You Are Dumb - Creationists

Nobody Does It Dumber

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:10:31 -0500

Creationists, 8 July 2008

Memo to Andy Schlafly: YOU ARE DUMB.

You gotta hand it to creationists. They're like the Terminators of stupid. They can't be bargained with, they can't be reasoned with, and they absolutely will not stop until long after you've given up and moved onto something more interesting. On the off chance you persist in thinking that eventually, a preponderance of scientific evidence will win them over, then let Andy Schlafly be your guide to enlightenment through lack of enlightenment. It's very Zen.

Andy Schlafly is the founder of Conservapedia. You remember Conservapedia. It's that right-wing answer to the ostensibly fact-based Wikipedia. It's also the only website on the planet to derive 99.5% of its traffic from the drive-by horrified mockery of people with functioning brain stems. Schlafly took issue with the biological research of Richard Lenski, who's been working with the nice version of everyone's favorite spinach contaminant, E. coli.

You see, E. coli doesn't eat citrate. You put E. coli in a petri dish full of citrate, and it's like bringing a vegan to a McDonalds. They'll smile politely, tell you they'll pick something up later, and secretly wonder what the fuck you were thinking bringing them there. But then a funny thing happened. A random mutation produced some E. coli that would, if you'll pardon the extension of the analogy, "try the Chicken McNuggets". And it wasn't long before the McNugget-loving bacteria thrived in the McNugget-rich environment. This is what those in the know call EVOLUTION.

This is a bit of a problem for creationists, because one of the things creationists like to say is that evolution has never been directly observed in a laboratory setting. And here we have the culmination of 20 years of work, directly observing evolution in a laboratory setting. Given the choice between reconstructing an entire, heavily-invested worldview based on known fact and remaining asshole creationists, Schlafly took the path of least resistance* and decided to discredit Lenski and his research.

If you're familiar with any of the right-wing attempts at investigative journalism over the years, from the Dan Rather memo to the 12-year-old kid promoting SCHIP, then you know the pattern. You start with a desired endpoint, and assume that every single thing you do not understand is a bread crumb leading to that endpoint. And since creationists are by their very nature obscenely lacking in understanding, their underlying principle of "If I cannot conceive of it, it is therefore inconceivable" got quite the hefty workout.

In this particular case, Schlafly read a New Scientist news article about Lenski's paper and fired off a request to Lenski for his data to help him assuage his skepticism. Lenski responded that, with a few minor omissions due to space considerations, that all the data was in the paper, which Schlafly hadn't read, and the rest of it would be on his website. Schlafly responded with what essentially boils down to "Why won't you give me your data, what have you got to hide?" Lenski, knowing full well what he was dealing with, responded appropriately.

Lenski's full and utterly devastating smackdown can be found here, but for those who enjoy paraphrasing, allow me to summarize in bullet form:

You're not very bright, are you?
I'm sorry, but this appears to be a twenty-dollar Wendy's gift certificate with the Wendy's logo crossed out and the words "PHd in Bilology" written over it in crayon. And "biology" has one "l".
I'm not sure what you think scientists do all fucking day, but I've got the bacteria right here. I've got the old bacteria, I've got the new bacteria, I've got genetic analysis coming out my tenured and well-toned ass. I've spent twenty years on this, and you run one of the biggest laughingstocks on the Internet, an environment where competition amongst laughingstocks is brutal and fierce.
You can have the data. Heck, you can have some of the bacteria. Of course, there are necessary regulatory and bureaucratic hoops you'll need to go to, as we don't actually pop used Styrofoam cups full of E. coli in the mail to any right-wing douchebag with an e-mail address.

At which point Conservapedia took the bold step of acting all hurt and putting lots of middle-school snark in any page even remotely related to the nouns and verbs under discussion, all the while looking way, way up at us from what they, with their keen grasp of science, perceive as the moral high ground. I'm not sure why they're bothering. It's not like Lenski's work is going to stop creationists from saying evolution has never been observed in the lab. They lie about six things before breakfast. They can fit in a seventh just by lingering over their Jimmy Dean patty.

Still, righteous indignation works better when you can convince yourself you've proven something, and I'm sure the Conservapedia Conservafluffle will provide just enough cover to allow creationists to sleep comfortably at night, convinced that Lenski is just one more cog in the great conspiracy Satan started when he buried all those bones.

*Also known as the path of most resistance to reality

Tesla Would Be Pissed

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:15:28 -0500

Education, 26 June 2008

Memo to fundies: I DON'T WANNA HEAR IT.

That's it. No more claims of persecution and victimization. No more crusades against the ACLU and activist judges. I don't wanna fucking hear it. We need the ACLU and the judges, because the fact is, if you had your way, our schools would be full of John Freshwaters. And without the ACLU and the courts, you would in fact have your way.

Even without the ACLU and the courts, Mount Vernon, Ohio had the actual John Freshwater for 21 years, teaching science classes. Not teaching science, of course, but teaching science CLASSES. Even though there were at least eleven years of complaints about him, he was there, in his eighth grade classroom, branding crosses into his students' arms with a Tesla coil.

I. Shit. You. Not.

More accurately, it was a BD-10A High Frequency Generator, which is meant to ionize gases in test tubes. Freshwater obviously found a unique scientific use for the device, which its manufacturer said was not meant to be used on skin. You'd think that'd be a given for any device producing 50,000 volts at the tip, but the prospect of bending Devil Science to God's will was just too tempting for poor John Freshwater.

But we should probably back up a bit. When one of the students whose arm he branded with a cross actually complained, that's when he FINALLY got in trouble, and will likely be fired. That's what sparked, if you will, the investigation that brought him down. Here's what this fucker was pulling before that:

He had the Ten Commandments and other religious posters papering his classroom. When they finally got around to asking them to take them down, he took down all but one. Which is exactly the kind of behavior you'd expect from the radical follower of a noble martyr, I suppose.

Keeping between a minimum of two and a maximum, if reports are to be believed, a metric shitload of bibles in his classroom at all times. When we say the public schools are having a tough time providing books for the student, we're not asking teachers to play Gideon.

Teaching evolution begrudgingly, telling students he was being forced to teach it, then telling them it was wrong and telling them all about creationism and intelligent design, using the same type of "alternate materials" Louisiana wants to permit. How bad was it? The high school could always tell which students had been through Freshwater's class, because they had to spend extra time overwriting all the bullshit Freshwater poured into their little Midwestern heads.

Giving his class an extra-credit assignment to watch "Expelled", an act which makes the branding incident seem almost kind by comparison.

Saying the cross he branded on the student's arm was an "X", which is doubly stupid - first, because there were photos of the burn that showed it was clearly a cross, and second, because "X" is not exactly devoid of fundamentalist significance.

And you know, we wouldn't have to rely on the ACLU and the courts to weed out and stop bastards like Freshwater if, after all these things have been revealed, there weren't hundreds of local citizens still supporting him and claiming he's being persecuted for his faith. He's not being persecuted for his faith. He's being persecuted for expressing his faith in the FLESH OF HIS STUDENTS. But that's just fine with some people on the inevitable local newspaper comments thread. RAPID FIRE ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"If we had more teachers like Freshwater, the moslems would never have bombed New York."

"Believe what you want but don't take my rights away to believe what I want. The schools have stepped over the line by allowing evolution to be taught in the first place. THAT was the FIRST mistake in all of this."

"This report proves this is nothing more than a witch hunt bought and paid for by folks with the intent to "prove" their point and then use thereport as the backbone to terminate this teacher."

"Well, evolution offends me as it is not true. A man wrote a book on evolution whereas God the Creator is the author of the Holy Bible."

We can't make you think. We can't make you stop being wrong. But we can keep you from using the authority of your public-school, government-endorsed position to give your wrongness official imprimatur. And we're going to keep doing it no matter how much you whine, no matter how many students you brand.

The Freedom To Be Wrong

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:34:51 -0500

Louisiana, 19 June 2008

Memo to Creationists: STAY DOWN.

I suppose it's too much to ask that a group of people who don't know how old the Earth is might know when to give up, but a man can hope. After two and a half blissful years of peace and quiet while the stupidest people on the planet licked their wounds, they have risen like a retarded Dracula once again, in Louisiana, in the form of Senate Bill 733, which will likely be signed into law in a matter of days.

Senate Bill 733 is full of the latest attempts to get the Six-Thousand-Year-Old Earth into public school curricula. It does so by hiding behind perfectly reasonable language that is difficult to object to at face value, but whose purpose becomes clear once you remember that creationists are crazy fucking idiots who cannot be trusted. ACTUAL BILL TIME!

"The State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, upon request of a city, parish, or other local public school board, shall allow and assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning."

Who doesn't love critical thinking? Who could possibly oppose logical analysis? Who in their right mind would stand athwart open and objective discussion? Well, actually, creationists would. In classic Rovian jujitsu, they adopt the mantle of what they hate, disguising themselves as a member of the herd so they can destroy it from within. The kicker is the topics they single out for mention. What do they all have in common? They just HAPPEN to be the bits fundamentalists lose their shit over. And how will this alleged open discussion happen?

"A teacher shall teach the material presented in the standard textbook supplied by the school system and thereafter may use supplemental textbooks and other instructional materials to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner..."

And there you have it. Teachers teach the correct stuff, and then, to provide a balanced view, can bring in pictures of Jesus ministering to dinosaurs and Noah sailing down the newly formed Grand Canyon. But wait, you say. The Louisiana Legislature is an ostensibly secular body! I'm sure they don't have any particular religious tradition in mind when they open the classroom up to dissenting views." And you would be an adorably naive strawman if you did. But the proof of religious intent is right there in the bill itself. Check this out:

"This Section shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion."

There's your proof right there. There are two possible reasons to include this clause. One, that they mean it, and that this bill, promoted heavily by the hyper-Christian whackjobs at the Louisiana Family Forum and the hyper-Christian whackjobs at the Discovery Institute, doesn't promote any religion at all, especially fundamentalist whackjob Christianity.

The other possibility is that the Louisiana legislature, knowing what's happened to creationism and intelligent design in the courts, is stupid enough to think they can survive judicial review if they just mention, in passing, that by the way, we don't mean anything religious by this bill that allows the teachers of a deeply religious Southern state to bring in additional materials on a series of hot-button science issues important to Christians.

It would be funny if it weren't the people of Louisiana whose tax dollars will be wasted fighting this thing all the way through however many appellate courts it will take them to give up. Actually, it'll STILL be funny. It'd just be funnier if they weren't actively damaging a state that has not had an easy time of it this decade. On the other hand, a majority of these people DID vote for Bobby Jindal, the Republican governor who claims to have performed a cancer-curing exorcism in his youth and who, of the bill he's about to sign, said the following:

"I personally think human life and the world we live in wasn’t created accidentally. I do think that there’s a creator. Now the way that he did it, I’d certainly want my kids to be exposed to the very best science. I don’t want any facts or theories or explanations to be withheld from them because of political correctness."

If you elect a governor who's openly vowing to do what he can to avoid correctness, then you're going to end up fucked over on account of being incorrect. See you all in a courtroom in a year or two.

Let's All Go To The Movies

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:04:29 -0500

Movies, 18 April 2008

Memo to my audience: HAPPY EXPELLED DAY!

Yes, it's finally here! Like the rest of you, ever since I first learned about Ben Stein's Creationist Citizen Kane, I've been looking forward to its theatrical release. And today is the day!

Now, I realize the target audience for a movie about how Darwinists are all a bunch of Communist Nazis who use their awesome power and influence to suppress the truth about Intelligent Design* is a fundamentally skeptical audience. Before you pile your five kids in your Range Rover with the Jesus fish on the bumper and head down to the multiplex to watch the anti-evolution movie with some selectively-bred and/or genetically modified popcorn, you want to know if this movie is any good. Well, luckily for you, I found me one of them experts.

And not just any expert, either. This is Greg Steir, founder of the oft-mocked Dare 2 Share youth ministry, whose Christian Post review I stumbled upon in one of those happy accidents the Internet makes possible. He brings teenagers to Christ using his uncanny blend of media savvy and web design, so you know his opinion on "Expelled" can be trusted.

Steir didn't just like "Expelled", he liked it so much he titled his review "Expelled Is Excellent". And lest you think that alliteration is his only skill, check out a critical analysis so refined and complex that it couldn't have arisen by chance. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"This documentary exposes the hypocrisy of the high brow intellegensia and shows that most are only open to free speech and debate if it happens on their side of 'the wall' (a term that is coined to describe the closed thinking of many evolutionists to consider any other origin options than evolution.) 'Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed' pulls their fancy pants down and spanks em good."

Note the clever way he subtly mocks the intelligentsia by not spelling their name right. And I have to say, there are few phrases more reassuring coming from the pen of a youth minister who spends a lot of time on the Internet than "pulls their fancy pants down and spanks em good".

Now, some of you may question whether a man like Steir, obsessed as he is with exposing the tender bottom-flesh of his intellectual betters, might have the scientific and rational grounding required to correctly evaluate Ben Stein's creationist propaganda. Allow me to put those fears to rest! Steir has anticipated your skepticism and provided a curriculum vitae so astonishing it will, quite literally, leave you speechless:

"Where do I stand in the Creation vs. Evolution debate? Suffice it to say that I take Genesis chapter 1 at face value. Call me a brute. Call me a literalist. Call me a Neanderthal (actually don't call me that one). But don’t ever accuse me of not taking the Bible seriously. Although I have friends that vigorously debate with me on this, I just can’t get away from how plainly the first chapter of Genesis describes how everything began…and I believe it. Because I’m a scientist? No. I wasn’t even that good at science. I believe it because the Bible says it.

For the record? Any twinges of guilt I might have had over mocking Dare 2 Share in the past? You know, because they come across as essentially clueless but well-intentioned given their worldview? See that window? Well, the twinges just went right fucking out it. If scientific process depended on how plainly things were described, we'd still be burning shit for warmth and fighting over which neighbor was the witch who caused our cow to wither and die. The only reason a movie like Expelled can make the kind of headway it does in our culture is that our culture is filled with fuckwits like Steir who desperately need to reconcile their dung-fire beliefs with a world full of airplanes and motion pictures.

And today, Ben Stein just gave them a big dose of the crap they need to keep themselves mentally warm through the cold, dark, secular, atheist, Nazi, communist, Darwinist night. Yay!

* Well, except for the big-budget documentary opening in 1000-plus theaters, including seven Twin Cities locations. But other than that, Darwinists are more about suppression than Valtrex.

The Most Dumbderful Time Of The Year

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 22:52:13 -0600

Creationists, 17 December 2007

Memo to Creationists: WHAT IS IT ABOUT DECEMBER?

I remember thinking this around this time last year - that the creationists were getting uppity. I can't explain it, but there seems to be an increase in young-earth stupidity during December. I don't know why this is, but I've developed several hypotheses. For any creationists reading this, a "hypothesis" is something that has most of the properties you ascribe, inaccurately, to a "theory".

My first hypothesis is hibernation. During the winter months, a number of mammals go into a state of drastically reduced metabolism. Their heart rate and brain activity drop to negligible levels. I propose that at some level, creationists realize this is happening, and think they're better able to compete now that the mammalian average intelligence level has been lowered by all those napping bears.

My other hypothesis is that December caps several months of creationists being, on the one hand, bombarded with imagery that reinforces the cultural dominance of their particular subspecies of superstition; and on the other hand, being constantly told by Bill O'Reilly and such that their cultural dominance is threadbare and constantly under seige. This emboldens them to step forth and spray their ridiculous ideas like a diseased hyena marking its territory.

Both hypotheses have their merits, but I like the hibernation one better, because it's loosely based on biology as opposed to sociology. And biology confuses and angers creationists, as is evidenced by Kelly Cote Jasper of Edina, the latest in a string of creationists to get their screed on in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Unlike the student I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, and the fellow creationist student who wrote in to defend him a few days after that, Jasper's ramblings were relegated to the online-only second-tier of reader opinion, and it's not difficult to see why. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"The Dec. 13 article, 'Why pregnant women don't topple over' was fascinating. Thank goodness for "evolution" of my spine or I might have toppled over during my three pregnancies. I had no idea. I am just so thankful that my 'ancestors' walked on all fours, or, before the evolution of the spine they would have toppled over and killed all their unborn apes, and then I would not be here. Whew! It is amazing to think that I am just a hapless accident that evolved from a Big Bang millions of years ago and yet, for some reason here I am, fancy spine and all. Even more amazing is that some people, who have eyes to see, can still be so blinded and not see God."

This is why creationists can't be trusted with sarcasm. Jasper accidentally got the whole fucking thing right up until the last sentence. Her distant ancestors walked on all fours. Of her more recent ancestors that walked on two legs, the ones where the females had a wedge-shaped lower vertebrae and larger hip bones thrived while others didn't, allowing more offspring to survive and thus propagating those traits. She really is a hapless accident that evolved. OK, you don't "evolve" from the Big Bang, that's mixing cosmology with biology, which creationists tend to do because they both disagree with Genesis. And the Big Bang wasn't millions of years ago, but what's a few orders of magnitude when we all know the first three decimal places are the only three that matter?

The point is, she really does get the gist of it. She just derisively dismisses it with what passes for snark amongst her people. She does this because, well, in the grand scheme of things, some accidents are more hapless than others. Scientists at the University of Texas spent a few years studying fossils, comparing anatomical structures, and doing engineering tests showing weight distribution, and drew a conclusion. That conclusion got sent out in a press release, and written up by an Associated Press writer that used the word "evolution" enough times to trigger a primal response in what passes for this Edina woman's brain. She then instinctively dismisses those years of work because they don't agree with the first chapter of her favorite novel, and having done so, comes to the conclusion that it's US who are blind.

Now that I think of it, I hope the sociological hypothesis is true. Because if it is, these brain-sloths will shut up again come January. If it's the hibernation thing, they'll keep yammering until the bears wake up in the spring.

Candid Webcam

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 22:56:33 -0600

Bestiality, 13 December 2007

Memo to "scordova": COME OUT FROM BEHIND THE FERN.

This has to be a gag. A joke. An elaborate trollerization attempt aimed squarely at yours truly. There's no other possible explanation for the existence of the Grand Unified Theory of Dumb, a concept that unites the two most popular concepts ever to appear on this site in its four-year history: creationism and horse-fucking.

Yet there it is, a moronic convergence, sitting there on the Young Cosmos creationist blog: a post blaming Darwinism for Kenneth "fucked to death by a horse" Pinyan. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

You see, once upon a time, an ill-advised Darwinist did not practice safe sex, but rather unsafe sex — with a horse!!!! Unfortunately for him, he died a few hours after copulating with a horse, not too far from the Discovery Institute’s headquarters. One of the top Darwinists in the world, Dr. Peter Singer, advocates human-animal sex. But there are consequences to such physiologically ill-advised behaviors as empirically demonstrated by this poor chap’s demise….."

Oh, no, fucker. You don't get to pin this one on us. Pinyan's death did not arise out of a superior understanding of biology, but rather an insufficient understanding of physics. Specifically, the principle that two objects cannot occupy the same physical space. It's merely coincidence that the two objects in this particular instance were a gigantic horse cock and Pinyan's dumper.

Also, other than how he died, we know nothing about Kenneth Pinyan. For most purposes, we know enough, but I must assume that "scordova" came to his or her conclusion that Pinyan was a Darwinist by taking his recreational life choices and working backwards. Because no God-fearing creationist would ever die during a, shall we say, non-traditional sexual act. Nope. Never happened. It's like all the fuckers blaming the Colorado church shootings on various anti-Christian elements, only to have it end up being perpetrated by the most anti-Christian element of all, a kid who spent his whole life growing up in the "ideal" repressive God-fearing household.

Also, you will not be surprised to learn that Peter Singer does not actually advocate human-animal sex. Nor, based on the fact that I'd never heard of him before and had to look his Australian ass up, is he one of the top Darwinists in the world. What he -is- is a philosopher. A professional, academic philosopher. Which means it's his job to think and write about topics in a lengthy and nuanced manner, and also write about the lengthy, nuanced things OTHER professional philosophers have thought and written about.

Since that last sentence contains at least half a dozen words that creationists eschew as a matter of principle, it's no wonder they've boiled down Singer's evaluation of what other philosophers have said on the topic of fucking animals to, basically, "he thinks we should all get fucked in the ass by horses". To the extent that I'm willing to look into it*, the fundies are aghast that Singer objects to bestiality on practical grounds - that it's frequently abusive and nonconsensual - rather on some larger, God-delivered moral principle that humans are separate from the rest of the animal kingdom and thus should not stick their dicks into anything but their married partner's vagina on those occasions they wish to produce offspring.

I know. Creationists getting things wrong. Quelle surprise. But what I love about it is just how matter-of-fact they are about it, Of course Darwinists support bestiality! It's as if I said that supporters of the flat tax are also in favor of eating poor babies. Only without the comedic hyperbole for which I'm world-renowned. I mean, it's clear that there are flat-tax supporters who don't eat poor babies, and in any event, any correlation would still not imply causation.

Even the commenter who warns against tarring all non-creationists with the zoophilia brush makes sure to mention that "Although, I fully recognize that Singer and other Darwinists find human-animal sexual relations morally acceptable (and I’ve had a conversation with a Darwin supporter who actually ended up posting about her acceptance of this type of behavior)..." Gee, thanks, nitwit. I feel so much better now that you've scaled back the link between evolution and animal-fucking to "anecdotal and tenuous".

Maybe they're just confused. I mean, obviously, they're confused, but I mean in a specific way related to the joke I'm about to tell. Maybe they think the Darwin Awards are actual awards given out for excellence in Darwinism, and thus, when people talked about Pinyan as deserving of such an award, they figured that the evolutionary science community was actually bestowing their highest honor on him for his brave, albeit fatal, exploration of interspecies romance. Which is a hilariously stupid mistake, but would actually be a startling display of deductive reasoning from someone who thinks the universe is 6,000 years old.

*Which is, for the record, the bits of his Wikipedia entry that have citations - I'm not going primary-source-hunting on bestiality when I have a cold.

What The Flock?

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 21:40:44 -0600

Creationists, 6 December 2007

Memo to Sherri Shepherd: YOU ARE DUMB.

There are three things that prevent me from watching The View: my job, my brain, and my penis. Yet somehow, despite my complete lack of interest, the show not only survives, it thrives. And thrives so much that the media thinks I need to know every time the cast rotates. Hint: I don't.

I don't know how, but The View must have hit on some kind of winning formula. And while I have no idea what that formula is, I can tell you this much. It doesn't rely on all the hosts knowing what that formula is either. Or what A formula is. Or how to spell "formula". Ladies and gentlemen, meet Sherri Shepherd, The View's newest co-host. Stand-up comic, veteran of several recent sitcoms, and willing participant in "Who's Your Caddy?". And, despite her perfectly acceptable turn on "30 Rock", a complete and utter idiot.Apparently, back in September, she proclaimed her complete disbelief of evolution. Which is fine. Well, it's not FINE fine, but when it comes to jobs I don't want creationists to fill, "View co-host" is a lot less troubling than "presidential candidate". Anyway, Whoopi Goldberg asked her, as a follow-up, if the world was flat, and here's what Shepherd said:

"I never thought about it, Whoopi. Is the world flat? I never thought about it. But I tell you what I thought about. How am I gonna feed my child, how am I gonna take care of my family. The world... is the world flat has never entered into, like, has not been an important thing to me... If my son, Jeffrey, asks me is the world flat, I guess I will go and look it up."

I love this. Love it love it love it. And not because a talk show host, on national television, is equivocating and hedging about the SHAPE OF THE EARTH. No, what I love about it is the idea that somehow, even contemplating the shape of the earth puts her and her children in danger of starvation. It's just too damn much work. Flat or round? No time to decide. No time to even teach the controversy! Child must eat!

If only Joe Klein* had thought of that excuse. That would have been awesome.

A day later, she explained that she wasn't stupid. She knows the earth is round, she just got flustered and confused by the question. Which, again, is the kind of excuse our leaders should consider using. Bush could admit he's known for years that Iran wasn't building a bomb, he just got flustered every time he had to talk about it.

Fast forward to this week. The Viewbots are discussing Epicurus, for reasons I dare not contemplate. Cue Shepherd to set the record straight on the historical pecking order.

"They [the Greeks] had Christians because they threw them to the lions!" [Whoopi:] "I think this might predate that." [Shepherd:] "I don't think anything predated Christians." [Behar:] The Greeks were first, then the Romans, then the Christians. [Shepherd:] "Jesus came first, before them, so... I... OK..."

A-fucking-stonishing. I knew there were young earth creationists. I even knew there were heliocentric creationists. But Shepherd seems to be promoting New Testament creationism, shaving another four thousand years off the age of the Earth and declaring the birth of Jesus to be the Immaculate Big Bang.

That's a tough sell, but as a creationist, she's got the fundamentals, as it were, to pull it off. Attack anthropologists as secular liberals! Satan buried clay pots as a test of our faith! Demand that people who believe in Socrates are forced to drink some kind of indeterminate plant-based poison!

Do it for the children, Shepherd. All the poor children being lied to in history classes. Get Texas to demand textbooks that cover the entire historical record, from Jesus to... well, Jesus. Teach Whoopi and her round-earth, partial-Jesus history a lesson none of us will soon forget.

* Google terms for getting this joke: Klein Greenwald FISA.

Nooks And Crannies

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:47:03 -0600

Creationists, 4 December 2007

Memo to Spencer Lasley: THANK YOU FOR YOUR RETROGRADE BULLSHIT.

I'm not sure how old you are, or what prompted you to write a letter to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Was it your parents? A church youth group pastor? Who knows, it may even have been your own idea, borne from years of believing stupid people. But I'm glad you did, because it points out two things about creationist fuckjobs that I don't think I've managed to bring up in the past, and you know. I like to be thorough.

So what does young Spencer have to say? ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"This week in biology class we started learning about evolution. While I am open to learning about new and different things, it bothers me how we don't learn about the counterpoint: creationism. I think that as long as we are learning about one thing we should learn about the opposing theory, right? Even though I go to a public school, I wish that I could learn both sides to the story, so that I may be well informed, and base my ideas and morals off of that."

There are a number of problems with this letter, but the first one I see is the use of the word "creationism". Which is odd, because the word itself went out of vogue some time ago, possibly before Spencer was even born. Heck, since Dover, even "intelligent design" is a bit passe. It's almost as if Spencer forgot, or wasn't told, to pretend that they have to keep renaming their credo every time it gets found unconstitutional. Oops.

But that's a sideshow. The real meat of the beast lies in his last sentence. The first half of the sentence really exposes the disingenuousness of the whole thing in a big way. Spencer wishes he could learn both sides of the story. Yet it's clear from the rest of his sentence that Spencer already HAS learned about both sides of the story. He's learning about evolution from his secular humanist liberal satanist Darwinist science teacher, and somehow, somewhere, he also learned about creationism.

So really, Spencer doesn't want to learn about creationism. Spencer wants his CLASSMATES to learn about creationism. His classmates who may not have the benefit of Spencer's other sources of divine knowledge. I'm not sure how it is that a creationist didn't manage to figure out the basic logical consequences of his word choice, but there you have it. Out of the mouths of indeterminately-aged children.

And speaking of phrasings that perhaps reveal more about true intentions than creationists would prefer, we turn to the second half of that sentence, where it's revealed that the purpose of science class is to allow students to "be well informed, and base [their] ideas and morals off of that". I don't know about you, but one of the things I like about science is how completely amoral it is. I don't base my morals on science. I base whether shit will hit the ground when I let go of it on science.

But to creationists, science exists solely to service and justify their idea of morality, and any science that doesn't service and justify it has to be eradicated. And the best way to eradicate a bit of science is to make it essentially interchangeable with a pile of superstitious bullshit. We know this about them, but they rarely admit it, even by accident. So thank you, Spencer Lasley, for making it so clear to us all.

Hoist The Stein Up

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 22:34:12 -0500

Creationists, 30 August 2007

Memo to Ben Stein: YOU ARE DUMB.

Seriously. So much for business savvy. What is it? Acting gigs dried up? The general conservative malaise means fewer people are interested in one of Nixon's buddies? Or, perhaps, are you a true believer? Maybe it's all of the above?

Because I can't imagine why anyone would decide, at this point in their lives, to hitch their bald, monotonous wagon to the Intelligent Design movement. That backwards bunch of young-earth creationists with lab coats they found at Goodwill are STILL licking their wounds from Dover. They're not the people you want to be associating with if you want to cultivate an image of vibrancy and success.

But that doesn't seem to faze Ben Stein, who has indeed hitched himself to that wagon, in the form of the upcoming documentary "EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed". Which, just on the face of it, is already an ironic title.

"Expelled" is the brainchild of Premise Media, which is, as far as I can tell, two creationists with money. A. Logan Craft (who someday hopes to be The Logan Craft) and Walt Ruloff (got rich starting companies and then selling them) are going to blow the doors off the Darwinist orthodoxy that dares to teach science to science students.

They have a website, which you can find easily enough if you try. It's like many other movie websites - full of Flash, with a trailer and a poorly-updated blog and the opportunity to be told that in the future, the site will allow you to buy a hoodie with the movie's logo on it. But the best part is, right out of the gate, they fuck it up.

The Flash intro features a slow, sexy pan up Ben Stein's pasty, aging body. There is a disturbing amount of leg showing, because Stein is wearing an Angus Young, AC/DC, or for the youth amongst you, School of Rock-style short-pants school uniform. Which would be bad enough if it weren't for the music they chose to go along with it: George Thorogood, and yes, "Bad to the Bone".

So many things wrong with that choice, not the least of which being that using "Bad to the Bone" in 2007 is the kind of thing only someone who believes Jesus rode a dinosaur to work would think is "hip". And also not the least of which is that the song has the word "bone" in it, and bones lead to fossils, and though they hate to admit it, nothing fucks up Intelligent Design like a fossil. In fact, to date, only one fossil has been conclusively proven to support Intelligent Design, and his name is BEN STEIN.

But perhaps most not the least of all is that if you're going to dress Ben Stein up like a fucking member of AC/DC, then you fucking well take a big chunk of your entrepreneurial piles of cash and you fucking get an AC/DC song. Although, upon reflection, it may not be their fault. Creationists are genetically incapable of experiencing cognitive dissonance, the way bees can't see red, or dogs think poop tastes good.

The documentary itself is the usual twaddle. Doctrinarian uber-Darwinists run the school systems like a Nazi death camp, extinguishing dissenting theories with a sneer and a touch of the lash. Only brave intellectuo-warrior Ben Stein, and his vast, Nixon-era experience with the truth, can restore freedom of speech to our school system. Stein serves as narrator, host, and they got him to write one whole introductory blog entry. I would argue that a blog with one entry, never updated again, isn't really a blog at all, but by that logic, 80% of LiveJournal would disappear overnight.

Anyway, Stein is either very committed, or a crazy person wrote his blog entry for him, because he waxes a bit effusive. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"Under a new anti-religious dogmatism, scientists and educators are not allowed to even think thoughts that involve an intelligent creator. Do you realize that some of the leading lights of "anti-intelligent design" would not allow a scientist who merely believed in the possibility of an intelligent designer/creator to work for him… EVEN IF HE NEVER MENTIONED the possibility of intelligent design in the universe? EVEN FOR HIS VERY THOUGHTS… HE WOULD BE BANNED. In today’s world, at least in America, an Einstein or a Newton or a Galileo would probably not be allowed to receive grants to study or to publish his research."

Unbeknownst to me, it seems that some of the leading lights of "anti-intelligent design" are actually GIANT FLOATING PSYCHIC BRAINS, capable of scanning their prospective employees' minds for verbotenthoughten. I'm not sure why ID proponents would be applying for jobs with the leading lights of anti-intelligent design. I guess things are tough all over. Maybe Kirk Cameron's just had a round of layoffs or something.

Still, you'd think there would be some jobs in labs headed up by humans incapable of detecting creationist thoughts floating through the phlogiston. Maybe they should fill out an application there. And there's always Taco Bell.

It couldn't possibly be that these so-called ID "scientists" are one-trick ponies who keep saying the same things, over and over, in the same exact way, hoping to find someone who isn't sick to fuck of them and will give them money. And, come to think of it, that couldn't POSSIBLY be why Ben Stein finds himself sympathizing with them.

Kent, Stop Touching Yourself

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 21:51:52 -0500

Religion, 18 June 2007

Memo to Kent Hovind: GOD HATES FA...NFIC.

I almost feel a little bad about this one. It has an element of kicking a drowning puppy. It has an element of mocking someone for what is merely the personal expression of their faith. I say "almost", because, well, it's Kent Hovind, and it's so goddamned funny.

Your obligatory background info. Ken Hovind is a rabid young-earth creationist. How rabid? Well, longtime readers of this column may remember Dinosaur Adventure Land, in Florida - the sort of theme park-y Busch-Gardens-for-morons-look-at-the-six-thousand-year-old-earth.

Anyway, turns out he's in jail. Serving out a ten-year prison sentence for a metric assload of tax evasion. Which is, all by its lonesome, so funny that the Germans should coin a word for it, like schadenhilarious or something. Last week, the blog of Creation Science Evangelists posted what can only be described as the world's funniest Hovind/God slashfic - a purported transcript of Hovind's jail cell I-shit-you-not e-mail exchange with his invisible daddy.

It's so long, and so funny, that I'm going to make a huge break with column policy and tradition and give you the address: http://www.cseblogs.com/?p=75. Feel free to copy, paste, and read to your heart's content. And if you don't want to, allow me to give you some highlights.

"From: Kent Hovind
Sent: May 23, 2007
To: GOD
Subject: Re: A few questions

KH: Do you have time for a few questions, today, Lord?

GOD: Son, time has no effect on me. I created it. I am always here to help you and guide you in any area of your life. Go ahead with your questions, son.

KH: These last seven months in prison have been rather difficult for me, Lord. In fact, in the last month, I’ve been in five different facilities.

GOD: I know, son. I’ve been with you the entire time (Hebrews 13:5).

This first section is notable for several things. First, Kent Hovind does not appear to know God's e-mail address. Also, Kent Hovind is unwilling to make one up, which is, along with "I'm not a creationist" and "I'm not in jail", one of the myriad ways in which I am better than Kent Hovind. Kent, have a freebie: ihvh@god.gov.

On top of that, Kent doesn't appear to know what e-mail is or how it works. What he's posting here is CLEARLY an IM transcript, except that Kent's not using the nickname "cageddino5238" and God's screen name isn't ">>>!!!ALMITEE!!!<<<". And finally, it only takes him two exchanges to start ripping off "Footprints". You unoriginal son of a bitch.

KH: Lord, I asked you to let me sleep, because I knew the next day would be hard and I would need my strength. Why didn’t you let me sleep, Lord?
GOD: I did, son. You slept great from 3:00 - 4:45 a.m. Who do you think it was that made the guard forget to call you at 3:30? Didn’t you wake up refreshed at 4:45 and even comment on how hard you slept and how good you felt?

An hour and forty five minutes? Kent Hovind's god is a HUGE PRICK.

GOD: I know, son. I was right there with you. I heard your prayers throughout that long night. We had sweet fellowship, didn’t we? Thank you for loving me and talking with me.

I don't care what you believe or how you worship, but that? THAT IS SLASHFIC.

GOD: You also had time to talk to John, but you never did. You were too busy trying to rest and asking me to have your appeal granted. I will overturn your case, son, when I’m done using you for this special mission. Do you think the US government or the Bureau of Prisons could hold you if I wanted you out?

KH: No, Lord. But you opened the prison for Peter (Acts 12), for Paul (Acts 5:19), and for Joseph (Genesis 41), and even the grave for some people (John 11). I was just wondering if you loved them more than me or something, or maybe I had some sin you were punishing me for.

GOD: I love you more than your little brain could ever comprehend. You do have plenty of sin—though that’s not why you are there. We will keep working on that sin list regardless of where you are.

KH: Thanks, Lord. Please do keep working on me.

Here we learn that God is an activist judge, that Kent Hovind thinks he deserves the same treatment as apostles, that even God thinks Kent Hovind is an idiot, and that Kent Hovind still has a huge jailbird stiffy for his Lord.

GOD: Son, I’ve given you a wide variety of cell mates as part of your training. You’ve had to live with big ones, little ones, loud, obnoxious ones and quiet ones. I put you in with Muslims, Catholics, ... You have lived with African Americans, Asians... You’ve seen a wide variety of lifestyles, personalities, diets, beliefs, and various degrees of bodily cleanliness. You have slept on concrete, steel, old bags of cotton, blue foam pads, and two-inch mattresses...

You have experienced the twenty-two man pod, the twelve-man crowded room, solitary lockdown, two-man cells with eight-hour lockdown, two-man cells with three in it with twenty-three-hour lockdown, and now, the one-hundred-fifty-man open dorm with three-man cubicles. Which do you like best?

KH: I’ll take my short, Scotch-Irish wife with her sweet smile, sweet spirit, good cooking, and good looks, my own bed, my children and grand-children, my ministry.

I read this, and I can come to only one conclusion. Somehow, Kent Hovind's subconscious REALLY wants to write a gay porn novel, but his repressive Christian upbringing forces his conscious mind to edit out any of the bits that actually mention body parts or sexual acts, and this sad, long, pathetic, long, ostensibly religious, and really long exchange with God is the result. Perhaps, someday, the subconscious will win out, and we'll all get to see Kent Hovind's "Adam and Steve: A Prison Tale" a few shelves down from the Left Behind books.

In The Virtual Belly Of The Beast: Day Three

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 22:55:54 -0500

Creationists, 7 June 2007

Memo to the Creationist Museum: WHERE IS THE FUN?

One of the great things about science museums is their potential for fun. Stuff like Van de Graaff generators, bubbling liquids, and mysterious buttons to press. Sure, a lot of it is hokey, but it does do a good job of creating a little world where science is cool.

The Creation Museum is many things, but "fun" is not one of them. Oh, it too tries to create an alternate little world, but the world it creates is one of fear and gloom from which the only escape is blind acceptance of fundamental Christianity and rejection of Darwinism.

The fear starts before you even get inside, according to one report. Black-uniformed guards complete with patrolling guard dogs watch the grounds around the museum. To be fair, if I were them, I'd be scared shitless of Stephen Hawking too. But they're wasting their time. Dogs can't stop Hawking. Nothing can.

Inside, having covered dinosaurs and the Grand Canyon and essentially having shot the sum total of their pseudo-scientific wad, the Creation Museum basically turns itself into the world's most expensive Christian Hell House. You know, the Halloween tradition where they show the wages of sin - two guys burning in hell for kissing, that sort of thing. Imagine that writ large, and you have exhibits like Graffiti Alley, the Cave of Sorrows, and Culture in Crisis.

Culture in Crisis particularly cracks me up - it has one of the museum's most notable pieces - a church facade being smashed in by a giant wrecking ball. On the ball is embossed "100 Million Years". I'm sure Ken Ham and the other bastards at Answers in Genesis think it's poignant, but it's merely pathetic. How little they must think of the thing they say is most important to them that they think it could be threatened by an old Earth. They dare to claim sole ownership of the truth about infinity, and can't handle a few measly extra eons without cringing and crying and building $27 million temples to their own insecurity.

And when they're not scaring you with Nazis, abortion, homosexuality, crime, and teen suicide - which are all Darwin's fault for making people doubt Genesis - they're illustrating Biblical horror stories in gruesome detail. The first murder, animal sacrifice, and all the pre-flood corruption that is, if my theology is accurate, Eve's fucking fault for not being content and keeping her fool mouth shut.

Oh, sure, there's some funny, lighthearted stuff in there - the diorama of the Garden of Eden full of placid, pre-fall animals cavorting together without a single thought of predation crossing their minds. That's what biblical literalism means, folks. Tigers have sharp teeth because God liked it that way, and were only forced to USE them by the fall from grace. Which is incredibly stupid, and flies in the face of reason.

But as we've seen, taking pride in flying in the face of reason is what the Creation Museum does best. And why shouldn't they? Reason's Q rating is at a historic low point. Your average six-year-old can recognize Ronald McDonald and Mickey Mouse, but do any of those little bastards know who Rene Descartes is? I think not.

It's hard to even get mad at the Creation Museum. It's not the disease. It's the symptom. It exists because the environment allows it to thrive. Which is a choice bit of fucking irony right there.

In The Virtual Belly Of The Beast: Day Two

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 08:24:02 -0500

Creationists, 6 June 2007

Memo to the Creation Museum: STILL DUMB.

Yes, it's time to pick up where we left off yesterday, in our virtual tour of the virtual tour of the Blissiest Place On Earth*, the Creation Museum in Kentucky. Sure, it's fun to mock their snack bar and their ten-book-curriculum bookstore, but what about the exhibits? Where, as they say, is the six-thousand-year-old beef?

For example, did you know the Creation Museum, inexplicably, has a small planetarium? The incredibly creatively named "Stargazer's Planetarium", in fact. As you'd imagine, since creationism's version of cosmology treats the entire rest of the universe as a first-day afterthought to the Earth, the program is a lot of "stars are pretty, YAY GOD" mixed with a bit of "Doppler was a heathen" pseudoscience. See, distant starlight isn't really millions of years old. Planets are just making the light go faster, tricking all those scientists into embracing Satan.

Or, at least that's what I can extrapolate from the descriptive text of Zachary Lynn, who also informs us that "The planetarium program is very flashy, and supposedly was changed by an on-site tech crew to add "more detail" such as clouds casting shadows on Earth's surface." Which implies that without this technological innovation, visitors to the Creation Museum may have left without realizing that clouds cast shadows on the Earth's surface.

Moving on to the Ranger Station, where you learn that the Grand Canyon cannot possibly be hundreds of thousands of years old. As we've seen before, creationists get hung up about the Grand Canyon, because it's the kind of epic evidence against Earth: 6K that even the average American can grasp. Anyway, there's some bullshit about missing strata and the usual hokum. This ain't talk.origins, so I won't be doing any elaborate debunkings. I did want to point out this little detail from Zachary Lynn's description, though. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"Most exhibits are taught through video instead of large signs filled with text. This was obviously done to attract a crowd that doesn't enjoy reading (probably much of today's society)... Some videos move slower than you could read a sign..." I think at this point, I'll simply pause and allow you, the reader, to construct one of the thousands of possible jokes this quote could inspire. Think of it as my very own interactive exhibit.

Next up is the Dinosaur Dig Site. Creationist archaeology has to walk a fine line, because kids love dinosaurs. You can't tell kids that God hates dinosaurs, because then kids will hate God. And if kids hate God, who's going to show up on Sundays in 20 years? Nobody.

So the Creation Museum has dinosaurs, and fossils, and archaeologists, and just explains to the kiddies that creation science and evolution science just have different "starting points" for the age of the Earth. Which is a lot like comparing a man looking at profiles on eHarmony with a man enjoying a post-coital cigarette. One is wishful thinking, and the other is a conclusion reached after lots of effort.

Starting points are a concept so ludicrous and unscientific, it's no surprise that the Creation Museum devotes an entire section to them. It goes into more detail about how the flood killed the dinosaurs, and has, I shit you not, comparisons of "Human Reason" and "God's Word", the implication that one is clearly better than the other. Finally, something I can agree with creationists on, as long as we don't go into the slightest bit of further detail.

Our final stop on the tour today are the Biblical Authority and Biblical Relevance sections, because let's face it, this is pretty much the only "science" "museum" in the entire country that would think it's a great idea to have mannequins of Moses, an old guy carrying giant, Cloud-Strife's-Sword-scaled scrolls, and what I can only assume is one of the two grunge rockers Noah carried on his ark - he's got a beard, a harp, and what looks a lot like a plaid flannel robe.

But don't think the Creation Museum is all sweetness and coprolite, You see, unable to fill an entire two floors with creation science and statues of Moses, the designers of the exhibits decided to branch out in some slightly esoteric directions. Tune in tomorrow, same bat-shit time, same bat-shit channel.

*As in "ignorance is..."

In The Virtual Belly Of The Beast: Day One

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 22:45:28 -0500

Creationists, 5 June 2007

Memo to the Creation Museum: HAPPY GRAND DUMB OPENING.

I can't believe it's finally here. After literally YEARS of being mocked in this column, after $27 million dollars in donations, the Creation Museum opened up last week in Kentucky, just over the border from Cincinnati.

For too long, the museum community has focused monolithically on making people a little bit smarter when they leave than they were when they walked in the door. Only Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis had the intelligently-designed balls to build an edifice that does the exact opposite. And now the dream is a reality, and pigfucking retards from all over the nation can drive to the Creation Museum and unlearn things they probably didn't even know to begin with.

Now obviously, I can't just head off and walk into the Creation Museum. For one thing, I don't have a lot of free time, and for another thing, I guarantee you something would be on fire within five minutes of me walking in the door, and there's a 50/50 chance that something would be ME. So I'm not going to risk it. Luckily, thanks to Al Gore's intelligent design, the magical Internet provides a virtual tour of this abattoir for thought, courtesy of one Zachary Lynn.

Sensing unparalleled opportunity I thought I'd take a few days and provide you, the reader, with my own specialized tour guide service. Just pay the deposit, pick up a pair of headphones, and enjoy my rich, sonorous narration.

Looking at the map of the place, I have to say, $27 million doesn't buy you a lot of museum these days. Only two floors, and maybe half a dozen sections. I realize they've only got six thousand years to cover, and most of THAT is front-loaded into six days, but still. You'd think the majesty of God's creation would be bigger.

Another fun fact about the Creation Museum - only three bathrooms. One in the snack bar, and two on the second floor. I hope all the visitors were endowed by their creator with certain inalienable bladders, that's for damn sure. Otherwise, I can picture a bunch of six-year-old Ezekiel Reagan Jim-Bob Thurmonds ducking behind the Tree of Knowledge for some forbidden piddling.

And yes, there is a snack bar. Noah's Cafe. Since the person who posted his virtual visit to the museum didn't provide any details, I'm free to make up my own. For example, at Noah's Cafe, all meat products are buy one, get one free! They have dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, but they come mixed in with people-shaped chicken nuggets. And of course, free refills for forty days and forty nights!

And of course, there's a gift shop, "Dragon Hall Bookstore". It's an odd name for something in the Creation Museum. First, it's named after a dragon, which as we all know, unlike 900-year-old men, Leviathans, and Jesus, is entirely mythical. And second, the word "bookstore" implies the existence of books other than the Bible. I suppose there must be Chicken Soup for the Creationist's Soul.

But no amount of my heretical jokecrackery can compare to the actual description provided by Zachary Lynn. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"The store is broken up into sections. Curricula include primary education and college textbooks, about ten different books in total. Layman books seemed to be Christian fiction novels. There were over 30 different DVD and video titles, lining a long wall. Other books by Behe and the like were also able to be purchased, as well as rewritten editions of Pilgrim's Progress and Bibles."

Wow. Such a bounty! No worries about evil forbidden knowledge here, that's for sure. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that a theory which drastically reduces the scope of natural history can be summed up in a lot fewer, and a lot smaller, words.

So much fun, and we haven't even gotten to the exhibits yet!

One Brain Good, No Brains Bad

Sun, 18 Feb 2007 20:20:12 -0600

Main Column, 19 February 2007

Memo to creationists: OOPS. SORRY.

For the past... forever, I have been referring to young-earth creationists as the stupidest people on the planet. It has come to my attention that that distinction is not entirely correct.

It's tough to explain without dipping into a bit of Orwellian language. You see, all creationists are equally stupid. But some creationists are more equally stupid than others.

Normally, in this column, I do try to make a distinction between dumb people and the clinically insane. If you collect donations to build a $23 million museum in Kentucky to convince people that the Great Flood carved out the Grand Canyon, you're dumb. If, on the other hand, you think the government has been taken over by alien hamsters with a penchant for alfalfa and buggery, then you're just crazy. And no, I don't have any change.

So normally, a fringe group of creationists who believe that not only does the Bible mean the Earth ls literally six thousand years old, but ALSO believes that the literal Bible says that the Earth does not revolve, and does not in fact rotate around the sun, I'd just give them a wide berth and categorize them as insane. Unless it was a really slow week.

Even if they had a website like www.fixedearth.com, where I could, in its own words, "Read all about the Copernican and Darwinian Myths (and their many ramifications going all the way to Kabbala-based Big Bangism!)" No matter how much I might be tempted to mock their inability to properly use parentheses, or make jokes about Madonna, Kabbala, and "Big Bangism", it doesn't matter. Nobody in their right mind would take these people seriously.

I mean, let's face it. If someone walked up to you, and with a completely straight face, said something like "The question of whether certain specific satellites orbit the Earth synchronously--as they would have to be doing if the Earth is rotating--or if they are actually stationary over a non-moving Earth as they are observed to be at all times, needs to be answered.", you'd just walk away from them and politely decline their offer of a pressed-aluminum chapeau.

And if someone wrote a memo and asked if they could send it out with your name on it, and you looked at that memo, and in addition to a link to fixedearth.com, this is what you saw:

"Indisputable evidence — long hidden but now available to everyone — demonstrates conclusively that so-called ‘secular evolution science’ is the Big-Bang 15-billion-year alternate ‘creation scenario’ of the Pharisee Religion. This scenario is derived concept-for-concept from Rabbinic writings in the mystic ‘holy book’ Kabbala dating back at least two millennia."

Odds are, you'd call security on the guy that's been stealing your stationery.

Unless you're Georgia state representative Ben Bridges, and the guy stealing your stationery is your campaign manager, and the campaign manager sends the crazy memo out to a bunch of other state legislatures, like in Texas, where the unforunately-named representative Warren Chisum had to apologize for passing the memo around to his colleagues.

I mean, I know all too well, that a lot of state representatives, especially in the South, get their jobs because they screwed up bringing the carts in from the parking lot one too many times. But there still ought to be something in their employee manuals about not believing that the Big Bang and evolution are part of a rabbinical conspiracy dating back two thousand years.

Bridges, a noted opponent of evolution, is still clinging to the fascinating claim that he never approved the memo, never heard of the memo, and doesn't agree with the memo. Oh, wait, scratch that last one. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"I agree with it more than I would the Big Bang Theory or the Darwin Theory. I am convinced that rather than risk teaching a lie why teach anything?"

When there's a guy in what sort of constitutes a position of power, and this guy claims at least a tenuous allegiance with people that think THE EARTH DOESN'T FUCKING ROTATE, then the pendulum swings back from Clinically Insane to Dangerously Dumb. Even if it means admitting that as stupid as most creationists are, the ones that recognize that the earth actually travels around the sun have a neuron up on some people.

Happy Birthday, Chuck

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 19:45:49 -0600

Creationists, 12 February 2007

Memo to all you creationist monkeys out there: HAPPY DARWIN DAY, FUCKERS.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating. Creationists are the stupidest people on the planet. And remember, I'm not talking the "God caused the Big Bang and evolution" creationists. They're harmless. I'm talking about young-earth, Darwin Wuz Wrong, I ain't no goddamn monkey, get your filthy secular science out of my child's classroom creationists.

And let's try to keep one thing perfectly clear. Whenever you hear about the "debate" or the "controversy" regarding evolution, someone is lying to you. The lie that creationism, no matter what you call it, can be set up alongside evolution as equals, duking it out in the court of public opinion, is the biggest success of the creationist movement to date. And they've been helped along by a dim-witted media that thinks objectivity means not picking a side between Truth and Lie.

And one of the biggest fallacies used to promote the lie that the two groups are roughly equal is the idea that Darwin"ism" is a belief the same as creationism, that both have followers that rely solely on faith. There are two problems with this. The first is that this idea pits the "common man" of the two groups against each other. I mean, you pull some random schmo off the street who's not a creationist, and he'll tell you that human beings evolved. But he won't know why. He won't know about the evidence and the work done to support that theory. Maybe he'll say that humans evolved from chimps, instead of the more accurate idea that they have a common ancestor. Ask a creationist, and apart from point of view, you'll probably get much the same result. They don't know either.

Of course, the creationists don't know because there isn't any evidence. And any work done has been done by agenda-driven non-scientists who aren't trying to prove something, just trying to poke holes in century-old science to convince people the whole thing is wrong. It's like saying Jim's Janitorial Service is the same as Microsoft, because they both have people emptying trash cans.

The second problem is that creationists have faith, but even the most ignorant "follower of Darwin" isn't relying on faith, they're relying on TRUST. The difference is vital. Faith is internal. Faith does not require proof, or evidence. Faith is self-sustaining. Trust, on the other hand, is earned. I trust the scientific method, because throughout history, it's got a pretty remarkable track record of advancing human knowledge and weeding out the charlatans and the corrupt who've sought to manipulate that knowledge for their own personal gain. It's not perfect, but in the long run, our entire civilization rests on the fact that science is usually right, and when science is wrong, the people best suited to realize it are OTHER SCIENTISTS.

When creationism, as a philosophy, results in something as nifty as a Wii controller, then maybe I'll lighten up on them a bit. But as long as all they have to show for it is a board game, a crappy museum, and people in Kansas arguing, they get the pointing and laughing that they deserve.

And speaking of that crappy museum, I think it's interesting that the Creation Museum in Ohio, which I first talked about back in 2005 is still not open yet. It's about two years behind schedule, if my references are correct. I can only assume that the traditional method of construction, involving small changes over time, was deemed unacceptable by Answers In Genesis, so they had to look for a way to have the museum spring forth fully formed over the course of six days while still meeting Kentucky building codes.

But I kid Answers In Genesis. Mainly because they're not that bright. On the other hand, I have got to give props to their president, Ken Ham, because he says the kind of things that will be incredibly useful down the road in court cases when creationists try to present themselves as reasonable folks. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"The Bible, where it touches on science or any subject including same-sex marriage, race or abortion, is totally trustworthy. As a revelation of history from the beginning to the end of time, the Bible is the foundation that enables us to construct the big picture and have the right approach in geology, biology, physics and astronomy. - Ken Ham, quoted in an article pitting the American Museum of National History up against Ham's as-yet-unfinished Hall of Idiocy.

In addition to being laughable on the face of it, his little aside there makes me REALLY want to know what he thinks the Bible's position on race is, and how that trustworthy Biblical perspective should be implemented in modern policy. But unless someone licks Ken Ham three times before biting him, I fear the world may never know.