I hope I didn’t catch something in the Antipodes. There seems to be something awful going around down there: Ken Ham, Ray Comfort, and now…Gary Ablett, Sr. He’s an Australian rules footballer with a few seedy drug-related incidents in his past — he’s also a world-class moron. He’s just written a long and mostly incoherent complaint about atheists for the Herald Sun, a cheesy tabloid in Australia.

Maybe it’s the football — they play without the heavy armor American footballers wear, so maybe he’s got brain damage. After all, Jason Ball wrote a nice rebuttal, and he’s Australian, too, so it’s obviously not a Southern Hemisphere epidemic.

Given that Jason has addressed most of the silly claims of this poor pious twit, I’ll just mention one thing that caught my eye: the recycled fatuity so common to creationists. Ablett makes an old argument against evolution.

Let’s take another example. Evolution teaches that matter plus energy (light or heat) plus time equals biogenesis, the cause of new life.

Yet our entire food industry relies on the fact that the evolutionary formula doesn’t work. For example, if you take a jar of peanut butter (matter), expose it to light and heat (energy) and add time you will never get new life (biogenesis) in that jar. And are we grateful about that! Why is new life impossible in a sealed jar? Because we are missing the most important aspect: information.

The very reason food is sealed is to keep information out, it’s only if and when the seal is broken that a contamination can occur because information has got inside the jar! We need to take this fact very seriously because in the food industry this experiment is conducted over a billion times a year collectively, and has been doing so for more than a hundred years, which proves that the absence of information renders life impossible.

Does that sound familiar? It should. It’s practically verbatim from this quaint exhibition of stupidity by Chuck Missler (also, not from Australia or New Zealand — he’s an Idahoan).

No scientist gives much credibility to the ancient Peanut Butter Earth hypothesis. We suspect that life arose in a chemically active watery environment, not a big brown glop of concentrated fats and proteins in a jar in the Archaean. We’re also not surprised that life doesn’t spontaneously arise everywhere anymore: conditions on Earth are very different from those in the abiotic/early biotic period, and what’s more, any new life that arose now, improbable as that is, would face a world populated by bacteria with 4 billion years of evolutionary refinement behind them. So it’s a very, very stupid argument.

The rest of Ablett’s arguments are just as inane, and are similarly ripped off almost literally from common creationist canards. There’s nothing original and nothing intelligent anywhere in it — it’s just sad how feeble these guys are getting.

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Interestingly and entirely unsurprisingly, big chunks of Ablett’s article were plagiarized. It seems like most of their stuff can be traced back to a small population of ur-creationists in the 1960s, and there brains have been locked up solid ever since.

Man, I must have smacked Michael Ruse really hard. Over and over, he repeats one simple, common phrase that I applied to him — it must have been painfully memorable.

I have been called many things in my time, but I truly believe that “clueless gobshite” is a first. In a way, I am almost proud of this. After all, if you are in your seventieth year and someone feels so strongly about your ideas that they refer to you in this way, then you must be doing something right. Or if not exactly right, you must have ideas that others want to challenge so strongly that they pull out this kind of language.

It’s a very peculiar phenomenon. Here is the post in which I casually referred to Ruse as a “clueless gobshite”; I criticized him and Andrew Brown much more strongly than that one remark would imply, yet it is all that stuck in his head. He repeatedly agonizes over the cruelty of my remark, and acts as if all I had to say about him was one vicious, cutting cliche, and he encapsulates every criticism in that one insult. Further, he hangs himself on a cross and tries to claim he didn’t deserve even that, that his crime was of being too reasonable, of being generous and charitable.

And yet, I am excoriated at every turn. Why? Simply, because I am an “Accommodationist.” I think that some kind of intellectual meeting is possible with religious believers, including Christian religious believers.

Oh, poor Michael Ruse, that gentle-souled and open-minded fellow who merely wants to reach out to his fellow human beings with sympathy—how could he deserve such unkind criticism? I clutch my pearls with one hand, place the other on my brow, and gaze skyward with eyes welling tearfully, and then swoon upon the fainting couch installed handily near my desk. Michael, Michael, Michael…how could we abuse you so?

Actually, with good reason, and my attacks on his flawed character have been even stronger than you’d guess from his limited quoting. What prompted my rudeness wasn’t his pious apologetics for the common man, but that Ruse visited the Creation “Museum”, ignored the lunacy on display (except to express his sympathy with it), and went on to identify the real culprit in this anti-intellectual abomination.

Michael Ruse went to Ken Ham’s house, twirled about among the exhibits showing dinosaurs with saddles, Noah’s ark being built to carry off members of every species on earth, exhortations to accept Biblical literalism, and accusations of malice and dishonesty against every sensible biologists, and what do he and Andrew Brown do? Why, blame the atheists, of course.

That is insane.

What the hell is wrong with Ruse? How can he stand among the lies, with little children being told abominable fabrications, and think then that the pressing problem is people who demand evidence for their beliefs? I was unimpressed with his momentary show of self-serving “open-mindedness”; but I was disgusted with his completely inappropriate neglect of a genuine problem to fling blame at the people who have consistently opposed every facet of that monument to ignorance.

Michael Ruse really needs to carefully read my original complaint, because I’m not giving him a rhetorical slap because he’s too open-minded. I’m kicking him to the curb because ideas matter (something I would think a philosopher would care about), and he espouses a kind of waffling relativism that acts as if young earth creationism and science are equivalently deserving of respect, and that if atheists would just shut up we’d all be living in a happy, loving relationship with Ken Ham.

He’s not just a clueless gobshite. He’s a traitor to reason.

Kent Hovind’s infamous alma mater has put together a collection of responses because they are “under attack!” Only they aren’t—they’re being laughed at. And whoa, these pages are even more hilarious. (Warning: all of the links below go to pages that fire up some tedious piano music on autoplay…that you can’t turn off.)

The first one is offended at the falsehoods their critics promulgate. For instance, people have passed around this photo, claiming it is a picture of the Patriot University facilities:

It is a filthy lie! That is the minister’s house. To show how wrong this portrayal is, the staff at Patriot Bible University have released an official photograph of the wonderfully elegant, high-tech but traditional campus:

Well. I guess we can’t make fun of that anymore.

The second page can be summarized as “Don’t trust the internet, trust us!” They explain what is wrong with the internet:

Should you trust someone’s ‘factual’ information about morals when they post pornography, promote homosexuality, post curse words, and claim evolution as fact?

Whoa, somebody pass that along to the Intersection! I’m sure it will fit with their sentiment perfectly. Patriot University also has a simple test for evaluating the worth of a web page.

Would Jesus agree with the values and the message of the source of advice?

For some reason, this instantly stirred up an image of introducing Jesus to Dan Savage. My vision of Jesus is of an unkempt Jewish zealot with a madman’s fire in his eye and a dedication to those old testament laws, and no, I don’t think he’d get along with Dan at all — there’d probably be an impromptu stoning on the spot. But Christians always tell me that their version of Jesus is gentle, loving, understanding, and thoughtful — that Jesus would probably give Dan a big hug and thank him for his work. Which Jesus are we supposed to use in this exercise from PU? And isn’t this an admission that you’re just supposed to go along with stuff you like, assisted by the crutch of an imaginary cheerleader?

They also list the virtues of PU.

I. Patriot bases all teachings on the Bible and God’s absolute truth.
II. Patriot has been teaching God’s absolute truth for nearly 30 years.
III. Jesus said “He is the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6). Patriot believes this and follows Jesus, only.

Oh, yeah. I’m reassured.

Finally, they get around to discussing Kent Hovind.

Patriot does not retain ownership to student thesis’ or dissertations, as is commonly practiced by many schools. Instead, Patriot grants each student full control over the circulation of his/her work. Therefore, Patriot cannot release student work to the public. Patriot issues Bible degrees for the purpose of equipping students for ministry; Patriot is not a research institution.

Hovind’s dissertation was part of a graduate “project”. Thus, the paper being posted online was only a portion of Hovind’s initial research notes for his dissertation requirements. It is obviously not a finished product.

Hovind has been a prolific publisher of videos and books on topics involving Biblical Creation. He has participated in numerous video-taped debates. His work since 1991 has been widely distributed and stands on it’s own and supercedes an earlier written dissertation. There is no need to attack it and ignore what he has produced since then.

So that thesis that was posted on Wikileaks wasn’t actually Kent Hovind’s thesis. PU does not keep copies of theses, they are not submitted to any official archive, so basically, it doesn’t exist. Huh. Well, that certainly sounds professional.

That ragbag collection of noise that begins, “Hi, my name is Kent Hovind” was part of a “project”. What project could benefit from such haphazard trash, I don’t know. It clearly wasn’t a finished product. Where is the finished product? Don’t ask the degree-granting institution!

Yeah, Kent Hovind’s work since 1991 does stand on its own as rank raving idiocy. We laugh at that, too.

Strangely, this defense of Kent Hovind doesn’t mention his current residency in a penitentiary, convicted of tax evasion.

There was a bit of unwarranted controversy in Richard Dawkins’ talk here at the Global Atheist Convention. In the Q&A at the end, one woman got the microphone, declared that she was a believer, announced that she was grateful to a god, and asked the question, “What is DNA? Where did DNA come from?” (and she did not ask in the tone of someone who sincerely wanted an answer to a basic question in biology.) She was loudly but briefly jeered, before Dawkins and the organizers quieted the audience, and then Richard went on to answer the question politely and at length.

Some people felt badly about the audience reaction, and at least one person apologized to her. I don’t and wouldn’t. I think the response was perfect.

The woman seemed to want to trap Dawkins in what she presumably thought was a very clever question, but was actually naive and a waste of the audience’s time. It is good that the audience was not passive, but expressed their opinion of the stupidity of her attempt to sidetrack the conversation, and it is good that the speaker gave her a fair hearing and an honest answer (although, apparently, she did not accept the answer, anyway, not that she would have accepted anything but that “God did it”.) There were a few other instances — I’m thinking particularly of the fellow who pontificated at ridiculous and incoherent length in AC Grayling’s Q&A—where people inappropriately tried to turn their moment in the spotlight into a chance to speechify.

A little incivility is a good thing. That woman was an idiot, and I’m pleased that that was briefly expressed to her by the audience before an honest attempt was made to address her point.

A similar sort of intrusion occurs just about every day in my email, and here’s a recent example. Apparently, this buffoon just stumbled across an article I wrote in 2006 which describes a remarkable human chromosome rearrangement that was still viable, and didn’t understand it…except that he could tell that it was supposed to correct a common creationist misconception which he’d rather not see falsified. So he writes a letter in the standard creationist style, beginning with a dismissal, following with a question that he doesn’t care to see answered anyway, and then rambling off into a completely different point that he copy&pasted from somewhere. Seriously, this is pretty much the typical noise I get from these loons; I don’t bother to reply, because, like the woman at the conference, they won’t listen anyway.

I think it needs more jeering from the audience, though.

Oh, and the weird font size changes and inconsistent paragraph breaks (at least this one used paragraphs!)? Yeah, that’s what he sent me. Please, please, please, creationists, when you write to me, if you must, go into your mail software and make sure it’s sent as plain text, rather than formatted text, which will strip out all your quirky games with fonts. Typographical incompetence seems to be one of the most common symptoms of the brain damage associated with the creationist mind.

Hello just thought with all your confident
propaganda you could demonstrate (not cite) an example of
species change from Chromosome rearrangements
which of cause would be necessary for any theory explaining us being here
by chance.

“Creationists sometimes try to argue that what we consider straightforward,
well-demonstrated cytological and genetic events don’t and can’t occur: that you
can’t
get chromosome rearrangements, or that variations in chromosome number and
organization are obstacles to evolution, making discussions
of synteny, or the rearrangement of chromosomal material in evolution, an
impossibility. These are absurd conclusions, of course—we see evidence of
chromosomal variation in people all the time.”

“variation in people” what ! they are becoming another life
form?

Question – if the human brain has far more capacity than
is necessary for a lifetime and yet evolutionists say a life form develops
according to need “adaptation” or “Natural selection” should we not be at point
of having a brain with just the capacity we need ?

Robert Birge (Syracuse University) who studies the storage of
data in proteins estimated in 1996 that the memory capacity of the brain was
between one and ten terabytes, with a most likely value of 3 terabytes. Such
estimates are generally based on counting neurons and assuming each neuron holds
1 bit. Bear in mind that the brain has far better algorithms for compressing
certain types of information than computers do. Source
The human brain
contains about 50 billion to 200 billion neurons (nobody knows how many for
sure), each of which interfaces with 1,000 to 100,000 other neurons through 100
trillion (10 14) to 10 quadrillion (10 16) synaptic junctions. Each synapse
possesses a variable firing threshold which is reduced as the neuron is
repeatedly activated. If we assume that the firing threshold at each synapse can
assume 256 distinguishable levels, and if we suppose that there are 20,000
shared synapses per neuron (10,000 per neuron), then the total information
storage capacity of the synapses in the cortex would be of the order of 500 to
1,000 terabytes. (Of course, if the brain’s storage of information takes place
at a molecular level, then I would be afraid to hazard a guess regarding how
many bytes can be stored in the brain. One estimate has placed it at about 3.6 X
10 19 bytes.) Source
The brain has about 100 billion nerve cells, so at least
that many bits (about 10 gigabytes) could be stored, assuming the brain uses
binary logic. But it probably doesn’t do so. Instead, information is believed to
be stored in the many connections that form between the cells. This is a much
larger number: Current estimates of brain capacity range from 1 to 1000
terabytes! It would take 1,000 to 10,000 typical disk drives to store that much
information.

The above about covers current info regarding brain’s capacity
as compared to comp equivalent. Nevertheless, this only scratches the surface of
the brain issue, which seems to be as huge as a nano universe.

I’m not a “creationist” I believe in a creator not “absurd conclusions”

David Staples ( my10 quadrillion (10 16)
synaptic junctions can be my qualifications for having the Gall to reply to a
‘lettered intellectual’)

I will attempt to answer these questions as well as I can, given their inanity.

First, David Staples, you are an ass.

Second, I am in a hotel in Australia, and you are communicating with me via the internet. Yet you will not be satisfied with a citation of some evidence, but want a demonstration of speciation right here? What do you expect me to do, scoop up a couple of populations of marsupial mice, set them to mating, and squeeze the fucking mice through the intertubes to pop out in front of you? Well, all you are going to get from me is a link: here’s a list of observed instances of speciation that includes some examples of variations in chromosome organization that were part of the mechanism of reproductive isolation.

Third, evolution includes a significant and necessary chance component to produce the variation that we see in the world around us. You are here by chance; the oocyte that erupted in your mother’s ovary at the time your father’s sperm was present for conception contained a random half of her genome, while the particular sperm that managed to penetrate that egg was one of billions in the neighborhood, and also contained a random half of your father’s genome. You are a child of chance. And, unfortunately, it looks like you crapped out.

I will also add that evolution is not merely about chance, but also includes a non-random component, selection, which can cull out failures and impose a progressive element of better adaptedness to the environment on the process. Selection is not infallible, however, as we can see by the fact that you are still around, tapping in your semi-illiterate fashion at a computer.

Fourth, you apparently were incapable of comprehending the article that I wrote, which does make me wonder why you are bothering to pester me further. I thought it would be obvious that there is “variation in people” — after all, I am clearly a normal human being, while you are a cretin — and even a cretin ought to be able to notice that Angelina Jolie looks slightly different from Wesley Snipes. The point of my article was that there are also hidden chromosomal variations in people that do not make them members of a different species. So no, they are not turning into another life form.

Fifth, what does your question about the brain have to do with the article you are citing? Are you even capable of sustaining a single coherent thought in your head in the time it takes you to compose a short email message?

Sixth, the human brain does not have far more capacity than is necessary for a lifetime. Case in point: you. You seem to be a bit deficient. I also know that I happen to use my brain as much as I can, and if anything, wish I had a lot more capacity.

Seventh, evolution does not produce individuals with some kind of optimized ideal capacity for a specific condition and situation; it produces viable individuals who are good enough, and chance variation means that some will be less capable in particular situations and others will be more capable. We are also dealing with competing solutions: you, for instance, are a bit of a twit with very little brain, but you might be quite capable of stumbling into an opportunity to reproduce (alas), and that is all that matters to evolution.

Eighth, the brain is big and complicated. Very big and very complicated. So? It evolved. We can find a whole range of brain sizes in the animal kingdom, so we can see the steps that led up to the large organ we have; there is no reason to suppose that we need supernatural explanations to account for its origin, any more than the fact that our brains develop from a single cell to their massive size during development without the assistance of magic or angels.

Ninth, the article you quoted is garbage. It makes the fundamental error of comparing a brain to a lump of binary computer memory; the comparison does not work. Brains are analog, not digital; they compute more than they store; assigning a bit value to whole neurons is nonsensical.

Tenth, I don’t know what you are, but a creator is an absurd conclusion.

Eleventh, you have approximately the same number of synapses as anyone else. The quantity of meat in your head entitles you to no special privileges; we care more about what you can do with it. And all indications are that your three pounds of cranial stuffing have been sadly abused and neglected.

The NCSE has announced a new award, the Upchuckies, for the most nauseating creationist of the year. Their first slate of competitors was about as disgusting as an old cat box, more revolting than a snot bath with fecal chunks, and included Al Jazeera (bleh), Ray Comfort (gag), Casey Luskin (I think I’m gonna…), and Don McLeroy (huuuuuurl). Jeez, just reviewing their records would be an unpleasant experience in sleaze, slime, and stupidity.

The “winner” is McLeroy. I don’t have a clue how they made the decision. Maybe they just weighed the puke buckets placed in front of their CVs.