I had quite a different post ready to share with you today.
You see, I had very recently googled “cuttlefish” (yes, ego-surfing. Sue me.) and found that, miracle of miracles, I was listed ahead of Answers in Genesis. (For context, see this early post where I first noticed how high AiG is on the list of results for “cuttlefish”, and this later post checking up on the situation.) I was overjoyed; I never expected to overtake The Great Satan AiG, so I prepared a post in which I marveled at the exposure Freethought Blogs had given me, to be able to climb so high (actually, it’s not a matter of my blog being up there–it’s a matter of something, anything, pushing AiG out of the first page).
And I just double-checked. Cos, you know, it would be embarrassing to write the whole thing up and then be wrong.
Yeah, anyway, I wrote the whole thing up and I was wrong.
My most recent search (I re-did it twice) showed AiG comfortably ahead of me–I am on the first page, but just barely, and a creationist lying piece of shit… sorry, a site dedicated to bearing false witness… is ahead of me. And ahead of XKCD, for that matter.
It may be that the algorithms have locked in a lie. It may be that AiG has sufficient inertia on its side that it will continue to serve up disinformation until the heat death of the universe. But could you maybe do me a favor? First… could you do whatever internet search you do for “cuttlefish” and confirm or disconfirm my fears? And secondly… I know I have a lot of smart and savvy readers–is there anything that can be done?
Yes, I know this is a small and perhaps insignificant little battle. But damn, a creationist site on the first page of “cuttlefish”? I was so happy, thinking I had vanquished this dragon. But hey. Reality beats happy fantasy, and (well, dammit) AiG beats The Digital Cuttlefish.
*sigh*
If you’ve read this far, here’s the original verse (now over 5 years old!):
Similarity shows that a common designer
With similar blueprints and parts
Constructed the human and cuttlefish forms—
I swear by all three of your hearts.
The God who created the heavens and earth
And killed dinosaurs off in The Flood
Used the same old ideas again and again
You can tell by your copper-green blood.
But the clearest, most obvious clue to His Touch
Is the similar form to our eye
(They are really quite different, in various ways,
But if you won’t tell, neither will I).
Color-blind cuttlefish never see red
But they can see polarized light;
This common designer gets different effects
Out of human and cuttlefish sight.
Anatomically, too, these are two different eyes
They have retinas frontward-to-back,
And cuttlefish reshape the whole of their eye
Because shapeable lenses they lack.
The shape of the pupil allows them to see
To the front and the rear all at once
So similar, clearly, to what we can do—
If you dare disagree, you’re a dunce!
When Answers in Genesis says it’s design
And not just a matter of fitness
I know they’re not fibbing—right there, number nine—
Thou shalt not bear false witness.
I only have one little, lingering doubt
Though I really, I promise, am trying—
If it’s perfectly clear they see common design
It’s even more clear that they’re lying.