Comments

  2. Lilly de Lure says

    OK, own up – who has been wandering around the Discovery Institute in unauthorised possession of a sense of humour?

  7. says

    P.Z. wrote: “You might have to know the LOLcats tradition to get the joke”

    P.Z., we are familiar with all intern…oh forget it. That meme is dead already. But it was a fun couple of days.

  9. Benjamin Franklin says

    OT, but on Ed Brayton’s blog he has the released the findings of the investigation regarding John Freshwater.

    The report shows the evidence that virtually all of the allegations against Freshwater were correct.

    Word is that Freshwater will be fired tomorrow.

  10. Holbach says

    Invisible! Ha! At least the cat is going through the motions with the real stuff in front of him! Man, that freaking Deranged Institution is groping desparately for a modicum of seriousness and hilarity! Just like the old movies serial slogan, “Tune in next week for the next episode!” Don’t they realize that they are providing us with moe cannon fodder? Fire away, you morons!

  13. mr_p1970 says

    So, since they say god is invisible, and they are doing invisible reseach, when they find nothing will they admit god does not exist?

  20. Holbach says

    Benjamin Franklin @ # 9 Thanks for the update on Bilgewater: they should brand him with crosses before he is relased among his betters, the freaking moron.

    And on an earlier post from you quoting from Isaac Asimov, “The Threat Of Creationism’, I finally found it with my books on atheism and not with my books on Isaac.
    For those interested: The above essay is from the book, “Science and Creationism” edited by Ashley Montagu, Oxford University Press, 1984. Good stuff in there!

  21. Alex says

    Discover the Invisible!!

    “The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.” [Delos McKown]

  24. Benjamin Franklin says

    Holbach-

    Thanks. If and when I ever start up my own blog, I am probably going to call it “The Feeble Lance”, out of respect for Dr. Asimov.

  30. negentropyeater says

    dms074,

    my guess, they are going to try and make the kind of argument like “chinese language can only have been the result of an intelligence, therefore, if proteins look like chinese characters, proteins can only be the result of an intelligence”. Daniel Smith was making this kind of argument in another thread a while ago. They are moving slowly away from irreducible complexity, down the ladder, until they’ve got nothing left…

  31. says

    seriously, does anyone know what, if any, significance this paper has?

    College kids are going to starting getting ‘Peace, Love, Wisdom’ tattoos written in protein?

  33. James F says

    #27

    seriously, does anyone know what, if any, significance this paper has?

    It’s that Biologic Institute papers aren’t automatically rejected by Big Science.

  35. Ouchimoo says

    I am a LOLcats fan and I didn’t get the joke! O_o; I think it’s because of what #10 said, LOLcats usually go through the motions of doing something.

  37. Suze says

    Well, the invisible thing IS doing something in theory (creating eyeballs and what have you), but since it’s invisible, you can’t see the thing doing it. So you’re researching the invisible thing. AIDS research, market research, invisible research.

  39. Benjamin Franklin says

    Kseniya re #28

    LOL, thanks. Now if she could only speak French, if you know what I mean…

  45. says

    This lets us get away with everything!

    YES YOU CAN HAS ‘NVISIBUL CHEEZBURGER.
    YOURS. *Serves up thin air* Heh heh.

    Don’t have to feed the cat now, heh heh.

    MISS YUR BUCKIT? RITE DERE!
    YOU BLINDED?
    IS TRANSPARINT!

    Heh, heh, Love teasin’ the animals.

    DESIGN: INVISIBULL INVISIBULLITY.

    I can do invisible research (and can haz grantz), too. Srsly! And BTW –

    FAIL

  47. Owlmirror says

    but they just had that amazing paper about proteins looking like chinese characters:

    [URL snipped so this doesn’t go into mod queue ( doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002246 )]

    seriously, does anyone know what, if any, significance this paper has?

    WTF IZ CHINEEZ FOR PAR… PARI… PAR-EYE-DOLLY-A?

    CAN HAZ IG NOBEL?

    (There’s also a comment that points to a paper on the I Ching and DNA. Oy.)

  49. says

    seriously, does anyone know what, if any, significance this paper has?

    It shows that Confucius was the intelligent designer.

  50. Suze says

    AIDS research, market research, invisible research.

    -What? AIDS research does not belong in this group.

    It wasn’t a comment on the quality or existence or serious nature of AIDS research. It was just something you research, pulled out of the air. Substitute “banana.”

  51. Carlie says

    P.Z., we are familiar with all intern…oh forget it. That meme is dead already. But it was a fun couple of days.

    Oh, I almost wrote that! It’s not dead yet!

  53. Moggie says

    @47:

    WTF IZ CHINEEZ FOR PAR… PARI… PAR-EYE-DOLLY-A?

    Strangely enough, Chinese writing and par-eye-dolly-a aren’t a million miles apart. Some of the characters are supposed to look like what they mean: the character for “person” looks sorta like someone walking, that for “fire” looks like flames etc. So you can find yourself squinting at an unfamiliar character and thinking “uh, a dude kneeling down, perhaps?”

  54. says

    @53:

    Some characters do indeed. You get the simple ones like person, mountain, fire, etc. There are slightly more complicated ones that are composed of simpler characters that mean something akin to the depicted situation (tree+tree = forest, or the somewhat sexist roof+woman+woman = quarrel).

    The rest of them, comprising the majority, are still made out of simpler characters, but one of the characters, the “radical”, usually thinner and located on an edge, gives a “category” to the character, e.g. heart as a radical usually signifies emotion-related characters, like fear, happy.

    The rest of the character, the “phonetic”, is used for its approximate pronunciation when it’s on its own, e.g. wang2 on its own is used as the pronunciation part in kuang2 (+dog radical=rabid dog), wang3 (+tree radical=grown crooked), wang4 (+sun radical=prosperous)

    Chinese dictionaries have a section near the front where, once you count the strokes on the radical, look under that section for the radical. This gives you a reference number for the radical. Then, you count the strokes of the phonetic and look for the character under the radical’s section. That will give you the romanized pinyin for the word, which you then look up alphabetically in the rest of the dictionary.

    (Yes, it’s a pain, but given the nature of the characters, I can’t think of a much better system :)

    Poke around on the Zhongwen site – it has a cool tree control on the page showing how Chinese characters derived from one another :)

  56. says

    “”P.Z., we are familiar with all intern…oh forget it. That meme is dead already. But it was a fun couple of days.”

    Oh, I almost wrote that! It’s not dead yet!”

    Alright, Carlie, it’s not dead. I just wanted to in at the start of the “it’s dead” meme.

    Jumping the gun, another internet tradition.

  57. themadlolscientist says

    That meme is dead already.

    Reports of its demise are greatly exaggerated. :-)

    CAN HAZ IG NOBEL?

    Actually, IgNobels are given for the real thing.

    Improbable research is research that makes people laugh and then think….

    Our goal is to make people laugh, then make them think. We also hope to spur people’s curiosity, and to raise the question: How do you decide what’s important and what’s not, and what’s real and what’s not — in science and everywhere else?

    “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ but, ‘That’s funny…” –Isaac Asimov

    At the ceremony, real Nobel laureates hand out the prizes.

    One of my grad school profs (my ex’s thesis advisor, in fact) won an IgNobel in 2005:

    CHEMISTRY: Edward Cussler of the University of Minnesota and Brian Gettelfinger of the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin, for conducting a careful experiment to settle the longstanding scientific question: can people swim faster in syrup or in water? [my emphasis. –tmls] REFERENCE: “Will Humans Swim Faster or Slower in Syrup?” American Institute of Chemical Engineers Journal, Brian Gettelfinger and E. L. Cussler, vol. 50, no. 11, October 2004, pp. 2646-7.

    Crazy Ed and his partner both attended the ceremony, and Ed made the acceptance speech. Knowing him, I can say it was probably the proudest moment of his life.

  58. James F says

    #57

    “Will Humans Swim Faster or Slower in Syrup?” American Institute of Chemical Engineers Journal, Brian Gettelfinger and E. L. Cussler, vol. 50, no. 11, October 2004, pp. 2646-7.

    Awesome. Meanwhile, the cdesign proponentsists can’t get data supporting ID published, although they’ve made great progress with computer programs involving Chinese characters.

  59. Owlmirror says

    “Pareidolia” wasn’t meant to refer to the seeing of shapes in Chinese characters.

    It’s the seeing Chinese characters in folded proteins…

    Actually, IgNobels are given for the real thing.

    Hm. I thought they were for “achievements that cannot or should not be reproduced.”

  61. Lightnin says

    my guess, they are going to try and make the kind of argument like “chinese language can only have been the result of an intelligence, therefore, if proteins look like chinese characters, proteins can only be the result of an intelligence”.

    That reminds me, if you view the gram stained Corynebacterium genus under the microscope they are supposed to look like “chinese letters”. The only conclusion, it must be God!

    Wonderful, I guess that means Diphtheria (C. diptheriae) is a gift from the heavens?

  62. Holbach says

    Hey, on the Internet News 50 minutes ago, that Freshwater(Bilgewater) has gotten the axe (no, not the one I would give him). The photo with news story shows the crossed burned into the kid’s arm! Now he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, in addition to a civil suit brought by the parents. Where’s your god now, you moron?

  65. Polyester Mather D.D. says

    Twanzfohmazzanal Gwammer blong dis kitteh she buggeremup worzen deh parliamentareh Pigin deh savvy in Papua

    Tym PZ chosez anudder lingage profezor sides Knowem Chumbzi

  66. aporeticus says

    I originally remember seeing the picture as “Invisible Curling” which was funnier.

  70. Witch Tyler, madlolscientist and leader of the Pedants' Revolt says

    I thought they were for “achievements that cannot or should not be reproduced.”

    That was the old Journal of Irreproducible Results, which isn’t publishing any more (or if it is, it’s only sporadically – but anthologies of its articles are available). AIR was founded in 1994 by a former editor of the JIR.

    she buggeremup worzen deh parliamentareh Pigin deh savvy in Papua

    u toktok long wanem? toktok pisin. yu mekim nogut. yu save? oke tenkyu lukim yu behain. :-)

  73. szqc says

    PZ – please bring back some troll chow from TAM for a certain poster here. We’re fresh out. Ceiling Cat is fresh out of smiting lightning right now and is no help.

    Maybe LOLKSENIYA can help in the meantime…

    kthxbai.

  76. shyster says

    #13, I think you missed the point. When they find nothing in their invisible search it will serve as proof that god does exist.

  77. Dutch Delight says

    It’s just pretty revealing that when a challenge gets changed to require at least one scientist to support you and some media attention for it to be considered, Mabus was left to conclude that the challenge is forever out of his reach and therefore “stopped”.

    Bitter much Mabus?

  80. jase says

    I made the mistake of clicking on drmab’s clickback. His writing resembles the rant of a petulant teenager, and an obviously distubed one at that. This loon obviously has major issues and the mentality of a twelve year old.
    Move on… nothing to see there.

  82. raiko says

    Holy crap, is that just LOOKING exactöy like a graphic I made, or did it travel the world. (Granted, it’s not hard to come up with)!

  83. Polyester Mather D.D. says

    *70

    Ham wontoks blong bigeflla heresi, no save bok allsame fella tekem Jesus kaikai haus blong frannisman god.

    Byeanbye Hamfella golong home Australia,him steppem off aiplan Niu Hebredis, Custom man blong Vanuatu tekem Ham long long pig lunch – Malekula wantem Creation Museum verimas

  84. Notsradamus says

    The mad spammer was here
    claiming the great prize
    his banishment will be celebrated
    by the many-armed cephalopods

  85. CortxVortx says

    Re: #81

    a petulant teenager, and an obviously distubed one

    If, as a male teenager, I was distubed, I’d be petulant, too.