Here’s another sample of strange creationist email. This one spares the freaky fonts and excessive style changes, and instead we get an abrupt opening with no explanation, and a healthy dose of paranoia.
First, a little background: David P. Wozney is basically a dinosaur denialist (and also a conspiracy theorist—he has doubts about the Apollo moonlanding, for instance). Archy has a good overview of Wozney weirdness. The person who sent this to me, Cyndy Kenickell, is also a dinosaur denialist. The fun begins when she tries to explain why dinosaurs don’t exist: dinosaurs were faked to justify birth control.
Just roll with it. Don’t try to understand it.
I came across D. P. Wozney’s website in 2000 while I was working at the University of Texas at Dallas. As I read it, I became very apprehensive that he had pre-empted me in publishing the discoveries that I had made since I began working on the subject of creation science in the fall of 1986. However, as I corresponded with him by e-mail, I realized that he did not have my evidence. I first began trying to present my discoveries to Drs. Duane Gish and John Morris at the Institute for Creation Research in El Cajon, CA, in the late 1980’s. They rejected my evidence, although they differ from D. P. Wozney in that they believe that God created dinosaurs, whereas Wozney does not. Then I worked as a research assistant for Dr. Ray Bohlin of Probe Ministries while he was re-writing his book on the molecular genetic aspect of refuting evolution in 1996-1997. I also presented my discoveries to him (by then I had accumulated many more discoveries), but again they were rejected. I continued to do independent research with great difficulty, because he denied my request for the use of an office and equipment at his headquarters in Richardson, Texas, close to UTD.
I certainly would not consider myself to be in the mainstream with any of the creation scientists that I know of. My parents are atheist/agnostic and my very conception was according to strict adherence to the dictates of Thomas Robert Malthus (having only two children to replace yourselves, although it really doesn’t work because they already have 5 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren). My Dad’s comments upon the birth of my third child was that he would have x.x less area of living space (I assume he had already calculated it, as he gave me a specific number, and he did not give her a certificate of deposit like my first two children.) Which brings me to the real reason behind the need to create the concept of dinosaurs in order to provide scientific evidence of evolution, which theory preceded rather than followed the fossil evidence. The evolution scientists of the 1800’s felt that the only way to get the general population to reduce the number of children they brought into the world was to find a way to erode their strong belief in God and the inerrancy of the Bible and the strict adherence to the doctrines of the church. The Catholic and I think the Anglican church forbade any kind of birth control. And I would say that the last two centuries have shown the effectiveness of their plan. The strong belief in God and the inerrancy of the scriptures (such as the creation and flood accounts in Genesis) and strict adherence to the doctrines of the church have definitely been eroded, and all the various methods of birth control, including abortion, have pervaded society and successfully reduced the birth rate in Western Europe, the United States, China and Japan, while at the same time, the population of the world has risen to 6 billion and we are all obese ( in other words, there was not the shortage of food to accompany the increase in population predicted by Malthus in his Essay on Population).
So they are/were all wrong and now we are left with this dilemma of the dinosaur debate. I do not think, as Wozney, that all the bones were planted. But I do genuinely suspect that the bones of the sauropod Alamosaur discovered by a paleontology class from UTD in Big Bend National Park were planted because I personally watched the video. The students were led to a particular area of the national park where I believe bones had previously been planted for the class members to “discover.” It showed them removing shallow, loose dirt from the 5 large vertebrae, and I was not the only one who noticed that. Not only that, but some dinosaur tracks at Lake Grapevine that we observed on a field trip were very suspicious, because I noticed one (only one) footprint going in the opposite direction of all of the other tracks. I mentioned this to the TA, Derek Main, now with the Dallas Museum of Natural History, but he did not have an answer. I think I know the answer, because some paleontology students from SMU had been secretly working on the site for some time before revealing their discovery. The geological formations in that area consist of unusually friable (using only your fingers) sedimentary rock that would make it easy to make your own dinosaur tracks, which of course have been shown in paleontology textbooks for decades (the classic three-toed kind).
So my discoveries still sit in boxes in a rented warehouse and I still don’t have an office and the proper equipment to publish my discoveries. However, I can possibly e-mail a few more easily accessible subjects, such as the recent discovery of a living trilobite at the bottom of the Antarctic ocean (I got the photo and article from the msn news), and how the glyptodon fossil skeleton is a composite of bones from different animals from different locations discovered subsequently to the suggestions and predictions of the early evolution scientists that such a fossil animal would be found that would be a “common ancestor” to the extant fauna of South America.
Thank you for your consideration.
and her point is….?
tldr/tsdr are the only appropriate responses
“…in other words, there was not the shortage of food to accompany the increase in population predicted by Malthus in his Essay on Population.”
Clearly in his self reinforcing delusion your correspondent has conveniently forgotten the majority of the world’s population who are barely surviving on a subsitence agriculture in desolated environments. I have most commonly seen this kind of presentation of “facts” in patients currently under treatment for long term psychiatric schizoid disorders. When a disturbed mental state creates a fertile ground for emperical acceptance of a self-created reality.
Right– Same question as djlactin: Why did this individual feel compelled to send this to you? No inquiry is even made…
Baffling.
[stating the obvious] This woman is mentally ill. [/stating the obvious]
I wonder if she is talking about the trilobite-looking thingee from this article? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6661987.stm
More than a couple of bloggers have commented on it looking like one. I did in a wistful, wishful thinking kind of way…
“[stating the obvious] This woman is mentally ill. [/stating the obvious]”
If she’s telling the truth about her parents, it’s hardly surprising.
Sounds not wholly unlike the rantings of my ex-wife, who does coincidentally hail from the north Texas region (DFW metroplex). Must be something in the water up there, who knows. I remember driving home (to Houston) and saw a large billboard on the outskirts of Dallas that was–I shit you not–full on warning about the “United Nations’ Black Helicopters”, etc; not much further down the road is some kind of tacky looking Christian…well, Compound is just about the only right word for it. I may be a Texan myself, but from a cultural standpoint, the greater DFW area in general gives me the creeps. The weather up there is great (they actually have 4 distinct season, and I’ve experienced them all, as a grad student in Library Science), but the people…? *shudder* Houston is a beacon of Enlightenment compared to greater DFW; Austin remains the home of our “Best & Brightest”, but Houston is not far behind them, IMHO.
Probe Ministries. Gives me impure thoughts.
“Clearly in his self reinforcing delusion your correspondent has conveniently forgotten the majority of the world’s population who are barely surviving on a subsitence agriculture in desolated environments.”
Clearly Paul is the one who needs mental help. Either that or he’s ignorant of the work of Norman Borlaug and the Green Revolution, the results of the mechanization of agriculture, and the actual *science* of increasing agricultural outputs, which has allowed much greater populations to rely on much smaller tracts of land than was ever possible before. Before you start looking down your noses at people at least bother to get your facts straight. (And I say that as an atheist.)
Evilution disproved at last!
Might as well give up then you Godless heathens.
With apologies to Chris Rowan and his nice Precambrian fossil pictures, OK Dawkins and Haldane, where is your God now ?
http://tinyurl.com/34ay4k
The finding of a living Trilobite (if true) would prove what exactly ? Many creatures still living, the crocodile for example, have barely changed since the time of the dinosaurs.
epicurus,
Clearly you need to get on a plane and travel around the world a bit. As a native Brazilian I didn’t even have to go very far to find people who live on the edge of starvation even today. There most certainly are not 6 billion plus obese people on this planet despite all the advances in agriculture that have benefited certain segments of the world’s population. For starters you might try visiting some of the off the beaten track areas of Central America, Africa and Asia. Please take your camera to document what you see. As an alternative you may wish to take some weight watchers pamphlets with you to help the world’s obese.
Before this degenerates into an argument about how many hungry people there are in the world, the UN’s State of Food Insecurity in the World report for 2006.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/a0750e/a0750e00.htm
Go, read, learn.
The bit that killed me was about how her parents having 2 children didn’t work just to replace themselves.
For one thing she seems to think the 5 grandchildren from 2 parents is way too high (but they would be replacing 4 parents). Second, she didn’t stick to the rule! The extra kid is hers. But she’s saying “This rule supposedly does x. I didn’t follow the rule. Therefore the rule does not do x”.
“I first began trying to present my discoveries to Drs. Duane Gish and John Morris at the Institute for Creation Research in El Cajon, CA, in the late 1980’s. They rejected my evidence…”
One could only imagine what earth-shattering discoveries she has that even creationists fear to reveal them. Similar in scale perhaps to her discovery of 6 billion obese people on our planet, with only a wayward dinosaur footprint as the damning evidence.
Is this the sort of fanmail that the Discovery Institute has been getting?
*shudders*
Like other commenters before me, I am even more baffled by the fact that she send it to you, than about the actual claims she makes. How come?
I just had a look at David P. Wozney’s “webshite” and I found this :-
“People are free to recognize a present-day existence of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland if they so choose”.
That’s very big of him – thanks !
While it may be true that obese people currently outnumber the obviously emaciated that doesn’t mean they are well nourished.
http://www.news-medical.net/?id=19792
Experts say that overweight and obese people outnumber the undernourished in the world and childhood obesity is now on such a scale that for the first time in history, the human race is facing the possibility of millions of parents outliving their children.
http://www.umich.edu/news/index.html?Releases/2004/Jun04/r060804a
BTW I love this comment from a Study at the University of Michigan: The United States is a developing country? Ok, I know that it’s a typo but there is some truth in it nonetheless.
“That both malnourishment and obesity exist simultaneously in developing populations seems counterintuitive, especially when the reasons for obesity in developing nations such as the United States are inactivity and excess fat intake. Those conditions, especially the latter, don’t exist in developing nations.”
And in other happenings I stubbed my toe a few minutes ago.
It is no surprise that education is not a priority of the jesus freaks. They will even resort to terrorism to prevent it.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6453294.html
“Now the programs are cancelled in the wake of phone and e-mail threats from the community, believed to emanate from a single local Baptist church.”
I thought this bit was the funniest:
I certainly would not consider myself to be in the mainstream with any of the creation scientists that I know of.
So… er… what “mainstream” would that be, precisely?
Perhaps she sent it to PZ because she recognizes how powerful of an influence he is. For starters, I think posting it on his blog has given her views a larger audience than she could have ever hoped for. Im not sure she realizes he’s against her views, but considering how psychotic she is, I wouldn’t be surprised if she missed it.
I’ve had some pretty funny interactions with Creationists but that one takes to cake.
One of my late Christian friends was a bit hung up on trilobites. According to him, trilobites provided evidence against evolution. Why? Because over millions of years they never evolved! He had absolutely no clue about the many species of trilobites and assumed their anti-evolutionary role as — what else? — a matter of faith.
I wonder if he knew your correspondent.
You can call her psychotic, but I fail to see how her delusion is any worse than a guy who wears a fancy robe and a pointy hat who has convinced a billion people that everything that comes out of his mouth when he sits on his magic chair is the word of God.
So… PZ. When are you sending a letter to Probe Ministries, and to the Discovery Institute, saying that you find the respondent’s research as worth as anything you have read in creation science, and encouraging them to give her office space, equipment, stipend, and other support, so that she can continue it?
Good gravy, what a lunatic. One can only wonder what her boxed “discoveries” consist of. At the risk of sounding like I’m defending this woman, I see no point in picking apart her claims, trying to refute this or that point, etc. I can only imagine what a conversation with her would be like–similar to arguing with a drunk, only the drunk eventually sobers up and then can at least comprehend what you’re talking about. These people who find conspiracies under every rock and around every corner (including on the moon) annoy me to no end, but the only way I can deal with them is to just ignore them and walk away.
Meh… I’ve dated crazier women.
It’s a shame she can’t even do math either. A replacement rate of reproduction is 2 children, 4 grandchildren, 8 great-grandchildren, and so on doubling with each generation. Pretty basic stuff.
Just another nut with mental issues. I especially liked, “So my discoveries still sit in boxes in a rented warehouse…”. Aka mini-storage. Or possibly just in her garage.
Is it just me, or are the categories for “creationism” and “kooks” starting to merge.
I think this one belongs in the Aluminum-foil Hat Club.
A dinosaur denialist! I can’t stop laughing!!!
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
This is the dumbest conspiracy theory I’ve ever seen. Nazis in UFOs are nothing against this! If it were published as is by the Onion, I’d never guess it wasn’t a parody, though I might not rank it among their best spoofs.
:-D :-D :-D
A dinosaur denialist! I can’t stop laughing!!!
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
This is the dumbest conspiracy theory I’ve ever seen. Nazis in UFOs are nothing against this! If it were published as is by the Onion, I’d never guess it wasn’t a parody, though I might not rank it among their best spoofs.
:-D :-D :-D
Since the creationists are so willing to tolerate any crazy idea that might help them cast doubt on evolution…
How nutty do you have to be to get rejected by the whole camp?
My thoughts mirrored this comment:
“One could only imagine what earth-shattering discoveries she has that even creationists fear to reveal them.”
except they were more of, “How looney does she have to be that not even Duane Gish will take her seriously?”
Oh really? Then either Brazil has been recently labeled “developed” or I have been living in another country for the last 28 years.
Clear-sighted appraisal of the the creationist project. From the mouths of children and suckers…
Clear-sighted appraisal of the the creationist project. From the mouths of children and suckers…
Yep, it’s a pretty sad time when the line between parody and reality is non-existent.
What’s really sad is that I used to live in Georgia and posted on a hunting related web page. I’d sometimes link articles from the Onion. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who took them seriously.
Wow.
Appears her craziness is manifested as stupid.
PZ, please please please allow her to send you her discoveries. You’re sitting on a gold mine here, a way of enlivening literally every rainy day that comes along for the rest of our lives. Her discoveries, if they really are as myriad and as wacky (rejected even by the creationists!) as she is claiming, need to see the light of day. They aren’t bringing joy to anyone packed away in a box, dismissed even by Texas’ craziest fundies.
**I came across D. P. Wozney’s website in 2000 while I was working at the University of Texas at Dallas. As I read it, I became very apprehensive that he had pre-empted me in publishing the discoveries that I had made since I began working on the subject of creation science in the fall of 1986.**
tee hee. they’re the Darwin and Wallace of the idiot ID set!
Holly mother of Jeebus. I had no idea there were dinosaur denialists. How far can one place one’s head into one’s rectal cavity ? On second thought, not any more of a stretch than to think they all fit into the ark.
It’s worthwhile to remember these cases. There was a time, maybe 30 years ago, when the “dinosaurs were planted by Satan” argument was much more popular. Fundies, operating under the delusion that their beliefs are immutable, conveniently forget this.
Let her send her stuff. You never know when you’re gonna uncover the next Henry Darger (http://www.saraayers.com/darger.htm) or Adolf Wolfli (http://www.adolfwoelfli.ch/)
But I do genuinely suspect that the bones of the sauropod Alamosaur discovered by a paleontology class from UTD in Big Bend National Park were planted because I personally watched the video.
And I suspect Ross and Rachel got married in Vegas because I personally watched the show.
Sheesh.
…
…
Literal craziness, but hopefully of the harmless variety.
I kinda wonder if she should have children in her care, and/or if the kids might have special mental health care needs due to some possibly-hereditary condition.
…
I’m having one of my metaphor-moments, as I think about people like this woman:
Science is this broad, bright roadway you can trek along, well-marked, well-traveled, and with damned fine scenery along the way. AND it has this glowing light of discovery always beckoning into the distance.
Then there are these dark alleys and dim, weird little cul-de-sacs that contain all the pseudo-science and superstition and quackery. If they lead anywhere at all, they lead in small constipated circles.
The main roadway requires some degree of mental fitness, a certain amount of effort, and a degree of openness to make the journey. It also requires a willingness to change course at times, when you get off onto a wrong turning. If you’re a guide, a scientist, it takes a LOT of painstaking work, but if you’re just a tourist, you only have to follow on the ground already broken for you by the experts.
Some of those dark side-alleys are well-populated, and have cheerleaders and salesmen standing by shouting out all the benefits supposedly contained within: “Right this way to Immortality! Undying Love! Eternal Meaning! Freedom from Pain and Fear! An End to Doubt and Uncertainty! Cosmic Personal Significance! Plus, you’ll eventually get to watch gleefully as everybody who ever doubted you, everybody who refused to listen to you, everybody who ever laughed at you as they passed by on the main road, burns in a pit of fire!”
The roadway of science and reason is always slightly uphill, whereas the alleys are all invitingly downhill slopes. All you have to do is relax, give up, amble in and follow orders.
The problem is, if you ever did want to get out, you’d have to work even harder than you would if you’d stayed on the main road. Some of them even have one-way entry gates.
Easy to see how you could get trapped in the darkness there.
…
…
Some creos, especially one’s affiliated with K. Ham, believe that there are still dinosaurs running around someplace. After all, they got on the Big Boat and got off a few thousand years ago. So the question has always been, “Where in the hell are our dinosaurs? We miss our dinosaurs!*”
So it seems there is are competing theories in the creation “science” field. It is between the dinosaur denialists and the dinosaurs are around somewhere groups. It would be absolutely hilarious to get them together for a conference on dinosaur “research”.
*No fair claiming the birds are avian theropods. Evolution doesn’t exist either.
So… what is she saying? That my mom and dad were guilty of child abuse when they gave us those books about dinosaurs and trilobites and stuff?
Getting rejected by the wackos at the ICR because THEY think you are nuts! Can a person sink lower then that?
Seriously, since when can you just ignore dinosaurs?
You know what group of animals doesn’t fit in with my religious beliefs? Rodents. Everyone knows they don’t exist. By denying their existence, I can solve my mouse infestation with minimal effort!
I know a guy who claims he had to stay in Georgia one night a couple decades ago due to the weather grounding his flight. “All In the Family” was first run. He found himself in a bar getting dinner when the show came on, and he swears all the local rednecks cheered every stupid thing that came out of Archie Bunker’s mouth. As one of the locals explained to my friend, Archie Bunker was the first time that television had bothered to put the real stuff up; Bunker was the first guy who spoke the truth.
Not only can real nuttiness not be parodied, those who are stuck in the nuttiness can’t tell the difference, either.
Where’s Anonio D’Amasio when you need him? What sort of brain dysfunction is that? Is there a pill for it?
In the Apollo “hoax” page, cited as an inconsistency:
“The ascending LM gives a quiet and smooth ride”
Methinks he has watched too much Star Wars, expecting to hear a ‘boom’, regardless of whether or not that lunar camera was even equipped with a microphone.
In physics, we get (at least) two kinds of psychoceramics. One is ultra-looney, covered with persecution complex, using weird fonts and colors and capital letters, and claims of genius. The other are usually engineers, they’re well written, there’s some humility. The writer is convinced that he’s on to something, and the logic quickly gets spurious. I’m used to your creationists being the first kind. This strikes me as more the second kind, a trap that I think is far easier for a thinking person to fall into. It’s kind of sad.
“It’s worthwhile to remember these cases. There was a time, maybe 30 years ago, when the “dinosaurs were planted by Satan” argument was much more popular. Fundies, operating under the delusion that their beliefs are immutable, conveniently forget this.”
I think the “dinosaurs were planted by Satan” argument has been mostly supplanted by the “dinosaurs were planted by scientists” argument which the letter writer seems to believe. I have several friends who grew up in evangelical churches who were taught all their lives that dinosaurs were not real but were, in fact, planted by scientists to support their theories of evolution. While it is obviously nutty, I just wanted to point this out so no one thinks that dinosaur denial is held only by a few extreme kooks. It is pretty mainstream (of evangelical crazies).
Same thing, aren’t they? I hope so, otherwise I need some plastic surgery.
Bob
“So my discoveries still sit in boxes in a rented warehouse and I still don’t have an office and the proper equipment to publish my discoveries.”
AHH, so she’s one of those “Top Men” they told us about at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark…
Short form: “The world went to hell, and all I got was this lousy dinosaur debate.”
Dinosaur fossils are planted fakes, but not trilobites–not only did they once exist, they still do!
Apparently the entire Mesozoic is a hoax.
Ummmm…not a surgeon by trade, are these people? ;-)
(Oh, I’m going to get nailed at my blog for that one.) The best part of that page was the “leaving information behind for those not raptured.” LOL! Because the Rapture doesn’t “create new information,” you know.
Whereas strength through joy plus birth control makes dinosaurs! People – everytime you resist temptation, you kill a baby dinosaur! THINK ABOUT IT! So, if you just gaze at someone else in lust, are you making eye-baby-dinosaurs, then?
(It’s getting to the point where I almost have to annotate my posts so that people know what in blazes I’m talking about.)
That was my first thought too!
I don’t understand though how she doesn’t have the proper equipment to publish her discoveries. Didn’t she send this message from a computer…?
The solution is obvious. You guys gotta stop planting evidence. I mean, “evidence”, what is that, anyway? Just put on some funny robes and pontificate. You get a lot less dirt under your fingernails that way.
Dinosaurs a cruel hoax? Oh my! But, first we got Adam and Eve riding them (I see pitchers!), then we got them marching two by two onto Noah’s Excellent Vegetarian Adventure Ride and Theme Park…I’m so confused. Another of Gawd’s Misstrees I guess. Oh well!
Don’t these people communicate? I mean amongst themselves? It’s obvious from the above lunatic ravings at least Ms. K has trouble organizing her thoughts much less communicating them in any coherent manner.
MartinC
Haldane. Heh.
When she came across D.P.Wozney’s site, she must have felt the way Darwin did when Wallace’s (‘I’ve invented this thing called evolution’) letter landed.
I cannot read this. It takes too long and is utterly pointless. A long e-mail from a nutjob about nonsense.
Dinosaurs a cruel hoax? Oh my! But, first we got Adam and Eve riding them (I see pitchers!), then we got them marching two by two onto Noah’s Excellent Vegetarian Adventure Ride and Theme…Don’t these people communicate? I mean amongst themselves?
emkay, emkay, emkay, you are brilliant! PZ, tell these people about the “Creation Museum” quick! We’ll just sit back and watch. *Rubs hands*
I went to that Wozney site and had a look around. Did anybody else go to the section, Leaving Information For Those Not Raptured? He talks about a video he just saw intended for those of us left behind after the rapture, and then offers some further advice:
Excellent comment, Hank Fox! (#45) I have already sent a copy by e-mail to all my friends (I hope you’re not exercising copyright on that!). We should have it inscribed in golden letters at the entrance of all the schools and science research institutions in all the world.
The Rapture can’t come soon enough as far as I’m concerned. A world without nutty Christians is the closest thing to heaven an atheist could wish for!
Fatboy… you’re scaring me.
What I find most amusing is the basic belief and obsession behind her points – all these wacky religiois peeps are terribly hung up on SEX.
“Creating dinos so we can justify birth control”? I spit my latte out laughing. I love it!
Of course, birth control enables one to enjoy sex much more freely, particularly for women – so it is a two-headed fundie hydra…as sex is supposed to equal babies, and sex is not to be had unless you are married. Even when married, you are supposed to be willing to have a baby each time you have sex…god is supposed to decide whether you conceive, not you.
I feel sorry for these people – they are so fearful, illogical and extremely WEIRD.
*obesity does not mean one is overnourished, or even well-nourished – it often just means that one eats too much of the wrong kind of foods. One can easily become obese even while technically eating too few calories, if those calories are from fatty or sugary foods. It’s no mystery why any country in love with junk and processed foods becomes obese.
I’m so glad I didn’t waste any time reading that.
The correct URL for the photo and article of the living trilobite I was referring to:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18704209/?GT1=9951
(And, yes, I am aware of the numerous species of trilobites such as Phaecops. Often it takes a lifetime just to find one such discovery. I have been waiting for this one for over 20 years.)
The following is from the Wikipedia article on Thomas Robert Malthus:
“Malthus’ idea of man’s “Struggle for existence” had decisive influence on Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution. Other scientists related this idea to plants and animals which helped to define a piece of the evolutionary puzzle. This struggle for existence of all creatures is the catalyst by which natural selection produces the “survival of the fittest”, a phrase coined by Herbert Spencer (Spiegel 282). Darwin, in his book The Origin of Species, called his theory an application of the doctrines of Malthus in an area without the complicating factor of human intelligence. Darwin, a life-long admirer of Malthus, referred to Malthus as “that great philosopher” (Letter to J.D. Hooker 5th June, 1860) and wrote in his notebook that “Malthus on Man should be studied”. Wallace called Malthus’s essay “…the most important book I read…” and considered it “the most interesting coincidence” that both he and Darwin were independently led to the theory of evolution through reading Malthus.”
That is not a trilobite. It’s probably an isopod. There is a difference.
“One can easily become obese even while technically eating too few calories, if those calories are from fatty or sugary foods.”
Nah. Calories are a unit of energy. Eat more energy than you spend and you’ll store the extra as fat. Spend more than you eat and you’ll have to burn some previously stored fat to stay alive. Period. If obese folks are malnourished it’s from not enough protein, vitamins, etc., not from too few calories.
raven:
But it explains so much! Oh wait, maybe that’s why they hate it.
Why would they communicate when they are plainly not on the same team?
Granted, if any of them were smart, they’d at least spy on one another but they all appear to have their hands full t.p.-ing legitimate science blogs and websites with the same old tired and long since disproved canards.
…well as for explainations for evolutionists having an “atheist agenda”, hers is as good as any and better than most.
The basic question any scientist would have to creationists (assuming the scientist is at all interested in talking to the creationist) would be “How can you justify there being much evidence leading irrevocably to a conclussion you believe you most dismiss outright”. Usually if the answer isn’t “God is wierdo testing our faith with oodles of false evidence” it’s “there’s lots of compelling evidence for creationism and your assumptions that the laws of physics were the same 4000 years ago as they are now is faulty but you scientists have an atheistic agenda to deny it”
I’ve often wondered just what is an “athiestic agenda” and why would scientists have one (if God, the easter bunny, yetis, black swans, or eskimos {Simpson’s reference– not racism} did exist wouldn’t science try to study them?) Usually there is no answer “They don’t like god and don’t want us to believe in him” or some vague paranoia “They are communists and want us to forgo our believes so our wills weaken and they can manipulate us”. Turning away from the church so we can accomplish … uh, say birth control is at least rational in a totally irrational way.
Oh, and yes, she is most definately mentally ill and projecting her issues (her inability to seperate her parents views on birth control from her right to be alive at all) onto science’s motives.
Oops, should have previewed that bold.
Sorry.
“Dinosaur Denialist” Funny, ten years ago nearly all creationists were dinosaur denialists. Back then the theory was that *all* evidence was faked by God solely to test our faith. This meant the world was created with strata already formed including fossils of animals that never were alive. When the stars were created the light in transit and arriving on earth were created were also created at the same time. (Thus the light “from” a star a million light years away hasn’t been traveling for a million years; the light we saw was created in transit six thousand years ago and has only traveled six thousand light years away. I always wondered if God created light in transit, why we should believe the stars themselves should exist at all. The old creationists didn’t seem to consider that. How do these new creationist explain the size of the visiable universe and the speed of light?)
This makes for a very easy theory. No need to jam and misinterpreted incontrivertial evidence; “test of faith”. Plus extinction doesn’t really sit well with a perfect God, does it? And a perfect God is really the fear of evolution, isn’t it, more so than a literal interpretation of the bible. (After all, a literal interpretation could be that God created all the animals and they were all trilobites, and dinosaurs, and spent the next two thousand years evolving, right? It’s a weird literal interpretation but a valid one, right?)
But I guess the old creationism seem “unscientific” doesn’t it? For more appealing to include fun stuff than deny it. Dinosaurs? Kids like dinosaurs! Let’s put saddles on them and the kids’ll eat them up.
i am a little disturbed in that a. her concept of evidence is spurious at best and b. this seems to have no reference or relevance to PZ whatsoever. why did she decide to send it to Pharyngula anyway?
perhaps she’s a communist.
Lepht
Always refreshing to see people blabbering on about things they don’t know about. This guy and woman…
Oh man, but they are stupid. Iread the guy’s pages, and it seems like a kind of hysterical mishmash of halftruths, untruths, flat out lies or stuff that seems to have been pulled of the top of their head (orfrom somewhere lower down..)
I hope to the higher power thqat these people don’t breed. this must really embariss him/her/it.
“My parents are atheist/agnostic and my very conception was according to strict adherence to the dictates of Thomas Robert Malthus (having only two children to replace yourselves, although it really doesn’t work because they already have 5 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren).”
OMG – I can’t even begin to describe how retarded that statement is. I just showed my 8-year-old son this statement, after we had a brief chat about the principle of ZPG, and asked him what he thought about it.
After a few minutes he explained that the woman clearly does not understand the maths involved. He’s 8 folks! EIGHT!
This sprung to mind (from the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy):
Shooty: And I write novels!
Bang bang: Yeah, he writes them in crayon.
Shooty: Though I haven’t had any of them published yet, so I’d better warn you I’m in a meeeeen mood.
Fat is the cheapest energy source on the market. It’s easy to see how people who are not quite starving but just getting by can end up obese – high-fat, low nutrition, low water intake is probably the diet of most people who are just barely above foraging for food.
The tragedy is that enough food is produced to feed everyone in the world. The problem is purely one of distribution – vast quantities of food is simply wasted, or destroyed in order to keep the price inflated.
I found this link, it is an isopod, but for a loon like the one who wrote the letter, the article mentioning trilobites is probably “proof” that it is one:
http://www.poe.com/?p=1238
Imagine the scope of the conspiracy she envisions. Hundreds of thousands of people in on it, all the while Christian fundamentalists and religious text literalists (not just Christians) looking for any hole, any flaw, anything they can use to disprove the blasphemy of paleontology. For 150 years, some of those folks would have sacrificed their own lives, their kids, their wives, marriages, careers, anything to disprove dinosaurs, paleontology, etc., but nothing beyond her “evidence.”
To hell with the CIA, you want a secret kept, get the paleontologists!!!
[pedant] The inhabitants of Ireland might have something to say about that – the United Kingdom contains Northern Ireland, not the sovereign nation of Ireland. [/pedant]
Woozy #78
Didn’t you know, the loonies from this wing of the human species have an answer to the speed of light issue: The speed of light has been slowing for hundreds of years now.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39733
(Don’t worry, I’d only point out a WorldNutDaily article in jest. NASA has already pointed out this theory is bogus.)
Is the dinosaurs were faked meme becoming more common?
I’ve started to get comments on my blog (which I’ve been rejecting until now) saying dinosaurs don’t exist. For example, see first comment here:
http://www.dinosaursnews.com/2007/06/29/10-amazing-facts-about-dinosaurs/