The genome of the platypus,
We read today in Nature,
Befits a beast so odd it once
Defied our nomenclature;
A mammal, but it still lays eggs,
And you know what that means:
The platypus and lizards share
Some families of genes!
Although the tale is quite complex–
A long way off from solved–
The genome of the platypus
Shows how we all evolved!
Photo accompanies the New York TImes article.
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the spot
Some mussels have to tell the dark from light;
A complex lens, this mollusk it has not—
One could not claim a mussel has true sight.
I have seen pigment cups for eyes in snails
But no such eyes my beauty doth possess—
To see a light’s direction, sans details
Is not the job of her eyes, I confess.
Nor pinhole lens, nor any incomplete
Approximation of her perfect eye;
No trail of clues to offer a concrete
Explanatory theory to apply.
And yet, all data points to one solution—
The eyes I love arose through evolution.
Genetically, of course, a spork
Is half a spoon, and half a fork
A laboratory in New York
Created them, then popped the cork.
Please, gentle reader, do not swoon,
But there was also, once, a foon
(That’s half a fork, and half a spoon)
Created, sadly, all too soon.
In cutlery, one tempts the Fates
When artificially, one mates
Utensils from across the plates
Regardless of recessive traits.
A careless thought: “let’s cross F-1
Again with forks, and have some fun.”
The simple plan was soon begun,
Then all too soon: “What have we done?”
With thirst for blood and killing drives
Such meddling ends in loss of lives
I only hope someone survives
To tell—the sporks have found the knives!
From xkcd, of course.
They say that God created Man
As part of an enormous plan,
And did so in His image, cos he loves us, every one.
When men of God discriminate
And treat their fellow men with hate
They do so with the knowledge it’s what Jesus would have done.
When righteous men, in righteous ways
Hate atheists, or Jews, or gays,
Or Muslims, pagans, redheads, southpaws, foreigners, or Voodoo
I know at first it may seem odd,
But clearly, you’ve created God
In your own image, when you find he hates the same folks you do.
“You can safely assume you have created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates the same people you do.” –Annie Lamott
(there are a number of versions of that quote floating around, attributed to Lamott—If anyone happens to know the definitive version, I would be happy to correct what I have here.)
Yeah, I said Friday Limericks. Commenter Anfractuous reminds me that I missed the actual Friday, if you want to be all technical about it. I do apologize–life is a bit hectic right now. I will post about it soon, but a Major Life Event is coming up at the end of the month–it is very very good news for me, but comes at a difficult time (long story short–the cuttlespouse has been out of work since Christmas. Things are ok, but what should have been an overwhelmingly cool thing is a very very cool thing that is also an added stress. And this is a better time than most to thank the people who have used the tip jar.)
No, seriously. It’s the National Day Of Prayer. Not everyone is happy about it.
It’s time to raise our voice in prayer,
And pray to–well, there’s no one there.
No god to urge to do our bidding;
Go on and pray–just know you’re kidding.
It’s time to all sit on our asses,
And pray forgiveness for trespasses
(Or is that to forgive our debtor?
Who cares, as long as we feel better.)
It’s time we all embrace god fully,
Feel all righteous, good, and holy–
Or be some atheistic jerk,
Roll up your god-damned sleeves, and work!
It’s time to say “I do not care
To join you in this day of prayer.”
Sure, a day off looks like fun,
But there is work that must be done.
Our problems will not fix themselves
There is no god to send in elves
To do the work of human ranks
So… join, today, in prayer? No thanks.
Commenter Anfractuous, who has previously shown incredible skill with limericks, provided the following as a comment to my previous post. It is so good, I thought I’d put it here on the front page (since not everyone reads the comments–go figure).
Dear Cuttles,
Of course you’re not moral; that comes from above!
Morality’s only for those those in whose glove
Resides a steel rod that will punish the sin,
Which comes from the garden and now lives within.
It’s true because Satan’s words came first to Eve.
Because she was “woe-man,” the one to believe
That she, in defiance, could just disobey
The Word she’d been giv’n on the very first day.
Because she was uppity, thought she could know
What knowledge of evil and good might bestow
Upon her and Adam, cooped up in that place,
Where only obedience’s choking embrace…
Kept them from knowledge that freedom would bring.
If they used free will, they’d cut God’s puppet string.
The meaning of good or of bad was not given,
So how could she know that from grace they’d be riven?
God made the decision to make us this way,
To give us free will so that we’d disobey.
That way he could punish to His heart’s content,
To show us just what His omnipotence meant!
It’s God’s will that we must conform for all time.
He set up the rules and then watched with sublime,
Sadistic amusement, on seeing us squirm.
He knows how remote our real chance to confirm…
His ridiculous rules that we have to obey.
(Besides, His omniscience predicted we’d play.)
So now, by His Rules, your morality comes
From worship of Him, only under His thumbs.
Good works do not count – they’re from dumb libruls’ minds.
They work only IF abject worship He finds
And then only IF you will also excise
Any thoughts of equality for those other guys…
Who might love the “wrong kind,” or those who might think
That women should be anywhere else but the sink,
Or in a man’s bed, though their bodies are evil.
They’re here for their wombs, (but their minds are medieval.)
If men are allowed to observe female skin,
They’ll turn into beasts (their control is that thin!)
But it’s not the men’s fault. That resides upon her.
It’s her evil skin to which men’s minds refer…
In lust and in sin – but just “boys being boys.”
The female form’s only just one of their toys.
So it’s moral to bomb all those places of sin
Where those evil women “do God’s babies in.”
God loves it when X-tians do mean things to gays,
Or lesbos or libruls – set atheists ablaze.
It’s moral to castigate anyone “other,”
But don’t take our guns or make black folks our brother.
Morality’s not what those atheist folks do.
It only comes from a strict Biblical view.
So now you all know how the God system works
If you have any questions, just ask X-tian jerks!
I don’t usually have quarrels
Over where we get our morals
Ah, but every now and then somebody steps beyond the pale.
Once they know that I’m ungodly
They start looking at me oddly
And If I could walk on water, It would be to no avail.
When Katrina brought the flood,
I gave money, time, and blood;
When a local kid was missing, I was there at once to search;
I’ve sent clothing and supplies
To starving Afghans, but–surprise!–
I am not a moral person, cos I never go to church!
There’s no yellow ribbon sticker
On my car, because it’s quicker
If I send the funds directly to the folks who need it most.
And I work instead of praying,
So because of this, they’re saying
My behavior lacks the guiding hands of Father, Son and Ghost.
When “accepting Christ as savior”–
When belief, and not behavior–
When some obsolete mythology determines what is right,
I could feed the starving masses
Cause the blind to just need glasses
Feed the world on loaves and fishes
Give Aladdin three more wishes
Cure the miseries of lepers
And the myriad twelve-steppers,
Cure Ben Stein of his inanity,
Bring peace to all humanity…..
Am I moral in the eyes of Christianity? … not quite.
The New York TImes has a story of the stereoscopic atlas of the human body. With a slide show of some of the images (sadly, not in 3-D). And I am terribly sorry, but the link to the text article is not working for me right now–it is worth the visit, though, on the Science page of the New York TImes online.
Carefully, warefully,
Bassett, anatomist
Dissected bodies and
Prepped their insides
Then called for Gruber, who
Stereoscopically
Rendered them timeless on
Viewmaster slides.
Beautifully, dutifully,
eHuman industries
Hopes to make public the
Atlas once more;
Wonderful news for the
Neuroanatomy
Students, or those who just
Really like gore.
How wonderful! Somebody actually noticed my little blog, and thought it worthy of commenting, with links and everything, to a whole lot of wishful thinking! For those of you who don’t read comments, just look at the sort of things you might miss! (You might want to fasten your seatbelts–there are some sharp turns ahead.)
Ojalanpoika has left a new comment on your post “Friday Limericks: Expelled!”:
Though this comment, of course, is sublime,
It’s not written in meter, nor rhyme
On these threads, it’s the norm
To use limerick form—
But I’ll let you get off, just this time
I wish an analogous documentary film was made concerning the DINOGLYFS or dinolits:
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/dinosaur.htmIt seems that the ancient man not only saw but also documented the last megafauna (gigafauna, I should say).
”Do you see that cloud, that’s almost in shape like a camel?” HAM, III ii 393
Though it’s common, it nonetheless shocks
When a cloud can look just like a fox
Or a man, in euphoria
Digs up sea-zoria
Dragons where others see rocks
(Among your pictures was an Indian lithograph of a buffalo, labeled as a picture of a triceratops. In the words of Roy Zimmerman, “you can call a toad a cocker spaniel; that won’t warm your heart when he licks your nose.”)
It is absolutely true that if you look for dinosaur pictures, you will find them. What is equally true is that if you look for alternate, non-dinosaur explanations for these pictures, in the artistic traditions of the artists, you will also find those. The moral of the story is, don’t stop looking for evidence just because you found something that agrees with your preconception. Gather all the available evidence, and then draw conclusions.
Bruce Alberts it was who first accepted from his post as the president of the National Academy of Sciences USA that the biological machinery can be called as such, machinery, without asserting to metaphora. He gave the students that license in 1998. Other animations on the tiny cellular machineries apart from the Expelled movie can be seen in here:
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Videos_animations_flagella_evidence_existence_creation_contra_evolution.htm
Wow–you ought to give a little warning before shifting topics so abruptly!
You’d think you’d be sitting in clover
Watching videos over and over
But to see there what we see
Find transcripts of Behe
Under oath in Kitzmiller V. Dover
(You gotta love a flagellum. Take out just one part and… well, you have something that functions perfectly well. But Behe did not feel the need to actually look at what it might be. Once he had concluded goddiddit, there was no more reason to investigate. But it’s all there in the transcripts. Very much worth reading.)
It is interesting that it is the People of the Book who once more are the initiative spectators who have the balls to question the ambient amen and go against the loudy majority. Not the first time. Here’s some statistics and charts regarding the success of the Jews in science and technological innovations when the others were too stubborn to change their minds:
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Indicator.html
Again with the topic shift!
So the Jews, in heroic defiance
Of the mainstream, have put their reliance
In books and in learning
Fulfilling their yearning
For knowledge by leading in science!
(your links there certainly seem to show that the Jews are the superior race—no way that anyone could ever suggest that the holocaust was Darwinian if they saw what you report there! No way… and yet…)
This conference poster of mine shows how profoundly the continental, Haeckelian type of evolutionism drived not only the racial World War II but also the nationalistic World War I:
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Haeckelian_legacy.pdf
And yet another shift. Your grandfather sounds remarkable—I don’t quite get his connection to everything else, but you are right to be proud. As for the rest, I see one glaring omission—your opening statement claims that Haeckel’s drawings are still used in textbooks, but you do not cite any! Are you tilting at windmills?
The embryos Haeckel did draw
Which seem so to stick in your craw
Are a mere bit of history
Now, a new mystery:
Why battle men made of straw?
pauli.ojala@gmail.com
Biochemist, drop-out (Master of Sciing)
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Expelled-ID.htm
Digital Cuttlefish, Ph. D. anonymous blog verse-writer.