense of that...seriously, I read it like eight times and now I have a headache and I'm all fuzzy PZ...where do you find this shit? I wonder if you read it enough if you could get a stupid contact buzz...hmmmm...
Could this letter have been a number of different letters that John Kocsis wrote and then used William S Borroughs' cut-up technique?
It's things like this that call to mind the immortal words of Thomas Jefferson: "Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions."
I think many of you fail to take into account the hypotheses that all life on earth descended from animals on an alien zoo that crashed into Earth a long time ago. We humans are descendants of the janitors who survived the crash. Just kidding, it's all a joke.
So has anybody been able to figure out what the whole Mayan pole shift thing has to do with evolution? I'm trying my best to put my gullible credulist hat on, it still doesn't make any sense. I even used to believe in the Mayan 2012 thing and even the pole shift apocalypse thing, but it never caused me to doubt evolution.
Yet more evidence that batshit crazy ideas travel in herds. Evolution denialism, global warming denialism, and UFOs...pssssssch, that can be beaten.
Of course, the greatest irony is that if extraterrestrial life does exist, its existence would be nearly explained by evolutionary theory. Whereas creationism could not explain it without the usual complete redefinition of what God's Word has "always" said.
How do you guys think they'd retcon the aliens into Genesis?
BobC @72
Many Canadian news websites allow comments. However, since the St. Catharines Standard does not appear to contain that feature, you can reply to the above letter @ http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/feedback1/Feedback.aspx
Stories and comments like this always remind me of Phlogiston, a fire-like element released during the process of burning something. It explained why ashes weighed less than the original wood or coal etc, in an age when it was understood matter could not be destroyed (generally), but the existence of molecules and atoms was unknown.
First stated in 1667, it was an insightful idea, even though quite wrong. Substitute the atomic weight of the gases expelled during the burning process for Phlogiston, and you have the right answer. The idea was basically correct, but there was too much missing knowledge to get to the right answer.
We may be in the same position here. Mr Kocsis has a few ideas, but doesn’t articulate them well, and makes the classic mistake of thinking these points are mutually exclusive, as do many of the commenters so far. But they are not.
Frankly, you'd have to be a goose to seriously try to argue that the Theory of Evolution isn't correct, even if you think there is room perhaps to pad out the fine detail a bit better. Suffice to say the concept is pretty much unassailable. People try primarily because they think it is mutually exclusive with the religious beliefs, but its not. If God did create the world, universe and everything (as opposed to evolving with it) then its ridiculous to believe it was created as a static picture. It is dynamic, and evolution is a big part of those dynamics. Evolution is about as factual as you can get, but whether it was divinely inspired or guided, or not, is a matter of faith. The idea of evolution is valid with or without God, but the idea of God needs to incorporate the reality of evolution or be diminished by denying the bleeding obvious all around us. If you are a believer, you diminish God by trying to make his creation simple and easy for you to understand. Life, the world, the universe is remarkably complex regardless of what started it all, and since Science hasn’t answered that yet, science must also keep an open mind about God kick-starting it (instead, thing about what God really is, perhaps the Universe itself?). Just like Phlogiston, the problem is we are trying to find answers when we don’t know all the information.
The idea that Aliens may have intervened in our evolution, presumably through genetic manipulation, isn’t unreasonable. The problem is, unless you are big on conspiracy theories, there is no proof of it. For better or worse, we are not just another member of the animal family; we are quite different, and that encourages belief we came about by another path, directly by God, via Aliens. It is probably the result of a long evolutionary process, a remarkable thing in itself, and there is evidence of a development chain (albeit we have to ask do we interpret too much from a few bone fragments and accept it as fact?). The simple fact is that we really don’t know if homo sapien is natural or the result of genetic engineering, but in the absence of reasonable evidence, the Alien genetic engineering needs to be regarded more as a matter of faith or belief than as an equal theory.
Of course, Alien intervention itself, if proved, doesn’t in any way discount either Evolution (except for our Homo sapien species), or belief in Divine Creation. Those beings would have evolved themselves, and if you believe God created all, then it automatically fits into God’s scope, even if we weren’t aware of it from our scriptures (which by definition are scraps of words from God, not the whole story).
Holy crap. That was at least as convincing as my recent Internet miracle:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timtimes/3123978019/
but didn't come with the disclaimer I offered:
Enjoy.
@ #79: How true. I myself am a recovering whackjob. Some of the irrational things I've believed in at one point or another include the 9/11 conspiracy theory, UFOs, lake monsters, psychic powers, Atlantis, ghosts, the imminent destruction of Earth resulting from some kind of planetary alignment, reverse speech, the alien theory of how the Pyramids were built, the inefficacy of science-based medicine, souls, and God.
When you don't make the not inconsiderable amount of effort necessary to restrain your beliefs and opinions by facts, anything can take hold.
I actually think he's right, here.
Mutated thoughts like his keep being spread by his environment, but often die off when a better letter is published.
Guys, I hate to say it, but Dr. Kocsis has a point, several of them in fact.
FACT: Darwin, and indeed most of his worshippers, have not taken into account extra-terrestial life. Because we do not know when the aliens were created, it would be foolish to suggest that man has appeared "only recently".
FACT: Iroquois Indians cannot be blamed for the major geographical landscape disaster known as the Niagra Region. They did not possess the knowledge of explosives or the correct holy books in order to bring about such an event.
FACT: There is such a thing as pole shifting. Grab a magnet from your household fridge. Hit it with a hammer, and make sure you have your shoes on tight, because what happens might blow your socks off. The poles shift. Needless to say, Darwin also failed to take pole-shifting into account.
Score:
3...Dr. John Kocsis
0...Pharyngula
Game, set, match.
I thought I'd heard it all from the anti-evolution crowd, but I see now that I wasn't nearly imaginative enough.
-jcr
I am wondering about the motives of the editor(s) who saw this letter as fit to print.
1) Charity. Sometimes you get in stuff that is so damned funny you feel you just have to share it with your readers.
2) Boredom. Sometimes mocking Dunnville gets old, and you have to find a fresh target.
Sort of reminds me of Dana Carvey doing an impression of Ross Perot. "Just cuz you can coil a porcupine, doesn't mean ya got rubarb jam."
I call Poe. But why the hell did they publish it? I've heard more coherent statements from the schizophrenic bums who live in the subway.
This guy's rantings could almost make me believe he came off the Golgafrincham B ark...
I certainly hope the poles don't shift prematurely! Especially during a decisive field goal attempt that could determine the outcome of the Cardinals/Eagles championship game in Glendale this Saturday! That would just be unfair!
Oh wait I meant the game on Sunday, not Saturday. Whew! Crisis averted.
Uh oh, sounds like someone's been reading a little too much Charles Hapgood. "There is such a thing as pole shifting" is there? Well unfortunately that theory was developed before plate tectonics, which has since succeeded pole shift theory in the minds of all but a few scientists. I've read about this alien/panspermia stuff before, but I have to say I was shocked when 'God' still warranted a mention!
If you had not told me that was a letter to the editor I would have thought it was a mad lib.
I think the ever-so-wise Samuel Jackson is the only one qualified to answer this letter.
I have a better one: There was a girl in my high school who not only believed in unicorns; but she actually believes that she is a unicorn doctor. Who helped a unicorn give birth, and she and this dude she had a crush on have been intertwined in this love affair that has been occurring over many different life times. She also claims to have been the princess in the story" Lady and the tiger" freakazoid
FrodoSaves (haha) @ 94
"There is such a thing as pole shifting" is there?
Does this have a meaning other than the magnetic poles of the Earth regularly reverse? (Which event would be very messy for 21st century naked apes.)
I find it very hard to believe that the Earth could be harmed or affected in any way by an unspecified number of human citizens of a central-European country shifting their weight around a bit.
The magnetic poles do wander around somewhat, and map users periodically updated their magnetic declination(correction) correction, that is until GPS came along. Every so often(I think its about 20,000-30,000 years) the poles do a complete reversal. The paleo-magnetic imprint(in magnetic minerals frozen in lava) form expanding strips of the spreading oceanic crust from the mid-Atlantic ridge, which can be mapped from the air. This is some of the strongest evidence for plate tectonics.
Little green men in UFO's and catastrophic 'pole shifts' (they never specify if they mean wandering or magnetic reversal, doubt they know there's a difference) that can be predicted to a specific day a millenium in advance by a primitive culture. Yeah, we're cool with that.
But the idea that people are a type of primate? That's just silly.
Dude, tinfoil is sooo twentieth century. These days, all the really smart people who want to stop aliens reading their brainwaves make their hats out of Velostat.
http://www.stopabductions.com
Sastra @ 51 writes about those who think that "Space aliens are "advanced beings" coming here with the important message that we humans are about to undergo a shift to the next level. Since Darwin didn't know about these aliens from other worlds, his ideas were stuck in lower materialism. His understanding of evolution therefore isn't "holistic."
This reminds me of another time in history that produced this type of belief. It seems likely that the Apostle Paul believed in layers of heavenly planes in which principalities and powers lived as well as angels and demons. Since Paul knew nothing of the earthly life of Jesus there are those (me included) who think it likely that Paul thought Jesus was a heavenly character who played out a heavenly drama and conquered death so we could all be transported to this realm when Jesus was to come and get us. This knowledge was supposed to save those who knew it.
This message evolved into a literal person who was God and man and the rest is unpleasant history. But, it does sound similar to this story of advanced beings with knowledge that would take us to another level and save us from this fucking mess here on earth. I just hope it doesn't take hold and morph into some religion that fucks up the planet for 2000 years or so.
Wait.
That settles it, I am going back to Harry's all night hamburger stand!
"Rick @ 103
"It seems likely that the Apostle Paul believed in layers of heavenly planes in which principalities and powers lived as well as angels and demons.Since Paul knew nothing of the earthly life of Jesus there are those (me included) who think it likely that Paul thought Jesus was a heavenly character who played out a heavenly drama and conquered death so we could all be transported to this realm when Jesus was to come and get us."
Just where did you this crazy shit from?
Just where did you get this crazy shit from?
As opposed to this crazy shit?
At this point, asking where they get their ideas is just for the purpose of entertainment (maybe that's what you meant).
Maybe it's just me but every time one of these idiot wingnuts brings up the "man evolved from a monkey" thing it makes me want to grab them, shake them and yell "GO read a fricken book you nimrod!"
@ 109 "man evolved from a monkey"
I know. It's "ape", ya stoopid idjit.
I thought i had heard it all and then Darwin and UFOs were mentioned in the same sentence
Bless those creotards little hearts and brains. They manage to tie their shoes, eat, bath themselves (probably) and press a few buttons to get them onto the intertubes. And yet, because of such extreme cognitive dissonance cannot even see that what they propose as problems with evolution, clearly have much more serious consequences for their sky daddy beliefs. They can hook themselves up to the information superhighway and yet are impervious to learning anything from it. I guess we'll have to see if this evolutionary trait enhances their fitness and survivability.
The sortof sensible point the authour may have being trying to make with the “Darwin did see flying saucers” point is that Darwin didn't (and we still don't) have any independent example of evolved life (clearly sentient with advanced technology if “they” are zooming around in flying saucers). Quite true, and one or more said examples to compare and contrast with would always be useful, but all that does not lead to the authour's conclusion.
However, after reading the rest of the letter, I doubt that was the authour's point. The letter is all over Crazyville, and looks like it just returned from a vacation in Bizarostian. So like everyone else: What The Feck?
I have occasionally used panspermia as a way to watch the IDbots heads explode. They have no way of 'proving' it wrong. Because any argument they use for their 'holy book' can be used for panspermia as well.
"according to people who have studied Mayan culture we are quite possibly in the midst of a pole change -- which many people believe will be in 2012"
Aiyeesh - brother John has made a fundamental error here. See what he's unintelligently created - this is a "falsifiable assertion". We merely have to wait three years to find if "people" are wrong. Or most charitably that there's at least a 50% chance that they are wrong (what is the accepted 95% confidence interval on Mayan calendar predictions, anyway?).
Has nobody warned him that "falsifiable assertions" are the very bedrock of science? What a newb mistake. In trying to refute science, he's actively participating in it! He'll never live this ignominy down at the Mayan UFO Climate Denial Center. Contributing to the shared pool of scientific knowledge is a cardinal sin, whether intentional or not. Ignorance of scriptural law is no excuse.
, I think this fellow lives less than a 15 minute drive from me. And I'm unfortunately not surprised: I overheard someone spout belief in intelligent design at the Bodyworlds exhibition at the Ontario Science Centre in the middle of Toronto a couple of years ago; why would small town folk in Niagara Region (full of Dutch Reformed, btw) fare much better?
Most of the bigger city and national papers do; I suspect small town papers can't afford the bandwidth or server space. I notice free online archives only go back 7 days.
Obviously, the Aliens were lizardmen who created intelligently designed Pygmies and Dwarfs.
And when they come back in 2012, they'll clean it all up, because they're essentially polite and don't want to leave too much of a mess for the Vogons to clean up when they come to install the interstellar bypass.
Oh Brain Hertz, you have SO made my day. I can throw that tinfoil helmet away at last.
Well, this guy definitely did some pole shifting of his own. Maybe we have found a monopole at last? (ok - that joke just assumes that there is no such thing as a monopole, which I think I saw on a science show, but I can be wrong - correct if I am, please).
Anyway, I'll leave the other stuff, but, sorry dude, the people who actually study the Mayans, not the ones who make shit up, do not believe that the world will end (or even that we'll have a pole shift then) when their calender flips over to the new cycle. Heck, while we seem to be in the process of a pole shift (the weak spot over the S Pacific, IIRC, is suggestive of that), it is doubtful that it will occur that soon. Sorry, after the Sumerians and Egyptians, the Mayans, Aztecs and Incas were the earliest societies I studied. I still love anthropology and archaeology, and this shit bugs me. I say that as an ex-woohead. I grew up on "in search of" and "one step beyond".
F-me running on a Sasquatch! What a whackaloon. But, in honor of any conern trolls,
Mr Kocsis, Have a nice day!
Yeah, magnetic pole reversals are real, but the next one is as likely to happen in the years 4897 or 11,742 as 2012.
@Patrick
It's worse, he is almost certainly outbreeding us liberal secular atheists AND we live in democracies.
Remember history tells us that empires always fall, even democratic ones. Often they decay from within . . .
So,
can I call Barry @ 86 an ignorant dimwit,or would that be,hm,impolite?
I love the alien origin theory,just because it causes such lovely problems for the creozombies,if they were only capable to compute it.
Clinteas, do you really think Barry was serious?
I did not even think of that possibility when I read his post-- but now I start to hesitate. Or maybe you aren't serious either, which would make me a double dimwit.
A particularly clear headed and astute observation like what this gent has delivered unto the world...is just what the future American educational districts require for their board chairmen and I predict they will be falling over themselves to sign up this lucid wonderfully logical individual...
What is more his views are mainstream for the latest crop of ID/Creationist clones and as such his ideas should be taught as the controversy... which it is not...at least amongst ID/Creationist circles...
Seeing as it is roughly based on complicated phenomena such as Cosmology...Climate change...paleomagnetic field dynamics...and anti-evolution...it requires Science classes to do the subject justice ..if secular society have a problem with that then obviously their belief in Darwinism are not as deep as they would have the religious believe!
De dude is 'eggsellant!' and a fine example of the case for Religious infiltration into Science!...it does not get better!
amph,
I was quite serious,and Im afraid so was Barry.
If its a Poe,my apologies.
But i dont think it is.
I'll try the fridge magnet thing though.
"according to people who have studied Mayan culture..." Well, I am Mexican and I have studied Mayan culture. Furthermore, I have copies of the 4 books (codex) that exist and can guarantee you that there is nothing in them, or in any other writing left by them on stelae or vases, about the end of times on 2012. As someone has mentioned before, in 2012 the calendar will end very much as ours does on Dec 31.
But we will hear no end of this 2012 nonsense... until January 1st, 2013, that is, when someone will concot another date based on another culture's legends, calendar or what not.
Brg
Can't wait until 2013 when the foolish of citing the Mayan calendar will become apparent even to these idiots. Hey, the Mayans couldn't foresee bearded, pale men with a bunch of deadly germs coming. How could they have foreseen the end of the world?
Actually, what would probably happen, if When Prophecy Fails is any indication, they will say they convinced God through prayer to have mercy on humanity (or something to that effect). Pat Robertson took that approach when his "prophecies" that a grand catastrophe will occur in 2006 2007 2008 failed to happen.
The writers of the bible blamed past kings when God's promise that a descendant of David will always rule over Judah failed when the Babylonians conquered it.
Religion seems to work on anti-falsification. A disproven prophecy strengthens one's faith.
'Religion seems to work on anti-falsification. A disproven prophecy strengthens one's faith.'
Just a graphic example for all to see that these bunnies are indeed twisted beyond the definition of twisted!
I am pretty sure it is all down to some misbegotten sense of ego...that is why they spit the dummy about human descent and evolution in general...they invest so much time and get so much crap force fed into a relatively tiny organ... on average...that they would detest it all being for nothing....
Tis more comfortable to go on with the dogma then to reject it and throw all of their past minimal intellectual activity dedicated to espousing the nonsense on the rubbish dump...folks hate being proven ridiculous...tis an affront to what dignity they think they have...also peer pressure insures the straight and narrow path of towing the line...fear of ostracism is the bottom line!
OMG. Best.Argument.Ever.
Scientist: (explains the general principles of evolution)
Genius: What about ALIENS!?!
Scientist:(explains the general principles of the Big Bang)
Genius: What about ALIENS?!?
I think this must have been an attempt to get as many varieties of total bilge as possible into one published letter: anti-evolutionism, UFOs, AGW denialism, pole-shift-disasterism and 2012-crap (or are these last two somehow connected as the letter implies?). I bet one of us could do better - although the rambling, disconnected quality might be hard to reproduce.
And Lewis Black thought "If it wasn't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college." was bad.
Oh, would you lot hush about the Mayan 2012 "end of the world" thing being BS? I'm trying to see how many true believers I can find to sign over all their possessions to me effective Dec. 24, 2012. I'm hoping to give myself an early retirement for Xmas that year.
It's times like this that I wonder if ethnic cleansings are really that deplorable. I mean, we torch livestock afflicted with Mad Cow, right? What's so different about doing the same for those afflicted with a severe case of stupid? - Twin-Skies
Look, I assume you're not being serious, but lay off this eliminationist shit. It's vile in itself, and it gives atheists/agnostics/whatever you think you are this week a bad name.
Rathtyen@82,
If you want to convince people you know something about science, you need to get the terminology right. It's Homo sapiens, not "homo sapien". The initial upper-case "H" and the final "s" are essential, and if you can italicise it, you should.
OK, carry on burbling.
Maybe he/she is French.
Clinteas
Isn't the whole point of having standardised scientific nomenclature that it is the same in any language?
Otherwise I might take to calling our species anything I choose...now that's an idea:)
Alright people, listen up. The year 2012 in your cockeyed reckoning is when our current calendar ends. The very next day a new calendar begins. The Earth and all living on it get to stay around, we just start a new cycle. The big news happens in your 2236, when the existence of the Woggle is experimentally proven and you discover where all your lost socks went to.
You'd think that if the Mayans were so smart as to be able to accurately predict the end of the world, they'd have been smart enough to predict the Spanish handing them their arse, and therefore taken steps to prevent it.
Predicting an end of the world from a natural disaster (such as we're still not quite able to do wrt colossal asteroid-meteorite strikes or volcanic eruptions) is very different from predicting an end to one's personal world as a result of rival humans invading etc. Only if they were supposed to be using magic (or technology equivalent to magic!) to actually see the future would the two things be equivalent.
Meanwhile, could it be that the writers of such crazy letters (or similar stuff elsewhere) have a higher caffeine intake than is good for them (and higher than that of non-crazies)?
The religious retard is from Beamsville, New York, a fictious place name that correlates his mental state. Even if there was a Beamsville in New York state, they will not have a post office, library, town hall, police, fire station or any semblance of civic structure. But they will have churches of every insane denomination which will dictate their overall resident insanity.
I have to say this is when I really started giving the fundies grief. They were proselytizing around the Ohio Statehouse bus stop. And one of them told me that flying saucers prove the bible, because they are listed in Ezekiel. Also that alien life disproves evolution because Darwin states that we are the most advanced life in the universe.
I just don't have the hours required to educate him to place were he might just be wrong. So we just have to keep telling them they are fucking stupid. And also because of abstinence only education they are also fucking, stupid.
But that makes no sense ... I almost started getting upset at him for his argument, but I can't, he just didn't make enough sense to warrant an emotional response. The entire thing left me confused. I think Darwin's theory certainly leaves plenty of room for extra terrestrial life and it is the Bible that does not. There's just too much wrong with this to have any reaction other than "wait, what?"
'The religious retard is from Beamsville, New York, a fictious place name'
How about the Beamsville in Ontario Canada?
Look, I assume you're not being serious, but lay off this eliminationist shit. It's vile in itself, and it gives atheists/agnostics/whatever you think you are this week a bad name.
Have to agree with this. It is much to easy for that kind of thinking to be embedded into almost any idelogical framework, and actually implemented.
For that reason, it's just never funny.
strangest brew @ 142
My mistake; I overlooked the Beamsville in Ontario which I know. Being originally from Buffalo, I associated the Niagra Region with the Buffalo Niagra Region. But I muse if my evaluation of the town's religious makeup pertains to the religious cretin's mindset?
This nut job actually makes a good point. Now during debates of whether or not to add creationism to evolution talks we also have to make them add Extra Terrestrial Planet Seeding to the obvious Truth of FSMism.
RAmen
Buncha stinky Darwin worshipers.
#136
"You'd think that if the Mayans were so smart as to be able to accurately predict the end of the world, they'd have been smart enough to predict the Spanish handing them their arse, and therefore taken steps to prevent it."
It's all part of the grand plan. Quezicotl's will be done.
Being from Beamsville doesn't really make people stupid. But this guy! I blush for him. Beamsville is a very small town and probably the closest he gets to an intellectual conversation is at the Legion Hall (a veteran's association, where the beer is cheap).
The oddest thing is that he thinks living on the lacustrine plain of a glacial lake means that there's some kind of hanky-panky going on with the earth's poles--or maybe that aliens created the lake: I'm not sure.
If anyone wants to to awaken the Tangled Bank, please send your links to me and I'll publish them either today or next Wednesday (or possibly both, depending on how many I get).
You can use mona dot albano at gmail dot com.
Creationists: Because there is a left side to the IQ bell curve.
Darwin also likely overlooked the influence of the Cthonian monsters. Talk about your selective pressure there.
How did that ever get published? Is it really a joke? I couldn't make sense of it.
(Scratches head...)
Erm... Thank you, Mr. Kocsis... We... Umm... Appreciate your contribution. It has added greatly to our discussion on the funding of outpatient mental health programs.
Regards,
Editor.
Kaderie@ 150,
nice one !
How about
GW deniers,because there is always room in the DSM-IV !
It's definitely Beamsville, Ontario on the south shore of Lake Ontario. The letter was reacting to a column in the St. Catharines Standard, and St. Catharines is in the same county.
Gotta run, the Monadomobile needs a new drive shaft.
The editor of the Standard might have published it much as you do, PZ, to let the craziness hang out in the (very chilly) breeze for all to see.
A propos of universal health care, take a look at the previous letter.
'But I muse if my evaluation of the town's religious makeup pertains to the religious cretin's mindset?
Oh absolutely...the majority of this puerile rubbish is concocted maintained and disseminated from the creationist freak shops...mainly cos they have no one there that are either willing or capable of correcting the more flamboyant aspects of the crap...
The erstwhile leaders of these congregations are barking to begin with...there will be definitely no sense there methinks.
The only folks that do attempt to correct them are assumed to be Atheistic liberal gun hating pro-abortion pro gay devils sent by god to test their resolve...
They are mentally stunted really with an unhealthily warped imagination fuelled by ignorance and snake oil salesman after a buck for jeebus!
Get a nest of them and they fuel each other to greater and more extreme nonsense because they think they are doing it for jeebus... but actually it only for the xian version of street cred with the rest of the afflicted mutants around them and any erstwhile leaders lurking in the shadows...the more bizarre the greater the reward in heaven...apparently!
Unfortunately, I think I went to undergrad with this wacko. At one of Pennsylvania's premiere Catholic Universities....which did a lot of good for me in helping me abandon my faith, obviously not so much for him.
Probably the wrong thing to throw out here, but not even the Mayans considered 2012 the end of the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_Long_Count_calendar#2012_and_…
Yes, probably wrong thing to add, but anyone who says the Mayans say so are misrepresenting the Mayans.
@ #152: I can totally see how that letter got picked to be published. When they got that letter at the newspaper, they probably laughed so hard they just *had* to share the hilarity with everyone else.
The writer could have been a case study for "The Demon-Haunted World."
Instead of being handed their asses by the Spaniards I thought the point about the Mayans was that they handed themselves their own ass due to environmental degradation. When the Spanish got there the cities had all long been abandoned and the Maya had all gone back to subsistence in the jungle while preserving as much of their civilisation as they could. Not helped by destroying Catholic priests of course. But they weren't like the Aztecs or the Incas.
Do alien Okies have a Woody Guthrie? I need some new repertoire for my gloomy cowboy folksinger gig.
The Mayan calender thing is so lame. Hardcore 2012 crazies use Terrance McKenna's timewave-zero/Novelty theory.
I wonder if this guy's related to our former defense minister Paul Hellyer...
He kind of reminds me of a few people I've met while doing astronomy outreach activities. It's always entertaining after the fact but it can be awkward to deal politely with a tard like this when there's a bit of a crowd.
There's one guy that's shown up on several occasions (picture Rick Moranis' character in Ghostbusters) who has wacky theories about gravity, aliens, 'chemtrails' and various other government conspiracies. He never waits his turn in line, he just shows up and starts blathering on making it near impossible to talk to anybody else.
It's worse, he is almost certainly outbreeding us liberal secular atheists AND we live in democracies.
Uh, so, political orientation and religiosity are heritable now? If that were the case, I'd be a right-wing Christian white supremacist. The only things negative he's likely to leave to his children (if any) are low intelligence and a predisposition to mental illness. I would agree that having those traits makes one more likely to become a Creationist nutjob, but sometimes it just makes one stupid and miserable.
"Do alien Okies have a Woody Guthrie? I need some new repertoire for my gloomy cowboy folksinger gig."
Ah'm proud to be an Okie from Andromeda
A place where even noncorporeal plasmic entities can have a ball
We still wave ol' glory in near-vacuum environments like the moon
An' coronal mass ejections are still the biggest thrill of all.
... Still needs work.
strangest brew @ 157
Apt evaluation, and so indicative of many small towns where churches are the largest buildings. Large cities definitely have their numerous downsides, but they are not usually hotbeds of religious insanity due to the various open intellectual pursuits unhampered by religious strictures of the kind prevalent in small religion soaked towns. Minds tend to be more open in the mixing of free ideas that cities engender. As remarked by Wendy Kaminer, "An empty mind is a recepticle for faith".
How could it not be published? Editors love polarizing letters, it flushes the cranks into the open which prompts the "you've got to be kidding me" retaliation forces and therefore sells more papers. TV news does the same when they interview people for the "man on the street/ eyewitness" spots. The fewer the teeth, the better probability that the interviewee will be earthy (read: humiliatingly ignorant). Nothing is more memorable than wackalooniness or sheer ignorance.
better higher probability...
sheesh
Charles @ 158
No offense meant, but it irks me when the word "premier" is used to qualify anything religious. Similiar to using the word "great" when listing religions, or "doctor" when addressing a moron of theology.
"It's pretty hard for someone to draw conclusions on mankind when Darwin had never seen nor heard of UFOs. That's kind of like teaching math but not understanding trigonometry."
The loonies who wrote the bible had seen and heard of UFOs?
*sigh*
When will these ID/Creationist/Raelian/ignorant woo-meister types finally understand: "sharing a common ancestor" != "evolved from"
...It's not a difficult concept.
The major problem we are having with this letter from Mr. Kocsis is that he is presenting us with god's message. From an earlier thread we learned this god's logic from Facilis. Maybe we need Facilis here to help translate this godswallop from Mr. Kocsis.
Blondin@167
I like Merle ("Mama Tried" gets played a lot) but I was hoping for more of a "This Galaxy is Your Galaxy" kinda vibe.
Speaking of alien ancestry, y'all remember that we're descended from accountants and hair-stylists and that's why the question to the answer "42" is "What do you get when you muliply six by nine?" (I love a gratuitous Douglas Adams reference).
WRMartin @ 174
Sort of like an earlier posting from the moron who said that we are fooling with the "lord god almighty". Damn, I wish I was there in person when that retard uttered those three offensive and retribution- worth insane words. I am at the point in my life and demeanor that I will not let this insanity go unchallenged, in any degree or manner. No quarter to the religious demented. Let's see your imaginary god or shut the hell up.
"Beamsville" It is definitely time for John to say "Beam me up Scotty!"
What makes you so sure they don't have large heritable components? Just because something can be overcome (I did too) does not mean it is not heritable in some way. In my own family religiosity has followed physiognomy, all those who resemble my Mother's wider family are fundies while those who resemble my father are atheist. In our case the fundies have outbred us atheists 2 to 1 even with one abstention.
I am not absolutely convinced since my Mother's wider family are not religious but as with all these things I expect it will be a nurture plus nurture thing, the interesting thing will be working out the relative contributions.
@Holbach #171
No offense taken! Not only do I agree, I LIVED that piece of ridiculousness! The only thing that was of any salvation (no pun intended) at that place was that the faculty were actually quite liberal and reasonable folks.
llewelly @58 said:
Nice one! it's good however that creos don't even know about that reference, otherwise they might end up start searching for the tree of life, if nothing else for explaining that it was actually the talking bush of Moses... who knows? maybe the real purpouse for ID is the R & D for Boosterspice, just to live longer and see the final and inevitable outcome of ID Science wars.
Oh yes they do.Full text of the Palin-ADN email exchange
Filling a hole in the LTE page is my guess. Sometimes you keep something around like this to plug in on slow days.
177 posts and not one of you recognized this beautiful piece of trolling?
hey PZ;
The letter to the editor you posted was, I am both sorry and amused to say, in response to my column a few days before which spoke about remembering the anniversary of Darwin's trip on the Beagle. I am certainly not sure what UFOs have to do with evolution by natural selection, and that letter goes down as the most bizarre response to one of my columns I have I ever read.
Grant
You can read my column here: http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1373124&auth=G…
I 100% agree with #182. I used to keep this stuff around when I was an editor, just to fill space.
Holbach @176
Your own words explain why we missed you.
The magnetic poles do wander around somewhat, and map users periodically updated their magnetic declination(correction) correction, that is until GPS came along. Every so often(I think its about 20,000-30,000 years) the poles do a complete reversal. The paleo-magnetic imprint(in magnetic minerals frozen in lava) form expanding strips of the spreading oceanic crust from the mid-Atlantic ridge, which can be mapped from the air. This is some of the strongest evidence for plate tectonics.
This is true, but in the conspiracy "documentary" (which is undoubtedly where she got the idea) it wasn't the magnetic pole that shifted, but actually the geographical if I remember correctly. And that is why, according to the documentary, that the world will end in 2012 :D
Actually I think it is wrong to say that people who habitually believe weird stuff are suffering a excess of open-mindedness. Their minds are very closed to ideas of the form "maybe weird thing X isn't true2
WRMartin @ 186
My thanks.
What really scares me the most is that I have relatives who would not only understand that pile of crap but whole heartedly agree with it.
“One of the many problems with Darwin's theory of evolution pertaining to mankind is that neither Charles Darwin nor his worshippers take into account extra-terrestrial life. . . . It's pretty hard for someone to draw conclusions on mankind when Darwin had never seen nor heard of UFOs. That's kind of like teaching math but not understanding trigonometry.”
Someone’s laying the groundwork for an “anal probing” alibi !
and according to people who have studied Mayan culture we are quite possibly in the midst of a pole change -- which many people believe will be in 2012.
We will see more claims like this.
The maya had two different calendar, one which repeat each 52 years, and another, was "the long count".
The mayan number system is a vigesimal positional system and it was used
The "long count" uses 5 numbers for representing the absolute numbers of days since August 11, 3114 BCE. In 2012 it would need 6 numbers. Unfortunately we have no mayan astronomer at hand for making this addition. This system was used also by several mesoamerican cultures.
It is like if in the year 999 people claimed the world would end in 1000... because the years had ended...
wait...Actually.. i think some people believed that...
For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle.
Yes. But what if he's right?
Richard Carter ---> "But what if he's right ?" Should you make contributions to your 401(k) account even though you might win the Powerball ?
I would love to have Kocsis, Ken Hambone, Dinesh d'Crapa and all their insane moronic ilk with their UFO cohorts in a no-holds barred debate to have them prove that their imaginary god does not exist(the allusive negatives intentioned). I could get uppity at the start and state that I will not debate them without their god being present in the flesh. If they state that I must have the great Charles Darwin also present, then I will have to say that he is most assuredly dead and can never come back to ascertain that he was most surely alive once, but you morons can never materialize your god because it never existed except in your demented brains. It is not so difficult to debate these morons, particularly D'Crapa(my well moniker for this clown who regards himself as a formidable debater), as solid reason will definitely prevail. Never back down from this religious crud and demand that they show us their imaginary god or have it come down and kick the crap out of us and prove it. We will be safe on both accounts and leave them pondering their next demented sally. No god, no reason, and always without a prayer to their imaginary god. Maroons.
Nanahuatzin, #192
What's so hard about going from jjjjj to 100000?
Rathtyen (#82)
If "Goddidit" were merely a plausible but currently unevidenced hypothesis, then you might be right. However, since "Goddidit" is not a well-formed hypothesis (and may not even be a coherent one), makes no definite predictions that can be tested, and generally lacks any explanatory value, there is no need for science to "keep an open mind" about it in the sense you seem to mean. From a scientific perspective, it's simply irrelevant, because it is not the kind of claim that provides useful answers to those kinds of questions.
Given that we have considerably more than "a few bone fragments" as evidence for human evolution (the palaeontological evidence is rather more extensive than you seem to think), the answer to your question is probably "no". And that's ignoring the wealth of evidence from other sources - especially genetics.
Well, geneticists can distinguish between the effects of natural selection and the effects of genetic drift in an organism's genome, so it's far from obvious that the effects of systematic manipulation of the human genome in the past would be impossible to detect.
mea culpa...
I made a mistake at #192..
They will not need an extra number, it will just go to the next number. It seems i need to drink my coffe before doing any posting...
We are in the 12 b'ak'tun , in December 21, 2012 will start the 14 b'ak'tun or 13.0.0.0.0 as the maya would put it.
So it is really like when people claimed the world would end in the 2000...
But when the cycles have names like b'ak'tun, suddenly everything sounds like magic...
By the way... The king Pacal of Palenque predicted that on the year 1.0.0.0.0.8 (October 21, 4772 ) people will still be celebrating the anniversary of his accession as king. So they thought the mayas would still be around...
argghhhhhh
"We are in the 13 b'ak'tun"
Sorry for that...
"to suggest that man evolved from a monkey is simply silly"
I actually agree with him on this. Humans are more closely related to apes than to monkeys. Also, we didn't evolve from apes; instead we both evolved from a common ancestor.
It seems that the world is being plagued with straw men.
Peter Ashby @178:
I absolutely wouldn't be surprised if political and religious tendencies had large heritable components (I'd expect at least a small one).
But the relation to physiognomy you see within your own family is a fairly weak point in favor of this.
It could also very easily be coincidental, whether there's a large heritable component to these behavioral traits or not (especially with a small sample size and confirmation bias, which is harder to eliminate in subjective assessments).
The data are a bit sparse, but I think 0.6 Tc isn't a bad estimate.
Will you please stop implying that evolution is progress.
Suddenly homeschooling doesn't look like such a great idea.
But then, when there are public-school teachers who are cretinists…
Teh stupid is not contagious. Just for starters.
It's much more likely an Egyptian version of the story of the Trojan War. That's also a likely reason why the story ends so abruptly -- and why it ends exactly where the Iliad begins.
WRONG! That would end the GOP, not the world.
Wasn't that Voltaire?
Worse! There is no evidence of it. There is nothing that can be more easily explained by that idea than by the theory of evolution. So Ockham's Razor comes and cuts it off.
Please explain. Remember, chimpanzees have been seen hunting with self-made spears, and they even engage in warfare.
"A few bone fragments" is a drastic underestimate. Read up on the subject.
That's because anywhere-near-catastrophic pole shifts amount to moon denial. (I'm not talking about magnetic pole reversal, of course.)
It's completely chaotic.
The eugenicists are starting to get on my nerves. Being educated isn't heritable.
Unless the uneducated homeschool their children. Oopsie. I take everything back.
What, why? ~:-|
Quetzalcoatl to Aztecs, Kukulcán to Mayas.
Exactly.
@Geoff Rogers #25:
I know for a FACT that the government is experimenting with our water supplies because sometimes you see rainbows when you turn on the sprinklers: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/08/some_things_that_might_appea…
@'Tis Himself #41:
I think the logical conclusion is that Einstein IS an alien.
I mean, it's so obvious once you think about it.
If interstellar flight with living beings is possible, then the possibility that aliens might have accidentaly or deliberately seeded Earth with life can't be said to be utterly absurd. I don't believe it myself, but it isn't impossible. If star flight is possible, humans might start life on other planets...we may already have done so to Mars
I wish a new era would begin Dec 2012. This one is worn out.
If Palin wins the 2012 presidential election, I hope the world does end.
Someone a letter to the editor in my local newspaper today called Obama anti-semetic and anti-Israel.
Last time I checked Obama was quite moderately pro-Israel.
The fool in the paper also took the opportunity to threaten Mr. Obama with bodily harm and death.
Of course the fool gets to get away with doing so because he uses his God to issue the threats.
My only thought about the letter was a remake of that old drug PSA: Here is your brain. Here is your brain on woo. Get the picture?
I've got this one; been fighting John Kocsis out of The St. Catharines Standard for five years now.
Actually, I think it's cruel to keep printing him. As many have noted, it cannot even been understood. Why give a soapbox to a madman?
P.S. The St. Catharines Standard has no archives, so the link will not work in a week or two. Not sure what loss that will be, just FYI.
J
I've seen discourses like this, written by people who apparently have a very poor grasp of what rational thinking is in the first place. I have no problems with "stream of consciousness" style, it certainly has its place, but it is not a substitute for rational discussion.
Recall, by the way, that there are other Christians and theists who use the so-called Transcendental Argument for God, proclaiming that without God rational thinking couldn't even exist in the first place. Yet in fact we observe that rational thinking comes in degrees, both within a single individual (e.g., my rational capabilities tend to be rather sharper in the morning than in the evening, and better on a full stomach than when I've gone too long without eating), and across different people where the rational thought capabilities of some people is obviously far inferior to that of others (certain ultra-fundamentalist preachers I happen to know come to mind), and the capabilities have distinct variances in type, where one person might be so-so at math yet brilliant with legal analysis and another person may be brilliant with mathematical thinking yet incompetent with legal analysis. Staying logical, staying rational, dealing with ideas as they become increasingly complex, is something that a person has to work, and certain forms of complex rational thought - such as advanced mathematics, or, say, physics - that some humans are capable of are simply beyond the capabilities of most human beings.
One of the problems with creationism is that creationist culture thrives on the likes of incompetent thinking of people like John Kocsis, or like, say, a fundamentalist preacher of a fundamentalist Church of Christ congregation in Missouri. And the incompetent thinking is not just isolated to their creationist tendencies.
I feel like I'm reading a surrealist dialog.
Darwin didn't know about Aliens, Pole-Shifting, or Mayan Calenders.
This proves God did it!
(Well that's just like, your opinion, man)
There are people who actually believe this stuff? My faith in humanity just slipped down a notch...
I went through my Erich von Däniken phase a couple of years back, read several books, trying to be open-minded, but becoming increasingly irritated at the repetitions (seriously, it's like that guy wrote one book and then shoved the "content" around a bit for the next one, maybe updating the photos of the Nazca Lines and Easter Island...), so due to the lack of scientific backup or even plausibility, I'm letting the books gather dust on my shelf (though I might have to put them somewhere else, because I just realized that they're right next to actual science books... though they might be there as genre transition from physics to Dan Brown, but still). Maybe I should read them again just for fun, but then... there are too many good books I don't have time to read, so why would I read the bad ones twice?
Rick T:
It seems likely that the Apostle Paul believed in layers of heavenly planes in which principalities and powers lived as well as angels and demons.Since Paul knew nothing of the earthly life of Jesus there are those (me included) who think it likely that Paul thought Jesus was a heavenly character who played out a heavenly drama and conquered death so we could all be transported to this realm when Jesus was to come and get us
kamaka:
Just where did you get this crazy shit from?
Where all the good crazy shit is, of course: Teh Bible!
Try 1 Corinthians 2 and 2 Corinthians 12 for a start. In a good study bible where the nuances of the Greek are discussed. Paul's beliefs, though they have been sanitized for modern consumption, bore very little resemblance to orthodox Christian beliefs. And the defenders of proto-orthodoxy wasted no time in the 2nd century rooting out his influence. Marcion, the church's first heretic supervillain, was a Pauline Christian.
You know, in the typical creationist screed, I may think what they're saying is absurd and illogical to the nth degree, but I can usually understand what they're basing their ravings on, and follow their reasoning (to use that term in it's loosest possible sense). Here, I have no clue. The lack of connection is so total, it would be like me claiming evolution must be true because of the fact the lobby in my workplace is painted a shade of pale yellow.
E. V. #169 you are very right. I guess that's why World News Daily is so popular. I've seen the toothless "man on the street/troglodyte" interviews, and I just shake my head.
You know, the writer is clearly an example of the failure of whatever education system he went through. He wants to be smart, he has the confidence to write a letter to the editor to showcase what he thinks is intellect, he just never received the foundational support he should have. He must have latched on to those things that interested him, such as UFOs, mysticism and pseudoscience, rather than learning how to distinguish the important from the unimportant.
Pity him, don't make fun of him.
This guy actually reminds me a bit of the neutron denialist I saw here a few months ago. That guy was hilarious. Whenever I see something like this I think of Enrico Fermi's remark on hearing a particularly silly answer to a question on physics - That's not even wrong!
It's too bad Mayan Baby Jesus never does seem to show up in his spaceship to take these guys home.
Thanks a lot PZ, I just wasted half an hour trying to make some sort of sense of this [expletive] letter. Now all I have is a headache, a baffled wife, and a nervous cat...
I'm from St. Catharines, and let me tell you that the Standard is pretty sub-standard, even for a small town newspaper. The most embarrassing thing is that if you substituted politics and city development for evolution this letter could have come from a relation of mine. It's harmless except for the fact that every time the paper prints one of his articles he is extremely proud and feels validated that the newspaper endorses his viewpoint. I'm sure this guy is even more proud now of his letter, and that his family is just as embarrassed as mine often is.
That was Wolfgang Pauli .
/pedant
Dammit Feynmaniac, you have exposed my secret saucer cultist plot to misquote famous physicists. Thanks, actually, I must have Fermi on my mind a lot after seeing lots of documentaries on xenobiology and why the aliens aren't here - Fermi paradox.
Long live Mayan Baby Jesus!!!
If it was not mentioned before, we should note that the idea of panspermia goes back to Arrhenius' "Worlds in the Making" published in 1908. Chad Oliver had a rather neat humans seeded by aliens story in Astounding, maybe back in the 70's. At this point in time, I don't think we can do a good test of the panspermia hypothesis.
kamaka:
Just where did you get this crazy shit from?
CJO @ 212 answers, "Where all the good crazy shit is, of course: Teh Bible!"
CJO is right and I will add that Paul mentions being taken up into the 7th heaven which means that he thought there were at least 7 levels in this spiritual realm. This was typical gnostic thinking and Elaine Pagels reveals the gnostic basis for Paul's writings in her book "The Gnostic Paul".
I quote from wikipedia. "In 1975, after studying the Pauline Epistles and comparing them to Gnosticism and the early Church, Pagels wrote the book The Gnostic Paul. This book expounds the theory that Paul of Tarsus was a source for Gnosticism whose influence on the direction of the early Christian church was great enough to inspire the creation of pseudonymous writings such as the Pastoral Epistles (1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus), in order to make it appear as if Paul was anti-Gnostic."
Kamaka, this is indeed crazy shit. But no more crazy than the Gospels which were written to give a flesh and blood history to this god/man Jesus so that Christianity could distinguish itself from the other dying and resurrecting god/man religions that littered the Mediterranean region before Christianity came to be.
It is indeed all man made so why, if you don't believe it to be true, would you insist that the orthodox version of this mythology be accepted without critical examination?
For further info read The Jesus Puzzle by Doherty. View truth surge on You Tube. I've already mentioned Pagels.
Kamaka, maybe you should get up to speed before you get all bent that your christian myths are being distorted.