Comments

  3. says

    Raymond: Everyone knows that god hates turnips. They are one of the only things he created that he really regrets. (So much for being all-knowing!)

  6. Parker says

    Now I, for one, think evolution is a bunch of *bullcrap* But I’ve been told I have to teach it to you anyway. It was thought up by Charles Darwin and it goes something like this…
    In the beginning, we were all fish. Okay? Swimming around in the water. And then one day a couple of fish had a retard baby, and the retard baby was different, so it got to live. So Retard Fish goes on to make more retard babies, and then one day, a retard baby fish crawled out of the ocean with its…mutant fish hands… and it had butt sex with a squirrel or something and made this. Retard frog-squirrel, and then *that* had a retard baby which was a… monkey-fish-frog… And then this monkey-fish-frog had butt sex with that monkey, and that monkey had a mutant retard baby that screwed another monkey… and that made you!
    So there you go! You’re the retarded offspring of five monkeys having butt sex with a fish-squirrel! Congratulations!

  8. Rhysz says

    “Well, that wraps it all up in one neat little package.”
    “Really, it does.”

    -Homer

    Awesome cartoon.

  9. flame821 says

    {sigh} even as a troll that wasn’t very funny Parker, try harder next time. At least make it amusing or something.

    lolz – ur doing it rong

  10. Janine, Insulting Sinner says

    For Parker,
    It is sad when a person who does not know what they are talking about tries to be funny.

  12. Joey says

    flame821: That was from South Park “Go God Go” episode in which Mrs. Garrison was teaching evolution in her own twisted idiotic way, don’t worry, Richard Dawkins comes in and tells her how it’s done. It’s a hilarious episode, which makes the quote even funnier.

  13. Shery says

    Is that a turnip?

    I thought it was “the bomb”, and that man was trying to get rid of “the bomb” by throwing it off the highest thing he could reach. Then the giant hand decided to get rid of humanity too… not totally unlike the theme of the movie I saw last night. (TNTESS)

  14. PopeCoyote says

    Parker – Let’s look at the alternative: We were magickally created by a jealous, vicious deity that suckered us from the beginning and set us up to fail. He despised us and tried to wipe us out a couple of times leaving “a few good men” to take over but we kept failing. We are flawed, wicked and a perfect reflection of our creator. Hmmmm…much more appealing concept than being part of a line of ancestors who were successful no matter what nature or life threw at them? Really?

  15. AmyD says

    Someone needs to explain sexual reproduction to Parker. While butt sex may be nice and Parker’s favorite preoccupation, babies (mutant or otherwise) it does not make.

  16. Resa says

    Lighten up, people. Parker was just quoting a South Park episode where Mr. Garrison and Richard Dawkins end up having, er… relations.

  18. Susan says

    What I learned from this morning’s comic: God is left-handed and uses the wrong finger for effective flicking. Also, girls are not involved in evolution, the end result of which is a massive turnip. Sunday morning cartoons are so educational!

  19. Janine, Insulting Sinner says

    Sorry Resa but those were some of the worst series of episodes of South Park. I try to blot it from my mind that it ever happened.

  21. Muffin says

    Where does the notion that humans are the pinnacle of anything come from, anyway? Or, for that matter, the notion that in the big picture and the long run, they are in any way special…

  22. Sergei says

    For those people ganging up on Parker, here is the clip from South Park:

    It is an obvious satire of the unqualified and biased teaching of evolution that occurs in some schools. And it speaks volumes about why so many people in our society have almost no understanding of evolution by natural selection.

    @ Flame and Janine, It is very much teh lolz and quite a poignant skewering of our societies scientific ignorance.

  24. Janine, Insulting Sinner says

    Sergei, those episodes had ‘atheists’ acting like religionists and waging war in the name of their interpretation of the sainted Dawkins. Who, by the way, was an asshole because he is outspoken (though polite) about his lack of belief in a deity.

    I like South Park but those Dawkins episode were some of the worst piles of crap.

  25. PopeCoyote says

    I’m sorry I didn’t catch the cultural reference, Parker, but without quotes or italics or something to indicate parody, you have to go with face value or lack of. ;)

  26. says

    I hate those episodes – Parker and Stone are generally shallow, unintellectual (not to mention libertarian to the extreme) pieces of shit.

    Dawkins hates these episodes. I actually mentioned them to him once when he visited UW-Madison and he damn near tore my head off for mentioning them. He hates South Park, period; it’s not even remotely good comedy.

  28. 'Tis Himself says

    He hates South Park, period; it’s not even remotely good comedy.

    Oh good, I’m not the only one who’s unimpressed with South Park.

  31. GaryB says

    Southpark? Never watch it. I have no idea if its good or bad, but that clip was quite funny. I swear I’ve argued against that guy.

    If I remember correctly, I couldn’t make my mind up between laughing my ass off or pissing myself in frustration.

  32. Tulse says

    I have to disagree about South Park — it is some of the funniest social commentary anywhere (and I say that as a lefty and an atheist).

    And I personally thought the Dawkins episode was hilarious. The infighting among the various atheist groups (which included hyperintelligent otters riding ostriches — how cool is that?) was really funny, and to be honest not that dissimilar to many of the disagreements displayed here by various strains of atheists.

    And keep in mind that, whatever their failings, Parker and Stone are not generally friendly to religion. In other episodes we had the Vatican run by a giant spider (and secretly promoting child molestation), Moses appear like a character from Tron to a camp of Jewish kids and demand macaroni art, and the bashing of Scientology and Mormonism. And of course Jesus lives in South Park and ran a local cable show. Compared to these examples, I think atheism got off fairly lightly.

  33. Parker says

    Wow, I’d hoped more people would have known what I was quoting…
    I was just amused by non-descript creature in panel 2 and that episode of South Park came to mind. It’s okay guys! Friend!

  34. Ric says

    I am as anti-creationism and pro-science as anyone here, but the reaction to Parker’s post: fucking lame.

    Come on, guys. Loosen up.

  35. Boudica says

    My problem with Southpark is they take a funny idea and then generally take it too far to an “ewww” factor. I love the one where The Dog Whisperer tames Cartman. And the one where the true leader of the Catholic Church is the Easter bunny. But they mostly devolve into talking about child molestation or bodily functions.

  37. Becca Stareyes says

    Muffin @ 21: I’d say it’s because most people want to feel that their existence is as special to everyone else or the universe as a whole as it is to them. If God created the universe, it has to be as humanity’s playground*. If we arose through a slow process of adaptation, then we have to be some kind of perfect or best end state.

    * Okay, I can think of a few examples of ones where we weren’t. I recall a myth about how we were the body lice of some primordial deity that was killed to make the world, but I can’t remember which culture that comes from. (Google says it comes from some part of China, but I only did a pretty superficial look.)

  38. Badger3k says

    Southpark is funny, except when they get their Libertarian Woo out, or when they take the joke past satire and into the annoying. Some of their stories were good, but they take the message way out into the stratosphere, constructing straw men that make the message ridiculous and pathetic. Luckily, this doesn’t happen all the time, so it is mostly watchable. It is fun watching the extremes that they have Cartmen go to in his psychosis.

    About the cartoon. It would have been much funnier if they had the man start walking down the other side, transforming into a priest or evangelical preacher. I think that would more accurately reflect reality.

    As for Parker….lame. I have some MHMR students, and they can be more creative and intelligent than Parker. I’m guessing grade school student, or maybe home-schooled in a creationist home.

  39. Sven DiMIlo says

    As always when it comes to alleged “humor,” to each his ir her own and YMMV etc.
    South Park is definitely not my cup of meat. Gross does not necessarily = funny. IMO.

  40. mayhempix says

    Why are fundies like Parker always so fascinated by animal and anal sex?

    You can just picture him eyeing the dog as his crotch swells in guilt-ridden anticipation.

  41. PopeCoyote says

    Personally, I think Teilhard de Chardin is ultimately responsible for this comic. Though I think he imagined a better ending. :)

  42. mayhempix says

    I didn’t Parker’s explanation when I sent my last post #40.

    But my comment still applies to most of the fundies…

  43. Janine, Insulting Sinner says

    While I still find the “Parker” stuff the opposite of funny, I doubt he is a fundie. Hell, the person could have easily gone with the moniker of “Stone”.

  44. davem says

    What I learned from this morning’s comic: God is left-handed and uses the wrong finger for effective flicking.

    This right-handed person uses that very same left middle finger for flicking purposes – it’s the strongest I have. Are the voices in my head right? Am I Dog God?

  45. Sergei says

    Please people, stop being so hostile to satire about fundamentalist Christians. I know that a lot of it suffers from Poe’s law but you must have lost the satire detection gene if you can’t immediately tell that (trey) Parker is joking.

    As for South Park, it is usually hit or miss. They seem to be running out of inspiration recently and do resort to extreme potty humor or extreme violence to force a punchline.

    If you can watch the episode “The Death Camp of Tolerance” and not find it funny then we will just have to disagree about South Park.

    http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/103981

  46. Graculus says

    South Park would be funnier if they got some new jokes.

    The only thing worse in the satire business than offending people is boring them.

  47. says

    I find South Park to be mixed too. The Passion of the Jew, where they make fun of Mel Gibson, was a riot. I also liked the World of Warcraft episode and the takedown of 9/11 conspiracy theorists. When South Park is good, it is really funny. When they’re bad, like the 2 parter about the Peruvian Flute bands and the Cloverfield spoof, it just falls flat for me.

  49. Marc Abian says

    South Park is a show that’s not nearly intelligent enough to be as preachy as it is. Every fucking lesson seems to be, oh look, if we misrepresent A in several ways, A is actually a lot like B, the very thing which A is against!

    HHAHAHAHHAHAHA! How ironic is that? Hilarious!

    Spare me.

  50. BMcP says

    I am glad people were able to point out Parker’s quote was from the South Park episode Go God Go, how could anyone here not see it as satire and not a real rant against evolution?

    I found the episodes hilarious, the idea is that any group or organization can get too militant no matter what their ideals, or original intent, and sometimes ideology consumes people to the point that everyone else is “the enemy”. And if Dawkins gets all butthurt over some American cartoon poking fun at him, that’s life as a celebrity and he needs to get over it and himself. No one is above criticism, or satire, and no one is ‘sacred’ where we all can’t poke some fun at them.

    Just the story of his freakout reaction to the mentioning of the episode makes me want to ask him about it all that much more.

  51. says

    If the pressures placed on us from our environment are controlled through government and technology, won’t the cause of evolution be removed from our species? Thus wouldn’t we have reached a pinnacle? I know that everyone would love to think that the appendix would finally go away and the woman’s birth canal expand enabling smarter scientists, but maybe we’re gonna be stuck with what we have.

  52. varlo says

    If that IS a turnip about to be dispatched I may become religious after all. No sane person ever ate a turnip.

  53. Amber says

    Hmm, what I’m reading from this comic is man climbed up the evolutionary pinnacle and once at the top is trying to use a nuclear bomb to take out everything else and god’s about to flick him off for being a dick. I’m not exactly sure what the over all message is supposed to be here.

    Also, “set us up the bomb” is a video game quote from the grand old days of engrish translations (if I’m not mistaken).

  55. Joe Shelby says

    Well, I saw it as Man invented the Bomb once he got on top of the hill, and he’s thinking about throwing it (and might not), but “God” is going to do it for him. In other words, “God” is and will be the reason for the next major war.

    And the problem with that viewpoint is that even whilst they hate Evolution, the evangelicals who believe Revelation will come true “next week” would agree with that interpretation.

  56. Marc Abian says

    how could anyone here not see it as satire and not a real rant against evolution?

    Poe’s law. By definition.

    I found the episodes hilarious, the idea is that any group or organization can get too militant no matter what their ideals, or original intent, and sometimes ideology consumes people to the point that everyone else is “the enemy”

    No, the idea was atheism criticises religion for being divisive but atheism is just as divisive! How ironic!

  57. Nick Gotts, OM says

    If the pressures placed on us from our environment are controlled through government and technology, won’t the cause of evolution be removed from our species? – Robert Sutton

    No. So long as there are heritable differences in propensity to reproduce, natural selection will continue to cause changes in gene frequencies. However, this is unlikely to be important, since if our civilisation survives the next century, I’d say it’s a near-certainty that we’ll be “augmenting” ourselves, both genetically and with artificial prostheses, in ways far exceeding any chance natural selection could bring about.

  58. Nick Gotts, OM says

    how could anyone here not see it as satire and not a real rant against evolution? – BMcP

    I saw it as a very lame attempt to satirise evolutionary accounts of human origins, posted by a creobot – as did others, to judge by their responses. Without a contextual “This reminds me of the South Park episode when…”, this was the most obvious interpretation. Believe it or not, not everyone watches South Park – and the comments here don’t motivate me to start.

  59. amphiox says

    Even if you could conceive of a technological society wherein ALL possible heritable differences in reproductive success are neutralized, including those pressures created by the technologies involved themselves, variation will still build up through neutral mutations, and genetic drift will continue to operate.

  60. Rowan says

    tis an interesting study of human behaviour to read through the posts here. there are still people excoriating parker @#6 because they haven’t read every post to realise he was quoting from an episode of south park.

    question about the comic. what is wiley trying to convey here? is it a fundamentalist view that man is now too big for his britches and needs to be eliminated by the higher power? if the guy at the pinnacle gets flicked off the mountain, does that mean evolution begins again?

    i don’t know about anyone else, but i haven’t seen any flicking fingers in the clouds i observe in the sky.

  61. Heraclides says

    This style of this cartoon very much reminds me of Mordillo. One of these days I must see if some place sells his (Moridllo’s) posters.

  62. says

    No. So long as there are heritable differences in propensity to reproduce, natural selection will continue to cause changes in gene frequencies. – Nick G

    That sounds to me like the element of sexual selection will continue but those of environmental selection could still very well vanish. Especially if we’re augmenting ourselves. And it seems to me that sexual selection wouldn’t be responsible for true evolutionary changes like environmental pressures cause.

    If we do continue into the next century there will have to be some government control on reproduction. Thus, that would keep the “family values” crew from squishing out the single child parent. Overpopulation is the number one problem in the world right now. The earth simply has a limited amount of natural resources and we will have to maintain a balance with it for survival.

  63. says

    variation will still build up through neutral mutations, and genetic drift will continue to operate. – amphiox

    Without the pressure for survival, genetic drift will only cause problems. Perhaps we’ll get more Angelina Jolies, but I think that we have reached a pinnacle. That is if we can achieve an equality based civil society.

  64. Rowan says

    That is if we can achieve an equality based civil society.

    i don’t think that will happen in our lifetime.

  65. Kutsuwamushi says

    what is wiley trying to convey here? is it a fundamentalist view that man is now too big for his britches and needs to be eliminated by the higher power?

    I thought it was poking fun at the view that man is the pinnacle of evolution by showing man, after having reached the top of the mountain, using his position to lob nuclear missiles at his enemies.

    God is about to flick him off of the mountain. I don’t know whether that means man is about to wipe himself out or if he just doesn’t deserve to be at the top anymore.

    It’s an ambiguous comic to be sure.

  66. Nick Gotts, OM says

    That sounds to me like the element of sexual selection will continue but those of environmental selection could still very well vanish. – Robert Sutton

    No. Differences in fertility, for instance, are not subject to sexual selection – at least, not directly.

    And it seems to me that sexual selection wouldn’t be responsible for true evolutionary changes like environmental pressures cause.

    Why? And what distinction are you drawing between “true” evolutionary changes and “false” ones?

    If we do continue into the next century there will have to be some government control on reproduction… Overpopulation is the number one problem in the world right now.

    Very dubious in both cases. In most of the rich world, birth rate is already below what is needed for long-term maintenance of the current population. It is falling fast almost everywhere. This is due to urbanisation, improved education and status of women, better availability of contraception and abortion, and probably emulation of the smaller families of the rich by the poor (Brazilian soap operas are thought by some to be a significant factor!). Population growth may well cease in the next half-century as a result of these factors – especially if we keep pressing for improved women’s rights, as we should do both for themselves, and to curb population growth. Coercion has been an important factor in China, but nowhere else AFAIK (India under Indira Gandhi tried it, but unsuccessfully).

    Most of the world’s resources are used by the rich – that’s you, me, and the other commenters here. Shrugging that responsibility off onto population growth is wrong both factually and morally. The really urgent crisis is anthropogenic global warming, not population growth; halting the latter will certainly help with the former, but to a limited extent, since most of the increase is now among people who produce little of the greenhouse gases responsible.

  68. Jeeves says

    This hatred over South Park reminds me of a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where Calvin was complaining to his father that there was no reason or truth and justice in the Sunday comics. All the men were buffoons or drunks and the women were bimbos or shrews. And his father sarcastically replies that he knows how funny good, righteous, moral people are. That’s what I feel about South Park. Consider the source. Do any of you expect Richard Dawkins to get the king’s treatment without any criticism?
    Parker and Stone aren’t fundamentalists, they’re just equal opportunity joke machines. They paint with a wide brush and they’re not going for a philosophical or scientific truth. The point of the episode was that religion doesn’t cause all the world’s problems (which is something of a straw man as Dawkins or Dennett never said it did) but even if religion was eradicated, people would still go to war with each other even if it was about the proper wording of an organization. And Dawkins’ bit was admittedly crude, that he is able to know that there is no God, but is unable to tell a woman from a man who wears earrings. But they are anti-religion through and through in many of their episodes. I hesitate to tell you all to lighten up but do consider the source: an animated cartoon on Comedy Central that appeals to 20 somethings. Bertrand Russell need not apply.

  69. says

    re: comic – To misapply a quote from Jitterbug Perfume, “A tale that begins with a beet will end with the devil.” Although you might as well have a guy up on that pinnacle holding life-saving stem cell research/insert your favourite advance of science here, and the divine finger of the almighty getting ready to flick him off is really religion getting to co-opt or kibosh the best of what humanity has created. The insertion of the beet-radish-turnip-bomb seems a daft way of setting up the next stage of “evolution.”

    re: South Park – I wouldn’t have recognised the quote either, and given my experiences with public education science instruction (which ran the gamut between excellent to astoundingly mediocre) I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out that was somebody’s actual view. Viewing the clip is more effective for me than reading the quote out of context though.

    I don’t have television, so I don’t really watch SP, except on DVD, whenever my boyfriend takes it into his head to watch. I too find it a mixed bag. It can be really biting and devastatingly funny at times. (We in the ex-Mormon community enjoy the little dissections Trey and Matt have done with Mormon history, although they get the ACTUAL experience of being Mormon a bit askew, since they are still approaching it from the outsider’s POV. For example, when they are showing the Family Home Evening lesson, the historicity of Joseph Smith’s looking into a hat is accurate according to papers, BUT a Mormon family wouldn’t be teaching that version of that story, mostly because they haven’t been taught the full history themselves, and are discouraged from looking into historical sources the church doesn’t vet. But I digress.)

    I’ve often felt that South Park, so famous for taking on anybody, falls into the fallacy of being even-handed to the point of inanity. Still, their scattershot approach tends to hit some targets accurately. Eventually.

  71. says

    Why? And what distinction are you drawing between “true” evolutionary changes and “false” ones? – Nick Gotts

    I consider a “true” change something that hasn’t existed in the species before. A false change would be variations in the physical zeitgeist of a population which already existed sometime in the past. The don juan mutation doesn’t count as change.

    Most of the world’s resources are used by the rich – that’s you, me, and the other commenters here.

    All humans deserve the right to a descent standard of living. I’m not going to condemn myself for having heat, drinking water, access to transportation and an internet connection. In a equality based civil world society we would immediately have to do with less, the 3 world nations more and have more responsibility in controlling there reproduction. Global warming is not our #1 problem, drinking water is. BTW – I only make 8K a year, hardly a massive consumer by US standards.

    which is something of a straw man as Dawkins or Dennett never said it did – Jeeves

    “Religion, the root of all Evil?”

  73. Jeeves says

    @Robert Sutton,

    “Religion, the root of all Evil?”

    I believe it was Dawkins’ vehicle, however, he did not come up with the title. (Or it was rejected.) In quite a few interviews afterward and in The God Delusion, he also expresses annoyance that “Root of all Evil” was commissioned as the title as he didn’t believe it. Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris all say that religion is part of the problem, not the problem itself.

  75. says

    Sorry, I have to ask: WTF? – Sven

    I’m not a scientist so I don’t know the proper language. I just don’t think that sexual selection would cause anything other than superficial change in a species that has control over their reproduction. I said Zeitgeist because who knows what causes a couple to want to have have a family. Beauty and love are motivating factors and those are based on taste, not pressure from the environment. The only change I could see is more people having a natural desire to be parents, but that already exists in our DNA.

    I admit I am not an evolutionary biologist and only speak from speculation and intuition. Take it as such.

    @Jeeves

    Harris – “We should not call ourselves “atheists.” We should not call ourselves “secularists.” We should not call ourselves “humanists,” or “secular humanists,” or “naturalists,” or “skeptics,” or “anti-theists,” or “rationalists,” or “freethinkers,” or “brights.” We should not call ourselves anything. We should go under the radar–for the rest of our lives. And while there, we should be decent, responsible people who destroy bad ideas wherever we find them.”

  76. Rey Fox says

    “That was from South Park “Go God Go” episode in which Mrs. Garrison was teaching evolution in her own twisted idiotic way”

    And every so often someone comes in and copies that quote without attribution, because they think it makes them look clever, or funny, or something, but it really doesn’t make any sense outside of the South Park context.

    Meanwhile in the comic, God is obviously flicking the man because he’s about to throw that turnip at a Shyguy, and God hates Super Mario 2.

  77. Eryops says

    @Sutton

    With respect, this shows the limits of intuition – it gives us only limited insight into our own motives and mental processes. Philosophers of mind are divided on the right methodology to study mental phenomena, but this is a scientific question.

    Freud gave us real evidence (despite his flaws) of unconsious motives and desires- the upshot it that it is very easy to convince yourself what’s going on, and be completely wrong.

  78. GaryB says

    Robert Sutton @#63

    Without the pressure for survival, genetic drift will only cause problems. Perhaps we’ll get more Angelina Jolies, but I think that we have reached a pinnacle. That is if we can achieve an equality based civil society.

    You are thinking too linearly. We may feel we are better now than at any time in the past with no chance of improving but evolution doesn’t care what we think. We are not at the pinnacle of evolution, there really is none, and we are not at the pinnacle of our evolution, selection hasn’t finished with us yet.

  79. Jeeves says

    @Robert Sutton,

    With respect (and perhaps my obtuseness) I don’t understand your point. Through reading their books and several handfuls of interviews, I’ve come to the conclusion that all four believe the point I made above. They wouldn’t put it in the same language and certainly they have a myriad of differences in their execution of said idea, so how does that Harris quote fit in to the discussion? All of them seem to be against superstition in all forms and religion fits into that scheme. That quote is just part of Harris’ wishful thinking and I was referring to Dawkins earlier. They may hold similar views on a few subjects but they’re not interchangeable.

  80. mas528 says

    @robert @55..67

    It is impossible to remove all selection pressures. Pollution, bacteria, radiation(including solar),viruses, weather, diet; those are just the very obvious ones.

    Even the fact that we are have technology, medical science a results from our evolutionary path.

    The other thing is that ‘regressive’ change in the population is still evolution.

    Evolution rarely chooses the optimal solution. It just finds what is ‘good enough’ to survive long enough to reproduce.

    Maybe humankind is simply good enough for earth’s current environments.

  81. amphiox says

    It would also be necessary for our hypothetical zero selection pressure supertech civilization to last forever.

    By definition, zero selection pressure means all variation is neutral. Since random genetic changes will continue to occur, variation should accumulate in any population facing reduced selection pressure. Now, if selection pressure is suddenly reapplied, then there is now a rich pool of variation to work from. And if the new selection pressure is not identical to the old ones (and it never can be because the environment is always changing), the population may veer in unexpected directions. What was once a disadvantageous trait that would have been weeded out by natural selection is instead allowed to persist and spread by this period of “zero selection pressure”, and might turn out to be advantageous in the different environment that follows the reassertion of selection pressure.

    By this argument, it is entirely possible that periods of reduced selection pressure ultimately result in accelerated evolutionary change overall.

  82. says

    My reference to Harris was a confirmation of what you said about the fantastic 4, that religion is simply part of the problem. Harris went out on a limb and implied that atheism has it’s own tribalistic nature, which Dawkin’s is more than happy to promote, that should be avoided because of the dangers it poses.

    Believing in the supernatural doesn’t mean that a (superstitious) person is not going to not see a doctor, disbelieve a strong theory like evolution, spend all day praying for gold, or shoot people because a ghost told them to. I believe in the supernatural and recognize the fact of evolution. We all make choices and should be judged how those choices effect others. Believing in god is neither good nor bad. Believing you have to “have Jesus” or your going to burn in hell is bad. But condemning those that believe there is more to the world than can be tested by science is just as bad as the religious condemning us who don’t believe in their dogma.

    I’m a Deist, god doesn’t have fingers to flick an evolved ape waiting to evolve into a radish resistant being.

  83. says

    amphiox, you’re right. It’s my assumption that selection pressure won’t be suddenly reapplied. I fear what that would be other than virus resistant humans. If that happens I hope that the bonobo type humans will be selected out of our pole.

  85. BMcP says

    No, the idea was atheism criticises religion for being divisive but atheism is just as divisive! How ironic!

    Considering how hostile some atheists get towards agnostics and other secular people (including even ‘weak’ atheism for some) who are not as decisively willing to dismiss the idea of the divine, or for not being antagonistic towards theism, I would say that criticism is just.

  86. Jeeves says

    @Robert Sutton,

    I think the four of them aren’t against the personal expression of religion among consenting adults. Their problem is when young children are involved (who haven’t adopted proper critical thinking skills) or when one group’s religious tenets are put into law. As for the condemning part, I think Dawkins and Dennett have several positive things to say about religion and its followers (literature, art, music etc). Dawkins is almost always complimentary towards the theologians and bishops he debates.

    “Believing in the supernatural doesn’t mean that a (superstitious) person is not going to not see a doctor, disbelieve a strong theory like evolution, spend all day praying for gold, or shoot people because a ghost told them to.”

    Being religious doesn’t necessarily mean acting supersitious in everything you do. But the religious are more likely to be. Side by side, I am positive that more religious people wouldn’t let their kids go to the doctor or pray for gold than an agnostic or atheist. Having faith in a higher power doesn’t make you a bad person or a stupid person ( I don’t think any of the four have said that and I am certainly not) but it does leave open the possibility that the religious are more susceptible to irrational ideas not grounded in fact or reason. Obvious platitude: The human mind is complicated enough to have conflicting viewpoints and still be able to function very well.

  87. BMcP says

    @Nick Gotts

    Maybe it would have been more clear if he said it was from South Park, but I would think with quotes like “it had butt sex with a squirrel” and “You’re the retarded offspring of five monkeys having butt sex with a fish-squirrel!”. One may have thought about the post for a few seconds, and realized it isn’t serious in the slightest before writing an angry reply and hitting that post button.

  88. Nick Gotts, OM says

    Global warming is not our #1 problem, drinking water is. – Robert Sutton

    You were saying just now it was overpopulation. Shortage of fresh water is a serious problem, certainly, but not specifically of drinking water – most water is used for agriculture and industry, where considerable efficiency gains are undoubtedly achieveable, and indeed will be automatically incentivised as supply problems mount. The big difference with global warming is that the causes of that problem are located far from where the worst effects will be felt; and no individual country or firm has a direct incentive to reduce greenhouse gas production. Climate change will interact in complex ways with water shortage: (1) Precipitation will increase, but not generally where and when it is needed.
    (2) Plants will require less water because of the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (they adapt by reducing the number of stomata, which in turn reduces evaporation); and this will in most cases outweigh the increase in evaporation due to temperature rise.
    (3) By far the most important, and the reason why global warming will be a major contributor to water shortage: billions of people are dependent for water supplies on rivers supplied by glaciers in the Himalayas and nearby, and the Andes. as the glaciers melt, water will not be stored and released gradually, but will pour in torrents down these mountains and largely be lost to human use.

  89. uncle frogy says

    when I read Parker’s comment I thought it was funny then came the “rebuttal” comments “WTF?” how could anyone not think it was funny even if you thought it was someones honest attempt at being insulting it was absurd. I did not remember that “mrs.-mr. Garrison” saying that in South Park I may have missed it.
    I will confess I do have a fondness to bad over the top humor once i a while.

  90. Nick Gotts, OM says

    BMcP,
    You didn’t read what I wrote. I did not think it was serious; I thought it was lame satire by a creobot.

  91. Andy says

    What #85 said. One only has to read a fraction of the bellyaching between “milquetoast atheists” and “hellfire atheists” about who is truly qualified to bear the mantle of Real AtheismTM to see how squarely “Go God Go” hit the mark with the United Atheist Alliance and the Allied Atheist Allegiance.

  92. David Marjanović, OM says

    This right-handed person uses that very same left middle finger for flicking purposes – it’s the strongest I have.

    I’m right-handed, too, and I like using the right middle finger or the right ring finger — the ring finger isn’t ideally positioned, but it has the longest terminal phalanx (segment at the end — distance between the second joint and the tip).

    Also, “set [up us] the bomb” is a video game quote from the grand old days of engrish translations (if I’m not mistaken).

    Yes, and I linked to it in comment 30! See comment 60 for what you should have done.

    Population growth may well cease in the next half-century as a result of these factors – especially if we keep pressing for improved women’s rights, as we should do both for themselves, and to curb population growth. Coercion has been an important factor in China, but nowhere else AFAIK (India under Indira Gandhi tried it, but unsuccessfully).

    There was a Nature paper in 2001 that showed the world population will have started shrinking before the end of the century. I’ll post some more information on it tomorrow.

    By means of education, the very poor Indian state of Kerala has managed to bring its birthrate down to 1.8 children per woman, below China’s official 1.9 (the actual birthrate there is a little bit higher because an estimated 30 million people don’t officially exist).

  93. flame821 says

    Sorry, stepped out to do some shopping.

    I apologize to Parker, as I didn’t realize that he was quoting anything (italics or blockquote would really have helped here)

    But then again, I haven’t bothered watching SP in YEARS. Last time I saw it Garrison was a man. I won’t weigh in on SP’s quality as (as someone far above in the comments pointed out) comedy (like music) is a matter of taste.

    OT, I just got several tags in my email, Apparently YouTube is changing the policies and censoring with a heavy hand (it’s not just for Atheists anymore, apparently)

  94. says

    What do we learn from this thread?

    That everybody has something he becomes unreasonably grumpy about. For an example see one of the comments subsequent to this one.

  98. Eric Paulsen says

    When I was in highschool WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY back in the 80’s we had a guy who worked for the school paper do almost this exact same cartoon (my guess is that the idea was pilfered from an even OLDER source) but after man had developed the atomic bomb the last panel just started back at the first one. No need for a god. Much better statement overall.

  99. Liberal Atheist says

    I have to admit I thought Parker’s post was sincere creationist rubbish. I recognised Kent Hovind’s style of “humour” whenever he tries to make fun of evolution.

  101. thwaite says

    Robert @71: Sexual selection is an equal complement to sexual selection. It produces true evolutionary change, as Darwin argued in his later book THE DESCENT OF MAN AND SELECTION IN RELATION TO SEX. The two topics are joined for a reason: Darwin thought human evolution including ‘racial’ variation was best explained by sexual selection, and this thesis is updated by Geoffrey Miller’s THE MATING MIND (2000), a wonderfully readable and well-informed speculation that our big brains require this explanation. The original debate on sexual selection in all evolution is usefully reviewed with current commentary by Helena Cronin’s THE ANT AND THE PEACOCK, quite readable though slightly more technical. The titular peacock is a useful image for the power of sexual selection: the peacock’s tail is no asset for natural selection, but the peahens do adore them (Darwin and Wallace argued how this could arise).
    And so natural selection gets you through the day, but sexual selection is how you make it at night (a quip from Miller).

  102. says

    … girls are not involved in evolution …

    There’s a joke here somewhere, but I can’t seem to create it.

  104. Barry says

    Not a lot of people here that recognize obvious pop-culture references, it seems. Makes me wonder how many of PZ’s audience actually watch TV or surf around on teh internetz. Or maybe they’re just deliberately blind to pop culture.

  105. Nick Gotts says

    Or maybe they’re just deliberately blind to pop culture. – Barry

    Not deliberately blind, just (mostly) not interested. I watch very little TV, and Desperate Housewives is the only pop culture among what I do watch. I surf the web plenty, but not for pop culture, because it bores me. If people want to cut-and-paste pop culture stuff, fine, but if you don’t attribute it, don’t expect everyone to recognise it.