Guess what the Top 10 Creationist Discoveries of All Time are? OK, it’s an April Fool’s joke, and the list is actually a fairly common summary of real, widely held opinions that you run into all the time if you engage with creationists, which means the real funny part is in the comments. People are offended by the list.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Too short, way too short indeed. But it got to the point and made me smirk! And the comments? Absolutely pathetic. You know you’ve struck a painful cord when people scream “IT’S NOT FUNNY! THAT’S TROLLING!”
Pathetic.
The sad fact is that the list is still relevant even if it isn’t April fools day.
Man… They’re really crying about making fun of others’ beliefs.
By the way, why is it supposedly wrong to make fun of the beliefs of others? For example, if you honestly believe the T-Rex ate nothing but coconuts, you deserve to be mocked until you wet your freakin’ trousers and blubber yourself into hypoxia.
Oh but mocking the vegan T. rex is OK.
“But attacking people based on the fact they like to hunt and/or watch NASCAR. That’s low.”
(Or so one commenter says)
I thought the list was kinda lame myself. I liked the vegan T. Rex and age-of-the-earth bits, but many of the other item just seemed like generic redneck bashing (and not even religious rednecks).
I’d liked to have seen more items that are directly related to creationism and ID, such as “A degree in biology is not necessary to make pronouncements on how life evolved,” or “Whining is a sure path for career advancement,” or “Making a propaganda film with a washed-up D-list comic is a better way to get your ‘research’ out than publishing in a peer-reviewed journal.”
How can it be an April Fool’s joke if it’s what people actually believe. But, yeah, the title didn’t really match most of the content.
queue June coming in and telling us how wrong we are to laugh at this.
Meh. It’s a bit scattershot for my taste. Half of them have nothing to do with creationism per se, and some aren’t even untrue (Iran was and is enriching uranium – the question is whether it’s for use in civilian reactors or warheads).
Funny that: I thought the title matched the content perfectly. After all, the people being parodied mush together speciation, abiogenesis and the Big Bang and call it “Darwinism” — and besides, creationism isn’t really about science; it’s about defending a preconceived worldview from all competitors. All the science talk is just a smokescreen to protect what the creationists consider a struggle against moral degeneracy. Why should we indulge the pretense?
This is going to be a fun day!
Who knew that people that enjoy hunting and NASCAR and creationists were two separate groups?
Sure, but what does NASCAR and hunting have to do with that? For that matter, what does hunting?
Fearful as I am of using the F-word, it is already a common “frame” on the creo side that evolution is an idea of well-off liberal elites, and thus can be dismissed largely as mere politics. By including a lot of non-creo-specific redneck bashing, this piece just reinforces that notion.
But my main problem with it was that including those kind of items made it less funny.
“just seemed like generic redneck bashing (and not even religious rednecks).”
Perhaps we should have narrowed the field to just Evangelical fundamentalist rednecks since the majority of rednecks are so erudite and non religious.
Of course not all creationists are rednecks, but they seem to be the strongest representation of that particular ideology.
It’s very sad when sacred cows are revealed to be so negligible.
Come on the list is really fucking dumb. Only about three items on it have anything to do with creationism and the rest just unfairly mock an entire group of people based on reductionist stereotypes. Very bigoted. What if I made a list of beliefs held by black people and then said, “April fools! They just believe what their dumbass Reverends tell them!” The list wasn’t even clever. i don’t see the wit in saying for the thousandth time that, “yes there are people who give Bush too much credit because of his religion.” Everyone knows this kind of thing and its just a circle jerk to repeat it again. Lame.
I also like how a lot of the comments decry the list as “racist”. I did not know that creationists (or rednecks) were a seperate race.
But I do have to agree that it is pretty lame as an “April Fool’s” joke. To me it seems more like a regular piece of satire. An April Fool’s joke should be more like a real news story that is just this close to sounding authentic.
Look, Blake, I may not know all of the answers, but no matter how much hand-waving you engage in, Darwinism still hasn’t explained the laws of physics. Pathetic.
It says Iraq. Which was also enriching uranium… about twenty years ago.
I fail to see what is intrinsically wrong about NASCAR or responsible hunting, at least relative to other motorsports or farming animals.
Wow, what a bunch of cry babies indeed. My favourite was the person inquiring whether they aer a ‘Darwinist’ or creationist, since they beleive that the big bang and evolution are true, but created by a creator. haha. What?!
Biggest cretinist discovery of all time?
Easy.
There’s an almost unlimited supply of mugs who’ll swallow this crap & believ it!
‘K, the list isn’t very good.
Here’s Kevin Miller’s (Expelled writer) list of ID “predictions”:
#1, a “prediction” that life will be as we already knew it to be. #2, a “prediction” that is only exists to “predict” the “Cambrian explosion,” and means nothing wherever life doesn’t appear quickly. Neither #1 and #2 are at all entailed by the minimalistic ID “model,” while no creationism is entailed by any model based on evidence (they’re post hoc attempts to claim the known for God).
#3 is a prediction which, if it were honestly pursued, could make ID testable, at which point it would immediately fail. One would expect organs and “parts” not necessarily to be limited by ancestry (including horizontal transfers as ancestry), but of course they are, as evolutionary theory predicts. Then again, an omniscient designer could design by using first principles every time, so the designer God might be identifiable (along with other evidence) by a total lack of reuse of parts, so really existing ID fails on that score as well.
#4, vague, essentially meaningless, tailored to fit the bogus claims of IDists. #5, again vague, could mean something as pointless as that platypus teeth have a developmental role, hardly a prediction from design–rather, an evolutionary prediction, that vestigial organs will persist due to inherited constraints. #6, again a complete waste of time, since it isn’t entailed by ID in any manner (the God who makes malaria fit to painfully kill a five-year old girl doesn’t have to make endogenous retroviruses into useful DNA), and is an attempt to claim recent discoveries of (basically, evolutionary) science for ID pseudoscience.
Not real funny, but certainly a joke list–better than laughing at people for liking NASCAR (which is somewhat entertaining, but races like Indy 500 go far too long for my taste), laughing at people for deliberately confusing others about science.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Yeah, there were a lot of good ones they missed.
1. Dinosaur skeleton found with saddle still attached proves that dinosaurs and humans lived together.
2. Piece of Noah’s arc found with deep groves on the outside. These grooves exactly match the claws of a T. Rex, proving that the T. Rex was left off the arc, but tried to get on as the waters got higher.
3. In a press release today, the Discover Institute announces that it is a propaganda tool of fundamentalist churches.
Well, it sort of went off the rails a bit after a good start, and as suggested earlier, devolved into redneck bashing. Shame, really; a missed opportunity given the array of stupid things emanating from the creation museum alone that they could have used…
Islands being composed of floating rocks was my personal favourite.
..Darwinism still hasn’t explained the laws of physics.
Like, no shit. Neither has relativity theory. :-D
In other news….
Jonah Goldberg gets his widdle feelings hurt by Darwin-fish bumper-stickers.
Grab a hanky and check out http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-goldberg1apr01,0,5893988.column
The Darwin fish blow. Sporting one says you’re insecure and belligerent. The fish with feet were briefly humorous years ago. Now the most common design has DARWIN spelled out in all caps and the resulting communication is about as sophisticated as the decal brat that pisses on the logo of the pickup you’re not driving.
But as you may well know, we are hampered by the Exception from the Expelled rules – we aren’t allowed to throw out stuff that Nazi Germany accepted. That even includes such nasty unnatural stuff as ‘jewish’ relativity and Jesse Owens winning four olympic gold medals.
History is a mean trap,
blocking us from a clean wrap.
Yo all, let’s hear it,
don’t fear it but smear it!
Let’s go for ein Stein rap.
But as you may well know, we are hampered by the Exception from the Expelled rules – we aren’t allowed to throw out stuff that Nazi Germany accepted. That even includes such nasty unnatural stuff as ‘jewish’ relativity and Jesse Owens winning four olympic gold medals.
History is a mean trap,
blocking us from a clean wrap.
Yo all, let’s hear it,
don’t fear it but smear it!
Let’s go for ein Stein rap.
And I was being apologetic over at Bad Astronomy (re: MC Dawkins post) for saying that creationists have no sense of humor…
From Glen D’s post
I have a question. How/why does ID predict this?
Why couldn’t a “designer” introduce the concept of complexity gradually? This goes beyond the concept of postulating a “designer” but actually claims to know the MOTIVES of this designer?
In fact, everyone of these so-called “preductions” begs the question of why? As Glen points out, why would a “designer” have to use common features? Why can’t a “designer” create vestigial organs?
This is why ID isn’t science. Once you postulate a powerful enough designer, you are stuck with the fact that it really isn’t bound by any rules. It makes absolutely NO sense to claim that a designer will behave in some specific way. It will behave in any way it wants, without physical limitations.
Damn you. Reading that just made me stupider. Now how am I supposed to operate door handles? That’s way beyond my new IQ.
Oh, and on the topic of general April Fool’s jokes, I’m very proud that earlier today I convinced my girlfriend that there was a new Harry Potter book coming out next year. I almost felt bad when I had to tell her it wasn’t true, she was so excited…
Well… NASCAR (and other American oval track leagues, to some extent) are a blight upon motorsport that have used spectacle and appeals to the lowest common denominator to eclipse the funding for far more technical, nuanced, challenging and interesting international leagues, drive them out of the US, and keep the US from having any decent representation in FIA? Howzat?
Oh, and the Indy 500 has nothing to do with NASCAR. It’s not even a stock car race.
The sad thing is that Wired couldn’t come up with enough fake creationist discoveries to fill the whole list with things related to creationism. That makes creationism a junk science wannabe.
I’ve been told to link to Dispatches and see what happens. So… http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/
“It says Iraq. Which was also enriching uranium… about twenty years ago. ”
Oops. Retracted.
“Why couldn’t a “designer” introduce the concept of complexity gradually? This goes beyond the concept of postulating a “designer” but actually claims to know the MOTIVES of this designer? ”
To be fair, a designer could introduce complexity gradually, but the discovery of “rapid” complexity (see later note) could potentially count as evidence against evolution.
Note: actually, it would have to be more or less instantaneous complexity, and given the patchy state of the fossil record, it would have to be dicovered in extant organisms to be solid evidence. And you’d have to rule out an evolutionary pathway. So, no, it’s not a very good prediction.
IOW, it’s not actually a prediction of ID, but their version of a contradiction to a prediction of evolution. And, as your note even admits, not even really that.
NASCAR (and other American oval track leagues, to some extent) are a blight upon motorsport that have used spectacle and appeals to the lowest common denominator to eclipse the funding for far more technical, nuanced, challenging and interesting international leagues, drive them out of the US, and keep the US from having any decent representation in FIA? Howzat?
I think we need a good Nazi sex romp to get the FIA interested again.
Are people really reading this stuff about NASCAR and hunting and thinking it is slamming “rednecks” rather than mocking the idea that the right puts forth that all people involved in such activities are, by default, conservative morons?
Speaking of which, apparently some fundies hearing voices in their head, wander around looking for Darwin Fish to steal. A recent police report sent to me by a friend who lives in a non fundie city.
Almost worth it to stake out a Darwin Fish car with a camera and video recorder to catch some of these fundie vandals.
OMG! Flying penguins!
To believe 2+2=5 is irrational.
I believe we should seek to remove irrationality from our thinking.
To that effect I propose we legislate to make irrational numbers rational, by rounding to one significant digit.
For example:
pi = 3
e = 3
Memorizing one significant digit takes much less time than learning all the digits of a transcendental number.
I also propose that we should return to a more realistic approach in math and science.
We should get rid of imaginary numbers and only use real numbers.
Numbers of the form z=a+ib are too complex. The second term contains i, which is imaginary. It makes more sense to base numbers in reality by no longer acknowledging imaginary concepts like the square root of a negative number.
With all the time freed for people in this new rational reality-based thinking, they can better spend their time debating the merits of really important topics like creationism and intelligent design.
“The number you have reached is Imaginary.
Please hang up, rotate your phone by ninety degrees, and place your call again.”
JC
In yet another example of “libruls” allow comments and “God-fearing neo-conservatives” do not: Aaron Rowe at “Wired” does; Jonah Goldberg at L A Times does not.
“complex analysis is only fun until someone loses an i.”
…Meanwhile, in creepy real news:
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/03/report-recruit.html
I think the part about shooting deer touches on Dominionism as well as insensitivity to the environment a la Ann Coulter’s “God says the earth is yours to rape.”
I did like the amended list that started out
“1. Michael Behe [learned] not to tangle with ERV.”
Why is it that some people can’t get a joke
It wasn’t nearly as good as it could have been. Probably only three or four are really focused on creationists. Sure, many if not most of the people at a NASCAR event would be creationists, but throwing in NASCAR when you’re supposed to be ridiculing creationists is basically an admission that you couldn’t come up with any more direct criticisms.
NASCAR is certainly worthy of mockery, especially considering it’s a bunch of non-athletes running around in circles, burning through hundreds if not thousands of gallons of fuel per race, while we have this teensy-weensy issue with oil at the moment, all for the entertainment of idiots who’d be just as entertained watching a five-hour montage of guys getting kicked in the nuts.
But the list is supposed to be making fun of creationists, not rednecks or run-of-the-mill morons.
#44: Because the internet is serious biznizz, that’s why. :)
And on a tangent: If people want to know where the evolution-loving hunters are hiding, check the Fish and Wildlife Service. I’ve been doing an internship at a Federal hatchery in Georgia, and I think almost every person here both hunts and is a scientist.
My favorite comment. Really? Dadaism? Dadaism is about ridiculing society! But now, not only is it wrong to make fun of religion, but it is also wrong to make fun of 20th century art movements. Can this be added to the list of creationist discoveries?
I love how, if you make up such a list, and added something like, “Crosses protect you from vampires”, they suddenly find themselves incapable of looking at the entire list as a whole, but have to pick out that *one* comment, so as to whine about how you are picking on everyone that wears holy symbols… No wonder they don’t have a sense of humor, half way through the damn joke they are going, “Ah, you know… That phrase kind of offends me, since it could *also* be applied to me.” Yeah, and so could the fact that you wear fracking pants. That doesn’t mean you have to stop reading the joke the moment you get to pants, then whine about pants, when the real joke was about wearing them backwards, or losing them, etc.
But then, this is how they think when quoting people too, so its hardly a big surprise.
Glen D #20 posted Kevin Miller’s list of ID “Predictions:”
I’ll believe in Intelligent Design when I see a cat with a dog’s hind legs.
Works …
@bjn:
I like my FSM icon. Practically nobody knows what it’s for, but it looks enough like the other fish icons to keep people guessing.
BJN @ 25:
Also, in case no one else says it here, get over yourself.
Perhaps:
1. The list is adolescent bigoted garbage. I guess they left out the jokes about appalachians not wearing shoes and working class pickup owners being jingoistic warmongers due to lack of space.
or:
2. Certain items in the list sarcastically highlight stereotypes held by a majority of its audience.
or:
3. It was hastily put together at the last minute, and its authors regret dropping the ball on points 6 and 7.
My money is on 3, but let’s hope for 2.