Enjoy the schadenfreude, everyone.
My landlord just knocked on the door to discuss various landlord-y things, like how he’ll fix one of my broken chairs and how much Comcast sucks. He asked how grad school was going and what sorts of classes I’m taking, and I mentioned how Gene Regulation was really hard. He’s on a board that heads genetic research for a certain disease, so we were having a pretty in depth discussion about genetics. It was nice until…
Landlord: Well, I’m a creationist. Though most of my colleagues are evolutionists.
Me: …Well, I also have a degree in evolution. Genetics and evolution.
Landlord: *glint in eye*
Me: What have I done?!
He then spent the next fifteen minutes trying to convince me that junk DNA somehow proves evolution is wrong, how evolution can’t predict anything or be useful, how no study has shown evolution to be true. I tried to provide counter arguments as nicely as possibly, while trying not to get evicted from my apartment.
Landlord: Well, I shouldn’t keep you from your paper any longer. But I see I’m going to have a lot of work to do with you. *wink*
Me: I could say the same thing *wink back*
Landlord: Haha, bye!
Me: …FFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUU…
I should state that my landlord is super nice and helpful (and looks just like the old man from Up!). I just spend so much of my life debating creationists, I like to escape from it at home. As long as “Must debate evolution before rent is accepted” doesn’t become part of my lease, I’m happy.
I just hope he doesn’t Google my name.
It could be worse. It could be “accept Jesus Christ as your savior or your rent doubles!”
<Nelson>Ha ha!</Nelson>
I have to disagree on the “nice” part. This passive aggressive sort of behavior is only a superficial flavor of nice. That “have a lot of work to do with you” comment is one of the most patronizing things I’ve heard in a long while.
Does he have a cane with tennis balls on it and a talking dog? If my dog started talking I’d probably be a creationist too.
OK, I guess you have certain constraints because he’s your landlord, but I’m not under his jurisdiction. So consider this my official offer to dress up as Batman and argue with him. The reason I’d need to dress as Batman is that I would have to hide the ear piece into which you will be feeding me arguments.Let me know.
Also, I wish this were like facebook and I could click “like” on my own comments.
I was hiding under your porch because I love you :(
ugh.We look forward to it ;)
Are you sure you are not living in Yakima?
You should say, “I can see that you enjoy debating evolutionist, right?” “And, I like to debate creationist. However, my experience tells me that it’s not a good idea to debate your landlord, so let’s agree to disagree: You don’t try to make me see the error of my ways, and I won’t try to make you see yours.”
All together now:HI JEN’S LANDLORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WAH WAH.That’s actually pretty hilarious. Between the spiders and the creationists, you sure got a great place to live ;)
Do you know how hard it is to actually evict someone. SO HARD. You’re golden. Just make sure he knows you’re super busy and never have time to debate. Yay, welcome to America where everyone kind of sucks.
There… I liked you.
OK, critical zaniness mass has been reached. Get an agent, sell the rights to the TV show based on your current situation.
I am appreciate.
You have my sympathy. I really like my landlady but she has absolutely no knowledge of science, she actually asked me recently if a platypus was a real animal. Nice lady, incredibly talented painter but if it doesn’t have to do with art she’s pretty clueless. Thankfully she doesn’t seem anti-science just science ambivalent which makes me sad but I can deal with it.
Hopefully none of the spiders try to start debating me too.
Hopefully, they will! That would be so many kinds of awesome. :D(Also: Your own species of spider! When you’re not even an.. Arachnologist? Zoologist?) Did you know there are spiders that hunt spiders? And they learn. They adapt their strategies for each new species of spider they encounter. They seem to even plan it, when they go hunting. Intelligent spiders!
Debating creationists is futile. They just keep repeating old debunked claims.
Why is it people always think they can judge a person’s character after hearing an anecdote about them on the Internet?
If you don’t mind me saying so, Jen, you might try “I spend so much of my life debating this topic, and as friendly as you are, I’d really kind of like to escape from it when I’m at home.”It’s a very understandable sentiment.
I’ll like you!
Could be worse. At least he’s not trying to boink you. Landlord boinking could be all kinds of awk-WARD.
> I just hope he doesn’t Google my name.Trust me, he already has.
Isn’t Schadenfreude one of the greatest german contributions to your language? ;) Anyway, your country is kinda strange… or maybe it seems so because I have never been there and only read your blog, but is everyone either hardcore evolutionist or religious to the bones? I dunno… In Germany it is more like “I don’t care much” for most people I know.Though there are more religious people in the countryside, of course. And one of my best friends is a hardcore atheist :D
That’s nothing new. I get stalked by religious priests all the time.It does look like you have work to do. It depends on whether your landlord can think or not. Some people can be quite stubborn and insist on a view that is totally wrong for a long time even when they are proven wrong.So, you’ll need psychology. You need it because you need to know what psychological stage he is in. Possibilities are: shock, denial, anger, bargaining, and acceptance. I have eliminated acceptance because it’s obvious. Shock is likely over in your first encounter. That leaves denial, anger and bargaining. The next stage is denial, followed by the dangerous anger stage, and then bargaining.Remember to talk about his psychological reactions to me. If you like, e-mail me.
The next step is to get your spiders to evolve, then show them to your landlord! What’s the saying? Something about two birds and a stone?
You would probably be better off if he did google your name, then he would know the scale of his problem and give up.
When you see a Web, do you not postulate a Spinner?
i’m so glad i don’t have a landlord anymore. meh, i grok you’re resistance to bringing the fight to your home. i had a similar situation with a homophobic landlord once, as well as a racist landlord at another place i lived. meh, “fight the power” and all that, but when it’s time to go home and take a bath and just let go, one really doesn’t relish a fight on the front steps, as it were.make nice with him. someday, soon, you’ll move out, and onto better and nicer surroundings. mostly, he’s probably thinking about fucking you. you don’t want that, and thus you shouldn’t care about whatever bullshit line he’s using to try to gain your interest. sorry, but guys like these are mostly simple like that.
You’re missing a trick here – you need to evolve/engineer a breed of intelligent super spiders, then let them debate your landlord.
Please ask him who or what created his creator. I would love to hear this answered by a genuine creationist.
That’s ridiculously patronizing. Kudos to you for keeping your temper, I don’t think I would have. 1 grand in WoW gold (grad student, I don’t have any real money!) he wouldn’t have said that if you weren’t young and female, either. Semi-related rant: I facepalm every time I mention to someone that my undergrad research was in molecular evolution and their response is something along the lines of “oooh, how controversial, do you really believe all that?” -.- Yeah, I live in the Bible Belt, why do you ask? At least now I’m back in school and surrounded by people who love science.
I’m sorry, Jen. This doesn’t sound like it will end well, regardless of what you do. If you take the bait and start arguing with your landlord (which is what I would do, frankly, I can’t resist a good debate), you’re likely to make him angry at which point he’ll be quite capable of making your life miserable. If you don’t take the bait, he’ll probably perceive it as you being ‘afraid’ to debate him and he’ll get even more smug and set in his views.As much as I hate to say it (I am very much NOT an accommodationist), I think it could be in your best interest to avoid conflict here. However, I can’t be sure, and there’s no way to know short of running the test (at which point, unfortunately, it will also be too late to reverse the decision).Best of luck.
Ugh, I fracking hate debaters. I believe what I believe, and they believe what they believe. I’m not going to change their minds, and they’re not going to change mine, so why bother pointlessly arguing? I have better things to do.
Oh, and my genetics professor was an evolutionary biologist by degree, and he was a creationist too. It was kinda cool. He was very tolerant of everyone and wants to bring all beliefs together… he’s given several talks on the matter. Didn’t change my mind but it was nifty.
Spiders, debate… I read something like that in “A deepness in the sky” of Vernor Vinge… If Sherkaner Underhill is one of your spiders you’ll going to win! But try to stay away from Honored Pedure.
From cristiananswers.net:”God, as creator of time, is outside of time. Since therefore He has no beginning in time, He has always existed, so doesn’t need a cause.”I guess he just doesn’t need one. He is somehow “outside of space and time”. They don’t actually answer the question, they just say “he don’t need a creator”.They also use a mangling of the 2nd law of thermodynamics to support the idea that the universe needs a creator (at least I am pretty sure it is a mangling. What do I know? I am an accountant.)
Personally, I think you should debate him. Tell him you are willing to discuss *1* and only *1* point that he feels conclusively proves creationism. After he shares that, tell him you will provide him with research next month that you feel disproves that point. The month after he can provide a response (with references) to the research and so on, until one of you is convinced by the other or he wants to quit. ;)It will be a good education for him in how real science and debate works and he’ll either realize how facile his responses appear next to actual research or he’ll save his gems for those who lack an actual education in the discipline.He should be willing to respect the limitations of timeframe and scope given your busy schedule as a doctoral student and you’ve given him the opportunity to engage his habit with few negative repercussions to you.It’s similar to my situation-I have a fundamentalist neighbour who hosts visiting ministers. When one of them shows up that starts trying to impress with his “knowledge” he usually brings the minister over to visit me (under the pretext of borrowing something or whatever).He’ll usually bring up one point, and I’ll insist we stick to that as his minister guest shares his “learning”. Once the proper dose of humility has been administered, he’ll take the minister home with some helpful counsel about “it’s not the number of books you’ve read, but the number of times you’ve read the book” :)It keeps his church from getting infected with all kinds of half-assed “theology”, “history” and “science” and his church is very clear that they believe in God, Jesus and the Bible solely on faith, which works for me-there’s a lot more humility with folks like that than those who have “proof”.My neighbour and I get along great, he appreciates my help and I appreciate his, watching the house when I travel or if I’m doing some repairs.Good luck!
I would hope for your sake he’s a reasonable guy who has simply been influenced by the wrong people. Well, one can hope…! Good luck!I would suggest, not to push it; if he wants to push the discussions then having a good, highly-visible row of technical books might be a good idea. Maybe even have a few books giving the more accessible rational view, which don’t even have to be by Dawkins or whoever (as these would be red rags to a bull for a creationist, let’s face it)! Isaac Asimov had a few good ones, dating back 30 years….And yes, I do like a bit of Schadenfreude!!!
Yeah, and I wonder if he’s already pitching a proposal to book publishers: a tell-all tale about what it’s like to rent to a godless scientific pervert.All kidding aside: I hope he’s a decent guy, Jen, and not one who would abuse the landlord relationship in any way. (Benefit of the doubt, and all…)
or he’d call in backup?
Arguments, debates, etc. never solve anything, and no one ever wins them. It’s fun to cheer on an evolutionist debating a creationist, but from the point of view of the debaters, nothing is gained or lost (except maybe some dignity). He’s not going to change your mind, and you’re not going to change his, and debating him will only cause your “relationship” (for lack of a better word) to degenerate. In this case, I agree with LS in a comment above:”You might try ‘I spend so much of my life debating this topic, and as friendly as you are, I’d really kind of like to escape from it when I’m at home.'”Hopefully he’d understand :)
Yes, Schadenfreude was a wonderful gift… on behalf of all Americans, thank you! ;-)In the US, I think most people are only vocal about their beliefs (or lack of them) if they feel very strongly about it. I am in the “I don’t care much” camp too… but then again, we’re both here.
I’ve always wondered about that response. If He’s outside of time, how does He cause anything, since, you know, causality only exists in time? “Creation” and “cause” become nonsense words if there isn’t Time for them to take place in.
It’s OK–you didn’t want to live in a basement suite full of house spiders anyway… right?
OMG that makes spiders even more terrifying.
Yep, because I tend to believe the atheist thing more than the god one… especially the “organised religion” god one. Apart from that its more like: “If I am a good person and there IS a god he should appreciate it anyway. At least the kind of god I’d like to have. If it is the other variant, we’re all f**ed anyway” ;)
I keep being surprised by creationist geneticists. It’s a bit like meeting an astronomer who suddenly lets slip that, oh yes, he thinks the world is flat.
but junk dna… would be evidence against creationism and for evolution. He would have been better to go with the eye.
Similarly, it is a waist of time to teach ignorant people, only teach smart people. Oh wait…
Where’s your public spirit? Why dress up as Batman when an earpiece can be just as easily concealed in a pirate’s bandanna? Do your part to stop global warming!
DO I LOOK LIKE A PIRATE??? SWEAR TO ME.
That was my thought too. I’d love to hear how someone could use noncoding DNA to support creationism.
He’s an old guy – just as him about his health and *bingo* total distraction. Of course then you’ll be stuck with corn stories but that might be easier…
I disagree, and think we should argue about it.^_^
*ahem*Mysterious. Ways.
Scientists say junk DNA proves evolution.Some of what scientists thought was junk DNA turned out to not be junk DNA.Therefore, evolution is a lie and Jesus is true.(Don’t look at me, it’s not my argument.)
As long as people have their egos invested in something, and it gives them a community to bond with, they will always find excuses to beleive something..
Best. Comment. Ever.
Gee, you’re so pushy and negative. You must be single. That’s probably why you’re so pushy and negative. [/poe]
By the pasta, the meat, and the zesty sauce, I swear to you that if you do not look like a pirate, it is only because you aren’t trying hard enough…
You can’t really blame them for that.They don’t believe in evolution, so their arguments cannot evolve.
And if that doesn’t work, you can just make sure that you’re always watching “Pacific Heights” on your DVD player whenever he shows up to debate you…
I met someone on the train who wanted to debate evolution and promote religion, so I had him give me his email and sent him the following:(I checked the URLs and they are all still working as of the time of posting…)==========Hi,We met on the train the other day and you said you would like to continue our conversation; here are some links to maybe put you on the same wavelength….(It’s a lot to watch, but it’s very entertaining if you have true desire to understand reality.)After you’ve seen all of these videos, perhaps you can come up with a rational argument against the points they make. I doubt that you can, but if you can, I’d be happy to hear them.If you can’t, I would urge you to seek out atheist groups and learn more about being ruled by reason instead of dogma. I know this takes a bit of intellectual courage, but in my opinion, it’s well worth it.****First, there’s CDK007, a intelligent, well-educated, and entertaining scientist.We’ll start with a series of evolution vs. creationism (aka intelligent design) videos, the first being one that shows how “evolution is a blind watchmaker”:http://www.youtube.com/user/cd…Another series on why young earth creationists must deny GRAVITY…http://www.youtube.com/user/cd…Yet another series on the origin of life, DNA, sexual reproduction, etc.:http://www.youtube.com/user/cd…Unfortunately, the immediately preceding list is interrupted and may cut off in the middle if you don’t have a YouTube account. This is the remainder of the series:http://www.youtube.com/user/cd…Fortunately, you can still see the skipped video, as it has been re-posted multiple times by other people…
And here’s a series on the logic of religion:http://www.youtube.com/user/cd……with another interruption; remaining video follows:http://www.youtube.com/user/cd…And again the skipped video:
Also, the first video in this series was skipped because the second and third are repeated, and I wished to avoid redundancy; here is the first of the series:
*****Here Richard Dawkins explains how evolution resulted in some very unintelligent design.
Here Dan Denett talks about why people “believe” (i.e. pretend belief to themselves and others) in God:
Here Andy Thompson talks about why people actually do believe in God:
Here Simon Singh gives a very good demonstration of what Thompson was talking about:
Here is a long list of answers to the moral problems with religious belief Christopher “God is not Great” Hitchens kicks it off:
And just in case you would use the “God is not subject to the laws of logic” argument….
Pasta be with you,==============That was a little over a month ago. I still haven’t heard back from the debating creationist…
Jen,I can’t wait until he asks you about your blogging and he realizes that he has let a famous, athiest, evolutionist, feminist, arachnophobic blogger with homosexual tendencies into his house. I agree with one of the commenters above. You should definately get the rights for a reality TV series. I would watch. I also find it amusing that you ended up living under a creationist in the supposidly non-religous bastion of Seattle. Your blog, like your life, keeps getting better and better. How can I stop coming back for more?