People, I know it’s really hard sometimes to tell the parodies from the sincerely held beliefs of the faith-heads. That last post was humor; sure, there are people out there who think they can spot atheists by their degenerate, evil ways, but that was clearly a spoof of such attitudes. This, on the other hand, is the real thing, a loving work of ignorant inanity by a couple of liars for Jesus:
See the difference? That little video makes assertions of fact that are entirely false, but really aren’t at all funny. When someone accuses atheists of wearing comfortable footwear because it “encourages moral decadence,” that’s silly and makes us laugh. This, on the other hand, doesn’t sound like the punchline to a joke:
Carbon dating and all other forms of radiometric dating are so flawed that scientists don’t even want to use them any more to determine the age of fossils.
There isn’t even a grain of truth to that sentence; it doesn’t make me want to laugh (except, maybe, in a mean-spirited way at the peckerwood making the claim); it reflects a deep-seated ignorance about the scientific tools used for dating; and it is nothing but a rallying cry for like-minded pissants to nod their head in agreement that someone has confirmed their biases.
(Seriously, that claim is so damned stupid it’s more likely to make me angry than amused. I am surrounded by geologists here at UMM, and one of them gave a presentation on radiometric dating just last month. They’d love to date everything, and the reason that they don’t is that it takes a fair amount of work to prepare samples, and it isn’t cheap to ship them off and get isotopes assayed. I want these creationist frauds to read Turney’s Bones, Rocks, and Stars so their delusions aren’t quite so idiotic.)
It helps to be familiar with actual creationist arguments. When you see something that parrots the claims they do make, unleavened with a hint of satire or a pointer to a refutation, then you’ve got the real thing.
That video does cut it close in one place, when it tries to propose it’s positive support for Christianity over other religions, and it claims that their distinguishing feature that makes their religion the one true belief is that it values faith over works. That sounds like such a breathtakingly ridiculous claim that it approaches self-satire, but if you know that Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron in their “Way of the Master” series actually make that argument with straight faces, it stops being funny.
While I’m at it, let me mention to everyone who hasn’t figured it out yet that the Objective Ministries Creation Science Fair page is a parody, just not a very good one, or perhaps too good. I still get email about it every once in a while from people who think it’s true. Its problem is that it treads the line too finely; it uses arguments that are just too darned close to actual creationist arguments, which makes it more of a pain in the ass than something to amuse.
I like my satire to be comfortable and morally decadent.
Great Eru, I posted that last one while reading the post and before watching the video… Now I just feel ill.
Wait… Time Magazine is a supposed transitional form? On the way to what? Reader’s Digest?
Who knew?
Wow! That was super bad. (And I mean “bad” in the old-fashioned non-ironic sense of “really not good at all.”) Once again we see the charming demonstration of bone-deep ignorance parading around in a semblance of scholarship. The dweeby lecturer is such an expert, despite making one unsupportable statement after another.
(I did, however, like the cut-line on one of the “slides” in the background that said Time magazine was a disproven missing link. That is what it said, right?)
The animation was nice. But the content… I can taste bile in the back of my throat.
[…hanging my head, doing my best Marlon Brando imitation ala Apocalypse Now…]
…the Arrogance!… …the Arrogance!…
I’ve always thought the name “Way of the Master” was very telling. After all, The Master is an evil megalomaniac who has tried to take over the universe and destroy the Earth numerous times. Me, I’ll take the Way of the Doctor, myself.
I know this is somewhat off thread, but it’s a pet peeve.
“It’s” is not a possesive form. “It’s” is a contraction meaning “it is”.
“Well, besides the valid concept of micro-evolution, the concept of macro-evolution *is* evil.”
C’mon! That’s funny! That may have turned on the humor-meter in a lot of viewers from the get-go. I was disappointed that the “teacher” didn’t go on to actually explain why it was not just wrong but evil.
Shane, do we all get the cool Converse shoes if we choose the way of the Doctor?
It’s likely that my inability to differentiate between parody and reality, with respect to today’s examples, is due to my fortunate lack of exposure to this kind of BS in real life. I’ve heard someone say something that outrageously stupid only once or twice, and I laughed loud and long. I probably hurt their feelings, but it was my natural reaction.
That is not to say that I don’t run across theists, they’re just the ones that say “Oh I don’t believe that the cracker is really the body of Christ. That’s just a metaphor.”
Did you catch the backhanded slap at the Catholic Church in there; when he says, “You must repent your sins, not just go to a priest once a week and confess them”. Shades of Hagee?
Well, I am convinced. Where are the transitional fossils? You don’t see any half-monkey/half-men do you?
*head hits keyboard*
I’m tired of fighting the lies. Things like this should make “good” Christians livid. They should be the ones putting a smack down on these worms.
Liars for Jesus.
OEJ
The Creation Science Fair page may be a parody, but it has links to real Creation Science “resources” for parents, teachers and students!
H’mm, I run a Science Day for my kids’ school, I wonder if I could get a ‘Creation Scientist’ to come, sort of as a cautionary tale.
To pick a nit here – the statement about not using Carbon dating for fossils isn’t entirely wrong… at least as I understand things. But then the era of prehistory that I study is so recent you can practically smell it (500-1000BP).
Radiocarbon is very useful for those of us working in human prehistory; in that the claim that “carbon dating is inaccurate” is totally wrong. However the half-life of Carbon is so short that it becomes effectively useless after around 50KYA. (again I don’t have any experience with really old stuff but this is how I understand things).
For anything on a geological time scale, including most fossils, there are other Radiometric techniques that are quite useful – K/Ar, Ar/Ar – and non-isotopic techniques as well – Thermoluminescence, Geomag, etc. So the bigger suggestion that we can’t date fossils is a cache of coprolites.
This is a tactic these IDiots love to use – make a valid but irrelevant scientific point based on nuance that most viewers won’t understand and claim victory. We also can’t use historical linguistics to get at the ages of fossils, but that doesn’t make them any less old or historical linguistics any less relevant to other problems.
[/nitpick]
More lies directed at children by Christians.
So disgusting.
Christians are not accountable for their actions, since they feel they only have to ask empty space for forgiveness.
Idiots!
Ah, yes. Objective Ministries. Yeah, they suck. I was glad to be the one to get them kicked off of the Christian web host they were using.
Moreover, there has to be samples that you get that CAN be isotopically dated! It’s really hard to get things that can be dated directly, made of the type of stuff that can be dated. For example, if you find evidence for a settlement of clay houses with lots of metal and stone tools, you can’t do any “carbon” dating until you find the old fire pit or something else sufficiently organic. Isotopically dating a stone tool doesn’t tell you about when it was made.
I view isotopic dating as similar to crystalography. If crystalography is so stinking good at determining structure, why are the chemistry journals full of far more complex things like NMR and mass spectrometry? Apparently chemists don’t think so much of crystalography.
Of course, that’s nonsense. Chemists love to get crystal structures, WHEN THEY CAN and WHEN THEY ARE NEEDED. But dang, it’s not very easy to get acceptable crystals for most things. And sometimes, even when you can get them, a crystal structure is not sufficiently interesting or important to justify the cost or effort.
What was with the whole bit about unfossilized dinosaur bones. Thats new wackiness to me.
Two things piss me off here, both really just professional issues.
First: Archaeologists don’t dig up dinosaur bones. Archaeologists study humans and the world they existed in, to creationists this might include dinosaurs, but not to archaeologists.
Second: Some Christians do believe in works as a means to salvation, not just faith.
for #20, I don’t know about unfossilized bone, but a find somewhere within the last couple of years was a T-rex bone with tissue inside of it that was unfossilized.
I haven’t spent much time trying to earnestly understand the mechanisms and details of Radiometric dating until PZ’s recent posts. While doing some reading and web searching on the topic, I found one site that claims Helium generation during isotopic decay and its retention (or lack thereof)in bedrock proves that the Earth is 14,000 years old or less. Has anyone heard this or can point me to the real science regarding this?
Here’s the link to that article: http://www.allaboutcreation.org/radiometric-dating.htm
PZ, sorry for another creationism link.
PZ, you may want to look at this version…
Thunderf00t does a great job of dismantling creationist videos. ExtantDodo does too.
Nanoamps:
TalkOrigins CD015 might be a good beginning.
Just a clarification: if a part of an organism (or a trace of its behavior) becomes incorporated in the rock record, it is a fossil. Full stop. Nothing more need happen to it.
So the organic material in the T. rex bone was fossilized; it just wasn’t permineralized.
If Darwin’s right, then here’s a shock:
Your great-great-grand-dad was a rock!
Reject that theory! Turn away!
Remember, God made man… from clay.
dcwp @ #16:
Of course you are right, and it’s that speck of truth which illuminates the greater lie.
Their incessant, bald-faced lying leaves me speechless. Won’t someone think of the children?
Yay, Cuttlefish! That’s one of my favorite contradictions. The descendant of clay or dust is Noble Man. A descendant of a “monkey” (or a rock? a rock?!? that’s new!) isn’t. Huh?!?
Several years ago, while late night channel surfing I ran across an evangelist (Ankerberg maybe?) doing a whole program about the evil Freemasons. Not because of their world domination conspiracies :-), but simply because they believe that they can get into heaven by doing good works on earth. He went on and on revealing the secrets of the masons but in the end it all boiled down to “good works will not get you into heaven, only accepting JC as your personal saviour …” So it does not matter how you live your life or what “evil” things you do, as long as you accept Jesus, you get into heaven. I think that is what broke any last microscopic vestiges of theism for me. No, actually it did more than that, convinced me that it is the evangelists and religion in general that is truly evil by waving this “get out of jail free card” that can excuse any action at all by just believing you are forgiven. At least the Catholics make you actually do something for penance when you confess your sins.
Finding unfossilized tissue doesn’t conclude that the earth is 6000 years old. It was unexpected, yes. Fortunate? Incredibly so. So what? We find new exciting shit all the time.
Anyone else notice the layers of rock that were arbitrarily labeled? Top layer starting 3M years ago, next one down 1100BC, then 1432 AD, then 4Mya. They don’t even make an attempt to accurately label strata.
“If you believe in macroevolution, you also believe we came from a rock” – No we don’t.
Have these cretins failed to notice that their cartoon spokesman is a fathead?
I must say that I find the Objective Ministries Creation Science Fair page totally irresistible. I love their opposite-of-emphatic humor. The difference with the original creationist stuff is admittedly rather subtle, but is just adequate – and importantly, it allows one to laugh one’s anger about the stupidity away.
Look, here’s the deal: God created us as we are today from clay and air. This, like all other parts of the bible, is scientific fact that can be observed in the world around us. That is why when a person is cut, they ooze red clay from their veins.
God created Man 6KYA as-is.
QED
Yeah. That was no doubt intentional, to “demonstrate” how arbitrary, nonsensical and circular the scientific method of dating the geological column is.
Lies and distortions are all they have, so that’s all they use.
So that’s what the cave troll from Moria did next. Some come down. Bad sweater, too.
I don’t get too upset when Creationists slag science, as I figure that scientists will counter with the facts, but it really upsets me when they slag other religions. I suppose some would say that’s because there are no facts to counter them with, and fair point, but still…you stay out of my sandbox, I’ll stay out of yours.
You should have warned us that video would induce projectile vomiting.
I caught a few minutes of The Way of the Master on TV the other night.
All I can say is WoW.
This show (like the above YouTube presentation) is a proselytism primer.
This people are actually constantly on the prowl for emotionally weak people they can convert to Christianity.
The TV show is no less than a manual of techniques for identifying, befriending, and coercing innocent victims into the world of hellfire and brimstone.
Now wonder these Xians believe that gays are trying to recruit or subvert heterosexuals! They are simply projecting their own vampirish behavior onto others.
I learned some things in this video:
* There are different breeds of dogs due to natural selection.
* Macroevolution is “ONE OF THE MOST DISPROVED THEORIES IN THE WORLD THAT STANDS AS THE ONLY REMAINING HIDING PLACE FROM GOD,” whatever that means.
* If you believe in macroevolution, then you also believe we evolved from a rock.
* The missing link is STILL MISSING!
* ALL SUPPOSED TRANSITIONAL FOSSIL FORMS HAVE BEEN PROVEN FALSE!!!
And how did the kid go immediately from carbon dating being too inaccurate, to “so all these religions, the Buddhist, the Muslim, the Hindu, they’re all going to hell.” That kinda came out of nowhere.
Erm – ever heard of mud-spring “fossils”?
Some of which are not actually fossilised, but still contain traces of tissue?
Like these three URL’s which all refer to one in England:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/dg.small/W&BC_info/mud_springs.htm
http://www.english-nature.org.uk/About/teams/team_photo/wiltsnews11.pdf
http://www.ussher.org.uk/PDF/Abs06%20Hart%20etal.pdf
Their transition from dating fossils to “Buddhists and other religions” is rather abrupt – what does that have to do with “evilution”?
As for “turn away from your sins” – is that a “do as I say, not as I do” statement? After all, lying is a sin.
There also was a time when Christians were fed to lions. Ah, the good ole days, when God used to get out of the house and get things done!
IanR said:
Except when it’s done for Jeebus, apparently. FSM, these people make me ill!
Are there really that many Pharyngulites being victimized by Poe’s law? I think the whole Objective Ministries site is very funny and easily identifiable as satire. I’m calling a retard alert !
Absolutely disgusting. I had a friend who would make these arguments almost verbatim. Even the one about how Christianity was right because it wasn’t based on what you did, but what you had faith in. WTF?
Two things I love about this video:
1) the little shot at the Catholics
2) the quote-mining _from the Bible_
I particularly liked the quick & dirty shot at Catholicism (something like, ‘don’t just go to a Priest once a week and confess you sins’– I don’t have the stomach to review the video & get an exact quote). There’s such a rich combination of outright lies and hidden agenda here… great material for sorting out what these guys are really about, if you’re aren’t stupid enough to buy it at face value.
Carlie @ 10 — you can have the Converse shoes — I’ll take Martha. Deal? :)
All Transitional fossils are proven false?
I’ll give them Piltdown man, but that’s it. They went 1 for 3, with Lucy still a valid fossil, and Time Magazine isn’t a transistional fossil, although maybe a few articles may be false.
Overall, nauseating. As a geologist, and having taken an in-dpeth course on radiometric dating, I was appalled. Sure, carbon dating has it’s limits, but what about Uranium (two types: U-238 and U-235), Rb-Sr, Sm-Nd, Re-Os, Ar-Ar, K-Ar, among many. All these are lies? Argh! I’d better stop now before I explode.
Just one question here, why would you get upset when one religion attacks an other. If one takes their monotheistic religion seriously, any other belief is going to be untrue by definition.
The Mor
mon I work with used to parrot the claims she heard from her church group friends. When she’d say, “I have some problems with Darwinism,” I’d reply “Oh, that’s because you don’t understand it,” and when she’d say, “How can they carbon date things to millions of years?” I’d reply “They don’t. Things that old are dated using potassium-argon or etc.”Now she claims she has no problems with evolution because she went to a school that taught it (BYU, of course), even though she’d never taken a university biology class.
Having given up on finding a good Mor
mon boy she’s dating a Catholic, so there may be hope for her yet.Re: #10
And do we all get Nike shoes if we choose the way of the Marshall?
Remember, God made man… from clay.
And clay consists of weathered rock material. Therefore, it’s the bible that claims that we came from rocks.
Nelson (#31) said:
Well, what do you expect – he himself says only Faith is important, not Works. And apparently that extends to Work-outs.
If only Faith is important, than why is it necessary for little cartoon punk kid to turn away from his sins. After all the doing, or the not-doing, that all falls in the category of Works.
Cuttlefish@26: I like your little ditty there.
That is true. That time was called the Dark Ages.
These morons live 3 or 4 decades longer due to modern science and are surrounded by all the products of 21st century science, computers, video cameras, cars, etc..
So they can bitch about scientists without having to fight with lions and bears over their dinner and a cave to sleep in while watching half their kids die before 5.
That made me so mad! That unfossilized tissue was found by Dr. Mary Schweitzer at NC State University; I’ve taken one of her classes, and to see her work used as “evidence” that evolution shocked me. I didn’t realize that the creationists kept up with new research just to twist it around.
Here is a link to an article about the find and an abstract of the paper:
http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/2007/april/065.html
used as “evidence” that evolution is wrong, rather.
The Objective Ministries page does appear serious right up until “1st Place: ‘My Uncle Is A Man Named Steve (Not A Monkey)'” I realize that a serious creation science fair might contain a similar exhibit, but no man named Steve would ever fall for that creationist nonsense.
This video is pretty good too. Better yet is the synopsis of the clip, where the poster pretty much says “I like to close my eyes really tightly so the mean evolutionists will go away.”
For some home schooled children, this is their biology lesson. Think about that. And there is enough people purchasing this video that the makers can afford to animate it with a pretty high degree of quality. This is a slick, well-funded package of lies. For children. A lot of children.
Wow, I can’t think of any more cutting indictment of creationism than that PZ felt it necessary to make a (long) post on how to tell the difference between the real thing and parody… I mean, if the difference is so subtle, you’d think that Creationists would catch on to the fact that their point of view is, well, ridiculous!
No way. Mormons have to marry within their faith. That is the only way she can go to the highest heaven and be a Celestial baby factory for all eternity.
That girl is doomed. And she knows it. Her only hope is to convert the heathen Catholic to Mormonism first. She knows that too. The usual, a biological clock ticking away and sheer desperation. That poor guy is about to find out what hell is like.
What I REALLY like is the noise of an old film projector going on in the background of what is “obviously” a Powerpoint-like presentation. Did the sound editors even think about this?
Parody!
Otherwise known as the DI Experimental Protocol
This crap just gets more egregious, even when morphed into
cartoonish presentation. I am so glad that there are sound
minded people who keep abreast of this steady outflow of
insanity and record it for us to be amused, but more often
to be outraged with incredulity and wanting to throttle
these morons with the cudgel of rationality. You cannot
beat sense into these morons; the best way is to constantly
ridicule them and force them to prove all their mindless
garbage with bare facts. Do we have the time and fortitude?
Hey, everyone knows we evolved from apes!
:-P
#52 said above,
“Remember, God made man… from clay. And clay consists of weathered rock material. Therefore, it’s the bible that claims that we came from rocks.”
To which I add . . . and if ‘our’ rock theory is ever proven, creationists will claim another victory for the accuracy of science in the Bible.
Oh come on, P.Z…
Any possible concerns you could have that the objective ministries site is real go flying out the window when you visit the merch section: http://www.cafepress.com/objectivemin.50869699
I mean, that’s comedic gold.
Sometimes, the non-homeschooled kids don’t have it much better!
I have to think that most people who really don’t like Objective Ministries’ site just don’t like things they have to think about too much (nod to Seinfeld’s TV execs). It’s caught a lot of people who should stick to obvious satire.
There’s a good response to this video found at the following url.
You know what I don’t get? Over and over these fundies will dis atheists, an occasional muslim or two, sometimes even the “wrong kind” of christian. While this video is one of the few I’ve seen that comes out and overtly demonizes anyone different, there’s really been no question in my mind that the negative characterizations of people who don’t want ID in the class, or biblical laws on the books, or abstinence education, etc., includes Jews, Hindus, and so on. The changes they want to see in this country won’t be affecting only atheists or agnostics, but everyone. So why, I wonder, does it seem like vocal atheists are the only ones leading the charge against them? Are Wiccans OK with learning bad science? Do Bahai approve of their taxes funding giant 10 commandments monuments? I mean, the fuss over this should be much, much bigger than it is. That it’s not is pretty frightening.
“First: Archaeologists don’t dig up dinosaur bones. Archaeologists study humans and the world they existed in.”
Feh. You and your details. Don’t you know that that’s where the DEVIL is?
“Have these cretins failed to notice that their cartoon spokesman is a fathead?”
He looks like the stock fat kid from The Far Side comics all grown up.
“There once was a time when scientists concurred with scripture!”
There was a time when bloodletting was the cure for what ailed you.
Why do they hate progress so?
Objective Ministries effectively mocks the credulous and is damn funny as well. Landover Baptist and similar parody sites are far too blunt tools for the task at hand. The fact that OM is reasonably subtle is the key to its effectiveness. By linking to real Xian websites and presenting only slightly more ridiculous arguments, they initially pass underneath the radar of many believers. The goal (as I imagine it) is to make increasingly ridiculous claims and eventually reach a state of dissonance within the unexamined belief system. I think that it is a good start.
That said, I am often amazed by the insipid “Far Side” style humor that entertains many scientists.
Wow macroevolution is one of the most disproved theories in history, and there was a time when science actually concurred with scripture! I did not know that. Cool.
H. Humbert (60) and Umlud (63) touched on something else I noticed while watching. If this is supposed to be high school kids, why is an ALPHABET CHART above the blackboard? Those went out with first grade – or is it simply that the homeschool equivalent of high schoolers still don’t know their alphabet? Also, as for the film projector, don’t they know that most classrooms (even in Georgia) have a computer to use in class for presentations like this? H. Humbert’s point about this being by and for homeschoolers seems to be spot-on, seeing how out of touch they are with what is really going on in real classrooms, right down to nitpicky details like this.
Very, very telling…
Drat. The second sentence, of course, was supposed to be outside the blockquote. Could PZ correct that and delete this post?
wow, evolved from a rock! That’s kinda harsh from someone who thinks we’re made of dirt/clay!
I seem to remember some scientists last year recovered some samples of T-Rex collagen from purified/unfossilized portions of a fossilized bone. They were then able to take this collagen and map its structure. They then compared this structure with species currently in existance and the one it resembled closest was the chicken, then frogs and newts. There was also another fossil from a matadon that was also found to be not 100% fossilized as fossils were all previously believed to be.
So this is another case of creationists taking an amazing discovery and then dumbing it down and running with it. The video implies the entire bone was unfossilized. This is not the case. The fact was always there that fossils are not completely fossilized, it was just so small that we never discovered it until the technology caught up. The video also states that they found “red blood cells” which is a flat-out lie. Collagen proteins were what was discovered, far less complex than a cell. Mistaking a red blood cell for a protein is like mistaking a your cruise-control button for your entire car… It is either ignorance of absurd levels or deliberate deception… in God’s Holy Name of course… so it’s ok.
The thing about the Objective Ministries site is that while some of the “honorable mention” titles are pretty clearly satire (I especially liked “Geocentrism: Politically Incorrect” and “Thermodynamics Of Hell Fire”), the “award winners”, along with some of the honorable mentions (like “Dinosaur & Man Walked Together”) actually represent arguments that creationists have made. I opened several Pharyngula pages up in tabs, and by the time I got to it I had to flip back to figure out if Objective was the parody or not.
I wrote up the T rex soft tissue stuff some time ago. They do not bring the age of the specimen into question at all — they do point out conditions which can preserve great detail at the cellular level, and which allows some of the organic material to persist.
I must say, that was **agonizingly** stupid.
This isn’t a parody, it’s a Kent Hovind presentation. :)
cm #36 wrote:
I prefer to see Creationists (and Christians) slag other religions. I’ve seen too many ecumenical lovefests where the “enemy” they can now all agree on is “secularism.” Gawd forbid they all get together…
Alison #74 wrote:
Probably because you’re reading an anti-creationist science blog written by a vocal atheist. Pro-evolution organizations like the National Center for Science Education have a lot of religious members, and plenty of them are hopping mad.
For evolutionists who are religious, the stakes are in some ways even higher. They understand that, if creationism is generally accepted as the true “Christian” position, it falsifies Christianity.
Meh.. I’ll laugh at idiocy whether it’s genuine or parody.
Because obviously every creature that walked the planet was fossilized, and when we don’t find them, they obviously never existed…
“the quote-mining _from the Bible
In polite society we call that “exegesis”.”
Great quote # 79, I am going to be quoting that for years and years. I hope that you just started a meme in biblical scholarship, if I have anything to do with it.
The detail that I enjoyed (and am suprised noone has commented on) is that in this supposedly high school classroom is the “ABCs” banner on the wall. You know, the one most of us had in K – 1st grade.
Well, that is a good age to indoctrinate with this crap.
Or “it has”.
There you go again! You owe an apology to good (and bad) parrots everywhere!
The ghost of Alex will haunt you if you don’t stop it.
May God save us from such ignorance (and if God doesn’t save us, at least that’s a justification for avoiding the ignorance).
Revolutioninchrist.com? Whose side are they on — or do they seriously not understand how bad that makes Christianity look?
I thought the Objective Ministries Creation Science Fair was a terrific parody; it cracked me up. That said, it’s true that some of the creationist arguments are so ridiculous that they’re beyond parody; they’re already unconscious self-parody. You just have to repeat them, Jon Stewart style, with a baffled look to get a laugh from an intelligent audience.
further deconstruction of the video
http://scrambled.wordpress.com/2008/03/10/a-critique-of-the-evilution-deception/#comments
@ GravityTakesFaith #23 (and Joe #73):
Thanks for the link to the YouTube rebuttal – now I’m off to watch the other Thunderf00t videos on the subject (the rebuttal was really well done).
Errr… now I’m confused. (I am so easily confused.) Was the video a parody, or not?
Errr… now I’m confused. (I am so easily confused.) Was the video a parody, or not?
“I opened several Pharyngula pages up in tabs, and by the time I got to it I had to flip back to figure out if Objective was the parody or not”.
Posted by: Midnight Rambler
Many years ago I was asked by someone in a museum to figure out whether the objective ministries science fair was real. It took me a few hours and some google tools, though the Paley name should have alerted me. The crying Jesus is a dead give-away. I love that site, it is brilliant parody.
Gee, I hope not, Украинка-Дорка. Because I’m so looking forward to the Evil Darwinian Machinations of the next Westminster Kennel Club show.
Wow. That’s really opened my eyes. I need to go back to church.
Nah, just kidding. :p
They understand that, if creationism is generally accepted as the true “Christian” position, it falsifies Christianity.
“moderate” xians have a lot of work to do then, to take back the direction of communication.
for the last 30 years, the creationists have stolen “their” show, with much help from various republican groups that like to utilize them as voting blocks.
frankly, I think it’s too late. They should have spoken up 30 years ago, when the neocons first started talking about grooming the fundies as a voting block. Now, McCain serves as an excellent example of just how far it’s gone – he criticized the fundies in 2000, and in 2008… he joins them.
the evangelicals have doomed xianity just as surely as a bullet to the head.
Likewise, muslim extremists have basically doomed Islam in exactly the same way.
…and after many years of considering the issue, I find the acceleration of the inevitable to actually be welcome.
so when ignorant extreme religious types get all vocal about their stupidity, I secretly love to see it, even while smacking down their idiotic arguments.
It’s great, because no matter how often you smack down their idiocy, they just “reset” the next day, and come back with the exact same, tired, much-refuted arguments.
eventually, (though with setbacks, I’m sure), they will merely act to accelerate the inevitable abandoning of religion.
videos like this one, and the creation museum, are fantastic accelerants. like throwing gasoline on a fire.
every cloud has a silver lining, I suppose.
@ thadd, #21
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fossil thinks a fossil must be mineralized.
Perhaps you could correct them?
I was under that impression, but the finding of a tissue inside a t-rex bone appears to have been valid
For more fun!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPUt6-ZG-Wc
No, really. It’s fun.
scienceteacherinexile (#91) – check out #78 – you weren’t the only one who noticed ;)
Rey Fox,
“He looks like the stock fat kid from The Far Side comics all grown up. ”
Thank you! Damn, it was killing me trying to think who that reminded me of.
Now that’s what I call art! It was slightly shocking though, but to hilarious to be scary. Also these things happen thankfully too far away…
Now this is satire.
Mr. Language Person says,
At the most basic etymology, “fossil” means that which was dug up or extracted from the earth, (re: fossil fuel).
Other words from the Latin root fossa : fossick (to dig, mine or root); fosse (a ditch or moat).
The mole is a fossorial animal.
Paleontologists might be more persnickety as to the nuances of what constitutes a “true” fossil, but they don’t own the word.