Good news: the Large Hadron Collider is operational, and has fired two particles together with a force of 7 trillion electron volts…and it’s only the beginning, since they’re going to ramp up the power gradually. It’s too bad Michio Kaku had to muck it up with a lot of nonsense.
“This is a huge step toward unraveling Genesis Chapter 1, Verse 1 – what happened in the beginning,” physicist Michio Kaku told The Associated Press.
“This is a Genesis machine. It’ll help to recreate the most glorious event in the history of the universe.”
Please, no. Genesis has zero correspondence to reality. We are not going to drill back through Biblical events to find the truth of Genesis 1:1, which reads, by the way, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Is Kaku suggesting that the LHC will test that proposition? That is a genuinely tone-deaf thing for a scientist to say in fundie-infested America.
And of course, Answers in Genesis stands ready to appropriate the LHC for its purposes. It’s a rather bizarre support they offer to the LHC, though. You see, AiG does not accept the Big Bang, or any early event in the history of the universe that precedes 4004BC. So they have to tip-toe around it: nothing the LHC will discover can possibly confirm modern cosmology, but, they say, it can “give us some interesting insight into how God upholds His universe today”. Science works only because God makes it work.
The author, Jason Lisle, is quite possibly the most boring creationist I’ve ever read, so his essay here is scarcely worth reading unless you are really in need of a nap, but it does conclude with a useful revelation.
Whatever scientists discover about the universe from the LHC, it will show that the universe is upheld by God in a consistent way. This will therefore confirm that the Bible is true.
Get that? No matter what evidence is unearthed, no matter what science learns, no matter what history tells us, everything will be interpreted to confirm their freakish interpretation of the history of the universe. This is not science. There’s nothing you can say that is more contrary to the ideal of science than to claim that your ideas are completely impervious to the evidence.
For those who are hard of reading: I KNOW THAT KAKU’S WORDS WERE A METAPHOR. I DO NOT THINK HE IS A BELIEVER, LET ALONE A CREATIONIST NUTJOB.
Better?
I do think he said something stupid and thoughtless. And please learn something: saying something is a metaphor does not automatically make it good or even excusable. For some reason, the word ‘metaphor’ has become a kind of catch-all excuse whenever someone says something stupid and unjustifiable. It isn’t. This is almost as bad as rationalizing gobbledygook and nonsense by calling it art or poetry, which is so insulting to the muses of poetry that I expect Calliope and Erato and Polyhymnia to materialize and start thwacking everyone upside the head with a cithara or stuffing scrolls up their nostrils or strangling them with a veil.
Again, for those having trouble following along: METAPHOR IS NOT A MAGIC GET-OUT-OF-STUPID CARD.
A whole lot of wishful thinking going on.
This makes me regret buying Michio Kaku’s book The Physics of the Impossible. I thought it was a pretty decent book discussing stuff like invisibility cloaks, teleportation, etc. and what science knows about it that could make it possible/impossible.
But everything else he’s ever done makes him out to be an annoying douche. Including this.
Time to put some money down on Michio Kaku as the 2011 Templeton Prize winner….
Well, fuck. Now Khan Noonien Singh is gonna want to get his genetically superior hands all over it. KHAAAAAANNNN!!!
Another No-lose situation. If things are inconsistent, then god fiddles. If its the same, then god keeps them the same.
I second that call for nomination for the Templeton…
Kaku is also one of those yahoos who got his panties in a twist over launching deep space probes powered by plutonium RTG units.
Always a sad day when science is hijacked for the purposes of the inane. At least they’re not threatening to blow it up for fear of micro black holes.
So, if the LHC demonstrates there’s no god then it just confirms that god is outside of science when he wants to be; if it (somehow) shows something that could only be a god then they get to claim they were right all along.
It’s yet another reminder that Christianity is about having one’s god-cake and eating it too.
Man, I hadn’t kept up with Kaku, but Hyperspace was an influential book for me. I’m crushed. How long has he been like this?
Are we sure that he doesn’t mean “unraveling Genesis 1:1” like unraveling a sweater? It seems like there’s room for the benefit of this doubt in the WP article, but like I said, I have no clue what else he’s going around saying lately.
Fuck me gently! Why Kaku, WHY!!!!??? *angrily stomps her feet*
Perhaps rather than referring to some dodgy religious text, he was actually referring to the formation of Peter Gabriel’s 1970s incarnation of the highly-successful progressive rock band.
Not sure about his comment on it being the most glorious event in the history of the universe though. I personally think they were over-rated.
*facepalm* What an extraordinarily stupid thing to say. And extraordinarily stupid is an understatement.
*dramatic-face*
Et tu Kaku?
I wonder why the washington post needs to publish a 3 pages article about this without interviewing a single researcher from CERN.
Is it really that difficult to contact them? Or maybe they don’t speak english? Science reporting in mainstream newspapers has become so unbelievably bad, they won’t even make the slightest effort.
They could have avoided the Kaku. He is always like that, I can’t stand his constant Mooney-Nisbett-Type framing. What a bore.
Physicists often use religious metaphors; e.g. “God” as “the order in the universe.” They also like to be quoted by the media, and have their words become famous. Religious terminology ensures sure-fire popularity — even though most people will misunderstand. They’ll think science is finding God.
I seem to remember a while back, when they were looking for funding for the collider, and some of the physicists were said to have told some prominent conservative politician (whose name just now escapes me) that it would help prove the existence of God. They apparently justified doing that to their colleagues, by pointing out that they needed the politician to back their project — and it apparently did the trick. So Kaku might have that in mind: they always need funding.
I wouldn’t assume that Kaku meant to be taken literally, or, if he did, that he himself means it.
I once went to a local college to hear a public lecture being given by Leon Lederman, who’d won a Nobel prize for his work in quantum physics. He’d written a book called The God Particle which, of course, had nothing to do with God at all. It was a nickname for, I think, the Higg’s bosun. Someone asked about the title, and he admitted it was his publisher’s idea. Said the book sold better.
I don’t think it’s the first time I’ve heard Kaku make such a statement, but if you’ve seen him speak, he’s always doing metaphors. I’m 99.99% sure he didn’t mean it literally.
And of course, the choice of words is unbelievably unfortunate, but that’s more in the US culture. In other cultures such as Latin ones, religious language imbues poetry and even language itself. If it were said in Spanish for instance, in the culture I was brought up in, nobody would take it literally. So, his sin (oops!) is that of obliviousness, not of kookery.
No, it’s not impervious to evidence, which is why the evidence has to confirm the Bible every time.
Otherwise it’s ignored, twisted, or flat out lied about.
But the evidence matters, otherwise it wouldn’t be mistreated by them so badly.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
metaphors, people.
relax.
“Genesis machine” is, quite simply, a metaphor.
See?
I’m pretty sure MK was just being figurative. I was somewhat recently watching an episode of his BBC “Time” series that dealt with mortality and he clearly stated that in regards to claims of souls and an afterlife he, as a scientist, needed to see some evidence.
Still, I do agree, it was an unfortunate/irresponsible choice of words in today’s climate.
I’m confused. What happens if the LHC confirms the presence of God at the same time that Venter creates the first artificial bacteria, thus marking the end of religion and God? Will science implode in a burst of contradiction?
Perhaps Lisle and Wahid need to get together and have a chat. If they flesh their theories out a little more, they could cause the destruction of science ;)
Very disappointing even from Kaku (who as far as I have known has always been an accommodationist).
By the way, the 7TeV is the energy per proton. There are a relatively small number of protons being whizzed around, but considering the small number they do amount to quite a big bang and can do considerable damage if you ‘dumped’ either beam onto a solid object (like the walls of the beamline). It’s infuriating how scientists and engineers do all that hard work and the shitty creatards who know jack shit say stupid things like it will show something about how wonderful their goddamned imaginary friend is. If their goddamned imaginary friend is so wonderful, why the hell doesn’t he ever tell the creatards anything intelligent?
Of course Michio Kaku didn’t mean it literally, but that’s not the point – the dangerous thing is that there are plenty of creationists who are willing to say that he did mean it literally. They’ll use what he said as a little gem that proves how robust and incredibly accurate the Bible is, because Michio Kaku said so! It’s just a bad way of saying that it will clue us into the fundamental forces behind the Big Bang. It gives fuel to creationists’ fire.
But beyond that, PZ points out exactly why creationism doesn’t work and never will work: “No matter what evidence is unearthed, no matter what science learns, no matter what history tells us, everything will be interpreted to confirm their freakish interpretation of the history of the universe.” Science works backwards from this method. Science seeks out the data that the natural world can give us and then makes connections and conclusions from this information. If you start out believing that God absolutely must have made the universe, then you effectively shut yourself off from all other viable explanations and must then make all sorts of ugly contortions of evidence to make reality fit these beliefs.
This is why you can’t reason with creationists, they’re not interested in finding out how the universe really works or what’s really behind matter or gravity or any number of things that comprise our world. They’re solely in it to push their version of events, to pick and choose and then make a caricature of events.
I gotta agree with the “it’s a metaphor” crowd. It seemed pretty obvious to me that he was just saying this could shed light on the beginning of the universe. If scientists of the past had been so worried about being poetic we’d have planets named Planet 1, Planet 2, Planet With Humans and Planet 4 instead of Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.
You’re close to losing some of my respect here PZ. Kaku is a SUPERSTAR.
@#18
The question is whether we need useless metaphors like these, when speaking reality is preferred by so many. And results in less confusion.
So many stories in all our ‘holy’ books use unnecessary metaphors for ideas and concepts that we can quite easily just discuss plainly without overlaying stories over them. These stories then get believed as the truth, rather then as narratives to explain reality. What the metaphor is referring to in the first place gets lost…so sad.
Down with pointless metaphors!
Sastra (#15):
Yeah, calling the Higgs boson the “God particle” was a publicity stunt. Rather unfortunate for the rest of us, it was.
Pretty sure that’s just metaphor. Sure, it’ll be used by creationists, but that doesn’t mean we should take out poetical language just because some loons can use it for nonsense. And like it or not, the bible is an influential literary source in our culture.
You’re close to losing some of my respect here PZ. Kaku is a SUPERSTAR.
Sastra@15,
Leon was the director at Fermilab when I was there doing research for my PhD. He was a pretty cool guy. He was in his 60s, but still an avid jogger. Every year in June, he’d race other scientists around the ring (about 4 miles, as I recall). If you beat him around the ring, he’d buy you breakfast. I was about 5 minutes late getting there, but I still beat him.
The thing is, by the time he wrote The God Particle, he was really more into science education than science. Frankly, I don’t know a single physicist who refers to it that way. It’s always the Higgs or the Higgs boson.
You’re close to losing some of my respect here PZ. Kaku is a SUPERSTAR.
You’re close to losing some of my respect here PZ. Kaku is a SUPERSTAR.
We don’t have fundamentalist believers in the Olympian pantheon trying to write Hesiod’s theogony into science textbooks.
Genesis portrays a flat Earth covered by a bronze dome (raqiya, translated in the King James as “firmament”). Where’s the poetry in that?
@#28, #30, #31
As far as I know science doesn’t have superstars.
okay sorry bout that. Really not my fault, some foul up with SB
Yes, yes, I know it’s a metaphor and that Kaku is not a biblical literalist.
I’m saying it’s a stupid metaphor. Might as well say the LHC will give us insight into the Primal Cheese Sandwich, the Snack at the Beginning of the Universe.
Michio Kaku is an atheist. Can’t you understand a metaphor?
Is that why Michio Kaku spends a chapter in “Hyperspace” disproving God? Why he appears in TV-shows defending atheism?
PZ, I am awaiting your apology. How dare you call Kaku creationist! Shame on you, damn biologist! You are delusional and think religious nuts are everywhere.
MK also has a show on Science Channel called “Sci-fi Science” in each episode he takes an element out of SF and explains how it may be possible according to the latest theories. It’s entertaining to see how lightsabers, FTL ships, Iron Man armor, and portals to another universe may actually work. Thing is that he stretches even what’s theoretical and his plans have some obvious flaws and tend to be second best to the “real” thing. (For example his lightsabers are porous ceramic versions of the toy that has plasma flowing out all the holes. But no word on how he plans to keep your face from burning off.)
Thing is MK skirts the line between scientist and entertainer; and he crosses it more than once. In this case I’m sure he’s being metaphoric but I’m also sure he intentionally chose those words for getting free press.
sandiseattle #34
You’re close to losing some of my respect here sandiseattle. It’s a poor commentator who blames the software.
Am I the only one who thinks it’s kind of amusing that creotards are getting behind this machine? Doesn’t it kinda make god a pussy if human beings can replicate his work?
Or am I just using my brain too much again?
Sven:
Yeah, it’s a metaphor. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t an extraordinarily stupid one. Pandering to the goddidit crowd isn’t going to help matters, especially in the U.S., where way too many people don’t have a grasp of the simplest science to begin with.
PZ:
Foolish mortal. Yea verily, everyone knows that extra spicy hotwings are the alpha and the omega of all that was, and will be. They are the One True Snack FoodTM.
The juxtaposition of comments #35 and #36 is remarkably amusing.
@#36
I don’t think PZ ever called Kaku a creationist.
celerity #36
Kaku made a statement that’s so close to creationist as makes no difference. Okay, it’s supposed to be a metaphor but when I read it I read it as straight creationist twaddle. So get off your high horse and stop demanding apologies for because your hero made a STUPID comment.
As far as metaphors are concerned, the chauvinist bastard in me has to love Feynman’s description of becoming enamoured with a scientific hypothesis:
Even if it is a metaphor, you just know that media&co will interpret it whatever way they want! Gah!!! :-(
Planet with Mercurians, Planet with Venusians, Planet with Earthlings, Planet with Martians.
The extra spicy hot wings had to be built in the hearts of exploding stars, so they come later.
Actually, if you want the real origins of the universe, you have to look in quantum foam…which clearly informs us that In the Beginning, There Was Beer.
(Footnote to previous comment: when I read a passage from a few generations ago, by Feynman or whoever, which talks about Nature as a woman whose secrets are to be seduced away and so forth, I imagine it being said by a woman. Instant lesbian philosophy pr0n!)
There are five forces in the universe, the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, the electromagnetic force, gravity, and beer.
Much as the electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces were once unified as the electroweak interaction, beer is a low-energy manifestation of a more fundamental force: before the symmetry was broken, it was united with bacon as the Awesome Force.
Kaku utilizes similar phraseology in “Parallel Worlds.” He mentions gawd then moves onward without further elaboration of gawd’s involvement or possibility of such.
Hopefully, (fingers crossed) he’s using it to “hook” creotards into delving further into science knowing full well gawd is only faith-based nonsense. Or am I possibly just wishful thinking?
No, no, I totally agree it’s stupid.
I was just riffing on the “metaphor” thing.
Sastra:
Moment of gratuitous pedantry:
Higgs boson.
Lederman told a good story about the time he was on the site search committee for the superconducting supercollider accelerator, before it was canceled. They were looking at Waxahachie, TX as a potential site, and he and his wife were having lunch at a fast food place. They discovered that they weren’t sure how to pronounce the name of the town, so Lederman went back to the counter and asked the cashier, “Can you tell me how to pronounce where we are?” She looked at him oddly, then said slowly, “Bur–ger–King.”
Michio Kaku’s choice of words and how they are interpreted or manipulated by USians doesn’t in any way diminish the actual science that happened live and was broadcast to anyone on earth who cared to watch today.
Even I, a lowly layman sitting in front of my computer screen across the pond from CERN was allowed to watch real data from the collision of the proton beams at 7 Tev! Whoo Hoo! Yeah! that was cool!
The other thing that struck me was all the scientists from all corners of the world working together on this project and not a single American accent, the only native English speaker I heard was Irish.
I’m sure there were plenty of native Americans involved throughout but this wasn’t a US centric event… thank god!
I’ll bet not a single scientist on any of the teams gave a rat’s ass about what any creationist in the US thinks or doesn’t think.
My grandfather told me that joke in the early 1960s only it was Oconomowoc, Wisconsin and Dairy Queen.
Unless they’re in charge of funding…
I think if you’re going to limit what scientists should and should not say based on how creationists are going to misinterpret it, nobody will be able to say anything. We’re talking about a group of people who hear what they want to, even if it means making up.
This is saddening. I previously would have included Michio Kaku in a list of highly admirable scientists. Didn’t think of him as an apologist or nutcase.
PZ – new to your site, I love the fact you use Comic Sans for the creationists quotes… the only way they CAN be quoted!
‘Tis Himself, OM:
Really? I did hear Lederman say it. Better not make an issue of it, or Birdie will be screeching about a conspiracy of plagiarists in the sciences.
Genesis is a metaphor that is not so much stupid as pandering.
Heck, from a pragmatic viewpoint, it’s actually “smart”; it seeks to encourage and express a common ground with the devout people who hold the purse-strings. This works at the national level, in terms of funding scientific research and funding, and at the popular level: the common populace who all too often sees science as denying God and threatening their “worldview” (which is to say, their indoctrinated presuppositions), and vote for the devout public representatives who end up on appropriations committees.
Is this sort of accommodation actually stupid? Maybe it is in the short run (by encouraging quote-mining and lazy appropriate of science to reinforce religion), but maybe in the midrange-to-long run, the tactic does reduce tensions between religious and secular.
This doesn’t mean it’s wrong to mock the pandering, either. Shifting the Overton Window does require more than one message, and exasperation is its own message.
/nerd social pragmatism
Bleh.
#62:
Fixed.
*peeks in*
Did someone see “BEER”?
fired two particles together with a force of 7 trillion electron volts…
Watch out for units: electron volts isn’t force!
Arancaytar #59,
Nutcase? Please elaborate. Apologist? That’s debatable, let’s see some evidence.
What I’ve taken from him, from watching some articles and TV interviews and documentaries, is that he’s not really concerned at all with religion vs. science. He’s not vocal either way from what I can see.
Whatever scientists discover about the universe from the LHC, it will show that the universe is upheld by God in a consistent way. This will therefore confirm that the Bible is true.
Funny, that sounds like that dreaded “uniformitarianism” thing to me. I thought AiG was pretty clear that God doesn’t uphold the universe consistently. First, he zarks it into existence out of nothing, then creates plants and animals one “kind” at a time (instead of, say, just setting up the laws of physics and some simple initial conditions and letting it all unfold on its own). And then he’s always (well, so reports say — haven’t see any of it myself, you understand) majicking up floods and earthquakes, smiting the occasional sinner, doing tricks with foodstuffs, mucking about with incarnations and resurrections, etc, etc.
Doesn’t sound at all consistent to me.
Isn’t it at least conceivable that he meant “genesis” in the literal sense, rather than the biblical reference sense? “Genesis” with a G refers to the book of the bible, but “genesis” with a g just refers to “an event of creation” which is not necessarily linked to religion or a deity (again, thats “creation” with a c, not “Creation” with a C).
Throwing in the “chapter 1 verse 1” certainly makes it look like a bible reference. But the book metaphor can be found in other, also non-religious places – maybe what we have here is an unfortunate juxtaposition of two, independently non-religious, references.
Isn’t he Japanese? Does he have any christian leanings at all? This criticism just seems like a leap to me, considering his past work.
Presuppositionalists are very consistent in their inconsistency.
Well, obviously he’s just being figurative, and chose something that he knew was guaranteed to be published. But that’s ok. Physics needs media whores…
Ok, that was a little uncalled for. Michio Kaku is great at self-promotion, and also great at promoting popular interest in physics. The former just comes with the territory, and I’m happy that he does what he does.
As for the “just giving them ammunition” issue, I don’t agree. We know that no matter what, the truly committed a) are going to interpret anything to do with anything as confirming what they thought all along and b) don’t read the Washington Post. On the other hand, the fencesitters are likely to understand that Professor Kaku’s statement was figurative, and will think that AiG are a bunch of berks if they try to run with it.
As for the AiG article, I laughed out loud at the title:
Maybe we should start referring to it as the “EHC”…
I am torn.
I don’t know which to complain about first, Kaku’s rhetoric or AIG’s anti-science stance.
Let’s start with Kaku. He’s given to vaporous, ‘New Age’-sounding pronouncements in the many appearances on various ‘science’ documentaries I’ve seen on cable. I don’t recall his comments offering much insight, and the way these cable programmers favor repetitive computer visuals over actual scientific explanation troubles me. I suspect that Kaku is their ‘go-to’ guy precisely because he is vaporous, and thus easy to sit into whatever dumbed-down narrative will give them the most commercials.
Kaku’s aside could’ve been a real ‘grabber’ if it had led to the following distinction:
“The LHC was not invented to test the book of Genesis, but the book of nature. The ‘Genesis’ of which we speak is not that of ancient text, but of the birth and evolution of the early universe, what physicists call ‘cosmogenesis’. The LHC allows us to ‘run the tape’ backwards to the moment in which the universe began, and this in turn allows us to test our most important theories in powerful, new ways.”
Who knows? Maybe Kaku actually tried to say something like that and it ended up on the cutting-room floor.
As for AIG, can there be any doubt that this is just a preemptive strike at the data, which no doubt will confirm the 13.7 billion year age of the universe? This isn’t really about the (entirely unfalsifiable) claim that God is in charge and upholds the universe, but about setting the bar such that any pesky interpretations of the data that seem to contradict their literal view of Genesis can be ignored….
Scientist: “We’ve confirmed the size and age of the universe with unprecedented precision…over 13 billion years old!”
AIG: “Actually, the LHC data just shows that God is actively maintaining the present order with a plan from the very beginning, which we know from the Bible was about 6,000 years ago. You’re just starting with an unbiblical worldview that leads you to that conclusion.”
Scientist: “WTF? What about supernovae and the evidence for inflation? What about COBE? What about the WMAP data? What about Penzias and Wilson?”
AIG: “Hey, it’s Yahweh all the way down. What you call ‘the Big Bang’ is in Genesis, ‘let there be light.’ God made the starlight to look ‘old’ to people who insist, unbiblically, on a natural explanation. The COBE and WMAP data are being interpreted through the false lens of naturalistic explanation. Penzias and Wilson believed in God, look it up if you don’t believe me, praise Jesus.”
Scientist: “Look, I don’t see that there’s any need to bring God into this. If we’re wrong about the dating, then pretty much everything is wrong, including the Standard Model. Doesn’t it bother you that you’re asking us to essentially rewrite the most powerful model ever developed in science just to conform to the Bible?”
AIG: “God’s Word is truth and man’s wisdom is foolishness. Thankfully, He has raised up Ken Ham to point this out to a generation that might otherwise be lost. Nothing you physicists want to believe is more important than bringing people to Jesus. By defending God’s Word from the very first verse, we are defending God and preventing people from losing faith in Him. We will pray that you will see the error of your way, and turn away from promoting false science opposed to God.”
Scientist (reaches for spanner)
OK, I’ve decided. I despite AIG much more than Kaku’s use of metaphor. But why do I have to choose between someone who is completely deaf to metaphor and poetry, and someone whose personal communication style over-values metaphor?
Um it’s a metaphor. Kaku is a very smart guy. Please don’t put him in the same post as AIG.
My 14 year old twins have announced that all toasters near the LHC will spontaneously produce images of Jesus. Sounds pretty likely to me.
Are you telling me that God hops?
Meh… Let them glom onto Kaku’s clumsy statement. They’ll just shoot themselves in the foot with it, and we will know them by their intellectual limps. In fact, it could actually be tremendously fun watching someone like Ken Ham or Ray Comfort grapple with the information coming out of the LHC.
Well beer IS the great attractor, right? I’m no astronomer, but I am attracted to beer and everywhere that has it. Mmm foamy.
Michio there… that slapped me in the face at first but the swelling went down and it’s fine now :)
PZ, This is all rather insulting. I’ve never felt more compelled to disagree with you than right now.
Having listened to professor Michio Kaku speak on numerous occasions I know for fact that he doesn’t mince religion and science. He just, doesn’t.
What he does do is mix metaphor and imagery in his speech in order to achieve an emotional connection with his audience. Now that’s only effective if one uses images that the audience is familiar with, such as Genesis in this case. Even as an atheist I can connect to that.
Yes, his mode of speech is kinda ‘new agey’ but hardly indicative of religious apologetics. Kaku’s allusions to religion are actually pretty rare. You jumped on this one so fast and hard it’s almost like you’re telling him to “watch his mouth”.
The real insult here, I feel, is that you’ve compared the casual words of a publishing scientist (Kaku) to the pseudo-authoritative words of a “non-working-scientist with a degree” (Jason Lisle) in the same article in the same breath. The mindsets of these two men couldn’t be any different.
“Didn’t think of him as an apologist or nutcase.”
Nor should you. Because he’s not.
Yeah, whenever I see Michio Kaku on some show and hear him try to explain some scientific concept, I always feel like he’s trying to explain it to someone much stupider than me. I understand scientists need to dumb things down a little so us regular dopes can follow along, but often his analogies and explanations are a little too facile.
Like, he’ll say “imagine our universe is expanding.” And so you’re like, “Ok, got it.” Then he does a 5 minute visual presentation where he blows up an actual balloon to demonstrate expansion. And you’re like “No, really, guy. I understood that part just fine as soon as you said it.” I just find him so uncompelling.
Anyway. This fits right in line with what I’ve seen of him. Panders to the lowest common denominator.
B. Hertz @ 70. Given PZed’s first line in this post, about 2 protons being fired at each other, the AIG have a point.
Those first 2 hadrons are probably the most expensive ones ever collided.
Too bad no-one thought to pick them up afterwards so we could put them in a museum for everyone to see. Signatures on them from the whole team would have been nice, too.
OK, as an English student, I’m going to have to somewhat support PZ on this. EVERYTHING we say is technically a “metaphor”. Take a basic class in linguistics and you’ll end up hearing this. If Professor Kaku is so poor a rhetorician that his use of “metaphor” induces people to think that he actually believes something that he doesn’t, that IS a fault in his rhetoric and something that can be disagreed with. That’s all that PZ did: said that the religiots are going to take what Kaku said and run with it because his rhetorical use of metaphor was incredibly weak. Speak to a rhetorician or take a basic rhetoric class and you will be told flat out that proper use of a metaphor is for it to be clear. Kaku’s was not. End of story.
Gah! Finally, I hate having to create a new account just to comment.
PZ, it’s a met… er…. um… nevermind.
BEER! Yes, not only is beer foam a perfect model for the arrangement of non-dark matter in the universe, but an excellent description of the primordial matter within the first microseconds after the “Great Bottle Shake and Spray.”
Beer is also responsible for human civilization, of course. (And don’t give me any of your “citation needed” for that!)
Let us all pray that the Coming of the Almighty Bar Towel is not yet upon us.
Considering his position as a science popularizer, I don’t see this as necessarily a bad thing. We need people to put the heavy science stuff in terms idiots like me can understand, even if they aren’t 100% accurate.
I don’t much mind the metaphor to Genesis: it certainly gets the point across and many people will understand it, which was its purpose. I can almost see ignoring the political baggage that goes with it as admirable, treating it like any other creation myth and refusing to give it any serious thought even if others do.
Yes, as Lisle makes clear, evidence shmevidence: the gee oh dee is still behind it all.
Well I thought using an example 90% of the audience will be completely familiar with was a good idea, but PZ’s CAPS LOCK FURY has changed my mind and now I know that making a reference to the most popular piece of literature in western civilization is a horrible mistake that will empower the creationists to lie and distort science to promote their superstition, because they had so much trouble doing that before Kaku screwed everything.
Really a poor choice of metaphor. A few may understand it and accept it as a metaphor, but many Christians will take it as evidence of God, which is why the rest of us are horrified by it.
Stephen Gay Gould once wrote something about the luggage carts in Greek airports being labeled “metaphor”. This one did not carry anyone toward understanding.
Kinda like “lets all agree,” eh? Agreement is wonderful when it is shown that it promotes some benefit. It’s a waste of time if it doesn’t. Unless you just believe it does.
When I was little it wasn’t unusual for a man to answer a question with a considered statement that included, somewhere, the phrase, “I believe.” With only the wisdom of a child to guide me, I understood this phrase to mean something like, “as near as I can tell, close as I can see, I know most of what I’m talking about though I might be missing something.” Such admissions endeared me to these old men, now long gone, long remembered. Point being that they used the term, in my interpretation, to signify the extent of their understanding based upon the knowledge that they had to go by. It was not a confession of faith. It was a confession of limitations. Limits to time, to opportunity, to information, tools, supplies, difficult travel, logistics and personal ability and capacity.
Mind you, some of the folks I refer to were born in the 19th century. They homesteaded in north west Wyoming in the first decades of the 20th. Their lives and mine crossed because of a capricious accident of birth. Few of these people were devout in any religious sense. Most were devout in their sense of community and neighborliness, chiefly because they had so few neighbors. That increased the value of any neighbor by an order or two. They worked very hard in tough conditions. Much of the privilege and pleasure I enjoyed growing up and ever since I can trace directly to that work. They set an example that I regard to this day.
Now my children have children and my parent instincts are still keen. The need is for those young ones to understand and apply the difference between believing, knowing and assigning some probability based upon knowledge and experience. I am instinctively driven to tell them stories and draw connections for them, hoping.
Knuckleheads like Kaku and AIG don’t help me any more than screen doors help submarines.
The funniest part is Jason Lisle says today:
Whilst Andrew Snelling said on the 24th :
Who is physicsing wrong?
Kaku?
I still like him but…
I dunno, sounds like a bunch of con-CERN trolling to me.
Why all the pandering to the fundies, Michio? You think they’re gonna become all science-y, after you win them over by trying to “talk their language?”
You haven’t been paying attention to the nutjobs, have you?
*peeps in* (…there were lots of loud voices and someone mentioned beer)
Oh. It’s only Americans finding “them damned
commieCreationists under every stone” now.*pops out*
#91:
Yes, shocking that a biologist from Minnesota would talk about issues relevant to Americans. Feel free to fuck off.
rajesh.shenoy:
Feel free to stay out, assclown.
HAHAHAHA that sounds so much like a rant from one of my friends. Awesome! Now to apply the clue-by-four… (yes, it’s a metaphorical tool that does what you think)
Jeebus PZ, it is a metaphor. He used Genesis 1:1 because it is the creation of the universe and they are using the LHC to discover clues about the creation of the universe…..
Kaku is a skeptic and an incredibly good popularizer of physics. Cut him a damn break.
No, it isn’t just a metaphor, it was scriptural. He said, “Genesis Chapter 1, Verse 1 … in the beginning” which is taken straight from the bible. He then said, “This is a Genesis machine” which could be Star Trek, but still sounds biblical. He also said, “the most glorious event”, which sounds biblical to me, as I have never thought of the big bang a being particularly glorious. I would let the last two slide, and even call them metaphorical, but when the man gives chapter and verse, he isn’t being metaphorical enough for these crazy times.
If a metaphor is a Greek luggage cart, this one has too much baggage.
Kaku coo coo.
As a normal person, I “get” Kaku’s reference to Genesis etc. etc. It’s not that fucking hard. Nor does hearing the word “genesis” make me wet my pants and cry.
Is PZ now afraid of words themselves?
Like …
Jehovah !!!!
He knows it’s a metaphor; it’s just that he thinks it’s a stupid metaphor.
You know how I know this? Because he said so:
Plain enough for ya?
GregGorey:
No, it’s one version (and a ripped off one at that) of a creation myth. There are many creation myths, if all he was looking for was a nifty metaphor, he didn’t need to cite scripture.
My, we’re getting a lot of hard of reading folks here. PZ got that it’s a metaphor, pretty much everyone got that. As I said earlier, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t an extraordinarily stupid one.
“Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.”
— Joseph Campbell (Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor)
Another Campbell point: people who believe literally in the bible are mistaking poetry for prose.
++++
Kaku is disturbing.
This is a link to a Kaku interview from 2008.
In the interview he speaks of the cancellation of the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) by Congress and attributes it to communication failure on the part of physicists:
I think he uses words like God and Genesis when speaking to the public because he views it as pragmatic necessity to procure funding in a country with a predominately Christian populace, not because he himself is religious. Also, based on his writings I infer that Kaku uses God in the same sense that Einstein did, that is he means Spinoza’s God.
This is a kick in the pants to those who claim that the LHC will create a black hole and destroy Earth.
We’re still here.
The gods have whispered in my ear that the energy of the protons used in the collision were up to 3 TeV — that’s 3,000,000,000,000 (3 x 10^12) electron vols (eV).
Mr. Myers,
I apprecaite your site very much for drawing attention to the idiocy of pseudoscience and having a pop at the religiously dangerous- good work fella.
but… I fear you are victim of your own success- Increasingly your postings are taking on the form of the ramblings of a pedantic despot!
To have a pop at this guy for eluding to “the god particle” (as the higgs boson is commonly and popularly known) and stretching the metaphor a little so that lay folk can understand the concept of the big bang is little more than scientific cock-measuring pedantry of the highest order, not at all informative and serves only to inflate your huge ego!
200 years ago we only had religion as frame of reference for such concepts and like it or not society will take time to catch up with science- and allusions such as this genesis one are necessary to those poor idiots brought up within a religious environment-
if i were explaining the big bang to a hopi native american i would refer to spidergrandmother or some other such hokey-
but calling it hokey is not very helpful is it?.
You ever hear the parable of the North wind and the Sun?
Taking the piss will not get you an attentive ear.
Religion today is mostly unpleasant, authoritarian, prohibitive and disapproving but it served very well as a tool to get society to the point where we have a new way of thinking- respect where its due- darwins theories would not have come out so polished if he hadnt anticipated a backlash to them, no?
25 years or so he sat on them i seem to remember- thats a lot of polishing and refining?
It strikes me that you and Dawkins have something in common with him!
why work yourself into such a tizz about semantics?
The way you behave tyoward some of your targets is like watching a very smart schoolyard bully- you have the intelligence to rip peoples daft ideas apart but instead you choose to rip them apart and revel in it.
Im not religious far from it but to revel in such hatred is plain nasty- if ALL religion is so wrong riddle me this one…. and explain why its so profoundly true that….
Anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering…
and thats spiritual thought from star wars for fucks sake- go on pick it apart you know you want to as its syntactically incorrect… or there is a type of worm who hates all day and thrives on it etc. etc. etc.
Cant stop it ringing true though!- go and actually do an experiment or test a theory for once instead of wallowing in your dungeon with all the other angry evangelistas- for sir that is what you are!
heres another “religious” lesson you would do well to listen to “dont cast your pearls before swine”
Im not much of a poster on here but you recently for lack of easy targets perhaps have been aiming at some people who frankly dont deserve your wrath,so i thought i would pipe up.
You are very smart and your ideas have much worth but when you degrade yourself with petty and mean spirited bullying then you are worse than the pope. at least he fucking smiles sometimes.
Sometimes i wonder if you do protest too much?
I wouldnt be at all surprised if you and Dawkins were caught secretly attending a catholic mass in baseball hats and false beards.
and you know when you get to that hotel room you are comforted by the gideon bible you see on the bedstand.
I might get the dungeon for this and hope ido in fact to prove my point.
Good Day Sir.
edit to my post:
electron volts. Not electron vols.
Lunatic @ 105,
Ah, I know this one !!! The Dark Ages !! Right?
What’s that smell in the air? I think I smell concern, and insincere concern at that…
I couldn’t agree more.
Ah, I see, you’re actually nuts !
I’ll pray for you, too.
If you ever start selling Pharyngula t-shirts, that should be on the front of one.
Umm… What the fuck was your point?
“What’s that smell in the air? I think i smell concern!” yes you do! well deduced batman.
Far from being insincere i am making the point that whilst you are factually correct in almost everything you say and in this i give you much respect, to attack a man for a metaphor using a scientific arguments is frankly some of the most batshit human thought ive ever heard-
It would be like me timing someone who says “they will only be a minute” and reprimanding them when they got back.
Why not be really scientific about it and go and study a little psychology?
You might just get through to some of these wackos and succeed in evangelising them to rational thought- sorry for the religious metaphor and if it doesnt compute then you really are deluding yourself somewhat as that is what you are doing!
aggressively evangelising science, nothing wrong with that but when you start with the name calling and hubris you sound just as fucking mental as Mr. Icke
calling me crazy cos i think, in fact i KNOW that you aint so sure about your atheism – Im an atheist and i know i dont have a religious devotion to the concept- religious devotion is dangerous and stupid as you well know.
I am calling you out on your behaviour Mr. Myers not your science
– like you ever do any actual science anyway, mostly you seem to bark at religion like a dog does at the moon.
If you cant see that my reference to you and dawkins being caught worshipping is a joke and want to insult me in your trademark, smartc*nt way please use the correct scientific terminology please- its mental illness not “nuts”.see being a total pedant makes me look like a twat doesnt it?
im not asking to defend yourself just to stop behaving like a Five year old after someones pocket money.
My point was that Mr myers human relational skills are somewhere akin to those of a dead cat and instead of popularizing science like the guy he is attacking is known for doing so well, he wants to turns it into an exclusive -“getout if your wrong or misguided” club educating noone and making people fearful of sharing ideas in case they are dumb or wacko or batshit or wahtever
– truly rationl people do not get so angry everytime anyone mentions the bible!
its exhibiting the same panic and mania that was displayed when darwin piped up and for want of a better word batshit.
That would appear to be a rather stupid statement to be making on the internet….
You are still confused, this time confusing atheism with “rational thought”.
I hereby second SC’s suggestion of having Venn diagrams available.
Let me look at this conglomerate of words a bit longer, maybe a meaning will spontaneously appear after all.
Oh, dear.
something cannot come from nothing. or so I’ve been told :-p
ish @ 105:
Eluding? I imagine you meant alluding. At least I hope so. It really helps, when you’re trying oh-so-hard to come off as casually superior when you can get the little things correct. You know, spelling and whatnot.
Citing scripture is hardly stretching a metaphor. The U.S. is already seriously god-soaked, there are daily battles to keep science in the classroom and godlaw out of actual law. The fact that you don’t find something informative does not mean it’s non-informative for others. Got anything besides your cocksure opinion?
It’s not necessary at all. People won’t understand science at all if all they hear is Genesis! Bible! God!. All they take away from that is a welcome confirmation bias that goddidit.
I sincerely hope you aren’t around any Native Americans. The ones I know are educated and could put you down easily, given this is how you “talk to people and explain things.” You’re an idiot, and have no reason whatsoever to act so condescending.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Religion has always been unpleasant, authoritarian, prohibitive and disapproving, among other things. Religion didn’t serve society well at all. People who defied religion served society very well. You know, those inquiring sorts the religious folks kept burning, torturing and imprisoning.
What reveling? Speaking forthrightly about a subject isn’t revelry. Get a dictionary.
There it is, the classic concern. It’s noted.
Okaaaay. You’re slipping the leash here, so to speak. Coherency counts, dude. Religion has never been any good at getting people to love one another. It’s great for putting on a face and sniping people behind their back though. What makes you think that the scientists here don’t work? They do, but they don’t do their work online on a blog. Not all of us are scientists, either. Evangelista, eh? Yeah, never heard that one before.
I’m pretty sure I’m doing that right now.
I’d say you’re not much of a poster anywhere. It’s not about targets, easy or not. It’s about things which will have an impact and are worth discussion.
FFS. Are you on meds, by any chance? So Nasty Ratzi is cool ’cause he smiles sometimes? Yeah. Something’s not right here, and it’s your head.
Dawkins has said many times he’s a cultural Christian. If you don’t understand that, go forth and search. I don’t think it has anything to do with Catholicism though. You’re starting to sound like Hoax, defending catholicism out of nowhere.
I imagine he pays it no attention whatsoever. Why would he? I certainly don’t.
It wouldn’t prove your point, but you don’t have the makings of a good chew toy. Too incoherent.
@cayce#22: That’s why I don’t bother listening to M. Kaku; he seems to have a dire need to use such silly language and I see it as far more an impediment than an aid to learning. I think he tries too hard to be buddies with the religious. I preferred Carl Sagan who for the most part just talked about science and left religion unmentioned. For whatever bizarre reason, the NCSE doesn’t seem to agree with the scientists who say that’s the way to go; I guess Kaku thinks along the lines of the NCSE.
there is an extra S, my keyboard is shit- it should read “To attack a man for using a metaphor with a scientific argument is frankly some of the most batshit human though ever heard”
as for being so sure on atheism- have you ever met a priest who didnt have a little doubt?
science 1.01 -nothing is ever quantifiably 100% proven- there is always a “reasonable doubt” in every concept we hold.- religious or scientific, to push atheism with such uncompromising religious fervour is so daft its indescribable- atheists are in the minority and you certainly wouldnt see the christians in bradford(very moslem area) banging on the doors of a mosque shouting “allah is a c@nt!” do you? it would be stupidity of the highest order.
Myers et al may actually do more damage to the progression of acceptance of science as a replacement of old ideals than good by deliberately offending those it seeks to educate.
Would you then let me push you from the top of the local Hilton Hotel my friend ? Let’s see if you have any reasonable doubt as to the outcome of the experiment.
After all, gravity is just a scientific theory and can never be 100% proven….
MadScientist:
Same here. Sagan did mention belief in god quite a few times in Cosmos, but it was generally to explain that adding god was an unnecessary step. The NCSE seems to be getting more and more accommodationist.
Ah, false equivalence. It’s like coffee.
PZ has regularly compared atheism to aleprechaunism. And I suspect that if a little green suited men with pots of gold were found, we’d add them to the various annals of science. But not until we have them in the flesh, as it were. Atheism *is* subject to review… when hard physical evidence of some sort of god is actually found. Not just to be wishy washy.
As it stands, YHVH is no more a real entity then Zeus, Loki, or one of my personal favorites, Leanan Sidhe.
ish:
Okay. How about I shove your hand in a garbage disposal? I mean, there’s reasonable doubt it won’t take your fingers off, right? *eyeroll*
atheists are in the minority
Indeed, but the number is growing by leaps and bounds.
Sure, that would be stupid. Interesting that it’s only religious types who knock on people’s doors, invading their privacy to preach. Interesting that it’s only religious types who go to countries they know they aren’t welcome in to preach. Atheists don’t do that sort of shit.
Read the relativity of wrong ten times and sin no more…
I don’t think the use of the religious metaphor is of any benefit to anyone.
Imagine if Pasteur had said “With my research we have a greater understanding of the demons that cause rabies, and with these injections of distilled faith shall drive them out.”
Just because people want to buy snake oil doesn’t mean you have to give it to them.
I take that one about the pope back-thats really nasty. but thats what happens when debates become insultory- they turn into pointscoring impasses.
just like the way ive been turned on for having a pop at your high priests behaviour- the reference to the native americans was only to place the lhc guys metaphor in the cultural context it was made.
and without those frames of reference science would gbe nothing “higgs boson? or god particle? whats the difference ? as long as im referring to it in a referencable way its doent matter what its called.
Scientists like Myers are impatient with stupidity which is fair enough but in an everyday world in which many do not have the benefit of a scientific education these people are called wankers not because of how they do their science but how they treat people.
I would never defend religion in any way but up until we knew a little more and developed morals independantly of god- (if we could ever do such a thing anyway- its a ludicrous statement!) it was all we had -and in eventually producing a society in which science is now becoming the major authority – religion can now be considered as having performed its task and shopuld be considered daft and archaic- to get so angry with such evident stupidity is stupid in itself and helps noone but really smug, self satisfied scientists.
Mike Wagner:
QFT.
Cant belive I missed this one while I quoted it:
Whatchamean? Allah is a catnt? Does that mean catant? And is a catant related to a crocoduck?
Or are you just a blithering wuss who can’t spell out his cuss-words and think using a synonym for female sexual organs as derogatives are clever.
I happen to be a huge fan of cunts and therefore I take great offence when the word is used like that.
Ah, here we go.
We could of course never dream to do such a thing, morals without god, I mean, that’s just ludicrous !
“demons that cause rabies,” good point but possibly you are wrong here- if hed have coined them demons then maybe this would just be an accepted term! just like “god particle”
the accessibility of science is a big factor ive always thought- i was chatting to a guy from nNasa about some accesible software to show the solar data thats coming from the SDO in an easy format(iphone apps etc, theyre gonna be amazing! first light in a week or two IMAX quality live solar footage fuck wow!) and he was very keen to get people interested in the project
– they will be when it hits the news no doubt- did i say WOW already, check out the van allen scans from EVE on youtube for a teaser- sorry i digress-
i suggested renaming the project SOLARCAM 3 cos thats essentially what it is- self explanatory title- any five year old can understand but they called it SDO because of the insular world of science its such a massive project that anyone in the field knows its SDO and its largely irrelevant what they call it but for marketing its totally useless- the church wouldnt make such a terrible mistake if they had a camera to look at gods chin!
the problem is science is seen as inaccessible -a view only reinforced by the intellectual snobbery of anti -jesus campaigners like dawkins and myers -deriding and insulting the less intellectually fortunate- ie the religious.
I agreed with you, samilobster. Why cede a universally understood metaphor to the idiots? If they try to run with it, the proper response is “how can you be so stupid?” Again and again and again.
I also agree with PZ that there are poor metaphorists…right here on SB, AAMOF. [cough]GLB[/cough]
Quoth Mixolydian: “I think he uses words like God and Genesis when speaking to the public because he views it as pragmatic necessity to procure funding in a country with a predominately Christian populace, not because he himself is religious.”
That line of reasoning must be tempting, science not being free and scientists, alas! lacking the idea of a supernatural enforcer to make people tithe to them. Owlmirror suggested that Kaku’s strategy might have short-term negatives but pay off by “reduc[ing] tensions between religious and secular.” But I don’t think that’s a long-term goal; I think that’s a goal the pursuit of which will actually deny humans much of a shot at a long-term existence.
In any case, I’ll join all of you in being delighted about the LHC results. And it’s as good a time as any to recall the Logicless Harangue Collider (second post from the bottom) and the Giant Animal Smasher.
#105:”and you know when you get to that hotel room you are comforted by the gideon bible you see on the bedstand.”
That’s sort of a funny thing for a professed atheist to believe…
A friend of mine once attached a sticky note reading “Please return to sender” to the bible in his hotel room. (He did it the day he left, in case any members of the cleaning staff were Christians of the vengeful sort.)
Ish:
All you’re doing is defending religion. It’s not working. Morals have nothing to do with religion, they weren’t born of religion at all. Gods came about out of fear and the unknown, that’s why people manufactured them. Religion became a way to acquire power and control.
People are moral by nature, it’s how we evolved. We learn more and more about this every fucking day. Do some actual learning, especially in the neurosciences. It might help de-pickle your brain, which has been soaking in god for way too long.
The fact that a mainstream American newspaper and a scientist feel obliged to frame this scientific achievement with all sorts of religious metaphors to make it sound more interesting or understandable is yet another symptom of the level of religious delusion of the American people.
Do think you’d see this in a mainstream british or french newspaper?
So in the USA, one feels obliged to write:
“This is a huge step toward unraveling Genesis Chapter 1, Verse 1 – what happened in the beginning”
Why on earth would such proposition be more interesting or understandable than this one:
“This is a huge step toward understanding the conditions of the Big Bang – what happened at the beginning of the universe”
Why do some people in this thread defend such nonsense? Science doesn’t need to be riddle with religious metaphors in order to be popularized efficiently. This is yet another ridiculous American myth and I find really surprising that some people on Pharyngula continue to defend the perpetuation of this nonsense which just serves to maintain the status quo of a culture already far too saturated with religious myths.
lol, love it!
1..2..3.. #110
Just in case, cause you seem unaware.
Look up “concern troll”. That’s what was meant.
My goodness. So strident. Really PZ. Honestly. I shall need a new set of pearls if this keeps on.
1…1…2…3…9ish…lots…more,
What an odd person you are.
You seem very concerned about tone, and yet you use words like cunt and twat. I do note that you are rather prudish when you do so though, seeming to think that replacing a letter with an asterisk somehow reduces their impact. A good number of people find cunt and twat offensive.
So you seem to be someone who is concerned about PZ giving offence, but sees no problem with using misogynistic language himself, but is so twee he cannot do so with out trying to pretend he is not.
Oh, and learn when to capitalise letters. It is not really that hard. Beginning of sentences and for proper nouns.
PZ you kinda left out the fact that Michio Kaku’s weekly radio program: Explorations is the most delicious thing since Sagan.
Actually here in the lovely ‘shitty of Bradford’ I’ve seen plenty of people call Allah all sorts of nasty names. Generally pissed up people that end up having to take a trip to the local infirmary but it happens regularly, regardless!
1123…9ish…
OK. No particle physicist uses the term “god particle” amongst physicists. They’d be laughed of the frigging stage. It is the Higgs or the Higgs Boson, and Peter Higgs deserves the credit.
Likewise, it is the Solar Dynamics Observatory because it is looking at Solar Dynamics. There are several instruments on the bird, not just a camera. And I certainly don’t think we want to start calling it Ra-cam after the Egyptina Sun deity.
I’m all for people enjoying science. To fully enjoy it, they need to be informed about it, and they will not become informed about science if it gets conflated with the myths of bronze-age shepherds.
Michio Kaku is a Carl Sagan wannabee who ruins every Science Channel documentary in which he appears.
Jadehawk OM, @ 114,
I think a lot of physicists might disagree ;-)
See A Universe from Nothing by Laurence Krauss.
However I agree with most of what, 1…1…2…3…9ish…lots…more, has to say, Michio Kaku’s poor choice of metaphor notwithstanding.
For one thing he wasn’t speaking with a US centric audience in mind. Most of the intelligent people in the world (there are a few out there) could probably see past his reference as not being literal.
Quit wasting time with reactionaries you aren’t going to change them and yes it is perfectly ok to tell them that they are idiots and that they should fuck the hell off.
Fred The Hun @141, Jadehawk doesn’t need to include smileys when she waxes impishly sarcastic.
I sure hope you forgot yours in your endorsement of the elliptical sequencer, though.
John @ 142,
I guess my point is simply that most of the world doesn’t live in the US and isn’t immersed in it’s culture. They really don’t care what Americans think. Perhaps more Americans need to be exposed to other cultures. What I saw in the live broadcast from CERN yesterday was many scientists from different cultures who were ecstatic about the dawn of a new age in physics. Nobody there seemed to be even slightly concerned about how American creationists would react to the new knowledge gained. It just didn’t seem to be anywhere on the anyone’s radar.
You know, I’m far more excited about the LHC firing up than I am upset about what the fuckwit fundies have to say about it.
Mind you, I’ve had to let go of one of my favorite theories. Because of the delays I was betting on the thing never working. Obviously if running it was going to destroy the universe like some idiots predicted, then the only universe in which we could talk about it in was one in which it failed. Wow, circular logic can really make you dizzy….{sits down, puts head between knees}
How the trolls here do so much of it and still function even at the level they do is beyond me.
I’m really looking forward to reading the findings from LHC experiments, once they’ve been watered down to a level that I can understand that is. These are exciting times we live in.
If we renamed the Higgs-Boson to Collins-Boson or Gabriel-Boson, Genesis-Machine would be perfectly accurate…
I wish I’d said that. And I will. :)
Perhaps this will help in clarifying why we need more transcultural interaction.
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/People/UniqueExperience-en.html
I’ve always found the programs I have seen with Michio Kaku are heavily laden with metaphor, to the extent it gets in the way of what he is trying to say. Sometimes I have felt like yelling at him to get to the bloody point.
“Never attribute to universal conspiracy that which can be attributed to incompetence.”
Okay, “incompetence” might be a tad harsh. More, it was, “A series of almost unavoidable mistakes considering the hugeness of this endeavor.” I mean, c’mon! I write software for a living. I’m surprised they only had an 18-month delay. This sucker is big, and very complex.
I’m excited. I may no longer aspire to be a particle physicist, but I can take vicarious joy from the discoveries made by real geniuses.
149 posts and not one bill engvall reference, disappointing
If Kaku’s words were just a metaphor, and Myers has agreed that they were, then I just don’t understand what the problem is.
The LHC is will re-create the conditions of the beginning of the universe. “Genesis” is a commonly-used, easily-understood term for the beginning. No, the Bible’s book of Genesis isn’t literally true…so what?
The problem is that such language gets in the way of what Kaku was saying. It is imprecise and adds nothing to our understanding.
#92 and #93 (writing in response to #91), you miss my point. Here is an international scientist of hitherto impeccable repute talking about an essentially international experiment, but using perhaps a poor choice of words for the opening lines of an interview. It is something that’d be taken in the right spirit anywhere else … expect … surprise, surprise … USA! No other place are secular people so touchy about such a slip. And that’s essentially what I was pointing out in a light vein. Regarding your choice of words, it only reflects your values in life. People like you have stopped shocking the rest of the world long time back – suggest you invent some newer expletives to get attention again.
It is something that’d be taken in the right spirit anywhere else … expect … surprise, surprise … USA!
I’m from Canada and I think it’s fucking stupid too.
Could someone please explain to me why so many people see the phrase, “It’s a metaphor,” and respond immediately with “Well, that’s all right then”?
I just don’t get it.
And despite repeated accusations that I’m being too touchy and seeing creationists under every bed, that’s not what I’m doing at all. I did not assume Kaku was anything but an unbeliever.
My problem is that it’s a fucking bad metaphor. I don’t give a damn that creationists will abuse it — they mangle everything — I’m peeved that someone can use a sloppy, lazy reference to an inappropriate verse of the Bible, and everyone moans, “oooh, metaphor. He’s in touch with the common people. Metaphor! Metaphor, metaphor!”
No, he’s not. He’s a pandering git who’s banking on any mention of the Bible getting him some applause.
The Large Hadron Collider is a HUGE step towards unraveling the creation myth as presented in Disney animated films.
This is a Steamboat Willie machine. It’ll help to recreate the most glorious universe in the history of animation.
cafink:
We know that, so for us it doesn’t matter. The craziest of the creationist (like the people over at Answers in Genesis) don’t care about what scientists actually say, so to them it doesn’t matter.
The problem are the people in the middle. The majority of the annoying (and in large numbers dangerous to science education) creationists are the garden variety “teach the controversy”-proponents.
They have been told that there is a great controversy in scientific circles regarding creation. Every time a scientist says something like this, the creationist loons add it to lists of quotes from Real Scientists to use on less loony people to convince them that there is a controversy and that they should fight for “both sides” to be taught.
I think that it would do a service to the understanding of science among people in general to not muddle things up with language like this. Genesis might well be an “easily understood term for the beginning” but do you know what else is? The beginning. People could just say “the beginning” instead of talking about chapter and verse in the Bible (I also think that it is rather significant in this context that he did indeed talk about a chapter and verse – he didn’t just replace the word “beginning” with the word “genesis.”)
If they avoided needless religious references, another highly annoying group would get less things to quote as well.
So many times I’ve been told by believers that I’m extremely arrogant to not believe in God when some of the smartest people in the world do/did. They often quote Einstein or Hawking, where they have used “God” as a metaphor.
I’m uncertain about either of their personal beliefs, but it is very clear that when they used the word God in their writings they weren’t professing belief in the God of the Christian faith – it was just a metaphor there. But people will continue to trot out those particular quotes to show me how arrogant I can be to think that I “know better than Einstein.”
Yes, it might be a minor issue. But it’s still an issue to me and I would be a lot happier if scientists avoided expressing themselves like that.
Oh, and @153: I’m not from America either.
Oh! Oh! My turn!
The Large Hadron Collider is a HUGE step towards unraveling the creation myth as presented in DC comics.
This is the Anti-Monitor machine. It’ll help to recreate the most glorious universe in the history of the Crisis on Infinite Earths.
OK, my question: Who the fuck was Kaku addressing? If it wasn’t USians, then why the biblical reference at all. It’s not as if the biblical account of creation is particular evocative of the processes thought to be important at these energy scales–e.g. symmetry breakng, mass generation, supersymmetric particles, dark matter…
Why that particular creation myth. It’s not like Oppenheimers invocation of the Gita, saying “For I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” with the mushroom cloud rising in the distance. That at least had style!
The Large Hadron Collider is a HUGE step towards unraveling the creation myth as presented in DC comics.
Hey, let’s not go that far. We don’t want any pre-Crisis stuff reemerging!
Michio Kaku
@ Crudely Wrott, #86,
Beautifully wrott!
@ this thread in general,
The fundies failed to understand – again. Where’s the surprise in that?
@54,56, and 61:
That joke has taken on a life of its own. My mother told it to me using “Ojai (California) and “Bur-ger-King.”
Recognizing it as a metaphor doesn’t mean it is OK. That’s obvious. But watching someone go apeshit over this metaphor then get overly defensive when people call him on it only makes them look foolish in their own way. But do continue on. It’s somewhat entertaining.
…I expect Calliope and Erato and Polyhymnia to materialize and start thwacking everyone upside the head with a cithara or stuffing scrolls up their nostrils or strangling them with a veil.
I wanna see that movie!
Re: The “Metaphor” controversy… If he just called it a “Genesis machine”, I wouldn’t have problem with that, that’s a common metaphor, and I don’t think of Genesis (the book) when I hear Genesis (the word) any more than when I here the word abiogenesis, etc.
It’s the “Genesis Chapter 1, Verse 1” part of the metaphor that goes clunk.
how does the LHC lend anything to a creation story told by a burning creosote bush to an itinerant agricultural worker in the Negev a few thousand years ago?
Getting some interesting results wont do much for anyone but physicists and mathematicians and like my friend mentioned the other day
so dont expect a whole lot there either
Wait!
You fools!
I know exactly what the metaphor is referring to!
A Genesis Machine!
Looks like PZ was wrong all along. Tsk tsk.
I prefer to focus on his use of “unraveling” in that quote. As in “taking apart” or “destroying”. He could be saying that this is a big step in destroying the metaphor that is Chapter 1 Verse 1 and replacing it with hard scientific understanding of the beginning.
Or maybe he was just careless.
Metaphor – A way to fuck up even the simplest things.
PS:typepad sucks at logins
Well, /kaka/ is French for shite and -u is the jussive suffix in Esperanto, so with a bit of goodwill, “Kaku” is the order “Shit!”
Well, /kaka/ is French for shite and -u is the jussive suffix in Esperanto, so with a bit of goodwill, “Kaku” is the order “Shit!”
This is a huge step toward unraveling the mystery of his name. This is a Babelfish machine. It will help to recreate the most glorious name in the history of linguistics.
un kakou (spellt kaku) is a slang word in the south of France for someone who likes to bullshit (bullshiter I guess in English).
Instead of this bullshiter, I suggest to listen to Frank Wilczek, who received the Nobel Prize of 2004 for work he did as a graduate student at Princeton University, when he was only 21 years old. He is known, among other things, for the discovery of asymptotic freedom, the development of quantum chromodynamics, the invention of axions, and the exploration of new kinds of quantum statistics (anyons).
This is a talk about the LHC, what it was built for, and with an introduction to Unified Field Theory:
http://fora.tv/2008/09/25/Frank_Wilczek_The_LHC_and_Unified_Field_Theory#fullprogram
the LHC is our civilization’s equivallent to the great pyramids of Egypt, except that it is a monument to curiosity and not to superstition
“Fri! What in Sega Genesis happened to you!?”
Please point to where PZ went “apeshit.” He criticized Kaku for the ‘tone-deaf’ metaphor in the political context in which it was used. If anyone’s being overly defensive, it’s those who are all high-hackled over a simple and sensible criticism.
I doubt it was intended that way, and fundie’s certainly won’t take it that way, but I like the idea of ‘unravelling’ as in a rug or sweater. That is, destroying the Genesis account and replacing it with science.
Maybe the LHC will usher in The Return of the Giant Hogweed.
SC…
Please point to where anyone said, “oooh, metaphor. He’s in touch with the common people. Metaphor! Metaphor, metaphor!” Much less “everyone.”
Also… “so many people see the phrase, “It’s a metaphor,” and respond immediately with “Well, that’s all right then”?
So many? Really? Define that.
You said “watching someone go apeshit over this metaphor then get overly defensive when people call him on it.” He didn’t “go apeshit” over any metaphor. What you’re quoting is his exasperated response to comments which came in reply to his calm and reasonable criticism. Nor was that going “apeshit.” I was annoyed with those comments myself. It was obvious that PZ recognized that it was a metaphor. He was saying that it was a stupid and counterproductive metaphor, given the US context and how it would be read by many.
Read the comments.
He did indeed go apeshit. You don’t like that term, tough. Also, he’s overly defensive, as usual, when people take issue with what he says. I’ve read the comments. They don’t support what he’s saying. They don’t justify his little flip-out.
Yawn, the concern troll is concerned. Whoopee shit. No flip-out occurred. Time to stop repeating yourself MK, if you want to be taken seriously.
why do all the idiots always assume this is a US-only blog?
I’m not American, and I think using religion-soaked metaphors blows; using such specific ones, specific to a particular and culturally/historically oppressive religion not only blows, but is culturally chauvinistic.
Concern? How does mocking PZ turn into “concern.” As I said earlier… it’s entertaining.
Concern? How does mocking PZ turn into “concern.” As I said earlier… it’s entertaining.
So you’re just a troll in general?
Are you able to spot the joke in PZ’s edit to the original post? He mentions people hard of reading, and then helps them to read by using all caps. He then repeats the all caps for people who still had trouble reading. That’s not a shitfit, mk, that’s him mocking people clutching pearls over someone daring to criticize a stupid statement.
I thought it was hilarious, myself.
From AIG article:
Shows some good old Earth-centric thinking. I think the inverse of this implies Christianity never happened either, but it is hard to tell since I can’t actually discern what his claims are.
Just because something can be done today doesn’t mean it has ever happened in nature in the past (i.e., we can put men in orbit around the earth today, but that never happened in nature before the 20th century.)
A long-winded way of just saying the term never-before-seen.
Therefore, despite hyped media reporting, the LHC cannot (even in principle) demonstrate that the big bang happened.
???
Never mind, this is the real clincher. Since when is nature orderly? It *kind of* follows rules and systems we can (mostly) explain. But there is no presupposing of anything. Standard conflating of science with naturalism IMO.
It’s interesting to note that overall, belief in some variety of god is more prevalent among biologists (51% believe) than among physicists (43%), according to a Pew survey. The survey does not refer to the statistical significance of its result, however.
My largest TESLA COIL was christened “Genesis” by me, and after getting hit by a 4 foot flashover, I ended up on my knees in a proper worshipping position, my head full of “Oh God help me” thoughts. But then I realised I was simply thinking in metaphors, which helped me recover.
It was my final dalliance with real celestial power and I am now ateslarian.
Yes, yes… “pearl clutching” and “Concern trolls.”
PZ’s pearl clutching and concern over Michio Kaku’s metaphor is a marvel. Not so much criticisms of his criticism. Ironic.
He said:
Explain how that’s going “apeshit” over a metaphor.
:”and you know when you get to that hotel room you are comforted by the gideon bible you see on the bedstand.”
(I am actually comforted by that bible in a way- not for what it is or says but for the fact its always there- like the towels and the free soap, its not like id pick it up and read it – i like it for its consistency- like the seagulls at a rubbish dump.
twas a joke- kinda – as being cruel would be to blatantly point out(but if it needs expalining then…) that someone so angry at religion, trolls, pseudoscientists fruitbats etc ecte etc etc etc etc etc etc FOREVER has actually some deep internal conflicts about the subject and how it disturbs them- face it or not atheism is in the minority and unless your plannning an armed uprising against the established religious order- and yes sometimes i feel like that too, but under no circumstances do i spew it forth into the world as it does nowt but harm ones own cause, so I am concerned as it is a cause i believe in also- which you are happily and gleefully damaging in a way that only someone of your shallow emotional standing can! and with no clue as to why this pisses off some calmer, more patient amongst the freethinkers.
As for “concern troll” or some other comfy moniker you wish to give me this is just proving my point that some atheists are fanatic and wont stand for insult to their atheist religion-fanatics as we all know are a wee bit fucked up.
You ever boxed Mr Myers?
If you get angry when he wacks you have already lost.
You’re boring and your grammar sucks.
As for “concern troll” or some other comfy moniker you wish to give me this is just proving my point that some atheists are fanatic and wont stand for insult to their atheist religion-fanatics as we all know are a wee bit fucked up.
Fuck you.
I would never have been an atheist today if it weren’t for people on this very blog active about their atheism (with credit also going to Mr. Dawkins with The God Delusion). You would not have been able to make me discard my Catholicism by being ‘calm’. It took logic, reasoning, and it also took anger to make me realize how wrong religion is.
I wish more people, including myself, would have the courage to tell people like my parents that religion is wrong. That abortions are not murder, and that homosexuality is okay. To really shake them up and make them think, “Hey, maybe I just said something pants-on-head retarded!”
Do I like being insulted? Of course not. But when you call me on something stupid, you’re going to make me think for a good while, unlike if you clutch pearls and talk it over ‘calmly’, shit I would just dismiss as garbage afterwards when it comes to concrete world views.
By the way, being calm while you’re boxing is pretty retarded. You need to be intense, intelligent, and powerful, but you need intensity if not outright (controlled) anger if you want to win.
“What reveling? Speaking forthrightly about a subject isn’t revelry. Get a dictionary.”
theres an awful lot of cajoling, bullying , intimidating and name calling on here and yes tht is revelling in others intellectual incapacity.
as for the caps issue as i said my keyboard is f@cked and shiftt doesnt always work- and as to why ib censor my swearwords?
ever play poker? i have online for years and when typing something if you dont edit it you lose your whole message if you swear -so over the years i have taught myself to do this YOU F@~king little grammar nazi! prude? ill give you fucking prude you fucking wet, little mided ,petty pedantic fuckwit- stop dribbling your little snipes at me as you are getting cum all over my shoes and btw your ma still owes my dog some rent you pathetic little cuntslurry stain. i left some of the letters in just for you-
theres an awful lot of cajoling, bullying , intimidating and name calling on here and yes tht is revelling in others intellectual incapacity.
ever play poker? i have online for years and when typing something if you dont edit it you lose your whole message if you swear -so over the years i have taught myself to do this YOU F@~king little grammar nazi! prude? ill give you fucking prude you fucking wet, little mided ,petty pedantic fuckwit- stop dribbling your little snipes at me as you are getting cum all over my shoes and btw your ma still owes my dog some rent you pathetic little cuntslurry stain. i left some of the letters in just for you-
…
Am I the only one noticing the irony here?
Do you even know what the word means? Doesn’t seem that way.
Protip: Calling atheists “anti-jesus-campainers” is not going to label you as anything but a teistic loon trying to masqurade as something else.
Fuck you.
I would never have been an atheist today if it weren’t for people on this very blog active about their atheism (with credit also going to Mr. Dawkins with The God Delusion).
thank you for actually retorting to one of my points instead of trying to play games- tking the piss out of my slydexia and picking at the fact i cant type or spell very well.
and i agree entirely! sustained pressure and controlled anger are effective- bullying and alienating doesnt work and is purely for the entertainment of the bully.
north wind and the sun again………
Dawkins? really? credit to him- i always thought when i read it that the god delusion we are all suffering from that he talks of was not acknowledging him as our lord and saviour!
Children, when told that God made the heavens and the earth, innocently ask whether God had a mother. This deceptively simple question has stumped the elders of the church and embarrassed the finest theologians, precipitating some of the thorniest theological debates over the centuries. All the great religions have elaborate mythologies surrounding the divine act of Creation, but none of them adequately confronts the logical paradoxes inherent in the question that even children ask.
Yeah this guys talks shit yeah look he said GOD AND GENESIS hes bad -thats not good is it- lets get him and nick his pocket money yeeeeaaaaaah, yeeeaaaaaah
I *got* to get back to firefox one of these days so I can put things like 1…1 und so weiter into a nice, comfy killfile.
1…1…2…3…9ish…lots…more:
Oh? I only see that coming from one source. Let’s have a look, shall we? All the following said by 1…1…2…3…9ish…lots…more:
I think there’s something in that religion you keep defending while saying you don’t believe it about looking to the mote in your own eye first, dude. You came in here with accusations and insults. You don’t get to play all innocent now and blame that on us. What you get to do is take responsibility for your own fucking words. You’ve already shown yourself to be a weasel, but this is downright embarrassing at this point – you have no cards to play, not here.
If you think you can defend your incoherent rantings, fine, but have the honesty to take responsibility for your own crap.
bullying and alienating doesnt work and is purely for the entertainment of the bully.
I despise bullies, I agree with that. Which is why I can say that the creationists and trolls that come here are far more of the bully variety then these folks. Would I rather be associated with atheists or with right-wing nutjobs who hate my very existence and sexuality? Who are the real bullies here, 1…1…2…3…9ish…lots…more?
Dawkins? really? credit to him- i always thought when i read it that the god delusion we are all suffering from that he talks of was not acknowledging him as our lord and saviour!
Dawkins is a great man, but certainly not my lord and savior. If Dawkins went off the deep end tomorrow, I would, regrettably, stop supporting him. I appreciate him opening my mind on issues, but he is no God.
Hahaha. Funny. Such a douche.
You are winning the argument by being a prick.
Hypocrite.
YOU F@~king little grammar nazi! prude? ill give you fucking prude you fucking wet, little mided ,petty pedantic fuckwit- stop dribbling your little snipes at me as you are getting cum all over my shoes and btw your ma still owes my dog some rent you pathetic little cuntslurry stain. i left some of the letters in just for you-
My apologies -i went into fruitbat territory there and the irony is certainly not lost on me – sometimes you lose your rag but you dont keep it lost or at least i dont(apologies for the bad metaphor) was a good bit of swearing though,enjoyed that. but sincere apologies to the chap it was aimed at but i fear i am becoming a product of my environment,
but even religion doesnt even make me as angry as grammar whores- its like an obsessive compulsive laughing at you for not turning the light of twelve times, and as for the chap saying ive been wallowing in god because of some.
i didnt call atheists anti jesus campaigners- i called the residents and owner of this blog anti jesus campaigners, you re misquoting me.
I also never said be calm when you box- i said dont get angry there is a BIG difference again misquoting me.
but allthis is jsut game playing- you are all using the strawman tactic though which is the last resort of someone who justs wants an argument not a discussion.
To the people who don’t understand why PZ thinks Kaku’s words were a bad idea despite the fact that they were metaphorical, just remember the example of Einstein. To this very day creationists are STILL taking his metaphorical god-statements out of context to claim he was theistic despite the fact that he HIMSELF said otherwise because he was lucky enough to still be alive when they started doing it so he could see what was happened and he tried to speak against it. But alas it was to no avail – the urban legend had gotten lose that Einstein’s a theist, and nothing he said would quash it.
THAT is why PZ is saying Kaku’s words were a bad idea. They WILL be deliberately misinterpreted by creationists in exactly the same way they deliberately misinterpret Einstein’s various uses of the God metaphor.
I also never said be calm when you box- i said dont get angry there is a BIG difference again misquoting me.
You should be angry when you fight.
Fuck. You’re repetitive.
Just fucking PROOFREAD your lame ass rants. I don’t give a shit about typos and bad sentence structure. I’m a crappy writer.
You however, just suck.
No you were clutching your pearls, and we called you on it. Now, go away.
I see ish is still a pointless fool. What an idjit. Get to your point or get out ish.
Ish, you’re boring. All you’re doing is re-hashing the same crap and insisting it’s some sort of point. It’s not. You’ve insulted and flung accusations from the start. You expect us to be impressed by your pearl clutching; you wish to shame us into respecting religion. No go. Better people than you have tried.
Now, since you can’t write coherently or do anything except be a broken record, into the killfile you go. I’ve wasted enough time on you, and I didn’t even bother to be nasty. Tsk.
I didn’t misquote you – mainly because I wasn’t quoting you. I was describing what you did.
Sophistry might make it in teology, but it’s not going to work here. In fact, none of the strategies you’ve shown so far. Guess what: Most, if not all, regulars at this blog are ateists. Teist trolls don’t normally last very long here as most people here knows more of religion and everyting else than them.
You weren’t calling all ateists anti-jesus-campainers.
You are not misqouted. You are simply the typical idiot drive-by troll-de-jour-
And I seriously doubt that you have dyslexia – or at least: I doubt that’s you problem. Dyslexia leads to letters in the wrong place – not general illegibility. From what you’ve written so far I would say that your problem is lack of respect to the people you are writing to and lack of will to make an effort.
THAT is why PZ is saying Kaku’s words were a bad idea. They WILL be deliberately misinterpreted by creationists in exactly the same way they deliberately misinterpret Einstein’s various uses of the God metaphor.
And? who gives a toss- stupid is as stupid does- you cant argue with the stupid elite creationists?, it just doesnt work(- and some of einsteins comments about god were actually faith based -he was a religious man ffs. could never get it out of his head that no one and no thing was controlling things -hence the scientifc and spiritual classic about the dice.
if time and space is a string then who or what span it?
and whats at the end/s?
could do that all day- silly science conundrums
but in censoring your breadth of metaphor you are actually allowing religion to gain control over you and then what? you ban yourslef from terminologies just to spite em? you know religion will just appropriate your original metaphors for their own ends anyway as it has done for centuries.
the people who matter in this perception shift from religious to science are the ones who just say they are religious and dont actually believe the shit, not the fanatics- only one way to deal with them unfortunately- i wont go into details but its messy and theyll probably be a lot of red stuff.
Wee!
Einstein was Christian!
I win the troll-bingo tonight!
It was of course a lie…
Two points:
1. The purpose of language is communication. If there is poor use of language then there’s poor communication.
2. What’s wrong with being anti-Jesus campaigners? If you don’t like something then, besides accusing people of being that something, you should explain what you don’t like about that something. You’ve neglected to do this.
I see ish is still unintelligible. May if he quit trying to pretend to be erudite, and just said something plainly, like “this is what I believe, and this is the evidence to back it up.”. He is just incoherent pretending to be erudite.
yes lack of respect you got it and earned it. sod the science and the religion i have never met such a bunch of objectionable, petty and nasty people in my entire life and what you mean by troll? its that your not in our club thing again isntit?
weird as fuck- feels like im talking with ten year olds who all want to score points about whether i have dyslexia or not???? are you mad or is it just wednesdays your like this?
i as a human being refuse to define myself as anything as simple as a label like teist atheist christian or any other such crap only thing im sure of is i have ideas- i listen to ideas and i have more ideas or maybe some differentones or maybe try yours on see how it fits- you lot are so sure about how damn cleverr you are that you come across as nothing more than arrogant and dumb- share your wisdom not your anger-
all the retorts at me -or most have been personal slights in some way or other illustrating my point that some of you have the social skills of dead fish and cant see past your own righteousness just like some priests i know.
you cannot laugh at yourselves under any circumstances it seems- makes me genuinely sad and a “concern troll” if you must stick a badge on me -whatever the fuck that means anyhoo i think your a “pedant wombat” nernenrenr yaboosucks mydads biggern your dad.
by the way my dyslexia is odd i jumble sentences up and cant get word order correct- some would call it dyspraxia but noone knows what that is.
9ish, I am an overweight, 50-ish man who doesn’t know the rules of basketball. I am NOT down at the high school court bitching at the boys because they won’t let me play on their team.
If you cannot type, do not come to a written forum.
If you cannot reason, don’t argue with scientists.
If you cannot take the heat, get the hell out of Pharyngula.
Yes – Wednesdays are “score the misspelling illegible troll”-days.
Thursdays are whip-the-creationist – those are fun days.
And on Fridays we go shopping and have butter scones with tea.
Nerd:
I pointed out the attempted superiority on his/her first post. Didn’t seem to stop him/her trying. And failing miserably.
As for saying something plainly regarding belief, that’s not gonna happen. Ish has gone from not very religious to not religious to I’m atheist. The only thing that comes clear to me through all the incoherence is a flaming desire to treat religion (read: christianity) with kid gloves. It deserves to be respected, ’cause, you know, it’s all we had, man.
I had enough, Ish went into the kf.
Good grief. Who is this idiot? I feel stupider after reading just one of his chock-full-of-inanity nonsense posts.
This is why there’s a preview function. Write your response, hit ‘preview’ and then read over it a few times and make corrections and then hit submit. Perhaps then whatever point it is you’re trying to make – assuming you have one – will be obvious.
TheBear:
And we don’t wear pearls! *gasp*
A fuckwit who can’t say something in plain American. That a PhD scientist like me can understand. Loser trolls never, ever say anything in plain language, or get to their inane and insane points. Like you.
That implies you have wisdom. Yet to be proven. Which, until that happens, makes you a troll.
We, unlike you, are very intelligent. Big Greek/Roman based words don’t impress us.
He’s in perma-rant mode. Would rather show his anger and reply quickly, rather than make any sense.
I can barely make out his argument.
We shouldn’t question the existence of Jesus or the contradictions in the bible because it’ll alienate people from science?
We shouldn’t bitch about Kaku’s use of Genesis when he’s trying to be folksy about the LHC? He likes to use “creation” for the big bang too… makes me cringe every time. Christians don’t need to be talked down to or coddled. Kaku should cut it out. He’s a good narrator without it.
Caine, I have a little tartar I need to abrade off, and dinner won’t be for a while as the Redhead is out obtaining Easter victuals (any and every holiday is an excuse for a big dinner–we’re just finishing up the St. Pats day planovers–and neither of us is Irish).
ish reminds me of someone… Chopra maybe?
I don’t see how misusing a word is equal to censorship or how refusing to misuse it cedes any power to religion. God and creationism are failed hypotheses. The best thing to do is discard them from scientific discourse and take up a more enlightened vocabulary when talking about reality. We can save “Genesis” and the Holy Babble references for snark-talk that mocks religion and its shortsightedness and failings to produce anything useful for humanity. Kaku ought to, too.
I maintain Mr Myers post today about this kaka chap is utter tripe and he is basically attacking a man for mentioning god- its his experiment! if hes part of it he can talk about however he likes- just as i have the right to say half of you cannot see past your own anger and talking to you is making me angry too- everybody wins in the world of pharyngula it seems and its suitably as prickly and uncomfy on any side of any argument here.
but you are a select band of individuals, the religious try and get in here but your man BANISHES THEM IN EXACTLY THE SAME WAY AS A RELIGION WOULD BANISH HEATHENS- and this is one of the cruellest and most detestable things religions do.
and thats the only time ill shout.
Nerd, I understand. I do wish our latest chew toys weren’t so soft and flimsy though. Holiday food, yes, it’s always good to have excuses for foodmas. That reminds me, haven’t had ham for a very long time. Perhaps a trip to the store is needed.
I do wish our latest chew toys weren’t so soft and flimsy though.
That reminds me, haven’t had ham for a very long time. Perhaps a trip to the store is needed.
Perhaps you can satisfy both needs with a Ken Ham chew toy?
Edit to #225: “I don’t see how chastising someone for misusing a word is equal…”.
That describes your posts. What else is new troll. The rest is an incoherent and unintelligible mess of word salad. Still pointless. Still a troll. In other words, loser.
Some words of advice. Limit yourself to three sentences. Then you can get to the point.
Except the capitalization of the first word of a sentence.
They lose.
Was living in Mexia Tx, when William Saphire(sp?) told the ‘how do you say’, joke on national television with “Mexia.’ and ‘Day-re Queen.’
BTW it’s ma-hay-uh.
Ish. He banishes boring repetitive people. It’s quite clear why he sends people to the dungeon. Mentioning god is not one of them.
They way Kaku describes it, he’ll get people thinking that the LHC will show evidence for god.
We know Kaku doesn’t think that. But in his effort to show how amazing the LHC is, he’s actually cheapening in with folksy “Genesis/Creation” language. I think Kaku would love to be the new Sagan. He has enough shows on the Science Channel and Discovery Channel.
Shala:
No, that’s no good. It would be like Big Pink, promising the breath freshening power of ham, and turning out to be all bones. ;p
These are the intertubes, ishy. You’ve got to keep that in mind. Now, as an atheist, I think religions should banish people more often—it might help a person leave the woo-infested waters. But what you are wringing your hands about is the banishment of people who rightfully challenge the ideas of the church religious authority and get kicked out for it, and that comparison is not apt. You are, funnily enough, actually slandering the religious by branding dungeon dwellers as representative of the religious. You have no freakin’ clue, do you?
Well, I like the ideas presented by Kaku but he is bending over backs with trying to make his ideas accessible. Slathering metaphors on the ideas is like having a healthy snack covered with artery clogging crease. Actually, I think I only like his ideas and dislike the man but that is another rant.
Personally, if people do not get his ideas presented plainly without explanations the people need to learn science A.k.a. read a book and learn how to get the good stuff under your scalp and stop fucking a dead dog.
I get a bloody hate boner when scientists try to out do Neville Chamberlain in regards the turd sucking mooks, who do not actually even care unless it is something they can get from the mall and with cupholder or in a designer colours.
Sorry about being a clutch Hitler but had to say it.
Or we take the concept and steal it- just like religion does.- that would be the smart thing to do(HMMMM NOT SO SURE)- appropriate all their terms!
adam and eve are the first two particles lets say- wrong! you say theyll jump the band wagon- i dunno maybe not if you also use it to describe the first two cells of an egg dividing, turn it into a stage.
you could feasibly nick every important metaphor these people use and apply it to a physical process- just keep dropping em in and before you know it psychologically trick half the world- its how religion does!
now you can call me wacko all you like!
this could be the worst idea in the world however but im playing devils advocate here-
you cant just write peoples beliefs off as absolute shit- its too shocking for them and they recoil into their comfy world view.
Thing is i really get where some religious people i know- no im lying -spiritual people i know are coming from -wouldnt want to live there all the time but.. most of em dont give a hoot about dawkins- theyre all earthships and james lovelock- which is something at least- the edifice of science seems to be how far we can push the envelope-is crazy- if science actually applied everything it knew to insure our future as a species instead of actually doing the exact opposite and desperately trying to live forever or fly faster or blow each other up in more interesting ways<---that one might actually pay off in the end but thats another story. Evil and good havent gone away as soon as you pick up a textbook on blackholes- just become far, far grander more difficult concepts. The human brain obviously evolved religion for some kind of purpose-science tasks itself to find that purpose and replace it with something tangible and thats a fucking big ask! In terms of societal evolution we are hopefully in a period of mutation from followers of learned codes of behaviour to masters of our own entire destiny in reference to those codes and how we can apply what we now know into improving on a system that appears succint and nonsensical in equal measure- religion, superstition etc. No wonder people cling to what they know- admitting you dont have a scooby doo what is going on beyond the observable universe is quite an admission when youve lied to yourself for thousands of years! Some people dont yet realise the importance of how much we need new systems for understanding ourselves- we are on the right track... organised religion has to be first to go- it holds so much understanding back it can make you very angry indeed- we used to need a god of rain to know how to farm- know i could do with a god who can explain what colour a black hole is on the inside- fat chance of that so s far as im concerned that big hot thing over there is "god" and that swirly thing over there that i cant quite see is also "god" and until i know exactly how DNA works to the last letter then thats also "god"- - basically tell em youve got something more impressive jesus pah! love and peace? ive found a thing that spits stars at you! hes even better than jupiter! - put it as newer and more shiny- or start explaining how black holes are giant sucking space demons and freak them out of their own delusion < Deep down you are "concern trolls" on religious sites arent you? trying to save the poor deluded bastards just a thought.-
Let’s leave appropriation to the deluded, like Chopra.
“He’s in perma-rant mode. Would rather show his anger and reply quickly, rather than make any sense.”
well done hve fucking medal
have you not noticed in your little testosterone fest that yes, guilty as charged MY POINT WAS THAT YOU ARE ALL IN PERMA RANT MODE! THATS WHY I PUT THE FIRST POST UP
you all do this – this is my one and only point the rest is jumbled words and angry typing- with some vaguely coherent ideas thrown in and badly expressed because the first post i got inreply had a pop at me and didnt even defend his point just yabbooo sucked me klike a fucking two yearold.- my point is nothing to do with science-its about how you communicate with other people. period.
angry people make no sense. and i can find only one or two posts above that do. because anything that was going to stem from the mad rant by nasty pete ws always gonna end like this- bitey bitey bitey.
i shouldnt click send but hey….
No, you shouldn’t. You’re getting tiresome.
Let’s leave appropriation to the deluded, like Chopra.
but if thats the only appropriation youve got than you only get more loonies making wild connections- beat the metaphors in with a repeat stick is waht im saying—so when anyone so much as mentions adam and eve the answeer is oh? do you mean the theoretical adam and eve at the big bang or the stage after egg fertilisation- no the ones in the bible- what oh that old book they got the name from and then all anyones ever getting is a history of religion lesson. just saying could work….
WTF?
By the way, spell checkers are available for free on the internet.
1…1…2…3…9ish…lots…more,
I would suggest spending some time over at 4chan to hone your rhetorical skills before coming over to play with the big kids.
Then don’t. I compose comments all the time, read them over and realize they are not strong arguments for my position, and toss them in the bit bin rather than embarrass myself. I’m certainly no heavy-hitter on Pharyngula, but at least I realize my shortcomings and behave accordingly.
‘Tis Himself wrote:
His spelling is less an issue than his incoherence. Even if every word was dictionary-perfect, he’d still be a blithering idiot.
keep the religious concepts theyre fine jesus/mythra— just becomes a metaphor for when man learnt to brew beer and learnt to swim which is what im sure was intended before they turned him into superman. metaphor is everything in religion just give those metaphor a physical meaning and bible study suddenly becomes archaeology
On second thought, I wouldn’t want to impose your blathering on the good denizens of 4chan. After all, they’ve never done anything to me.
But if he used a spell checker then he’d be a more literate blithering idiot.
Like any troll, you keep talking about yourself. What a loser.
That isn’t a point. But rather your inane opinion, with evidence.
Something that could have been said in three sentences express as a tl;dr troll word salad. Still the idjit loser. But even #245, just word salad, no cogency. Try another blog idjit troll.
‘Tis Himself wrote:
Deep down you are “concern trolls” on religious sites arent you? trying to save the poor deluded bastards
just a thought
You don’t think. That’s your problem. You just spew stupid.
I’d bet that most of us don’t go to religious sites. Even those who do are usually banned within a few comments. Someimtes even after one. If the deluded nutbags allow comments, which a startling number of them don’t. Ray Comfort is, to the best of my knowledge, the only funditard who has a long-time policy of allowing atheists to comment at his site, within certain guidelines.
As for how the religious are treated here, why don’t you take a look at the dungeon for how many religious shitstains have been banned, before saying who’s been banned and who hasn’t? Go ahead, count them. Look at why they are banned. Sharing fantasies of being 25 and wanting an 11 year old girl, being one of my favorites. Or how about the guy who talked about making books out of human flesh? Oh yeah, PZ is just soooooo horrible for not putting up with nonsense like that out of religious nuts.
Sane Christians do fine here. So fine that you need to look at the Christians who have been given a Molly award. Like Scott Hatfield. Or Leigh Williams.
And then you need to go fuck yourself for being such a moron, for being a fucking liar, and for abusing the English language so egregiously. Do you even bother to look at what you write? Ever? Or do you just let your fingers vomit all over a keyboard? Doesn’t it get messy typing that way?
1…1…2…3…9ish…lots…more says:
SIGH!
Well, except the sin here is being a boring, self-indulgent whiner. It’s actually a challenge to get banned here. We even tolerate liberturdlians–and, yes, Xtians–as long as they can make a logical argument. But you…you aren’t doin’ so hot.
WowbaggerOM:
You have my sympathies. I tried to actually communicate with Ish early on. I gave up and went killfile though. It’s like trying to have a conversation with the Mad Hatter. Except the Mad Hatter made sense a few times, which Ish has yet to achieve.
boygenius:
It wouldn’t be nice to impose Ish on 4chan, however, there is a perfect place for him, a place where cussing is looked down on, style is more important than substance and people unite in their dislike of all things Pharyngula: the intersection. Let Ish go forth and preach to his own kind. I’m sure he would get on fine with the crossroads denizens.
Oooh, Caine, that would be fun. Ish and Bilbo and Kw*k and JJ and the rest could all sit around in the Intersandbox, eating “tootsie rolls” left by free roaming cats* and expounding to each other.
*Not trying to stir anything up, just thought it was an apt visual. I’ll get back to you on that subject over on teh Thread&trade later.
Caine has come up with the perfect solution for Ish’s need to rant about this website. Let him discover Kw*k, Anthony McCarthy, Bilbo and the other Pharyngula haters at the The Intersection. He’ll fit right in.
If you go there, Ish, you must ask John Kw*k about his days at Bedford-Stuyvesant High School.
Nerd… “pearl clutching”… I do not think it means what you think it means.
Elroy, boygenius:
LOL. That is a *great* visual. It cries out for a cartoon.
Mk, what is your point? You appeared, and still appear to be a concern/tone troll. Nothing you have said convinces me otherwise. Concern/tone trolls clutch pearls. If you don’t like the territory, go elsewhere.
Nerd,
You really don’t understand what a real concern troll is. Wow.
mk:
Yes he does. It has its own particular meaning here, as I expect you know, as you can’t stop yourself from concern trolling. Why don’t you go to the intersection too? Perfect place for you and vapid, contentless comments.
This is the best I can come up with:
http://static.open.salon.com/files/turd_in_the_sandbox_of_life1247771629.jpg
Caine… he/she does not… and clearly neither do you. Dipshit.
Here we don’t use the standard definition. Why? What is a big problem here is folks who keep commenting on our tone, use of expletives, and general bad attitude toward their insipidity. So, we expanded the definition of concern trolls to include this brand of concern, and that is where you fall. Now, move along. The intersection would find you appropriate material, and they PZ too.
mk wrote:
Perhaps instead of asserting and insulting you could actually explain what you believe the term ‘pearl clutching’ to mean and then see if it meets the definition of the term as it’s used here.
mk:
Oh my. Go clutch your pearls, mk, you have nothing better to do, including ever bothering with a single comment which has any substance whatsoever. It’s time to drop you into the kf too. Bye now.
Again.
Oh, dear!
Elroy, boygenius, it actually made me think of catbox cake, which I stumbled across many years ago, and is now all over the net. :D
Somewhere the mother of all those first words in the sentences above is weeping.
Yeah i talk shit, but hey i dont care much about who listens.
We are staring down the barrel of the end of the world as we know it- potentially capable of destroying ourselves with our own sexual veracity and love of burning stuff-never even mind the nuclear arsenals and pollutants-finite resources thazzit, no more fucking bananas.
The only science that will matter when our ballooning fungal like growth across this world finally reaches a tipping point will be weapons- or the antigravity engine – hmmmmmm whoopdedoo fucking science is king – fuck off!!
The devil is fucking real and you see him in the mirror everyday.
Jumping down the throat of and picking apart every factually incorrect or spiritually misguided idiot like me who crosses your path isnt going to fix the fact that we radically need to change how we behave in order to just survive.
This is now sciences great mission should it choose to accept it, but it seems it doesnt much give a fuck does it?
Its way too busy doing wizzbangs and putting flounces on stuff wallowing in its own hubris whilst quietly ignoring the elephant that they have been feeding in the corner with WHAT ARE YOU ALL GOING TO EAT? writ on the side in big letters.
I try to stay good and incoherent cos my serious scientific self scares the living shit out of me whenever i just think of the world or just imagine the number 7000,000,000-
Under no circumstances should you try to remember these two things at the same time. and dont think of a purple penguin.
Science will be important- very much so when or IF this little human advancement/planet takeover thing blows up in our faces and there are still people left to enjoy an aftermath.
but the IF is the thing isnt it?
Place your bets now please!
Even if science could answer that- unfortunately nobody seems to give a fuck anyway! (……….but theyre thinking about maybe coming round to the idea: one day………yeah right)
Im past caring and i just hope im not too old when the shitstorm/global mass revelation arrives.
Dont get me wrong i love my microwave and my penicillin and my space telescope but our honeymoon with science and understanding is over- We have to take stock of what we know, what weve done and get some serious environmental management going-
Pretty much any other scientific endeavour is just elegant pissing into the wind right now.
Enjoy the ride.
All i care about the LHC is whether it works and has any use in the field of free energy and if it does it IS a genesis machine and there is a god. If not we are the gods and weve made fucking mess of this ball.and all weve got to show for it are some fancy machines that you cant eat.
or am i just a cynic?
go figure.
WowbaggerOM,
Oh, mktroll won’t do that. It likes to try and appear superior, even though it fails constantly. You can look anywhere you like, Urban Dictionary, Straight Dope, wherever, and the definition for pearl clutching is the same as the way we use it.
Now, if one was to use pearl clutch in a conversation, one could ostensibly be referring to a type of purse; but that would be pretty clear from context. ;D
quickly approaching starfart
where did all the bees go?
Another unreadable tl;dr piece of flatulence from ish. Not making a good impression idjit. Short and concise wins the day. Long and rambling gets you killfiled. Getting time to think about that. Nothing cogent or of interest there.
Rev. BDC:
*Sigh* You tempted me, Rev. I clicked “show comment” on Ish’s latest, couldn’t get past:
Erm…sexual honesty is bad? I consider that a good thing. Very good. I suppose it meant verocity. Maybe. Can’t say I think that’s bad either. ;D
thank you grammar lady can i have two sugars next time oplease dont forget your handbag
It looks like someone else has joined me in diving off the deep end of sanity. My best regards to Ish! That incoherence, that terrible humor, the tl;dr posts, the lack of spellcheck…magnificent. Truly, you are one of my disciples now Ish.
Now, your first order of business: would you kindly leave this blog and not return?
Quoted for truth (emphasis added).
Bzzzzzzz.
im not here to impress you or anyone for that matter just bouncing my brainfarts
Can you please get back to the long rambling incoherent comments?
boring incoherent clown shoe wrote:
Seriously, fuck off and do it somewhere else – or, better yet, start your own blog where you can blather away endlessly to your heart’s content. No-one here is even vaguely interested in you or what you have to say.
Shala:
Hahahahahaha. Oh, that won’t work. Ish is trying to get banned. For some reason, unknown to anyone besides Ish, he/she thinks that will somehow prove whatever point it claims to be making.
What that point might be is a mystery. I think all the voices in Ish’s head are trying to type at once. Anyway, if Ish does get sent to the dungeon, it won’t be for whatever reason it thinks; it’s quite difficult to get banned here.
That said, we all have faith, Ish! Keep working on that bannination, you can do it!
Your incessant and un-ending need to attack and ridicule people is pathetic.-why are the scientifically gifted so arrested in their development? whats wrong with admitting your spiritually misguided- you know where you going? got a magic genie in yur bunsen burner or summat?
or do you deny all talk of spirit, soul or conciousness in fear it might infect you with something non science. you lot need to lay off the star trek or whatever its is they teach you to be like american teen high school bully robots.
whatever!pmsl
and why upon someone admitting a fault would you then take that and try to poke fun- i gave that to you and you bit like a schoolgirl- fucking weird.
i stopped laughing now cos that last staement gave me the creeps dude, you still put a magnifying glass on the ants in your yard?
Ish, stop trying to engage. You’ve gone way too far to make any kind of comeback. Just fuck off and don’t come back.
Better, but I think you’ve got a little more in your tank.
good luck with the crusade you all appear to be on, the atheist holy war will continue and ill continue to watch from distance, there is one thing too big to fail in this world and thats science- i really dont know why you get so worked up about.
3..2…1…. boring
onward atheist soldiers is that what you really fucking want?
going into battle using knowledge as blunt weapon- like a priest would use the threat of hell? casting scorn and damnation on the nonbelievers?
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) or sometimes honey bee depopulation syndrome (HBDS)[1] is a phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive or European honey bee colony abruptly disappear.
scaring the shit out of people.
Nothin’ wrong with it. Admitting that one is deluded and unsure of what to do next is commendable when it makes one humble, but that doesn’t seem to be the case for you who would rather put on an arrogant display.
I try to counter all delusional talk dealing with spirits, souls, and sometimes the magical type of consciousness when possible, not because I fear an unscientific infection (???) but because the woo-addled usually haven’t yet entertained the thought that these things are all self-projected delusions no more real than Care Bears.
This isn’t bullying, ishy. But I did watch Star Trek tonight (“Unification I & II” ). ;)
Like? You don’t go far enough my friend. Using knowledge to establish a point is THE EXACT SAME THING as a priest threatening the fires of hell to impressionable young children.
ish. . .seriously, what’s your problem? You really don’t make much sense. It’s not that people are picking on you, or that they’re stupid, or that they’re all marching in intellectual lockstep. It’s that your writing is so all over the place it’s literally impossible to understand 75 percent of whatever it is you think you’re saying. You really do have serious problems getting your point across (whatever it is). Stop blaming other people (and getting all dickish about it) for that. Either do something about it or expect exactly the reaction you’re getting.
Bludgeoning someone over the head with it in a way that appears too frightening like i just did, The media are controlling how science is seen and they will eat anything from anyone trying to sell anything if it makes em buy stuff or raises an eyebrow.
Religion loves this and is complicit as fuck.sells more seats. govts too science is everyones bitch.
knowledge should be shared but it is rammed down peoples necks and half of its exaggeration or bollocks. people buy that shit! people are terrified of science- potential black hole machines in the news- they run and runwith the dramatic nuclear disaster shit, play it again sam and rewind the tape, till your minds locked in- its grim makes you fucking angry so who you get angry with? evrybody.
Josh, Ish has been upset since his initial post @ #105 wasn’t received with nods of agreement and applause. He/she came in slinging accusations and insults and just cannot figure out why people aren’t listening, dammit!*
*The lack of coherency has been mentioned. Over and over and over and over and over and over.
marching in unintellectual lockstep
I can’t make heads or tails of the incoherent mess at #293. Ishy can’t even do a decent starfart. Depressing.
!?!
As I have said elsewhere, we aren’t marching, we are dancing. You just can’t imagine that, can you, 9ish?
I think 1…1…2…3 is angry and confused at the way science is handled in the sensationalist media in 293. While that issue is very real I think in his case there issue is PEBKAC (“Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair”).
Seriously dude, take your meds.
Praise FSM I’ve only got another couple of hours before I get back to the PC with Firefox and the killfile. Then I can be rid of this brain-dead fucking idiot. By the time I’m back to IE PZ will have banned his inane ass and deleted his boring word-vomit.
1…1…2…3…9ish…lots…more | March 31, 2010 10:30:
How like a religious nutter to believe the truth about sex could bring about “the end of the world as we know it- potentially capable of destroying ourselves”.
Marching in intellectual lockstep
With a million friendly,welcoming hypnotists using every means necessary to sit you down, shut you up and make you eat the kitkat you just had to buy for some reason even though the african kid who makes it gets 20p a week- you know this yet you still bought the kitkat.
Religion is now just another soap opera, popes and cardinals and silly hats and mental american preachers and jihadi action men. 300,000 shades of lunatic conglomerate views all gleaned off the airwaves, pick your delusion!
All interspersed with levels of fake reality and real world events layered over it that is half true ,half product of its own invention and eventually its just various seething masses of group consciousnesses all with directable and influenceable nuances that the people who know how to direct make an awful lot of money out of.
if its not the end of the world then where the bees? and why is it so wet?and whys tuvalu sinking- tell the fucking dodos and the whales its not the end of the world.
love how spelling mistake brings out a zealot, every timeyou could set your watch by em
i love zealots at least they care, i cant stop thinking about those concerned trolls, do they have bridge ?
Oh, Noes!!11one11!
It’s the end of the world.
!?!
Ish, here’s your troll bridge.
Its the end of the world as we knew it, with all its bits relatively intact (and im really im not so pleased about it, in fact its rather diquietening and everybody knows it but doesnt want to say anything till we really have knackered it cos its too much fun breaking it…..but ill be erm..fine?)
I am so saving that.
I only have ten more minutes of this fuckwit. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier about the prospect of engaging the killfile.
thats a dpressed troll hes already given up! he used to be a concerned troll.
i love you baghead, your so sweet, i hope your village floods and you run out of shoes.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Kagato, thanks for quoting that. How utterly bizarre. The bees are doing just fine in ND. I photograph them every year.
The reason he’s depressed is because no matter how concerned he got, nobody gave a fuck.
Again.
Oh, dear!
Just woke up. Had my coffee but couldn’t make sense of what this ish troll was on about. Had more coffee, still doesn’t make sense. So either coffee is not working this morning, or this troll is completely nonsensical.
Did someone find out what he’s trying to say?
neg, don’t waste your coffee.
not here there not and were up to our necks in water again.
Neg:
Neg, go back to #105, that’s as clear as it gets. Ish seemed to be upsetty that religious references/people are being picked on; religion should be treated nicely, you see, ’cause religion was all we had, man, until about 200 years ago. Religion did a lot of good for society and stuff.
PZ is just having a dick swingin’ contest over the Genesis metaphor and stuff, and he’s not very religious, but give some respect man, and then he’s not religious at all, but PZ and all of you are fuckin’ bullies, man, then he’s an atheist, and all of us are goddamned bullies, ya know?
Caine, how could you forget? If PZ banish the incoherent one from this blog, he will be acting like the religious leaders of the past who banished heretics. Never mind that this is just a blog and the incoherent one will not be ripped from his family, friends and occupation. Other then that, it is an airtight analogy.
i dunno something about jesus living in the hadron collider with his pedantic wombat getting his metaphoricals entangled with all the string theories
and how itll never work and were all doomed if the pope gets wind of it as hell send in robert langdon and lara croft to further mystify the mystified.
fascinating. he’s like those guys with the “the end is near!!!!” signs on streetcorners, except he’s having environmentalist/leftist mania instead of religious mania.
Janine, too right. On the other hand, it is Ish’s dearest wish to be declared a heretic, and even more a dangerous one! After all, Ish has some sort of point to prove, even though no one knows what the hell it might be.
It would be cruel of PZ to deny Ish’s fervent desire to be a martyr; even though, as you say, there’s no actual persecution to be had. It’s a pity, ya know, that Ish didn’t live in the age when atheists were busy burning people at the…wait…oops, we never did that, did we? Darn.
no, religion should be treated nicely as it is taking it gloves off and is bigger than you and has a hsitory of underhand thuggery,
atheism doesnt have quite the same history except for the believers in the small gods of shoes which is basically atheism and faith that no magic force would spirit them away in the night, the shoe thefts of the winter of 5843BC put an end to this and it was amalgamated into common sense and the egyptian dynasty was born based on the principles of sensible shoe reality laws
if you have a big big tree… dont start headbutting it. might make you feel better but it doesnt do anything else.
I liked Michio Kaku, he did some good documentaries.
What on earth is doing describing the LHC as a “Genesis Machine.” I thought he had more sense.
I’m at home now. Give me a sec and I’ll be right with you.
Comment by 1…1…2…3…9ish…lots…more blocked. [unkill] [show comment]
Ah, that’s much better.
why is living now called sustainable living?
i dont got manias i gave up years ago was just summoning the ghost of a troll to play with.
shoes?!
are we sure we aren’t being fucked with for April 1st?
i dunno maybe it was pumpernickles
dont play full retarded you can ruin you career
FFS, Jadehawk, you made me look. You did! ;p
Ish:
Oh, so I should be nice to religion ’cause it’s a bully and can beat me up? I thought you were against bullies, Ish. You don’t get anywhere being nice to bullies. Gotta stand up to them and state the truth. That’s what we do here.
Uh huh. The only shoe I’m seeing around here is you, as in clownshoe.
Oh, I see. So now you want us to believe you didn’t mean a thing at all, you was jus’ playin’? I’m not buying it, Ish. You’re an idiot par excellence, nothing more. And you are still mind numbingly boring. Summon up better trollghosts.
Caine,
I kind of got that burried in the rest of the nonsense, but then he went on to say that his one and only point was that we are all in PERMA RANT MODE (with caps).
Seems ish has some difficulties expressing himself and doesn’t like it when people say so. Maybe his main point is that we shouldn’t tell people what we think? If we could all be nice with those who are as incoherent and as incomprehensible as him/her, then we’d all communicate better with one another.
A peculiar type of troll, a defender of incoherence.
Neg, you have a good point. Perhaps that is Ish’s wish. It’s a bit hard to tell. Perma rant mode is the point, is it? That puts Ish in a bit of a spot, as Ish has been indulging in that for quite a while now. Maybe we’re supposed to learn a lesson from the Great Incoherency Ranter on that score? Who knows. We’re probably missing some great revelation which would transform us all from angry, hateful worms to nice incoherent hummingbirds. Or some such.
Im still paranoid about the environment though- there was a lot of fucking ice that isnt there any more & we’ve had low solar activity for years now in which more ice has gone, The sun appears to be firing up again and theres a lot more freed up water absorbing that energy not too mention the man made warming atmospheric thats been building up since the sun last radiated with as much power.
Chaos last time i looked didnt become less chaotic the more stuff you added.
bitch that entropy aint it?
and if there is going to be an observable change in weather patterns because of that extra water thats would precisely fit what we are seeing now- more water = more weather.
Stick a couple more of those massive earthquakes in the mix and we could end up with devastation the like of which weve never seen before, might as well call it the end of the world? all that water and potential may end some peoples worlds for sure.
And, what of the atmospheric temperatures effect on the magma core? is that potentially more active and dangerous if we keep warming it up.
I Guess well find out soon enough.im paranoid but for all the right reasons
and besides ancient chitahuri aliens who built the pyramids told me we would face great hardships in the next few coming years no matter what robert langdon and the masons do with the spear of destiny.
“probably missing some great revelation which would transform us all from angry, hateful worms to nice incoherent hummingbirds.” everyone knows only jesus can do that?
I think ish is mainly concerned with respect for incoherence and stupidity. We shouldn’t get angry at this, we should be patient.
I think this could be a valid point, except ish doesn’t seem to realise that incoherent and stupid people can get very boring, then annoying, and finally harmful to others.
big tings go on http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/9558/solar.gif the gods three months from now.
scientific hippy nonsense-i wonder what would happen if every single human on the planet went outside right now and put their hands against the wind?
I have a right to be wilfully arrogantly dumb as i take in more ideas that dont fit my world view but if im responding dont scare me off please god is broken and superglue on its own wont fix him. is jesus really in you hadron colander? and whys petrol so expensive?
You know, I could read just one…
Comment by 1…1…2…3…9ish…lots…more blocked. [unkill] [show comment]
Nah. You’re staying killfiled, dipshit. But don’t count on being here for much longer, though; PZ’s an early riser.
ish,
where are you from?
a swamp- 3 and a half billion years ago just like yooooze
he seems to always grab the bait posts lol. i bet he got that hippy one. thats testable provable sccience for hippies, that is safe and nondangerous bonkers science that is- hang on…. hippy generated torndos may be serious risk i didnt think this through.
ish,
you’ve been around for 3 and a half billion years?
Ish —-> killfile. Still can’t say anything concisely and cogently. Which are marks of true intellect. What an incoherent loser.
i wonder what would happen if every single human on the planet went outside right now and put their hands against the wind?
What the fuck am I reading.jpg
IT..by S. king perhaps? link
3.5 billionish – but thank god only my morphological ribs/sorry chromosomes remember it-
But does that mean i DO actually remember it? its convenient my biology stores this information without me having to give it too much thought and i can tell myself i am only 35 so my brain doesnt melt.
Who needs religion or superstition when you can scare yourself stupid with a concept like that
3.5 billion years of evolution and there are now 6.8 billionish people – is this evolution in action are there that many of us on purpose?
Now that would be an “intelligent design” of evolution itself -to instinctively breed like rabbits in the face of an impending geological disaster but i wouldnt know about that, or even entertain the idea because thats a creationism hat belonging to a concern troll pedant wombat nernernernerner your crap and your momma is too.
I win nenenernernerfucking ner- i am superior to all of you as you are moomin trolls and pearl theifs and other strange things because of urbandictionary and that is all i will have to say on the matter.
period…..,factoid….end.
but i will say this.. like im sort of fucking oracle of science and no superstition shall pass- fucking wizard science priest,holier than thou twat.end.
no more of this fools rubbish, im telling PZ daddy on you.end.
and i hate you so killfile and no more of it end.
oh just a peek cos i cant resist this opportunity to tell someone ive only just met that i hate them.
everybody i am killfiling, preparing to killfile- I have killfiled, i have smited the demon mwahhahahahaaaha wibble.
plonkhammer
Is patience infinite?
why is Saturn wearing a hexicorn corn hat and most everyone elses are roundish?
Why does uranus appear to be drunk?
Why is science still trying to showing off with wizzbangs and jet fighters when it cant even explain to people that its jaw hasnt stopped dropping since it found that black hole using an some xbox chips and a telescope?
Why doesnt the philosophy of science actually admit that quantum mechanics proves that every theory ever possible imaginable, however unlikely, is feasibly and theoretically true and just accept jesus into their theories with the caveat of alternate dimension theory?
What are the chemicals processes behind devotional loyalty and herd behaviour?
Why Dragons?
answers on a postcard to:
The Pope,
Vatican tea room and respite centre,
Vatican Square
Jesusworld(tm)
Italy
Browsing over 1…1…2…3…9ish…lots…moron‘s radically ambiguous and ceaselessly flowing quantum babbling, we can finally answer one of Chopra’s deepest questions, “What happens when a fool talks to xerself in the woods and no one else can hear xer?”
Starting to think its just some random bovine excrement generator.
Whatever it is it is boring which is a good sign the plonkhammer will be wielded unmercifully.
A War against stupidity is about as daft a concept as a war on terror.
I don’t think I’ve seen a personality degrade so totally since the time I saw a fundy minister accidentally drop some acid.
Talking to oneself like that isn’t a sign of mental stability. Plonkhammer.
It’s like reading the label on a bottle of Doctor Bronner’s soap after chugging a bottle of Doctor Bronner’s soap.
im trying to continue my experiment to see if at all possible to try to get you to try educate me as oppose to just deride and lecture- it is proving fruitless.
i am trying to reamin misguided in order that i can finish this psychology lesson and get you to finish the role play that was going on earlier, education is hard work isnt it?
sometimes you dont even want to try because some people are so wilfully dumb that you lose your patience with them- you do that and you will nveer teach anyone a damn thing, you are the “pearl clutchers ” in that you want compliance in return for sharing your ideas and thats why religion wins every time- most people fucking hated school -that smiley welcoming jesus face will beat you forever if your not careful- jesus doesnt want immediate compliance he wants you to be welcomed into the church -its later that he wants money.
For the nobler cause that science is,, it sure has uglier evangelists -they want the cash up front for stuff that they dont see themselves as needing unles someone tells them they do
and thats all most people think science wants, money, because thats all they want.
As long as the pseudoscience of economics exists then science is fucked. to put it in religious terminology we have a temple full of thieves
sure you are
It is fruitless, 9ish. We have been trolled and experimented on before, and don’t take kindly to it. We have been trying to educate you, but you seem to be one of those people who are too dumb to realize how dumb you are. If you aren’t learning anything here, it is your own damned fault. We swear at you and deride your because you are swearworthy and derisive, and also in hopes you will GO AWAY.
Your cock-measuring experiment?
I think I can actually hear the calliope music playing in the background as I read the very odd, random droppings from ‘craptimus primes’ here…
Then again… I just realized… it’s April Poe’s day…
The bullshit science im worried about is the stuff that comes out of the mouths of politics and business advisory boards not some whackos amusing theory about chromosomal ribs or some paranoid fear of catholics stealing the soul of your experiments, that is as irrational as it is scary and just screaming ‘look at the demon religion’ ‘look how god has forsaken these stupid lost souls.’its alarmist.
Psychology whilst not strictly a science is used to make some ideas sound very much like science
If you really take at look at the way the scientific industry manipulates profit and fear with scary looking data presented by scientists and contextually reinforced by nefariously motivated corporations, governments and individuals-
You guys seem to focus your energies on just the individuals and organised religion- im far more concerned as to why raytheon thinks we need a new pilotless killing drone every week than what demons are bugging the pope this week, there are wizards behind the curtain so to speak we need to have a scientifc and thorough investigation of corruption and globalisation as these politicians and corporations are fucking everyone with a science rod- that on its most base level- is just a load of made up numbers £ vs the $ etc thats what people equate to science cos on the whole we are pretty stupid bunch,
you lot have the world the wrong way up its no good (well it is for those who need followers and support or the right laws passing) describing unscientific concepts in a scientific manner and overcomplicating the simple in order to confuse and force people to seek guidance somewhere as to how tom mkake sense of it all -and where do they look? to science of course- but where do they get their “science” from- milton friedman thats who and the TV news.
I wish i WAS mad.
Then you should be thrilled to learn that you are completely weapons-grade batshit. Hope that helps.
you are trying to lecture me …not educate me there is a massive difference and where do you get lectured? university- a skill set of behavioural tools that most people dont have the capacity to appreciate, if im dumb i need to be led not whacked or bored into submission, then the sense of “i might just have got it all wrong” that religion inevitably gives you in the end when confronted with science might become a sense of achievment of reaching some of the most basic physical theories by my their own means they may never have your undersatnding of the concepts but at least they wont constantly be reminded of this..
yes people are stupid and there is nothing wrong with that- what you suggest we do? eugenics? because your hatred of stupidity borders on that sort of thinking, dumb people go away -you do not matter to us great scientists, for you are genetically and culturally disadvantaged.
That im batshit is not your concern is it?
im not particualrly bothered by this yet you are and that is what interests me?
it upsets your world view somehow and reminds you that you must coexist in a world where most people are batshit or stupid or misguided which is terrifying isnt it? no use getting angry about it though and certainly not with me lol.
The ogre of human stupidity en masse is your demon and instead of fighting it seriously you hiss and spit at it and then try and pretend its not there, but i am here to remind and maybe im not that stupid after all just playing at it. empathy- you should try it its what human beings do, even really stupid ones can be brilliant at it.
BETTER LESS BORING TROLLS PLEASE
*yawn*
the north wind and the sun, the scientific parable of how to gain compliance that religion uses –
tricks that science itself taught religion and refuses to stand up and take responsibility for- which is essentially what science wants- it knows its up to the job better than religion- i may be batshit but essentially we want the same thing- everyones scientific methodology is unique to them and their own brain- but poeple literally have lost ownership of their brains- science and religion have the reins and are playing silly buggers, itll all work out im sure as the machiavellians are a subset of the intellectual elite both religious and academic -just like the intellectuals are a subset of the populous just depends on their motivations are.
so atheists who arent concerned trolls the world can do without.
Im all for standing up to bullies but be careful we are all being picked on by the demon headmaster.
I can say what i like to you lot without too much fear not because of your liberalism or your atheism but because you are not big enough to hurt me.
but start opposing a paper on something someones making a lot of money out of and thats when you really get thrown in the big public dungeon or your grave.
If science is king then why are the greedy viziers running the science kingdom?
No, 9ish, honey, nobody is frightened because you are insane. You are purely making that up. We are irritated beacues you keep snivelling at us about how we should educate you. You are the dumb one, sweetie, and don’t know how to educate someone. I, for one, have a college education that includes high honors and about half of a teaching certificate. I know what you need to learn, you do not.
You need to learn to listen and to try to comprehend, and to quit annoying folks.
You also need to learn that this blog is not meant to be a place to learn. A lot of learning goes on, but we aren’t going to drop everything and educate you up from floor-crawling ignorance and snarly arrogance.
If you want to learn, start reading for comprehension.
But ignore my spelling of “because”.
Jeezoid.
Who the fuck let Graeme Bird back in, anyhow?
scientists are taking advice from and helping peddle the biggest lie man ever told himself- money
Some of the most intelligent people in the world still sharing institutions and collaborating with lawyers and economists who conjure theoretical numbers in order to bamboozle, oppress and drive a growth system that is at polar loggerheads with the scientific fact that the earth is a finite size- give or take the odd satellite and cosmic dust.
“this blog is not meant to be a place to learn” yes very true- its for intellectual snobs to have a cirle jerk.
maybe im not that stupid after all just playing at it – moronic troll
Nope. That’s genuine 24-carat stupidity you’re demonstrating.
then by all means, please fuck off, with all due haste…
I just feared one day I may hear the headline ATHEIST SHOOTS POPE when you get a radical sect of your very own.
“that Ish didn’t live in the age when atheists were busy burning people at the…wait…oops, we never did that, did we? Darn.” not yet, but some of you are justifiably angry enough to start because those viziers are fucking about more than they ever did. -and science has made that whole smiting side of religion much more efficient.
I pledge no allegince to any man group or religion but any consensus reached by a group affects us all.
And just like religious messages the athiest message sucks arse when its comes out of the mouths of idiots- but your hunting for leaders and therefore naturally seek out the most passionate and maybe forget there is a difference between bravery and stupidity.
radicalising yuourselves under the banner of those who are more motivated with the destruction of religion not with the fact you have the right to coexist.
it would be the most illconceived religious war since the crusades.
God vs no God- with how most people think? you aint winning that one in any hurry
To get back on topic – apart from PZ’s objection, the other big thing wrong with Kaku’s “Genesis” bullshit is that it’s so fucking hackneyed. This guy is supposed to be a writer – did no-one ever tell him to avoid cliches like the plague? ;-p
fact is people are keeping science and keeping god for now- i nkow and you know this will inevitably change at some point but its really is a question of tactics by your good selves. god is a broken concept but sitting around all pleased with yourselvbes that you figured this out aint doing shit, youve figured youve won the battle in your own head and thats all that matters- you are agthering more nad more intitiates with every ipad sold what to do withbthem is the question not where is he jesus particle, what if this machine shows us fuck all we didnt already know or suspect? pinning your hopes on something called the god particle that may or may not be there……jesus back yet? didnt think so.
*yaaaawwwnnn*
PZ where are you?
God is a hackneyed concept. i can deal with an overreaching energy concept, piece of piss- its how it all folds together thats interesting-the flavours or the spins or the other bit you could feasibly define as various teensy god leftovers.
Let them have god its just a word? what are scientists calling it this week,, the god particle? energy? big bang?
When you cant observe something its fine to say gods in there-or out there- i wake up in the morning and all my molecules are where i left them last night.
I am happy to call the sum of all things there are a name- ‘everything’ for instance or ‘god’ or ‘all’.
God is simply the entire universe you cant dispute the universes’ existence can you?
Its fine to say it god isnt “real” either but that way depression trolls lie as some folks havent caught up with god in the form of relativity- einstein proved god existed- that both energy and mass are one and the same and so r time and space -and a sneaky bit we cant see-hmmmm they can even have the devil if they want him!
he is just that little bit of doubt left over in the physical world, the further down we go the mor god reveals himself and the devil disappears with every new piece of knowledge-the devil is ignorance itself.
he used to be called phlogiston but we chased himoff in looking deeper and know hes just a monster under the planck lentgh or in a black hole somewhere where he belongs.
here be dragons- with four cyliders and limited slip differentials.
metafour cylinders
father -son -and holy ghost the -up –the down and the inbetween- fire, water, ice stuck on a logical loop of only believing in a simple number of energies- know we know more about god we know theres an up, a down, an in between, a round and round- and a top and a bottom.the devil is now infinity- the unknown- that which we cant see -an unimaginable numbers of complexities beyond that which we obersve and that is why god is alive and well in the hadron colander.
ireckon religion is there as a cultural placemarker for our scientific understanding before we developed any sense.it is stuck on page one and is wilfully ignoring their own deities complexity, the faster that machine spins the more we get to know about god-
The agony of not knowing when it will be dragged down into the dungeon must be killing our quantum entangled soup-head, ishy, by now. Poor thing.
or helium leaks
PZ?
PZ? Clean-up in aisle hadron…
To those defending Kaku,
If he had said something along the lines of “DNA is God’s instruction book for life”, would you be defening him?
How is that different, in general content, from what was said?
As far as I can see, either Kaku meant something religious, and was not misunderstood, in which case he’s fully deserving of being labeled as such,
or,
He didn’t mean something religious, and didn’t realize he would be misunderstood, in which case he’s a clueless git,
or,
He didn’t mean anything religious, but was perfectly happy to be misunderstood, in which case he’s a pandering lickspittle.
Options 1 and 2 seems to be false, based on past writings, leaving us with…
Really, if someone can suggest another reasonable possibility, I’m all ears.
Oh, and to 1…1…2…3…9ish…lots…more, please don’t hide behind dyslexia to explain incoherency. I’m dyslexic, and that means I make a massive number of spelling errors. I’m also a poor typist, and that means I make a lot more.
Dyslexia does not pevent you from writing clearly, and it certainly doesn’t prevent you from using spellcheckers or getting a keyboard with a [SHIFT] key that works. (Strange, how that faulty key still seems to let you hit [SHIFT] [/], to make a “?” whenever you want to, though, isn’t it?)
If you don’t like being judged on the quality of your writing, don’t try to communicate in written media. If you don’t like being judged poorly on the quality of your writing, learn to write better. If you don’t want to be called incoherent, present coherent ideas.
If you don’t want to be thougt of as an idiot, don’t write like one.
aratina cage:
A distinct possibility. I imagine Ish is terribly upset that PZ didn’t ascend from the watery depths to strike Ish down with a mighty tentacle after his first post; Ish was so very hopeful of that happening.
After clicking ‘show comment’ a couple of times last night, Ish reminded me of the Duchess in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland:
Anri:
At some point, Ish ran away from the dyslexia defense and switched to dyspraxia. (After that, I don’t know, I employed the killfile). All it comes down to is a refusal to take responsibility for all the crap he’s written.
i have no respect for common grammar whatever as im not a writer i do not proffess to be, but i have an opinion…most of what ive written are just drafts of ideas/ and a thought experiment in laying out reasoning about very simple science and about firm belief in simple metaphors and about simple beliefs themselves- get one wrong and anything you do know about enough to explain to an audience is confounded and confused into stupidity for want of good analogy.people will take a concept and connect it to the moon with string so its pretty- science is lumpy and ibn its lumpiness is its elegance- people want to believe the golden section is magic in itself.
Mr kakas analogy is not perfect but hes trying to do this too and thus sounding suitably ridiculous just like i am- I was trying to express and get inside the head of someone who is grasping for a god concept and wont take anything else.
One day some one will hit on a set of suitable metaphors that dont upset religion because of an inherent truth about god/existence. all people are different but if you can get even the simplest ideas about science into a simpler fromm soundbites if you will and ones t5hat ring true at that. science is to question ones own existence that does not preclude. people still think the earth is round when it isnt.
when you know some science this is easy as the nose on your face- and can be described as a sense of wonder- same god- new and different rules- should just be a straight swap if you think about it – god and the devil are simply a duality metaphor, light and dark, stuff and non stuff, substance and dark matter, religion is not stupid just uneducated and likes it that wy.
there are thousands of cod philosophers at work on this and getting all their metaphors tangled up so they start sounding like their potential audince- dumb- tyeachers without the proper lessons- whilst science believes it already has it all explained but they still have a bag of pearls and no tradeable currency these “wackos” whilst often ridiculous are proof of concept that its not madness but a tower of babel like communication issue that is maddening
Science like religion is getting hung up on its semantics when science commonly spins up to two or three analogies when it adds a new concept so your always comparing apples and oranges- The important thing is that this fact doesnt matter at all..a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.. if we had an efficient and cleaner analogies for explaining concepts then we could have the pews empty and the observatories full in a matter of weeks.
I kinda think people need a new scientific language or need a way to learn the tools of thought you guys find innate- we are trying to teach the old with the tools we use to teach the young- it doesnt work.
I figure if you just throw enough ideas and opinions at a wall something will stick-
If i made some of what i was saying truly coherent then thats when you get idiots grabbing soundbites and removing things from context you arm them like myers is on about.. kakas incoherent analogy- the very fact it is incoherent and says nothing definite about anything makes it safe and almost free from misappropriation as its already confused- you want coherent bad ideas? didnt thinks so- but incoherently espousing them? helps you find what you can work with…
the Duchess in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland:
“I quite agree with you,” said the Duchess; “and the moral of that is – ‘Be what you would seem to be’ – or, if you’d like it put more simply – ‘Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.'”
“That’s nothing to what I could say if I chose,” the Duchess replied, in a pleased tone.
“Oh, don’t talk about trouble!” said the Duchess. “I make you a present of everything I’ve said as yet.”
Very elegant but my point entirely -purposefully confounding with a smugness that might infer that you know what you are on about-
when what you are actually trying to say you dont have a clue either and also inferring that an experiment in empathy is somehow a dangerous thing which is fucking nonsense and just there to try to point out how wrong i am and totally deconstructive.
someone else wants me to explain incoherency- theres the chap who needs the copy of alice…
children have time to learn- its an adventure for them, nothing else matters- adults unless they chose a life of academia and learning early on are on the whole rather impatient -people dont care they just want the really useful stuff to keep coming and arent bothered unless it works. and if you start spouting lewis carrol at them they(wrongly) truly believe you are a childish idiot.
“DNA is God’s instruction book for life”, would you be defening him?” yes if i knew that his audience were very stupid adults whose wallets jeebus loves. its like rolling the dice- you inevitably risk driving them back to thir church whtever you say-the bible if you hadnt noticed answers everything anyway no matter how ridiculously its metaphors are stretched- its not this that needs attacking its the framwework within which that exists and thats just an idea.
but in trying to explain complex concepts in oneword stab soundbites is enigmatic and plain confusing. even for children. you are behaving like religion and giving too much weight to what you say as oppose to how you say it- style over substance.
God always wins but when he wins for you he will win in the form of the mandelbrot set(look we found an pretty endless buddha number its pretty pointless but it proves somethings going on- just like the real buddha!) and the balanced forces god of hooke and newtons.
you cant build a house on sand this is the threat religion makes to remind you that its there- they are reminding you that they control imagination- and if you want to play metaphor with them you have to build with their bricks.
a hangover from the days when people needed snake oil protection from snake oil salesmen- belief is cheaper than amulets- and that is why religion is so smug with itself- hubris i think but people will always be grateful to religion for this in a way and you will never stop them feeling this way even if you shut it down tomorrow and thats an important part of it- the concern trolls are showing you something amazing you are choosing to wilfully ignore because its not perfect or scientific its cultural.
condemnation to a state of idiocy is identical in every way to condemnation to hell.
Be what you appear to be. everybodys special. jesus saves. be the best.
ok tony blair.
religion is one of the best tool we have to determione scientific truth as the only crap they buy is official party line rubbish.
why arent all these crystal freaks being properly recruited as potential geologists?
science hates metaphysics and morphic resonance and crystal healings and placebos as they are the devil and each one a demon- homeopathy a particularly dangerous demonic sect- they have water demons where science has an unknown- what did we all the unknown overeaching force? god..
we are ignorant as far as proof or disproof- so imagination is king here not science, if that imaginatiuon reaches a provable consenus then its scientific territory. until then chuck stuff at it see what sticks and hope you can squash the devilish practice of not actually caring.
Ish the incoherent idjit still talking to himself? What a loser, with nothing cogent to say. Stop proving you’re an abject idiot ish. STFU.
For reasons dealt with below, Ish, I’m only going to get specific about the very first part of the very first bit of that massive, mangled, incoherent screed you popped off with.
Then you understand no one will have any respect for, or even bother reading, what you write.
Everyone who writes is a writer. I assume what you mean here is that you are not a professional writer – which is good. What I am trying to tell you is that you are not a coherent writer. I’m beginning to suspect that’s not your fault, however (see below).
And so long as you continue to express it as poorly as you have done so so far, it will be completely ignored.
Having met more than a few high-functioning schizophrenics, I have to say that your rambling style of writing, and extremely loose thought association is very similar to what I’ve heard before. That doesn’t mean I think you’re schitz – I am nowhere near qualified to make a call like that, even casually – but if you have meds, you should take them.
If you’re capable of it, paring down your thoughts to a few sentences in two paragraphs will make reading your posts possible. If you are unable to do this, you might have a problem.
If you’re merely unwilling, than you have a different problem – you’re an idiot.
*Raises visor, couches lance, glances warily back at windmill, rides off*
Ish, get help. Come on, dude, I know there’s got to be a functioning neuron in there somewhere. Snap out of it.
“1…1…2…3…9ish…lots…more”: I’m doing a bit of traveling, so you’ve got a little slack right now. However, if I find that you still haven’t managed to write something coherent by the time I get back, you’re going to be banned for stupidity.
Stop. Think. Think some more. Write carefully with the goal of actually communicating something. You come across as a kook with some mental health issues, you know.
#368
I can’t really bear to read much of this thread (thanks to 1..9ish), but the quote above is really the beginning of an essay entitled “Why troll?”.
Even a cursory glance at any of this half-wit’s comments should give you more than enough reason to believe that this is not going to happen.
Ish banned. Doing this from my iPhone in a busy airport, so cleanup details will have to wait a bit.
whew
Huh.
For once I’m kinda glad I missed out on the CraZy.
Still nothing coherent. What a loser. No teabaggers here fool.
Bye-bye, your latest posts will be deleted, along with any future ones. Happens to banned trolls.