I think it was intended to be an unfavorable comparison, but the ambiguity of the phrasing does leave open the possibility that Ben Stein is accusing Einstein of having a closed mind.
What we see below are two views of Intelligent Design’s place in science. One quote is from a brilliant, open minded and humble man…the other from a man typical of those who believe that they know better, but who don’t have much to offer, other than a closed-mind.
“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.”
Albert Einstein (Nobel prize for Physics in 1921)
"Those crazy rascals behind Expelled have some new games they want to play: they’ve put out a casting call for victims of persecution. It’s a pitiful plea, but it will probably net a nice collection of complaints – because it’s true. We do reject Intelligent Design from the academy, from science, and from science education, and there’s a very good reason for that: it’s the same reason we reject astrology, alchemy, creationism, haruspication, necromancy, ornithomancy, and witchcraft from our science courses. Because they aren’t science."
PZ Myers, Neo-Darwinist, blog author and Wisconsin professor
A post from "EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed" spokesperson Ben Stein follows; it continues in the wondrously open – science view of Einstein, and provides an important perspective regarding academic freedom, and the right of every scientist, educator and researcher to pursue the evidence wherever it may lead, free from the persecution of The State, "Big Science" or lesser men wishing to impose an anti-theistic, materialistic worldview on our students, under the guise of “science.”
OK, not really. They’re trying to say mean things about me. I did have a couple of quick impressions about Stein’s remarks, though.
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I hate to say it, but Einstein sure could talk like an airy-fairy ditz at times.
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It was very nice of them to include enough of my quote to get the full meaning.
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The quote is actually from a post where I commend a college student for speaking out against creationist B.S., which makes it a bit ironic.
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I stand by my words. Good for me!
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WISCONSIN!?!! Damn you, Ben Stein. Damn you to hell.
Hahahaha, them’s is figh’n words!
Blimey! Can’t those people get anything right?
Now, lets see if they blame you for tricking them into saying you’re from ‘Sonsin.
Exactly the quality of work I’d expect from the anti-science crowd.
I always knew there was a reason your house wreaks of cheese.
I see how this game works; take an out-of context quote that skews in your favor from a great scientist about a broad philosophical topic, and compare that to some random quote from your opponent that is focused on a specific non-philosophical argument. One thus ‘proves’ that your opponent is shallow and petty.
Here, let me demonstrate: the topic is education:
Albert Einstein: “The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.”
Ben Stein: “Bueller?… Bueller?”
All too true. He had this wondrous insight about relativity, and spent the rest of his life fighting the implications of quantum physics… kinda sad, really.
(And… I’m glad that for once, I got to a thread early enough to reply! :) I’ve been reading this blog for a couple of years now, since before the move to scienceblogs, but I always feel that the conversations are all played out by the time I have something to say.)
Oh, here’s an even better Einstein quote on religion:
Albert Einstein: “It is this mythical, or rather this symbolic, content of the religious traditions which is likely to come into conflict with science. This occurs whenever this religious stock of ideas contains dogmatically fixed statements on subjects which belong in the domain of science. Thus, it is of vital importance for the preservation of true religion that such conflicts be avoided when they arise from subjects which, in fact, are not really essential for the pursuance of the religious aims.”
Shorter Einstein, in my view: “The Bible is pseudo-scientific, pseudo-historical SHIT! Get over it!”
Science has always left its adherents free to pursue the evidence wherever it may lead. (This may not be literally true in practice, but I think it’s accurate enough). As soon as the IDiots provide some, we’ll start taking them seriously.
Wisconsin?
It could be worse. You could be me (a Michigan grad) and have them say you came from Ohio State.
I lol’d.
From his site:
Now, a few scientists are questioning Darwinism on many fronts. I wonder how long Darwinism’s life span will be. Marxism, another theory which, in true Victorian style, sought to explain everything, is dead everywhere but on university campuses and in the minds of psychotic dictators. Maybe Darwinism will be different. Maybe it will last. But it’s difficult to believe it will. Theories that presume to explain everything without much evidence rarely do.
Wrong.
The Bible has lasted for more than two thousand years. It’s full of nutty theories. It presumes to explain everything. It’s not going away.
It will last as long as idiots like Stein are around to becomes stupified by its moronic, infantilizing content.
I note that the Einstein quote talks about what his “religion” is, not what “science” is. Fair enough. But did he propose teaching his religion as science?
The Maierz quote talks (accurately) about what is not “science”.
Unless I’m confused, I thought ID was not about “religion” but was about “science”.
I don’t see how these quotes are two views of ID.
One is a quote of Al Einsteins personal religious views, and the other is a quote of PZ’s rejection of ID as science.
As far as I know, Einstein never advocated his religious views be taught as science.
I like the name of his group; “EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed.” At first I thought it meant that science has banned intelligence in dismissing “Intelligent” Design, but further thought made me realise that it’s a rule for membership of the group “EXPELLED,” and probably for promoting “Intelligent” Design as well.
Regarding the criticisms towards Einstein, I think it’s a shame that we live in a world where it’s so dangerous to poetically or allegorically express the feeling of awe and wonderment that comes with science. I would suspect that most of us have felt the way Einstein is trying to express his feelings, but I would certainly never put it that way, for fear of being misinterpreted.
Milwaukee? Man, Exstein (Ben) thinks *he* got it goin’ on. Typical lawyer low-ball shit.
That was the part that jumped out at me from the whole piece. I briefly contemplated hiding under my desk to avoid the flames sure to be emanating from my monitor…
Wisconsin?
At least BS gave you a better University, and you can follow your own.
Oh, and as per John Danley…
UW is in Madison.
UWM is in Milwaukee.
You’re in good company, PZ. Einstein was also quote-mined.
“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.” – Einstein, 1954
Wisconsin will take you!
I am basically just a dumb-ass with a search engine but I found it oh so easy to find an Einstein quote that has nothing nice to say about the ideology behind ID.
“I always knew there was a reason your house wreaks of cheese.”
Um, you mean reeks of cheese right?
Another one to add to “mute point”, “unphased” etc,
Einstein’s questioning of quantum theory consisted of scientific questions and thought experiments (with due shout-outs to both P and R), not just in philosophical musings. He was wrong about quantum theory, but he was at least wrong correctly.
Wisconsin?
Want some cheese curds with your lutefisk? :)
Isn’t someone who’s “unphased” really just “out of sink”?
Seriously, though: I think it stinks when people reek havoc with the English language like that.
(Thank you. I’ll be here all weak.)
“I hate to say it, but Einstein sure could talk like an airy-fairy ditz at times.”
Shit, what are you trying to say here? Don’t tell me you believe that all our scientific heroes are/were flawed. I suppose you’d even have us believe that someone like Marie Curie wasn’t a virgin and perfect in every way. Blasphemy PZ! Obviously you’ve been gotten to by unbelievers of the true faith of Atheism. Time to step down to “spend more time with your family”. It’s not that we don’t appreciate your service you know, but…well…
Ah, dueling Einstein quotes. What fun. Of course what the TV game show host missed was that Einstein would have agreed with PZ’s statement that ID is not science. I believe Einstein would have rejected it on the same grounds as PZ.
Big Al had no time for supernatural explanations in science:
“Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a Supernatural Being.”
[Albert Einstein, 1936, responding to a child who wrote and asked if scientists pray. Source: “Albert Einstein: The Human Side”, Edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann]
Ben Stein thinks he does have evidence form Intelligent Design.
He looks at himself in the mirror and what he sees is proof to him that he is made in the image of God.
ID proponents regard themselves as all the proof people need that there is a god. They are made in the image of God. They cannot explain their belief in a god unless there is a god to believe in.
They can’t see why anybody needs more evidence than that.
–remember, he takes that seriously!
… Einstein was a poet. He spoke in metaphor. He believed in Spinoza’s “God” (the Natural Universe)… and he was CONSTANTLY misused by religious nuts even while he was alive.
Nothing he says gives ANY credence to religious people.
What we atheists SHOULD be saying about Einstein is that he, like Spinoza (my “namesake”, and whom Einstein LOVED), was USURPING the word “God” from the idiot theists.
To the extent that Einstein “believed” in “God”, it was that he believed the universe was majestic.
But that is all. Ben Stein is not qualified to judge the words of a man who deeply understood Spinoza, a man whose work nearly nobody on earth properly understands (and who was vilified far beyond the scope of the New Atheist vilification projects of the religious these days.)
Read up on the correspondence between Spinoza and a former student of his back in the 1600s.
Read it, and enjoy: http://home.earthlink.net/~tneff/let7476.htm
Make up your mind. :P
When it comes to religious quote-mining, Einstein had more positions than Madonna when she was dating Prince.
This unfortunate circumstance has impact iff one accepts ‘Argument from Authority’ as a valid logical form.
Even if PZ and Dawkins came to my door claiming that they had brought Darwin back to life using witchcraft (and an octopus), and that Darwin suddenly believed in ID because of Antony Flew’s new book, I would still wake tomorrow as an atheist and an Evilutionist.
Pity the muppets who resort to this kind of appeal to celebrity, as well as those whose thought processes lack the clarity not to fall for it.
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Targeted by Ben Stein. BEN STEIN. BEN FUCKING STEIN!!
If it was me, I’d make out my will.
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Jeez, I read that piece by Stein, and it just seems so … forced. It’s almost like he’s selling something. (smirk)
Read the comments. Glen Davidson rips Stein a new ass, in a very long multi-part post.
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It’s an interesting tactic that these IDers are using. Anyone who believes in any kind of god is automatically an IDer! It’s bait and switch: they talk about the rejection of ID pseudoscience and then contextualize it as a persecution of religion.
Set aside highly questionable nature of Einstein’s personal “religious” beliefs. Even if he was a dyed in the wool theist, this wouldn’t mean dick for Stein and Co. and the silly notions they’re peddling. Saying that the quasi-mystical musings of a scientist are equivalent to endorsements of Intelligent Design is somewhere near “I invested my retirement in Enron” on the wrongness scale.
As a Wisconsinite, I’m flattered that Ben Stein thinks you’re one of us, PZ. If only, if only.
Let’s have a vote; does that make 1.5 asses for Stein, total, or 3?
PZ, let’s be realistic. The fact they actually kept that much of the context of your quote means they were way over the level of rigor IDists usually employ in their “research.” You should be happy they at least managed to spell your name right after exerting themselves that much.
PZ, if you really suffer from Einstein envy, perhaps you should become less involved with your own family and ditch your trophy wife for an older cousin, preferably one less photogenic but good in the kitchen.
As for Albert being airy in his pronouncements, well, shoot, he is being quote-mined in the classic manner. Here’s the remark, in context, from positive atheism:
No, the natural laws of science have not only been worked out theoretically but have been proven also in practice. I cannot then believe in this concept of an anthropomorphic God who has the powers of interfering with these natural laws. As I said before, the most beautiful and most profound religious emotion that we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. And this mysticality is the power of all true science. If there is any such concept as a God, it is a subtle spirit, not an image of a man that so many have fixed in their minds. In essence, my religion consists of a humble admiration for this illimitable superior spirit that reveals itself in the slight details that we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds.”
Here you go, I’ve added in the necessary ellipses to give the PZ quote the proper creationist touch.
“Persecution…..of ……. Intelligent Design ….. , …. there’s a very good reason for that: it’s ……science”
OK, I can’t wait to see Expelled now. I’d just love to see how Stein manages to argue that “the State” is persecuting Intelligent Design woos.
Or should I have put quotes around ‘argue’?
The Expelled blog is a hoot. I loved this one:
“No less a genius than the evil Karl Marx…”
Anyone else having visions of Karl Marx in some kind of supervillain outfit, doing the Magneto laugh as he points his Communism Laser at the world?
Well, I am now.
Einstein was a poet. He spoke in metaphor.
What is lost by honestly admitting that Einstein had mystic tendencies? He wrote “Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe — a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.” Sorry, but that is woo, plain and simple, and it isn’t made any less woo just because it isn’t “naive”, any more than Ken Miller is free of woo just because he isn’t an IDiot.
What happened to Ben Stein? I think I’ve said that before here, but he seemed like a smart, decent guy on “Win Ben Stein’s Money.” I guess my first exposure to him was in Ferris Bueller, so I guess I missed that whole Nixon-speech-writer thing. Does the guy need money that badly?
As for Albert being airy in his pronouncements, well, shoot, he is being quote-mined in the classic manner. Here’s the remark, in context, from positive atheism:
Sheesh, haven’t people learned yet that people sometimes use the same phrase more than once? That is not the correct context of the quote; the text given by Stein appears in Walter Isaacson’s book, as a response to “a Colorado banker” who had already received responses from 24 other Nobel prize winners about whether they believed in God. At that time Einstein wrote of “a superior reasoning power”, even if he didn’t when he spoke to Peter Bucky. But really, what does it matter? By taking Einstein’s opinion so seriously, you’re just playing into Stein’s argument from authority.
And then John A. Davison shows up to whine about Glen dominating the thread ‘as he has attempted to do everywhere else he has been allowed.’
Fortunately, I’ve taken to unplugging my irony meter before visiting any pro-ID site. Unfortunately, that comment somehow managed to blow it anyway.
More from JAD:
Sod the irony meter, I think that one blew something in my brain. Projection like that could put every cinema in the world out of business.
What happened to Ben Stein? I think I’ve said that before here, but he seemed like a smart, decent guy on “Win Ben Stein’s Money.”
Um, surely you can understand that he was acting on TV, playing a character that just happened to have the name “Ben Stein”? How the hell can you tell from that whether someone is “decent”? In real life, Stein is a right wing pro-life activist and a speech writer for Nixon and Ford who blamed the rise of the Khmer Rouge on “deep throat”, Bob Woodward, and Ben Bradlee, because they brought down Nixon by revealing his crimes, somehow ignoring the fact that the rise of the Khmer Rouge was pretty much a direct result of Nixon’s policies.
Does anyone have a proper original source for the Einstein quote in PZ’s post? I’ve heard people doubt its accuracy and would like to check.
Woo attracts woo (isn’t that somebody’s “law”?), and yep, buried in the comments on Ben’s article is this gem:
I haven’t applied John Baez’s crackpot index, but it’s definitely a higher scorer.
Some examples:
Yawns. And on and on and on. Perhaps not a classic, perhaps not completely illucid, but definitely cranky. At the end there’s some wonderful crank about using a merry-go-round to accelerate a train to speeds faster than light (spelling as in the original):
(Snickers uncontrollably.) Continuing:
There’s some wacky misunderstanding of The Big Bang that seems to go from an explosion in an empty universe to a fully-formed Sun and Earth without all those boring galaxies, other planets, stars, and so on. Or something. That section is even more illucid than the rest.
And this is a supporter of Ben’s nonsense? Well, Ok, to be fair, the crank–who is clearly not a physicist–only claims there is hint of a creator. Yet it’s easy to imagine her/him/it also feeling persecuted since everyone is laughing at her/his/its maths-free misunderstandings.
“Thank you. I’ll be here all weak.”
Bravo
Sorry, Lettuce, but as an alumna, I can tell you that the real UW is in Seattle!
Weird – that quote doesn’t totally misrepresent your views! Is Stein feeling unwell?
ROFL
blf, is this the same guy that claims to be a physicist? Cg is also only an idea, mathematically convenient.
Orac (#7) – So after being crushed by mighty Appalachian State, you resent being lumped with the folks who were just crushed by mighty Findlay?
Hey, you know what is really fun about quote-mining dead physicists? They are dead and can’t come back to blog sites and correct the misinterpretations of their words. As pointed out in other comments, Einstein was not intending for all of those ID’ers to let god into every little gap and call it science.
I don’t really care what Einstein thought about a deist God, he started a physics revolution that changed the 20th century for the better.
And while Wisconsin is not a bad place, PZ Myers is ours, until and if he gets a better offer from another state. Stein can’t force the issue without consulting PZ’s agent.
Ugh, reading some of the comments on that blog make me nauseous. I am thinking of seeing the movie, but I think I might scream in the theater.
Indeed it came close to that. The theory of evolution doesn’t. It explains the diversity of life, not “life, the universe, and everything”. That’s why it’s a bit more complicated than “42”, though not much.
Indeed it came close to that. The theory of evolution doesn’t. It explains the diversity of life, not “life, the universe, and everything”. That’s why it’s a bit more complicated than “42”, though not much.
Benstein’s Monster wrote:
Pot, kettle. ID arose in, what, the Stone Age? The Pointed Stick Age?
I particularly like that they italicized the important words in the Einstein quote. ‘Cause that’s exactly how he meant it I bet…
True Bob (#51) asks me:
AFAIK, yes, it’s the same crank. In my previous comment (#47), the first quote was a comment the “physicist” left on Ben Stein’s blog giving the URL from which the subsequent quotes where all taken.
Relative to discussions about evolution, the readers of this blog may be interested in a discussion going on on a thread on Jason Rosenhouses’ blog between several people and a nincompoop calling himself Jon S. One has to read the droolings of Mr. Jon S (who is a YEC) which are unbelievable in their puerile stupidity. He makes Ben Stein look like an intellectual giant by comparison, a task I would have thought impossible.
http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2007/10/in_which_i_agree_with_michael.php#comments
Ben Stein demonstrates why a too open mind makes your brain fall out – does he really want something taught in science education that is as bad as astrology et cetera?
[Swirls coffee cup, as the current supply of goat intestines has run out, looks down on the espresso remains: Yes, he may do so. Guess his brains and goat intestines are able to come to the same conclusion.]
Thank you, truth machine, I was beginning to wonder why I googled two almost identical quote-mines.
The one from Peter Bucky’s book seems to be spread by being quote-mined in an encyclopedia over apologetics. Pharyngula commenter Susan claims:
To Stein’s defense it seems he provides more of the original context as related here.
IMO this is much a folk tale. Einstein was instrumental in founding both atomic and quantum theory, placing the first on sound mathematical grounds (explaining Brownian motion) and proving that Planck’s quanta was individually observable (in the photo-electric effect).
His disputes with likewise philosophically minded Bohr led to the early robust enough (just don’t ask what an observer is, but what it does) formulation of the classic Copenhagen interpretation, and his EPR proposal led to that Bell tests experiments rather conclusively revealed that QM has no hidden variables.
What was more sad was that his later exploits were distant from where the then current physics were active. It is first with the advent of quantum gravity theories that his (and others) ideas of higher-dimensional theories have returned in force. One might perhaps frame it as that he was way too far ahead.
Ben Stein demonstrates why a too open mind makes your brain fall out – does he really want something taught in science education that is as bad as astrology et cetera?
[Swirls coffee cup, as the current supply of goat intestines has run out, looks down on the espresso remains: Yes, he may do so. Guess his brains and goat intestines are able to come to the same conclusion.]
Thank you, truth machine, I was beginning to wonder why I googled two almost identical quote-mines.
The one from Peter Bucky’s book seems to be spread by being quote-mined in an encyclopedia over apologetics. Pharyngula commenter Susan claims:
To Stein’s defense it seems he provides more of the original context as related here.
IMO this is much a folk tale. Einstein was instrumental in founding both atomic and quantum theory, placing the first on sound mathematical grounds (explaining Brownian motion) and proving that Planck’s quanta was individually observable (in the photo-electric effect).
His disputes with likewise philosophically minded Bohr led to the early robust enough (just don’t ask what an observer is, but what it does) formulation of the classic Copenhagen interpretation, and his EPR proposal led to that Bell tests experiments rather conclusively revealed that QM has no hidden variables.
What was more sad was that his later exploits were distant from where the then current physics were active. It is first with the advent of quantum gravity theories that his (and others) ideas of higher-dimensional theories have returned in force. One might perhaps frame it as that he was way too far ahead.
The most annoying part is that he almost always mentions the reason that ID isn’t science in his own diatribes (but then completely ignores it and has another glass of whine):
“the right of every scientist, educator and researcher to pursue the evidence wherever it may lead”
Yes, exactly, follow the research where it leads, B.S., not where you want it to go. Can you mention one study, ever, that points to a nonmaterial or supernatural cause rather than to a natural one? Can you point to one discontinuity in DNA, one genuine chimera, or even one “irreducably complex” mechanism that puts a question to modern biological science? No, of course not. Blood clotting, HIV, even Micheal Behe’s pet flagellum got whipped by a table full of evidence in Dover.
There are things we do not know, yes, but that is not evidence for “intelligent design”, it is a call for more research. Maybe you should do some, rather than giving up on the starting line and bitching about how unfair it is that the fellows who actually run the race reap the rewards.
The history of science is the history of naturalistic findings and their resultant theories replacing incoherent superstitions and religious dogma. We have no reason to expect any different in the future. There have been no studies that indicate the supernatural, and natural science is far from stuck on any issue. So, if there is no evidence to follow, B.S., why are you pushing it there?
A “neat idea” with no evidence does not a science make.
PZ? I can’t believe you didn’t get the memo. Morris, MN is now a part of Wisconsin. You see, we lease it from Minnesota for things like bachelor parties, weddings, and experiments with explosive cheese.
Oh, come on people. You’ve all seen Einstein’s famous E=MC^God. And everyone knows that the “G” in the Einstein Field Equations stands for “God”. And who hasn’t marveled over Einstein’s picture of God sitting there (bored out of his tree) pinging electrons off a bit of photoelectric material as light strikes it.
So Morris is where I can get some of the famous Lancre Blue?
A few Einstein comments above, but Janine’s I think hammers it home:
“To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot. But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light, but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress.”
This is as clear-cut of a non-ID view as there ever could be. If this quote is legit (and you always have to be concerned about Einstein being quoted), then it flies in the face of any IDer thinking that Einstein would support their farce in any way.
All too true. But it did so in the philosophical way of not doing physics but trying to “explain it”. I read part of Engel’s discourse (fragments of Dialectics of Nature IIRC) on the subject. The nicest I can say is that as a physicist Friedrich Engels was a good social scientist…, come to think of it, he was.
When I was trying to locate the name of Engel’s text, I happened to stumble over the fact that a young JBS Haldane was a devoted communist:
I could criticize Engel’s text if I had it in my hand. But this time I believe it is enough to consider that, unfair or not, in comparison we all know how well biology and especially evolution was treated by the later communists, which at least in some measure leaned on marxism.
Yup, dogma of all kinds is the source of brain rot. But for most epidemic types we are left with some immunity, as is the case here. Unfortunately religion is far more insidious.
All too true. But it did so in the philosophical way of not doing physics but trying to “explain it”. I read part of Engel’s discourse (fragments of Dialectics of Nature IIRC) on the subject. The nicest I can say is that as a physicist Friedrich Engels was a good social scientist…, come to think of it, he was.
When I was trying to locate the name of Engel’s text, I happened to stumble over the fact that a young JBS Haldane was a devoted communist:
I could criticize Engel’s text if I had it in my hand. But this time I believe it is enough to consider that, unfair or not, in comparison we all know how well biology and especially evolution was treated by the later communists, which at least in some measure leaned on marxism.
Yup, dogma of all kinds is the source of brain rot. But for most epidemic types we are left with some immunity, as is the case here. Unfortunately religion is far more insidious.
Thanks for that, blf. Thanks a lot.
That was painful.
I think this part:
broke something in my brain.
By the way, PZ, I just want to let you (and everyone) know that Ben Stein’s feces slinging isn’t exactly limited to politics and science. Take a look at what Yves Smith (one of my favorate econ bloggers) has to say about BS’s BS:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/10/ben-stein-and-space-aliens.htmlEvidently Haldane can spell, but I can’t: Engels, Engels’.
Evidently Haldane can spell, but I can’t: Engels, Engels’.
Shorter Einstein, in my view: “The Bible is pseudo-scientific, pseudo-historical SHIT! Get over it!”
You don’t have to guess. “Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression.”
There’s also: “I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic.” Not too ID-friendly.
Those guys over at the Discovery Institute must be face-palming every other day. Every time Ben Stein opens his mouth he basically claims ID to be religious in nature. They really picked a terrible spokesman.
Einstein’s zombie: Well, it’s spelled G-O-D, but it’s pronounced “the orderly harmony of what exists”.
PZ: You sure can talk like an airy-fairy ditz at times.
Ben Stein: Ah, anti-semitism!
PZ: No it’s not. And that’s not even proper theism! It’s made of polystyrene!
It’s probably a moo point, but, I would hope that none of these cranks are actually violating Albert Einstein, lest they wreak of the grave. Though I should say that what remains of Uncle Al would be unphased.
I read all the way through the “potter’s wheel to the stars” crank. I give it 5 out of 8 points corners on the TimeCube Scale.
Luckily, religion made up for it by ruining the last 6000 years or so for the rest of us.
#71 wrote: “You don’t have to guess.”
The part I was guessing about was the use of profanity! Einstein was typically more polite to people than they deserved. :) Excellent quote, by the way. It really shows how idiotic BS is, that somewhere around 10 different people in this blog post alone, with a simple Google search, managed to find about 10 different quotations that directly refute BS’s view of Einstein.
“I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic.”
However, by focusing on anthropomorphic gods, Einstein leaves open the possibility of a great cephalopod creator!
Probably suits them just fine, actually. They know that if people actually believed that ID has nothing to do with religion, almost all of their support would disappear instantly. All they really need is plausible deniability for legal reasons.
Of course, enough of their followers are morons that they can never actually achieve even that. See Dover, for instance.
For perspective, from the same source:
http://www.einsteinandreligion.com/bucky.html
Thank you Torbjörn you saved me some typing. Just to ram home your very, very correct observations; Einstein received the Nobel Prize for founding Quantum Theory and not for Relativity and Bohr’s is on record as saying that Einstein through his penetrating and accurate scientific criticisms of the Copenhagen Interpretation probably contributed more to the growth and establishment of Quantum Mechanics than any other scientist.
I think it’s relevant to point out that the Einstein quote refers to an EMOTIONAL conviction. He probably knew the difference between emotion and reason.
To be picky, it was for services to theoretical physics, in particular his work on the photoelectric effect, no?
PZ Myers and Brett Favre. 2 studs from Wisconsin. :P
@Pablo #66
The quote is genuine, it is a fairly accurate translation of a speech that Einstein held in 1941 at a Symposium “Science, Philosophy and Religion”.
Do you mean the speech given in full at http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm#TWO and http://www.update.uu.se/~fbendz/library/ae_scire.htm
Those sources don’t seem to include the phrase “That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power”.
It’s “haruspicy”
Hey! PZ is a cheese-head! Good for you Dr. Myers. Go Packers!
#66 Pablo, the Einstein quote of Janine’s you mentioned is authentic.
It can be found in “Science, Philosophy, and Religion, A Symposium”, published by the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc., New York, 1941. (click)
Actually, that site has a nice collection of sourced papers and statements Einstein made about Religon and Science (click)
Too bad its also irrelevant what one single speech said. By the idiot standards these people use to conclude that someone believes in God and can therefor be used to support them, they could borrow something from a roleplaying session I was in, where I referred to the god/goddess Inari as though *that* entity was real and conclude I must be a Taoist… Its so completely fracking absurd its almost incomprehensible. But then, its the same bunch that like to crouch in the shadows, until you develop Alzheimer’s, then pounce on you with a book you didn’t really write yourself in any true sense, so they can babble about how you found God at the last minute. Its either dishonesty or stupidity, and I strongly suspect a strong dose of **both**.
I am amazed they had the guts to leave the bit were PZ compares ID to astrology. Do these guys think Big Science® is also unfairly oppressing astrology?
As is clear in my post I was refering to the quote that Pablo had quoted in post #66 and not to the original quote posted by PZ.
To Thony C. Ooops, sorry.
You know they are going to jump down your throat about this. PZ acknowledges that there is a hell! OMFG!
Comment #74:
It’s only a “moo” point in Wisconsin . . . .
Remember, in Einstein’s time, scientists were still free to speak in metaphor using some of the language of religion without a bunch of idiots dissecting their every quote for something that looks out of context like an endorsement of [insert cult here].
He can be forgiven for the things he wrote, because it would have been hard to foresee that 40-50 years after his death people would start a massive misinformation campaign to suggest that science directly supports Christianity.
Stein:
“Darwinism, the notion that the history of organisms was the story of the survival of the fittest and most hardy, and that organisms evolve because they are stronger and more dominant than others”
That’s not evolution, that’s Animal Planet.
Speaking of quote mining: “Wisconsin, damn you [all to] hell! Any state that can have a glacial age named after it, thereby crushing YEC claims is nearly as great as ND.
Autumn:
Ha! This is going in my quotefile!
Which is worse, saying you’re from Wisconsin,or calling you a Neo-
Darwinist?
“WISCONSIN!?!! Damn you, Ben Stein. Damn you to hell.”
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Illinois, etc., it’s all flyover country to those types.
Bob L (#89) points to something interesting in what they chose to quote from PZ: by comparing Intelligent Design to “astrology, alchemy, creationism, haruspication, necromancy, ornithomancy, and witchcraft” PZ’s not making the usual claim that ID doesn’t belong in schools because it mentions God and “God is outside of science.” No, he’s basically agreeing with Ben Stein and the rest of the ID folk and would have no problem putting God’s glorious actions into the science classroom — if it wasn’t bad science.
The reason we don’t accept teach astrology or alchemy today isn’t because they violate some prior rule about not believing in mysterious cosmic forces. It’s because they’re wrong. The mysterious cosmic force theories made predictions, the predictions failed, and they were supplanted.
PZ’s mind is therefore — according to Stein’s reasoning — open. Like Bob L., I’m surprised they selected such a dangerous quote. They don’t want to people to mentally associate ID with astrology — they want them to associate it with Galileo’s theory on the earth going around the sun.
Wisconsin isn’t so bad. We have Leinie’s…
“Einstein received the Nobel Prize for founding Quantum Theory”
For the record, Einstein did NOT “found quantum theory”. Anybody who thinks he did is too ignorant of physics, or just plain too fucking stupid to converse with. But since he didn’t “found” relativity either (at least not special relativity–at best that honor is shared between einstein, poincare and lorentz–personally, I would give poincare 80% of the credit since he wrote and published the whole FUCKING THEORY before einstein’s 1905 paper was submitted) I’m willing to accept the misunderstanding. He was a significant early contributor, most definitely. Not the first though. If anyone is the “founder” of quantum theory, it’s schrodinger, heisenberg, and dirac. Before that, all there were vague ideas about waves and particles, and some mysterious relation between them.
This is not a blog for the ignorant masses, this is a blog for educated people (many with Ph.D.s evidently). People should be able to get the basic facts right at least.
I believe that Max Planck is considered the most foundational physicist for QM, though like Einstein he wasn’t very keen on considering it to actually describe “reality”.
Of course it took many people, including Einstein, Schroedinger, Heisenberg, etc., to turn it into full-fledged physics.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Especially ironic that they cast Einstein as a paragon of open-mindedness. Recall that he steadfastly refused to follow the evidence where it lead when it conflicted with his theological and aesthetic predilictions. That evidence would be the entire quantum revolution and all of particle physics in his day; allegedly he was so closed-minded that he was unaware of even the existence of the weak nuclear force while working on his grand unified theory in the 40’s.
Camboy, regarding your ‘ha ha, I’m so smart and clever’ attempt to correct others on Einstein’s Nobel, Torbjörn already got it completely right way, way upthread (quoted in the post you’re quoting, natch). Einstein received the Nobel Prize “for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.” So officially it was for helping kick-start the quantum revolution. Of course, a strong case could be made that the prize was really for relativity but that was too controversial at the time.
I don’t know why I’m even wasting my time acknowledging you, since you apparently can’t be bothered to get your facts right (pompous asses should at least get their shit together before they become pompous asses), but Lorentz figured out the transformations between the reference frame of an observer and of the luminiferous aether, not relativity. Poincare can get credit for that — he rejected absolute space and time on the basis of taking reality at face value (unlike Lorentz) — and credit for understanding the relativity of simultaneity. Funny that you leave out FitzGerald and Larmor… they not in the pop-sci books you’re half-assedly cribbing your stuff from? FitzGerald, after all, was the first person to propose relativisitic effects, and Larmor was the first to predict time dialation. What Einstein did was a) derive the Lorentz transformations from Poincare’s principle of relativity, b) actually accept the long-known derivation of a constant speed of light from Maxwell’s equations (everyone knew about it, they just didn’t take it at face value), and c) derive numerous important physical consequences from these that don’t naturally follow from Lorentz’s aether transforms (e.g., E^2 = pc^2 + m^2 c^4). I suppose partial credit for giving credit to Poincare, but for overstating it (in a way that, oddly enough, slights his real accomplishments) and lumping him together with Lorentz, *only* partial credit. Minus 50% for general asshattery, however.
And Pauli, and Planck, and deBroglie, and Bohr, and Noether (who in a just world would have won the Nobel in 1931 instead of, well, absolutely nobody), and Fermi, and …
Look, Camboy, before you go getting all high and mighty about how much smarter you are than everyone else, maybe you should actually get a fucking clue yourself. (Or as Mark Twain said “better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt”… or words to that effect.) A tiny bit of basic literacy couldn’t hurt, either.
As for who this blog is for, well, that’s PZ’s call, it’s his blog after all. If I may be so bold as to venture a guess on intent (instead of arrogantly claiming someone else’s blog as my own, Camboy), it’s for anyone with curiousity about biology (especially evo-devo), frustration with religious fundamentalists and right-wing kooks, or a raging cephalopod fetish.
Qubit
All in all, I like your post. I just have one… teeeeeeeny little quibble. You explicitly say “Right wing kooks”. I just wish to point out that Kooks come in all flavors and philosophical leanings.
As I said – just a little quibble. One should not point out half the set while ignoring the other half.
Well, yes, true enough, Lurchgs, and you really don’t want to get me started on a rant about the crystal-wearing, new agey nutjobs on the far left (though at least they’re “mostly harmless” so to speak). But based simply on my past readings of Pharyngula, I think PZ focuses more on those on the right and besides, that’s a much richer target environment right now.
I’m surprised, too. Ben is calling ID God based, he’s using powerful and compelling quotes from the opposition, sometimes it seems that he is actually on our side! But then I read the rest of his page and the answer is obviously no–he is merely completely and utterly clueless.
It doesn’t surprise me that he is a former lawyer. He has the mindset of one. He seems to think science works the same as courtroom proceedings.
You don’t suppose he will actually learn something out of all of this? Like a glimmer of understanding of how science actually works?
A response to Mr. qubit,
Dude, where exactly in my post did I say I was “so smart and clever”? I just read over what I wrote 10 times and I’m pretty damn sure that neither the word clever, nor the word smart appears there. And even If I had said it, WTF exactly did it have to do with my point? And for that matter, what does Einstein’s nobel citation have to do with it. Yes he was officially awarded the nobel prize for the photoelectric effect and for his “services to theoretical physics”. No dispute. How exactly do you derive from that sentence that he “founded quantum theory” as was stated above? He did not found quantum theory. And to say he did is to ignore the facts. I think most rational people (especially scientists) would not have much hesitation agreeing that when a person says something which is impossible in the light of know and accepted facts, they are doing something wrong. And that is why I said you would have to be ignorant of physics or stupid to state it. Well you could be nutjob; or a political operative lying to achieve some end. Whatever. It’s a false statement. It’s a ludicrous statement. And for the sake of truth it merits being called for the bullshit it is (I belong to the miniscule minority who actually thinks the truth matters–call me old-fashioned).
About who actually does deserve that appelation, unfortunately I first must respond to this:
“Look, Camboy, before you go getting all high and mighty about how much smarter you are than everyone else, maybe you should actually get a fucking clue yourself. (Or as Mark Twain said “better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt”… or words to that effect.) A tiny bit of basic literacy couldn’t hurt, either.”
(Sorry dudes, for not indenting my quotes all pretty like everybody else, but html ain’t my strong suit). Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for vicious personal attacks on morons, or even just people who do moronic things, and even ad hominem attacks are great, and perfectly legitimate if used properly. As for the present situation, what can I say? Touche, touche. I couldn’t agree more; ever since I got the Ph.D. in math from the best place in the world in my field that I possess I’ve been telling myself “but you know Camboy, what you really need to work on is your basic literacy”. Silly that nothing more than a piece of paper gives a person self-confidence–a disgrace really. Anyways, I’ll work on that literacy thing.
In the meantime, about:
“And Pauli, and Planck, and deBroglie, and Bohr, and Noether (who in a just world would have won the Nobel in 1931 instead of, well, absolutely nobody), and Fermi, and …”
No. NOT and Pauli, and Plank and deBroglie, and Bohr, and Noether, and Fermi and … no, no, no, no, NO, resoundingly (though I agree I’ve always felt that … never really has gotten his due). With the exception of Fermi these are all pre heisenberg/schrodinger researchers, well except Pauli’s work was almost simultaneous with them, but it really belongs to the sea of ideas from which they extracted their theory (caveat: I’m not sure what you’re talking about with regards to Noether. Do you mean her theorem in classical mechanics relating symmetries with conservation laws? A fundamental and beautiful result to be sure. In fact, I have published a paper that relies on it heavily. And I don’t doubt that it has important applications in QM. But to say on the basis of that that she has some claim to be a founder of QM? Just don’t see where you’re coming from). Heisenberg and Schrodinger are singled out because from all the other vague ideas that these other researchers had been bandying about, it is they who synthesized it all, and produced an actual physical theory that was complete, self consistent, satisfactory, and could be used. The nonrelativistic quantum mechanics that they developed is the nonrelativistic QM that is used by scientists today–yeah von Neumann added the Hilbert Spaces, which even physicists came to appreciate, but structurally, whether you think in terms of self adjoint operators on a Hilbert Space, or the Schrodinger equation, the theory that exists today, 82 years later is the theory of Heisenberg and Schrodinger. Many new applications have been found of course, but the underlying structure has not been changed or corrected–it is still the theory of Schrodinger and Heisenberg. And that is why I single them out. As for Dirac, it is less true that he built a theory that stands uncorrected today, but he was the first person to successfully and correctly formulate QM relativistically–kind of important. Basically, Dirac is the “founder” (or the closest thing there is) of quantum field theory. And I think most phycisists would basically agree. And for that, I think he deserves to be singled out as well. The work of Fermi is in the shadow of schrodinger/heisenberg/dirac, and while undoubtedly very brilliant, is not foundational in the same way–it is statistical mechanics, not QM proper. Actually, the same could be said of Pauli’s work.
And that, in a nutshell, is why I single out the three scientists I asserted as having the only real claim to be “founders”.
The relativity business is a whole other discussion, and it was only indirectly related to my argument, and most importantly it is late and I want to go to bed. No way am I getting into a detailed discussion of that now. All I’m gonna say now is this: first of all, in addition to the the “pop-sci books” which I was “half-assedly cribbing” my knowledge of the subject from, I had one other source: I translated all Poincare’s papers on the subject from French to English myself. Yes I know, all you have to do is google them and you’ll find english translations for most (though not all). The point was it was a great way to really understand them, as well a great way to practice my French. So I think I know a thing or two about what the guy actually said.
I give him “80% of the credit” because he built the entire mathematical structure of the theory, and in many ways went far beyond Einstein at the deepest levels of symmetry and geometry (of course 11 years later Einstein had gone beyond Poincare at this level, but hey, Poincare was a little too busy dying to keep up, give the guy a break). Lorentz came up with the Lorentz tranformation–in truth there were some antecedents even for that, but let’s not get into that now. You say that that is “not relativity”. Well I grant you we couldn’t give Lorentz credit for the theory of relativity, but it is the most fundamental component. In fact, if someone came up to you and asked you to explain or define what the theory of special relativity actually says in 1 sentence, I don’t think you could do much better than this:
The laws of physics are Lorentz invariant.
Special relativity at its essence is simply the assertion that the Lorentz transformation must replace the Galilean tranformation as the proper mathematical algorithm to change from one inertial reference frame to another, and that the structure of physics must be invariant under this transformation. Everything in SR is ultimately a consequence of this. So I think figuring out the Lorentz tranformation is pretty damn imporant, even if Lorentz probably never really understood what it meant physically.
And for that matter, for all his great work, I don’t think Poincare ever fully understood it physically either. Well, maybe he did, but it is not clear one way or the other from reading his papers–but hey, he was a mathematician, so give him another break. And that is the thing that I think Einstein truly deserves credit for. The fact that he could derive the Lorentz transformation from the constancy of the speed of light, as cool as that is, is really completely beside the point. The point is that the Lorentz tranformation is the “right transformation”. Not just for electrodynamics, but for mechanics as well. And there is no such thing as the ether either. And these are the things that Einstein understood (or maybe just had enough youthful bravado to assert). So what I think is true is that Einstein was the first person to fully understand relativity. Lorentz never did, and as far as I can tell, neither did Poincare. But I still give Poincare the bulk of the credit, because he was the first person to write the whole beautiful construction down. I think this is reasonable. We understand lots of things that Newton did better than he possibly could have at the time, but that does not detract from what he achieved. On the other hand, if you value Einstein’s “physical understanding” more than Poincare’s “mathematical construction” then you will probably disagree with me, and that is really just a matter of taste that we can never settle with an argument.
Finally, about
“As for who this blog is for, well, that’s PZ’s call, it’s his blog after all. If I may be so bold as to venture a guess on intent (instead of arrogantly claiming someone else’s blog as my own, Camboy), it’s for anyone with curiousity about biology (especially evo-devo), frustration with religious fundamentalists and right-wing kooks, or a raging cephalopod fetish.”
I would just like to ask if you got your lessons in nuance from W? What I said was this:
“This is not a blog for the ignorant masses, this is a blog for educated people (many with Ph.D.s evidently). People should be able to get the basic facts right at least.”
Obviously I am not promulgating who may or may not post here (even PZ doesn’t do that). This is an observation “disgiused” as a decree if you like–not much of a disguise though. The fact is that the people who post here are mostly highly educated people (or in the process of becoming so), and that, with the exception of the creationist wackos who post her, who do so because they have an agenda, not because they’re interested in the blog, ignorant people would have no interest in what goes on here. All I am saying is that personally I expect a certain calibre of behaviour, a certain “respect” for the truth if you like, from such people. I am stating a preference. By all means, disagree me with me, if that’s how you feel, and post with no regard for the truth if you think that’s a better approach to discourse. After all, the President and his administration have shown us how foolish reality-based people can be. I agree, my post was a little arrogant (well actually you said pompous, which is not the same thing, but whatever). There was some communication in the tone as well. You can decide what that was.
Camboy
For perspective, from the same source
The source of Stein’s quote is not the Peter Bucky conversation.
Do you mean the speech given in full at
Nor is it from a speech. Please, see my comment above and refer to Walter Isaacson’s “Einstein, His Life and Universe”.
Thanks to Laelaps, this quotation by Einstein :
“I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts.”
Hey! He said “feeble soul” and “absurd egoism”! He insulted Ben Stein! Who’s closed-minded now??
I thank Thony C, qubit and Camboy for explaining the history in more detail than I remember (or ever got) from Abraham Pais biography on Einstein (Subtle is the Lord).
The history of science is entangled in the results, but we all labor under the fact that science is usually presented and used on the later, with only passing references of earlier theories and their history.
QM as opposed to reference systems (Newton, Galilei, Lorentz) gives up more readily its history though, as the theory advanced from the quanta device of Planck through the classical quantum description of Einstein to the coherent view of merging discrete bounded and continous free states in a unique way.
(And at least my first experience with QM explicitly sorted through that history. Fortunately, since you still meet people who conflates quantum theory with discreteness. It is good to know where they come from when trying to explain. It is also good for others to know when I as experienced with QM in solids must explain that I know next to nothing of quantum field theory. I’m much a pre-Diracian. :-P)
It is true that Einstein didn’t get the Nobel prize for any foundations, but for the photo-electric effect and his other “services” to science. The reasons behind the Nobel prize are complex btw, it was much a comfort prize because his relativity theory was actively attacked by the school of Uppsala philosophy as a part of their attack on the Vienna school.
But it is likewise perhaps wrong to claim that Poincaré derived and published the whole theory before Einstein. He published some of his work (and absolutely the correct statement on Lorentz invariance, you prompted me to read his paper in my shaky french) before Einstein, who made an independent derivation as described in a splendid way by other commenters, and some after.
This is a matter of much historical dispute (and individual taste, for sure), and I wouldn’t try to entangle the individual credits. I note that it is claimed that Einstein and Lorentz later gave Poincaré credit, but Poincaré never credited Einstein. So for that I would credit Einstein. :-P
Emmy Noether is my absolute hero among later day scientists. I guess I can’t resist the lure of a real sweet physics result.
I thank Thony C, qubit and Camboy for explaining the history in more detail than I remember (or ever got) from Abraham Pais biography on Einstein (Subtle is the Lord).
The history of science is entangled in the results, but we all labor under the fact that science is usually presented and used on the later, with only passing references of earlier theories and their history.
QM as opposed to reference systems (Newton, Galilei, Lorentz) gives up more readily its history though, as the theory advanced from the quanta device of Planck through the classical quantum description of Einstein to the coherent view of merging discrete bounded and continous free states in a unique way.
(And at least my first experience with QM explicitly sorted through that history. Fortunately, since you still meet people who conflates quantum theory with discreteness. It is good to know where they come from when trying to explain. It is also good for others to know when I as experienced with QM in solids must explain that I know next to nothing of quantum field theory. I’m much a pre-Diracian. :-P)
It is true that Einstein didn’t get the Nobel prize for any foundations, but for the photo-electric effect and his other “services” to science. The reasons behind the Nobel prize are complex btw, it was much a comfort prize because his relativity theory was actively attacked by the school of Uppsala philosophy as a part of their attack on the Vienna school.
But it is likewise perhaps wrong to claim that Poincaré derived and published the whole theory before Einstein. He published some of his work (and absolutely the correct statement on Lorentz invariance, you prompted me to read his paper in my shaky french) before Einstein, who made an independent derivation as described in a splendid way by other commenters, and some after.
This is a matter of much historical dispute (and individual taste, for sure), and I wouldn’t try to entangle the individual credits. I note that it is claimed that Einstein and Lorentz later gave Poincaré credit, but Poincaré never credited Einstein. So for that I would credit Einstein. :-P
Emmy Noether is my absolute hero among later day scientists. I guess I can’t resist the lure of a real sweet physics result.
PZ,
We need some evidence and anecdotes from practicing scientists to counter the “Expelled” conpiracy theory.
For example, can it be said that the scientific community not only doesn’t quash challenges to current theory, it actually bestows its highest prizes on those who successfully overturn (improve) current theory?
I’ve also suggested this as a debating point on RD.net (no action yet):
http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,1781,A-new-website-addition-Debate-Points,RichardDawkinsnet,page3#83863
-Chris Habecker
(I’ve said for a long time that Einstein was religious but not a theist. He uses “god” as a metaphor repeatedly, though.)
I recently received from a Jewish friend a piece by Ben Stein in which he identifies himself and “every one” of his ancestors as Jews and then praises the celebration of Christmas — “I don’t mind those beautiful bejeweled trees being called Christmas trees” — at some length. Then, having cozied up to the majority religious, segues into a blast at atheists (e.g., Madelain Murray O’Hare) who have done so much damage to our society. I’m really tired of this character, but I doubt that he’s going to be stopping anytime soon.
He’s a loser.
He’s selling Alaskan fish and participates in a “Smartest Model” show.
He’s a joke. HIs best part was in Ferris Beullers Day Off. Downhill from there.