Comments

  1. says

    I’m concerned over calling people like Comfort stupid. Isn’t he filthy rich? So isn’t it more likely that he has learned a schtick to make himself wealthy?

    I’ve had this argument about GWBush and people calling him stupid. Yet he came closest to repealing the New Deal than any Republican president in history. Gutting Social Security is actually on the table as a real option for the first time in 75 years.

    Same with Jenny McCarthy, Hasselbeck, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean, Bill’o, Huckebee, Inhofe, Jindel. All these people say some pretty stupid things and then go running all the way to the bank. But to say they are stupid misses, IMHO, the very successful con these people pull off. Over and over again.

    Just my 2 cents.

  2. kevinalexander says

    I had a conversation with a creationist who used a lot of Ray Comfort style misunderstanding of evolution.
    I asked him ‘Where did you get this from? It seems like he understands evolution well enough to take the time to misrepresent it. Can I ask a personal question? Are you giving him money?”
    ‘I tithe’
    ‘OK, You know, if you’re a lonely guy, maybe you’re not good looking or maybe you’re shy or whatever and you can’t get a girl to love you, you can still get a girl to act like she loves you. If you have the money. Can’t blame her. She has bills to pay, maybe kids to feed, it’s how she makes her living. Could be the same thing is happening here. The prosti..sorry, pastor at your church has to pay the electric bill and, knowing that you can’t handle reality, sells you something else.’

    btw…Ray, the banana is even more perfectly shaped to fit the last six inches of the lower GI tract so, if you’re eating the damn thing, you’re doing it rong.

  5. Bernard Bumner says

    I’m concerned over calling people like Comfort stupid. Isn’t he filthy rich? So isn’t it more likely that he has learned a schtick to make himself wealthy?

    His methods are effective, but that doesn’t make him smart. It just shows that he has very finely developed predatory instincts. He preys on the fearful ignorant, a constituency which requires no appeal to intellect whatsoever.

    Comfort is smart in the same way that a cook feeding gruel to the starving is a good chef.

  6. jetsam1 says

    I think Jaclyn is very good here. Never come across her ever before. Erudite, humourous, ripping Comfort apart point by point…..

    Comfort appears to be a trickster. The very name…… “Comfort”.

    (Am British and a very long time reader of this blog but have only commented once ever before as I have respect for the posters here and anything I ever think gets dealt with and expressed better than I ever can)

  7. gsciacca says

    How I envy Jaclyn Glenn’s intelligence and patience with guys like Comfort. Personally, I could not watch a Ray Comfort video without gagging.

  8. magistramarla says

    jetsam @#6
    Don’t be shy about posting. I’m a humanities person, so I can’t keep up with the scientific knowledge of many of the posters here, but that doesn’t keep me from posting my opinions.
    Sometimes my lack of logic is ripped apart, but I have fairly thick skin (I was a high school teacher – I’ve been called some very awful things) and I just keep on merrily posting.
    Personally, I love to read the perspectives of our posters from countries other than the US.
    So, welcome to the horde!

  9. ck says

    The title of this post is several characters too long. It should be: “Jaclyn Glenn is smart”

  12. says

    Jetsam1:
    To add to magistramarla’s points (which I agree with), speaking up is important for social justice issues too. Every movement starts off small and gets bigger as more people speak up and join. Whether it is equality for queers or women, immigration reform, fighting against racism or ableism, each voice makes the movement more powerful. The more power, the greater the chance of effecting social change.

  14. addiepray says

    she should be doing a new zealand accent instead of a southern accent when recounting his stupidity.

  16. mikeyb says

    Besides being a con man, Ray Comfort like nearly all creationists, is incapable of understanding evolution. When your brain has been exposed to creationism for too long, too many axons and dendrites get pruned away, rendering the unfortunate individual incapable of forming new synaptic connections. Or perhaps its operant conditioning, they salivate when presented with a creationist argument, and feel shocks when evolutionary arguments are presented. Finally perhaps creationism is a meme that zombifies the brain when it is presented enough times with enough intensity.

    I don’t know. All I know is that almost without exception in my experience, in print, in videos, etc. creationists (this includes IDers) simply do not understand a fucking thing about evolution no matter how many different times and ways it has clearly been presented to them.

  17. Old At Heart says

    She is damn good at quoting Richard Dawkins without verbal attribution (happens during the “no fossils” rant and the God of the Gaps segment, among others). But she’s got a less British voice, I suppose, so since it seems more layperson this side of the pond, it may get more people on board because it seems less pompous. Just a sad fact of British accents. Good summary though.

    …And this video juxtaposes with the Krauss issues… His research is perfectly valid, I guess.

  18. rtb61 says

    The really is a reality of difference based upon the ability to understand. The gap between 140IQ and 100IQ is really quite insurmountable. To complain about the lack of understanding is rather pointless, it will never happen and it can never happen.
    The problem here is that ignorance and a lack of understanding and knowledge has entered the political market place because it wins votes to cheer ignorance. Not that this is new, it has been used for ages to drive the ignorant mob in what ever direction those barking the commands wish to shepherd them.
    They feed on that ignorance, so that cats+13=vote for me, cheering their ignorance plus adding political lies enables profits and power for those cheering the ignorance.
    How do you fight back, well, attempting to teach those can’t understand is really pointless (even when those of like mind appreciate the well elucidated argument), tearing down those that cheer ignorance by exposing the reality of who they were and are and what they really want, with a healthy does humour, seems to be the only effective way.

  20. neuralobserver says

    Yeah, right Myers. Speed-talking off a presumed script or practiced routine doesn’t necessarily make one,…ah. smarter–lots or otherwise.
    She would, however, be a great candidate for reading the myriad side-effects for the latest drug de jour for a big pharma company, or maybe chain-reading the small print of ‘conditions that may apply’ for some obnoxious product or service. I’m sure she’d be a shoe-in for the likes of Pfizer, Glaxo SmithKline, Merck or others–she’s a natural.
    All we need is a round of Seinfeld-esque, ‘Yada, yada, yada’ to punctuate the performance. IMO, it does little–at least esthetically– in terms of gainsaying the idiocy of Comfort.

    Accuracy notwithstanding, an overall irritating and uninspired rant of fact that we’ve all heard before (insert boring yawn here).

  21. Amphiox says

    an overall irritating and uninspired rant of fact that we’ve all heard before (insert boring yawn here).

    An astonishingly accurate description of post #20.

  22. autumn says

    @ neuralobserver,

    She mentions at the end of the video that it is significantly longer than others she has posted, so the speed of delivery is most likely an attempt to present a lot of info in a (relatively) short time. Also, welcome to the internet, as you have seemingly never seen a video in such a format. I’m sure the Beta-cassette release is slower. Or the 8-track audio version.

  23. some bastard on the net says

    Speed-talking off a presumed script or practiced routine doesn’t necessarily make one,…ah. smarter–lots or otherwise.

    ‘Cuz it’s not like she’d have, y’know, written the script.

    /asshole

  24. Corvus Whiteneck says

    My cat is smarter than Ray Comfort, and she licks her ass daily.

    *Sorry PZ, for mentioning cats*

  25. says

    Hopefully transcribed well enough:

    no one thinks that one day a human being fell out of a monkey’s vagina

    Maybe I’m just immature, but that is the funniest thing I’ve heard in a while.

  26. randay says

    I almost wish that Comfort had interviewed me, but I know he would have edited me out. When he as for a rose, I would have held up my hand and said, here it is. He would say that it wasn’t there or that he couldn’t see it. I would reply that it was there and it was too bad for him if he couldn’t see, but I knew that I had made a rose.

    For the argument about something cannot come nothing, he should apply it to his myths. If Adam & Eve were perfect and the image of god, and if the world was perfect, where did bad or evil come from? They couldn’t have come from the perfect world, so they must have come from nothing.

  27. Stacy says

    IMO, it does little–at least esthetically– in terms of gainsaying the idiocy of Comfort

    Gawd damn. She addressed Comfort’s dishonest editing style, his arguments, and even provided a brief and elegant explanation of ring species, all in the space of 15 minutes. What do aesthetics have to do with it?

    It’s a safe bet if “Jaclyn” were “Jack,” you’d have paid more attention to the substance than to the style of the video.

    Congratulations, you’re a sexist asshat.

  28. Thumper; Atheist mate says

    Shorter neuralobserver:

    “She talks fast. Therefore she’s rubbish.”

    Suffice to say, neuralobserver, that I am unimpressed with your “logic”.

  29. Hairy Chris, blah blah blah etc says

    Old at Heart

    But she’s got a less British voice, I suppose, so since it seems more layperson this side of the pond, it may get more people on board because it seems less pompous. Just a sad fact of British accents.

    What what what? Are posh Brits relegated to Hollywood villains again? FWIW if USians heard most of us speak it’s more like a verbal car crash… in fact, on my first visit to the US I kept having to talk slower and clearer because of my grotty accent!

    ;-)

  30. palaeodave says

    @ neuralobserver (20)

    I really don’t understand your complaint. She spoke relatively quickly but was still perfectly comprehensible, so what’s the problem? Her sentences may or may not have been practised/scripted – so what? You’d have preferred to watch her sitting there while she thought about the next thing to say, each line peppered with ‘um’ and ‘uh’? The content was clear and concise and without the usual rambling narcissistic filler that characterises so many home-made Youtube videos.

  31. David Marjanović says

    I’m concerned over calling people like Comfort stupid.

    Why? Did you believe “stupid” means “harmless”?