(via Yeeta.com)
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Those slippery rascals at Answers in Genesis have been doing research, they say, and Jason Lisle claims to have discovered something radical.
I have been working for some time on solving the “distant starlight problem.” This is the issue of how starlight from the most distant galaxies is able to reach earth within the biblical timescale. Although light is incredibly fast, the most distant galaxies are incredibly far away. So, under normal circumstances we would be inclined to think that it should take billions of years for their starlight to reach us. Yet, the Bible teaches that the universe is only thousands of years old. Solutions have been proposed by creationists, but we haven’t had a definitive answer…until now.
It has taken a lot of time and effort, but I have found a solution to distant starlight which allows light to reach earth virtually instantaneously. Moreover, I have found both Scriptural and scientific support for this solution. This has led to the development of a new cosmological model which makes testable predictions. I have nearly finished writing a technical paper on this topic, which will shortly be sent to various experts for qualified peer-review. If it passes peer-review, we will publish the paper in the Answers Research Journal. This is our free, online journal. So be watching for it. If the paper gains the support of experts in the field, I may later write a non-technical article that summarizes the model.
Hang on there: virtually instantaneous travel from distant stars to the earth? This would constitute a rather substantial upheaval in our thinking about physics, I would think, and would be gigantic news. So why is he peddling it around to the tame friends of creationism for ‘peer review’? Why is he aiming to publish in a bottom-of-the-barrel fake journal, which is little more than a propaganda broadsheet?
If he’s really made this amazing breakthrough, he ought to be sending his technical paper to more prestigious journals, like Nature and Science and Physics Review Letters and Cosmopolitan. Publishing in Answers Research Journal is an admission of failure.
Oh, well, I’m willing to accept a diamond from a dungheap. Let’s see this paper!
There are two very good reasons.
Because rodents are pee-sniffing preverts. Eww.
Because every post about Republicans or the Vatican is about rodents, so we’ve already got more than enough of that around here. Double eww. Or W.
The Friday Cephalopod will magically appear at some point today. Because they’re beautiful.
Larry Arnhart wrote a strange article in which he tried to claim Darwin and evolution for libertarianism, or as they prefer to call it nowadays, “Classical liberalism”. I was invited to give a reply, along with a few other people, but I can give the gist of my reaction here: no one gets to claim a biological justification for their political philosophy. Evolution does not endorse libertarianism, socialism, communism, or capitalism, and even if it did nudge one way or the other, that does not mean that we shouldn’t oppose the brutal short-term expediency of natural processes.
The Masala Skeptic reviews the latest Twilight movie. How dare they offend twee & morbid teenagers? This review will make them mope some more.
This one is personal, too. Our local theater booked this movie a couple of weeks ago, and it is still playing. I doubt that it’s because it’s popular here, but more because of the restrictive contracts some first-run movies impose on theaters. We have one single-screen movie theater, and the next nearest is a 45 minute drive away, so this decision has created a great black hole in our entertainment options around here.
Feeling bored? Not enough creationists turning up on Pharyngula? Do you need some fresh meat? There’s a whole field of sheep on the Natural Therapy Pages on Facebook who are unaccustomed to skeptical wolves! A few sample messages there:
Tony Gyenis Susanne and I are bringing tuning forks and channeling to a whole new level. I am presently the only Tuning Fork practitioner in Canada that I know of working in the 6th dimension. We love the fact that we are working with group healing to empower large numbers of people. We will start in Ottawa, Canada and move this across the country and then internationally. We love the interaction with the Elders and the higher realms.
Olya Szewczuk
Some people seem to “sense” the energy of different foods, medicines, supplements, and even technology and other things that surround us in our daily lives.
These frequencies can affect our bodies, our minds, and our state of well-being by bringing our own body frequency up or down, in tandem with their energy.
When we ingest a food or supplement, its frequency, as well as its chemistry, affects us.
These are the principles upon which homeopathy is based.
Romp through the place while you can — I predict it will become an invitation-only group in a few days. Bring back souvenirs! I’d really like to have a 6-dimensional tuning fork, myself.
This is going to be hilarious: Comic-con is next week in San Diego, and the professional attention whores at Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church are going to picket it.
The destruction of this nation is imminent — so start calling on Batman and Superman now, see if they can pull you from the mess that you have created with all your silly idolatry.
I don’t know why they’ve chosen Comic-con; maybe it’s because the attendees are mostly able to tell the difference between fantasy and reality, a grave sin to Phelps.
You know what would be really funny? Fred Phelps reading the Sunday funny pages. I can just imagine him fulminating with growing rage as he reads of that hedonistic heathen, Dagwood Bumstead, and he’d probably pop with apoplexy when he encountered that hussy, Mary Worth.
He might like Garfield, though.
They’ve done it again. They’ve declared that the ordination of women is as heinous a crime as raping children, simultaneously minimizing the trauma of child-rape and maximizing the insult to women. I don’t know how they do it. The Catholic church is rich, they’ve got a lot of very smart people suckered into their dogma, and they’ve been the voice of religion in the West for one and half millennia. How can they be so godawful horrible at this?
And then I realized it’s the 21st century, they’ve got lots of money, so they probably have communications experts all over the place. As we all know, the one strategy they all have is to suck up to their audience and never make them uncomfortable with new ideas, so when the Pope or a cardinal consults them on some medieval brain-fart they just had, they encourage him and reassure him and avoid telling him that it’s really stupid, and presto, the poor dumb priests confidently announce it to a skeptical world.
And best of all, the PR experts then get to manage the blowback. It’s a perfect gig.
You may have been fooled by my youthful vigor and childlike exuberance, but I’m actually an old guy — I’ve got entirely grown up kids who have moved out and have nothing to do with me anymore. They’re so old that they aren’t even threatening to move back into my basement any more! I’m just going to mention what the two boys men have been doing lately, so maybe you can help them out.
My oldest son, Alaric, is currently working as the deputy campaign manager for the DFL candidate in District 15B, Zachary Dorholt. You want to vote for him, if you’re living in that part of St Cloud. If you don’t get to vote for him, you could always donate. He’s our sensible candidate, unlike his right-wing opponent, who has sworn to be 100% pro-life and never, ever under any circumstances raise taxes, no matter how dire our fiscal situation.
They are having a fundraiserat 3:00 on Sunday, 18 July, at 3335 West St Germain in St Cloud. Show up and tell my tall skinny red-haired scion that I sent you, and he’ll give you a free hug! So worth it.
My middle son, Connlann, is at Fort Benning, Georgia. He’s in OCS, in the army (I know! How dare one of my kids do something that I would never do!), in Crusher Company. They’re torturing him by doing things like throwing him in the water and making him swim with a rifle.
Now this is even more important than helping my oldest son’s candidate win an election: could everyone do everything they can to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq before he graduates in September? Thanks.
I don’t know if I can bear to watch this.
Throughout the trailer, all I could think about was the creature’s gastro-intestinal arrangement. It’s got a mouth at both ends. All the heroes have to do is let it keep eating, and since it can’t excrete, it’ll eventually explode.
(via Deep Sea News)
