I have to visit Loudon, Virginia someday. It’s where Corsair the Rational Pirate lives, and I think the streets must be humming with dancing clowns and village idiots twirling and a marching kazoo band. I’ve seen stupid creationist arguments before, but these, that were actually published in his local paper, take the cake.
John Miller has an amazing argument from probability and relativity and the fact that the laws of physics don’t evolve that has to be seen to be believed. Here’s just his conclusion.
You cannot have randomness. If you do, you can never science (know) a subject because there is no pattern and no law governing that phenomenon since it is random. If these people would stand back and consider all of the elements, the plants, the animals, think about these items at the atomic level and then ask, “how in the world did this all work out?” with a mind towards probability, they will soon realize, as the gays should, that evolution is a big lie.
I kind of like how “the gays” suddenly popped up in his last sentence. There isn’t anything about homosexuality anywhere else, but apparently, evolution is actually a big gay theory, and we’re all supposed to just know that.
Nat Kidder has a novel claim: the argument from Coca Cola.
Cola’s status as the most popular soda flavoring could not have been driven by natural selection, since soda water was invented only three centuries ago. Three centuries is simply too short a period for either the kola tree or humans to adapt to such a development. Thus the kola tree (or man, for that matter) could well have been the product of intelligent design.
Chocolate for candy and vanilla for ice cream are also simple flavorings whose popularity stand the test of time. And they too were applied to foodstuffs too recently for evolution to propel their tastiness.
Does this disprove Darwin? Hardly, but it does call into question the notion that all life is the result of “survival of the fittest”.
Hmmm. So if evolution were true, we’d just select any random plant, such as the Bitter Sneezeweed, brew up some extract and sell it, and after some long period of evolution, we’d all adapt to enjoy the vomiting and diarrhea? Mr Kidder should realize that there are a lot of plants out there, they all produce varieties of compounds for their own purposes, and what people did was pick the ones that produced useful/tasty/interesting sensations (like coffee and colas and chocolate) when consumed and spread those around, while ignoring or avoiding the nasty ones, like Bitter Sneezeweed. That chemistry has unpredictable effects on different organisms isn’t an argument against evolution.
Mr Corsair has some interesting neighbors. I sincerely hope that Loudon is an anomaly in Virginia…or is it the place where the state ships all of its kooks?
WTF? Big Gay Al and his big gay theory of evolution?
Thanks for the Sunday afternoon laugh.
OK, this was really too much. I submitted it straight to FSTDT.
The second letter, however, could be a spoof (the name Nat Kidder looks a bit suspicious to me).
Wow! Evilutionists are nothing but gay coca-cola drinkers! Is this the kind of *science* we want to support?
Or maybe Nat just showed an argument not proving, but questioning the dogma that coca-cola arose by natural selection.
(Visions of mating coke cans…)
FSTDT?
i live in Loudoun county (specifically Sterling, near Dulles airport) and dammit, i missed those two.
Then again, i read the ‘Post for regional editorial opinions rather than the specifics of Loudoun County’s stuff aside from the rants on the property taxes and assessments.
Maybe I’ll go read “Corsair” for a bit and see if its worth buying him a beer at the local brewpubs.
Small world, PZ, as you already just re-introduced me to Jody Wheeler in your last post, and he’s an old friend from my undergrad days. thanks!
Back to the topic:
Loudoun County (2nd fastest growing in the country over the last 10 years, fastest growing for 4 of those 10) is in an odd situation. You have in the west the typical rural mentality (“evilution”), but then you have the mix of the rapidly exploding suburbs as people move out here ’cause they can’t afford to live in Fairfax county anymore (and even this place is overpriced). Those are about 60-40 split between investors (“economic” republicans) and liberals who simply moved here ’cause they want a little space.
Like most Republicans, the economic/academic crew here are perfectly willing to pay lip-service to the large number of religious conservatives (there’s a 10,000 seat megachurch not 1/4 mile away from Dominion, the largest beer brewery/brewpub in the DC area) for the sake of their votes.
Granted, only up to a point. Voters in the county recently majorly rejected a anti-abortion, homophobic bigot for state rep in a recent emergency election (the seat being emptied by a member moving into the senate in the november election) by an overwhelming margin.
And according to exit polling, *education* was the number one reason they supported the democratic candidate (the other candidate’s reactionary positions coming a close second). Many who moved here came from top-rated Fairfax County, and don’t want to sacrifice school quality just to get a little more elbow room.
I just love that there’s a plant called bitter sneezeweed.
“As the gays should” has just become my favorite non-sequiteur idiotic additional clause. I’m trying to figure out how to work it into as many everyday sentences as possible, before someone punches me in the jaw.
FSTDT -> Fundies Say The Darndest Things (I think)
http://www.fstdt.com/
Cola’s status as the most popular soda flavoring could not have been driven by natural selection, since soda water was invented only three centuries ago. Three centuries is simply too short a period for either the kola tree or humans to adapt to such a development. Thus the kola tree (or man, for that matter) could well have been the product of intelligent design.
This has to be a joke.
“I’m trying to figure out how to work it into as many everyday sentences as possible, before someone punches me in the jaw,” as the gays should.
Roman got it right.
Are you sure these words of wisdom weren’t published yesterday?
Okay, smartie–If the kola nut was intelligently designed, then why doesn’t it have that Coke-can-like pop-top just like that divinely-crafted banana, huh? Or for that matter, why don’t human beings just have a snap-off skull leading to a cranial book-drop for fundies to throw a Bible into, huh? Huh?
Nat “Kidder” indeed–that’s got to be a joke.
That theory of KIdders proves all the gay pygmies + dwarfs!
Oh my, the article feels like when you have a cut off date and need to produce a big amount of “examinable” text asap…
I’m having a little trouble following this Miller guy; is he trying to say that homosexuals are the result of ID?
“‘I’m trying to figure out how to work it into as many everyday sentences as possible, before someone punches me in the jaw,’ as the gays should.”
Damn, that didn’t last long! The real question, though, has anyone punched John Miller yet?
Maybe this John Miller went to the same school as the woman who asked how water evolved.
Nat Kidder, meanwhile, needs to bone up on his orgo. Or perhaps sample some uncooked rhubarb for dinner.
“Cola’s status as the most popular soda flavoring could not have been driven by natural selection, since soda water was invented only three centuries ago. Three centuries is simply too short a period for either the kola tree or humans to adapt to such a development. Thus the kola tree (or man, for that matter) could well have been the product of intelligent design.”
So…., if she weighs the same as a duck, she’s a witch. Burn her!
(Actually, the real reason Coca Cola got so popular is because it originally had cocaine in it.)
OMNG, PZ, you’ve never heard of FSTDT? You don’t know what you’re missing, believe me.
He has to have heard of FSTDT, he made a post about it!
“you can never science (know) a subject because there is no pattern”
Wooo! I’m a scientist! I think I’ll “science” some stuff! With my massive.. um.. sciencer! yea! God its great to be a scientist!
Uncle Don
Thus the kola tree (or man, for that matter) could well have been the product of intelligent design.
Are they seriously saying Coke is part of God’s plan?
Naturally Pepsi is of the devil…
The paper looks like it is a weekly publication, and if that’s the case then an April Fools joke is still in play.
Tom Renbarger:
The paper is twice-weekly, through the mail. Its a fairly straightforward “local” paper, and not known for being clever enough to actually intentionally perform an April Fools joke. They certainly haven’t in the past. Most of its content is local HS sports, a few spelling bee winners, and the endless complaints about traffic and property taxes.
As for the writers themselves? Well white-pages searching comes up with 3 “John Miller”‘s (about typical for a 20,000 person town) for Sterling so I can’t rule out that one of the three might have been that foolish.
However, there is no “Kidder” anywhere near the Ashburn, so the kola letter might have been a staged prank.
Now, in contrast to what I wrote earlier, Sterling and Ashburn are both on the eastern side of the county, where traditional residents are often getting replaced by new residents from Fairfax VA, Maryland, or from out of the DC area. To update my numbers from before, I’d guess the local demographics are 20% religious right, 25% economic republican, 25% liberal (mostly new residents), 28% moderates/undecideds (about half being new residents), and the remaining 2% didn’t speak english as their first language and rarely vote. Turnout is about 35% or less in non-presidential elections.
One thing I’ve discovered is that the academic/economic conservatives in the party sometimes will fool themselves into believing their unholy allies.
In *extremely* affluent and well-educated Chester, NJ (about an hour outside of DC, average house price approaching a million), a place where the religious right has nearly no presence at all, the local president of the high school’s Young Republicans still published an column in the school paper (later picked up by the local paper) promoting the teaching of ID in schools. Like McCain’s recent statements on the issue, they can pick up the talking points of the party for the sake of appearances and the vote, and its hard to tell how much they actually believe what they say.
I live in Loudoun County and I am not an idiot! There are some rationalists out here! There seems to be a small group of locals who love to write really stupid letters to the editors of our local free papers. Our county is on the front lines of red-state land I’m afraid. But at least there are a few of us here!
PZ you should come visit if you’re ever in the DC area. We could have a great time at the Dominion Brewpub.
…darth
I can’t believe you didn’t link to the best one, PZ. (And by best I mean ‘most batshit insane’)
All archeologists in their diggings have only ever discovered completely whole creatures. They say apes can use tools and that proves their point. Many animals are very smart and use tools. There was a horse on TV that picked up a stick and scratched his belly with it.
oops, i can’t write. Chester, NJ is about an hour outside NYC.
Loudon County is also home to Patrick Henry College. Don’t worry, the blue bubble is expanding to Loudon. If it does get too wingnutty for you, there’s always Alexandria and Arlington.
OMG! People say man evolved from the apes; however, how do they explain all other life forms? Where did all the flowers, plants and trees come from? How about the bacteria, the insects, and millions of other creatures, did they all accidentally evolve from the apes?
There are flowers – so how come there are still apes around?
Isn’t it amazing that most everything shrinks when it gets cold, but water expands. Think what would happen if water shrank.
Think what would happen if water shrank!!! This is almost as good as pygmies+dwarfs and the eye-babies!
No, no, no, no!
Honest to God, I was doing SATIRE! I swear!
It’s impossible, it’s simply impossible, to underestimate what the neurotic drive for a faith-based, “common sense” reality will do to people’s brains. It will drive them to desperate, dangerous extremes. Even when it’s funny, don’t underestimate it — it can and will drive them lower. It ain’t no game.
But there is a game at the link above. Here are two quotes, first John Miller’s then mine from a paraody book review on Amazon.
The Amazon game might be fun for some of PZ’s readers. It’s an evolving challenge to one’s brain and sense of humor simultaneously. It gets more difficult with each new participant.
Amazon has listed an apparent reprint of an apparent milestone of computer science from the 1970s, A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates by Rand Corporation. The contents are simply one giant list of 5-digit random numbers.
Almost all of the 44 reviews treat the book as if it has story content and, so far, no reviewer has repeated a slant/approach used by previous reviewers. Some of this is quite clever. I’d recommend reading them from the earliest to the most recent to appreciate the evolution. Two of my favorites are what the ……………? by Preston Brewer “preston” [Think about it; it took me awhile to come around] and 47382 75983 37483 83740! by 47.
It’s a great, spontaneous, unscripted group joke-in.
Without a seque, back to “Miller’s Mind.” He seems to honestly believe he has a detailed grasp of the extant scientific literature on evolutionary biology and physics! He thinks he’s thought. I’m gonna say it one more time. To swing elections, ya gotta talk to people in a manner they understand. Dey doan tink lack wees tinking.
NEED DOMINION ROOT BEER NOW! But still not an urgent enough requirement to move back to NOVA. I will admit, it was the the wingnuts who drove me out after 9/11. Even though I now reside in a redder state (still so unhappy about losing the slaves that they’ve begun to import new ones from Mexico), I feel safer now than I did living in not-reality-based community (though it seems that I’ve traded jets from Quantico for Black Hawk helicopters).
Let’s also not forget that Loudoun county is where Rick Santorum keeps his large, sweetheart-deal-purchased home. I’m sure he feels very comfortable here, but he’ll probably be leaving soon….
More New River Pale Ale for me!
The paper is twice-weekly, through the mail. Its a fairly straightforward “local” paper, and not known for being clever enough to actually intentionally perform an April Fools joke. They certainly haven’t in the past. Most of its content is local HS sports, a few spelling bee winners, and the endless complaints about traffic and property taxes.
As for the writers themselves? Well white-pages searching comes up with 3 “John Miller”‘s (about typical for a 20,000 person town) for Sterling so I can’t rule out that one of the three might have been that foolish.
However, there is no “Kidder” anywhere near the Ashburn, so the kola letter might have been a staged prank.
Hi, Joe, thanks for the clarification. I can certainly believe that someone would make a silly over-extrapolation concerning the word “evolution” in an argument, but the cola thing did seem like a bit much.
http://www.fnal.gov/ecology/wildlife/pics/Common_Loon.jpg
Okay, I’m voting for “has to be an April Fools gag” side, but I’ve gotta say — if it’s not, the way that Loon # 1 managed to pull Eisenstein’s _The Printing Press as an Agent of Change_ into the argument was masterful beyond belief.
“100,000 Normal Deviates” would be a good name for a band.
Coming from an old family from western Loudoun, I would like to observe that the hardcore religious nuttery (Patrick Henry “college”, Mike Farris, Rick Santorum, etc) aren’t native – they came in with the tidal wave of growth over the last 20-odd years. The flavor of the old-school rural areas isn’t redneck-y “evilution” at all.
What? 40 comments and not a single “If A came from B, why is there still B?” joke?
What are eye babies?????? Please tell me as they sound funny and cute and kind of freakish all at the same time, and I am assuming they have some signifigance that I just have not figured out yet.
Please sir, tell me what eyebabies are…….