Have fun and go visit the Missing Universe Museum online. You will feel as if you are finally getting close to the bottom of human stupidity.
Every page promotes this argument:
If you don’t believe God created all living things, male and female, in 6 days….
How many millions of years was it between the first male and the first female?
It’s idiotic when Ray Comfort says it, and it’s just as inane when whoever put this website together says it.
I had to stop and close the web page at the sight of this, their argument against vestigial organs. You see, if evolution were actually true, and vestigial organs actually existed, then we’d all look like this:
I’m baffled. Why would anyone imagine that a prediction of evolution is that humans should be covered with penises?
I had to add one more thing: their evolution test.
Students, give this test to your teachers. When they fail it, ask them why they are teaching this nonsense!
Teachers, give this test to your students if you really want them to know the truth about evolution!
1. Which evolved first, male or female?
2. How many millions of years elapsed between the first male and first female?
3. List at least 9 of the false assumptions made with radioactive dating methods.
4. Why hasn’t any extinct creature re-evolved after millions of years?
5. Which came first:
…the eye,
…the eyelid,
…the eyebrow,
…the eye sockets,
…the eye muscles,
…the eye lashes,
…the tear ducts,
…the brain’s interpretation of light?
6. How many millions of years between each in question 5?
7. If we all evolved from a common ancestor, why can’t all the different species mate with one another and produce fertile offspring?
8. List any of the millions of creatures in just five stages of its evolution showing the progression of a new organ of any kind. When you have done this, you can collect the millions of dollars in rewards offered for proof of evolution!
9. Why is it that the very things that would prove Evolution (transitional forms) are still missing?
10. Explain why something as complex as human life could happen by chance, but something as simple as a coin must have a creator. (Show your math solution.)
11. Why aren’t any fossils or coal or oil being formed today?
12. List 50 vestigial or useless organs or appendages in the human body.
13. Why hasn’t anyone collected the millions of dollars in rewards for proof of evolution?
14. If life began hundreds of millions of years ago, why is the earth still under populated?
15. Why hasn’t evolution duplicated all species on all continents?
Finals week is next week. Should I give that to my intro students?
(Also on Sb)
I’m baffled. Why would anyone imagine that a prediction of evolution is that humans should be covered with penises?
You have to ask? It’s Religion man; it’s always about the penises.
I got there, but what I found was a bunch of people chanting “drill, baby, drill.”
Killed By Fish
…I don’t even understand the argument. Are they trying to say that there’s no such thing as a vestigial organ, and that our appendices and wisdom teeth are perfectly useful in their current form?
Bad photoshopping; therefore, god!
This has to be a Poe. Right?
Also, cocks.
Are those penises or appendices?
Why’d evolution man have the prude leaves on his crotch area while covered with cocks?
There’s probably something even these ding-dong-obsessed wankers are blushing about.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:- if we could just find a means of extracting energy from creationist stupidity, then the global energy crisis could be resolved at a stroke.
If the process could only acheive a 1% efficient transfer of teh stoopid to usable energy, then the… err… ‘intellectual titans’ at Missing Universe Museum alone would still suffice to power the continental United States…
Where are his fins and gills? Where is his inner fish?
The drawing is silly though, those extra penises and nipple eyes could come really come in handy. I wouldn’t consider them vestigial at all.
In these Christians, the brain is vestigial, so the head should be much tinier on the left(skinnier) one.
“How many millions of years was it between the first male and the first female?”
Even as a small child of eight who had been thoroughly indoctrinated in creationism, my instinctive response to that was “I don’t think the evolution people say it works that way.” Of course, I was scolded for even knowing that.
That little voice in the back of my head telling me to check out the other side’s argument has served me well over the years.
Even if I turn the ‘Naughtiness’ knob down to seven and assume those are fingers, how cool it’d be to climb fences and trees with them, leaving your arms free to carry a big-ass machinegun. Beat that, Rambo!
I think Evolution Man is actually George Washington.
– My what big penises you have, Ham-ma.
– The better to rape you with, my little piglet.
He’s kind of right in a wierd way. Those vestigial frilly things do exist. We call it ‘body hair.’
Is Evolution Woman covered in vaginas?
Because creationists are liars.
But you know, you should really deal with the serious creationists, like Phillip Johnson. Like these telling critiques of evolution:
It beats the penis man (although, what’s the downside to having so many fun bits?), but not by much.
Fucking moron or fucking liar, it’s one or the other.
Glen Davidson
You know, you would think people that stupid would at least occasionally and accidentally get it right, but it really seems like they are drawn to the most inane, foolish and easily refutable ideas on the planet.
Huh?
MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://missinguniversemuseum.com/Reward.htm
Phillip Johnson being referenced.
Glen Davidson
Other than the medulla the rest of the brains structure is vestigial in Homo sapien religusnutso.
Has to be — nobody could be that stupid.
Could they?
Those things labeled “vestigial” are supposed to be vestiges of what, exactly? Even larger spare penises?
I’ve looked at the site. No one can be that stupid, Therefore they are lying to mislead those who are nearly that stupid.
Bonus questions:
What is the difference between a creationist, kook, crackpot, and crank?
At what level of craziness does creationism become indistinguishable from mental illness?
How many Time Cube units is this guy’s Missing Universe website?
What does his obsession with drawing multiple penises on human figures indicate? (I’m baffled by this one, but it has to mean something really weird. Feel free to help me out here. Maybe we can get an article in Abnormal Psychology Today!)
According to wikipedia, jesus had at least 17 penises. They know this by the number of his sacred foreskins that were hanging around in the European churches. And why not. Jesus is god and god can do anything. There is no evidence of the number of vaginas he had, but unless someone was excising his clitori, we really wouldn’t know. I wouldn’t advise anyone trying to do that to an all powerful god anyway.
PZ – Not sure you should give it out to the new students for the finals (too much time lost actually answering the nonsense). But this may actually be good material to give the new students at the beginning of the semester to get their brains started.
They forgot to ask, “Why do men have nipples?” Or, would that lead them back to evolution?
Sure. It’ll make grading easier. Instead of all that reading, all you’d need to do is fail any student who didn’t burst out laughing or start banging their head on the desk. Give extra credit to those who wet or concuss themselves.
1. Neither
2. Zero
3. There are none.
4. That can only happen with intelligent design. Ergo, there is no design.
5. The brain’s interpretation of light, first evolved in organisms that were small and transparent.
6. Well, this one’s at least not a completely silly question, and real scientists are working on this and similar problems like it even as we speak. And the tool they use to help them find the answer is the theory of evolution.
7. The answer’s in every standard evolution text.
8. Mammalian middle ear. Vertebrate jaw. Bird’s wing. Just to name a few. And we have way more than 5 steps for any of these.
9. They aren’t missing.
10. Evolution isn’t just about chance.
11. They are.
12. Why just 50?
13. Science isn’t about money.
14. Because things die.
15. That would require a creator. Ergo, no creator.
I think I read the manga once.
*shudder*
I took the quiz there before I followed the jump here.
My answer to every question:
either
Um, it doesn’t work that way
or
Why would it be?
A very low level of stupidity over there. Very pre-GED.
Reminds of a line that in the liner notes of the album, Stop Making Sense, by The Talking Heads.
In the future, women will have breasts all over.
This from the bottomless pit of idiocy that PZ so cruelly linked to*;
Not really. They just lie, and they even do that incompetently.
This much is true; evolutionary theory actually makes sense. Still, I don’t imagine the intelligent design/guided evolution/old earth creationist brigade will be thrilled by MUM’s clear seperation between their delusions and evolutionary theory.
They say that as if they actually have evidence for their woo. Of course, faced with a mountain of supporting evidence for a highly successful scientific theory they will do what they always do – lie for jeebus. They will grossly misrepresent evolutionary theory in a bid to make it sound somehow less likely than their patently ridiculous ‘a sky fairy waved a magic wand and poofed everything into existence’ hypothesis. Then comes the confirmation bias, question begging and examples of the Herculean, near-superhuman levels of epic stupidity typified by the abominably moronic amazing-penis-man diagram above**.
I am honestly beginning to wonder how these cretins get through the day without bagging themselves a much deserved Darwin Award…
—————————————————————-
* Why oh why did I expose my poor, innocent brain to that? I could feel the mass neurone suicide being initiated by the toxic level of stupidity radiating from my tortured computer screen.
** Is anyone else getting a weird, phallus-obsessed, repressed homoerotic vibe from that thing?
Soylent Green?
Yes.
The one who scores the lowest should be fed to the man-eating zebrafish*, pour encourager les autres.
*You know, the ones your hyper-evolved squid will ride into battle.
That is a great idea really.
Some of those questions are actually good questions. The creationists just aren’t going to like the real answers.
i.e. 15. Why hasn’t evolution duplicated all species on all continents?
Short answer. It has. But what is conserved is ecological niches so it usually isn’t exact. Marsupial and North American lions instead of African lions. Birds, pterosaurs, bats. Depends on contingency and what the starting point is. Evolution works by modifying existing organisms gradually.
I only made it to Exhibit 3 before my brain went splodey! Using the last vestiges of my brain cells to write this before I turn into a Rethuglican Evangiloid….help me…hel…….
Meh, I’ve seen better in x-rated furry art.
That ‘evolution test’ looks like one of those “spot how many things in this picture are wrong” tests — only they did it in print!
Someone suggested that the site is satire, but I spent a few moments there and I doubt that. Imo it’s too boring and low-key to be intentionally ironic or deliberately over-the-top –and no tell-tale giveaways like a website store selling WWJD thongs.
Oh boy, is the sea anemone gonna be pissed when he finds out what they’re saying about those extra appendages…
That quiz has got to be the most convincing way possible to convince your Biology teacher to give you a list of tutors.
mikede fleuriot @ 37;
Well, as everyone knows, we atheists already eat babies, so why not go all the way?
Do creationists taste like chicken, ham or crocoduck?
And of course, the most important question – fried, grilled or baked?
Creation via Sarda the Sage
With that wide a stance, imagine how huge it’s asshole is.
The dumps it takes must be epic.
Reminds me of this
http://www.vgcats.com/news/comic_spore_Will.jpg
I’d like to ask them how many years elapsed between the first male Chihuahua and the first female Chihuahua.
List 50 vestigial or useless organs or appendages in the human body.
If he’s willing to back off to useless or vestigial genes and/or proteins, I can knock this one off in about 5 minutes.
Such confidence that they raised the number to 50
Wouldn’t 1 disprove creationism?
13. Why hasn’t anyone collected the millions of dollars in rewards for proof of evolution?
Perhaps because the explanation of the “reward” is this:
*Reward of at least $1,000,000 shall be paid in U.S. dollars. It would be no problem raising this amount of money if you have evidence of Evolution, scientists from around the world will gladly pay dearly for it! An independent jury of Evolutionists and Creationists will review your submission and their conclusion is final.
In other words, in complete contrast to Randi’s proven and documented reward, the creationists offer no existing reward, merely an assurance that the scientists will pay for their own reward.
Alverant, I don’t want to know where you hang out…..
Wouldn’t 1 disprove creationism?
Much as I hate to defend creationism, in all fairness I’d have to say no. Intentional design of a system does not imply that that system will be perfect or without “vestigial” (i.e. nonfunctional) parts. As proof, I ask you this: Do you believe that the Microsoft OS is without vestigial code?
@Dianne
But a Christian God is perfect. It would ruled out Creationism but not intelligent design.
If life began hundreds of millions of years ago, why is the earth still under populated?
The earth is underpopulated? Huh? According to whom? Certainly there is life all over the surface, including in rather unexpected places (underwater vents, toxic waste, etc). What greater abundance is needed?
There’s blood coming out of my ears and my nose. I think reading this broke something inside my head. Is somebody baking brownies? Why do I smell baking brownies?
Argh, might as well answer what little old hasn’t-taken-a-bio-class-since-high-school can answer…
1) I’m pretty sure that was a simultaneous event, otherwise it could not be passed on as a trait.
2) See above…
3) Uhm…decay is inherently probabilistic, ergo the half-life we measure is really just the expectation value of a some lovely quantum thingie. In other words, the average. Since we are always dealing with non-singular amounts of stuff, the individual events align with the classically expected half-life value. I’d explain in more detail, but words like “coupling constant,” “electron neutrino,” “W- boson,” “tunneling,” or “excited state” would just end up confusing the hell out of these people.
4) It being extinct kinda removes itself from the whole reproductive cycle, don’t it? A better question would be whether or not a new animal could evolve to take the place our extinct creature had in the local food chain. I don’t know the answer to that one, I’m afraid, but I’m sure somebody out there does…
5) Haven’t got a clue. I’m a chemist, not some stinking biologist (apologies to biologists everywhere…but you really should work on your personal hygiene…).
6) 137. Or 2pi. 2.718? Dunno, see above…
7) Isn’t one definition of species such that reproduction can only take place within one species? If so, then the question is a tautology.
8) I can barely tell one breed of dog from another, I’m in no position to give anybody details about transitional forms. But hey, ask me something similar about chemistry…you know, about the transitional elements! /badpun
9) They ain’t.
10) Ooooh…MATH! I’ve got a degree in math!!! Ok, the probability that the approximately 24 quintillion atoms in a penny (bad assumption on my part: a penny is not made entirely out of copper) are in any specific arrangement is essentially the same, since each atom is interchangeable. Yes, there are some geometrical differences, but that’s not really important now. In the maximum case, each copper atom has 6 direct neighbors and 12 more distant ones. Do you really want to work out the probability of that arrangement in a lattice with 24 quintillion atoms? No…especially since my calculator only goes up to 10^99. This is of course a bad analogy, as life evolves, and constantly changes. Solids like the copper in a coin are held in place, and do not change (sans some surface effects). Besides, the solution to your question is trivial: 100%. How do I know? Simple, it did! Aside from that, you can see coins get made over at youtube. Now seeing life evolve isn’t so easy, as we would need to observe a planet like earth in terms of environment, but free of life. If humans do not evolve on Earth 2, the probability of “something as complex as human life could happen by chance” would be 50%, 33% if Earth 3 also fails, and so on. This of course ignores the little qualifier “like” in your question, so I’ll just answer it for humans – these aren’t even rough estimate numbers, they’re the sort of bullshit you’d expect a creationist to throw out. See, there is no sense in talking about probability when it comes to biological systems, as they are just too damn complex. I mean ignoring the drastically different environments, the probability that life could evolve on a planet is 12.5% based on our solar system. Does that mean every 1 out of 8 planets has life on it? No, of course not! You need the right conditions, and time – what is it, 2-ish billion years before the first cells appeared? So probability and life do not go well with each other, and for once this is not due to the limitations of biologists when it comes to numbers. Blimey that was a long one…
11) I’m pretty sure they are being formed, and your descendents (please tell me you’re not breeding!) may be able to dig a longhorn fossil up in a few million years.
12) Dunno, ask somebody who cares enough about human physiology to google that…
13) Because it asked me to come up with five animals such that the first and last are entirely different. And your example turned a horse into a fucking Pegasus! Again, chemist here, but I’m pretty sure those were mythical beings.
14) Shit dies, and humans are really good when it comes to killing each other.
15) Different continents=different environments=favoring different traits? Something like that. At any rate, your mom!
From missinguniversemuseum:
“Vestigial Organ Donor Card – why don’t we see these?”
Umm … because no-one needs, or wants, a vestigial organ. That’s why they’re vestigial.
Duh.
Mike.
If life began as single-celled creatures billions of years ago, why are there still single-celled creatures? Huh? Answer me that, creation-denialist!
If life began billions of years ago, why is the earth only 6,527 years old? I bet you can’t answer that one, either.
Here’s another: if evolution is true, why can you hear a dog bark, but not a tree bark?
And you all think you’re so smart.
noastronomer:
Okay. I think this pretty much proves the site is satire. It’s the only thing that makes sense.
My word!
That “test” is the most stupid thing I have ever read. And I am not exaggerating one bit.
Is RC encased in an iron lung and being fed intraveneously? Because anyone THAT stupid is incapable of eating or breathing without outside assistance.
What an evil, but mainly stupid, bunch of goons any and all creationists are!
I’ll keep that test for the next time I hear someone say there’s no such thing as a stupid question.
As stylish as they may be, do each of my facial hairs count as vestigial organs individually, or as a single vestigial organ collectively?
This is my favourite question from the ‘test’:
My initial reaction to this question was: “Well, duh.” But it does actually make for an interesting thought experiment.
Firstly, WTF would it evolve *from*? Because it’s last common ancestor would most likely be long extinct as well. And secondly, such a thing *may* have happened. But how would we know unless we were around for all those millions of years to observe it? This event is made further unlikely by the fact that modern fauna would easily out-compete an earlier version of themselves.
Hmm.
Damn! I thought I had all of those pictures deleted…
Nothing to see here, guys, it is an old picture and I had all of them surgically removed… ok most of them… the biggest ones for sure. I can now wear most clothes available on the market. Maybe not the tighter-fitting ones, but still…
Anyway, please delete all the copies of the picture. These are private matters, please have a heart. Or if you’re kinky enough, I may organize a private visit. Cheap. Drop me a line. Wink wink…
Oh and…
“why … something as simple as a coin must have a creator”
Surprisingly enough, coins don’t reproduce. I know, I’ve tried it. Doesn’t work. You give two quarters a romantic candlelit dinner. Leave them alone for a bit and what do you get – two quarters and lot of leftovers.
Funkyderek @62:
My stock response is “If there’s no such thing as a stupid question, how come there are still stupid people?”
I know I shouldn’t be astounded at the ignorance, but you know, I am.
1. Which evolved first, male or female?
If y’all Christians weren’t so fixated on sex all the time, and so totally anthropocentric in your world view, you might be receptive to the idea that male = more and smaller gametes and female = fewer and larger gametes, and that ‘male’ and ‘female’ are pretty flexible in the wider scheme of things. A single individual (fish in particular) can start off male and end up female. So can a trans person, at least morphologically and psychologically, but that’s a bit too freaky for your average Xtian.
4. Why hasn’t any extinct creature re-evolved after millions of years? AND 15. Why hasn’t evolution duplicated all species on all continents?
Historical contingency is a muthaf@cka. Still, you have to admit that the same patterns do tend to reappear – ichthyosaurs and dolphins come to mind. The stupid burns, though. Darwin brought history into biology. One might as well ask why each continent didn’t produce its own Augustus and Baby Jesus.
7. If we all evolved from a common ancestor, why can’t all the different species mate with one another and produce fertile offspring?
Maybe y’all sex-obsessed Xtians can experiment and come back and let us know. The question is too stupid to possibly warrant a straight answer.
11. Why aren’t any fossils or coal or oil being formed today?
Demonstrably false. You could probably scrape a pint of oil off of Newt Gingrich after any one of dozens of GOP debates.
@noastronomer (#66):
There’s your problem. With two quarters, you have to leave them alone for four bits.
The Parade of Stupid seems never to run out of willing entrants.
Any part of that list would actually make a REALLY good essay question for like… half the classes I’ve taken. And I still have yet to take Evolution.
Wow. *rubs eyes*
Bummer… even in a million years I still won’t have a pair of boobs to keep me amused at work.
That’s the same thing there are saying about the Randi Prize; the difference: Randi’s offer is fair; therefore, there must be a way to: 1) Make them honor their offer in a fair way, 2) sue them for doing a unfair offer. I´m not a lawyer, someone should ask a lawyer.
There is no such thing as a stupid question but there is such a thing a batshit insane one designed not to give any infomration and is dishonest in intent.
1. Since we see male and female in plants, animals, even to a certain extent fungi it’s likely the evolution of sex happened very early on. Since we can simpler versions of sex in speceis to day it maybe possible reconstruct how it evolved from simple chemical transfer to full blown orgies. No they didn’t evolve seperately otherwise the wouldn’t be the same species.
2. since the simplsit form of sexual reproduction prpably didn’t even look like sexual reproduction the evolution of each species various selective forces helped define the sexes you see today.
3.This is a leading question, if you where to say 9 assumptions that would be better but you’ve already decided that the answers must be false, there are assumptions made in radiometric dating but they have been experimented on so as to test the assumption so far so good, but wait you say mussles have been dated to thousands of years! Pool effect is well established by scientists testing their ideas.
4. selective pressures and niche specialisation among many other things shape a species, however there are examples of species sharing the same niche and developing similar strategdies it’s called convergent evolution as is very interesting
5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhDWCujcFEY there is more evidence in our genes!
6. You make assumption that there is a constant rate of evolution there isn’t but we can see that a trait can provide an advantage as can been seen in the lenski expriments
7. Once again you need to understand what a species is, closely related species can still form offspring but most of the time this offspring is sterile, mule for example. We also show common descent through genetic comparrison and it seems to be correct. even when using creationist barimin it demonstrates evolution. We know the cheetah went through a bottleneck event a couple of thousand years ago and we can take a lump of cheetah and stick it into another with no ill effect due to this bottleneck event why if there was a flood some 4000 years ago can we not do the same with people or other animals?
8. If I was to take a picture of you and all you ancestors back through time adn run them like a film backwards you would find it very difficult to tell me when you lineage stopped being homo sapiens.
Secondly an organ does not develop in isolation each organism in the chain is fully functional but some have developed more from the older genearations through natural selection.
9. They’re not but as has been said millions of times even without fossil evidence evolution is possible to prove, Darwin managed it without the wealth of data and evidence we have now.
10. Evolution does not happen by chance! A coin is not simple it is part of a complicated system of money. Plus I’ve tried putting two coins in a room with mood lighting and some wine. Noting not a single baby coin born no matter what demoniation I use!
11. It is is being formed but not in the same amounts due to the lack of plant life that we had in the carbinefouris, spelling sucks.
12. Maybe not fifty but i can point out plenty of bad design blind spot etc JFGI.
13. these awards aren’t about proof of evolution but rather changing the mind of a creationist, it can happen but only if you’re willing to say you’re wrong. Plus you don’t have the money so how honest is the award. Plus science isn’t about proving something true it’s about proving it false and as of yet evolution is still working fine not like gravity take that physics
14. It’s not just look at 1m2 of soil and say it isn’t full of life
15. Cinvergent evolution but basically geographic isolation leads to spcieation leads to different animal types occupying different niches
I am just that bored
14.
But that’s not Genesis creation. YHWH created everything ex nihilo. There should be no vestigial.
Evolution doesn’t obviate every possible god. But it sure obviates the Abrahamic versions.
Raven #28:
You win the internetz. All of them. I will hand deliver them in 30 minutes or less or your money back.
Nothing else on this thread can possibly compare, so I’m moving on to read elsewhere.
If Christian dualism is true, all organs and appendages of the human body are useless. Souls and/or spirits exist; killing the body doesn’t harm the soul/spirit, therefore, a fortiori, all parts of the body are unnecessary for the soul/spirit to continue to exist.
“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”
— Walter M. Miller.
QED.
I await for Creation Man to kill himself and haunt us with his pious moans.
Everything you need to know about creationist thought is evident in the fact that they’ll draw fifty dicks on a model to parody their bizarre interpretation of evolution, but are too fucking skittish to show the one that the model has naturally in the correct position.
Oh, a quiz! Can I play too?
1. The same time, obviously. That’s kinda the point of sexual reproduction, isn’t it?
2. See 1.
3. ? Ok, you got me here.
4. Because different input result in different output. Though there is notable similarity between even very different species that fill the same ecological niches: see fish – ichtiosaurus – cetacean analogies.
5. Photosensitivity, obviously. All external mechanics are later addition / readaptations of other structures.
6. Millions? Probably billions actually. Photosensitivity evolved very early – long before even chordata appeared.
7. If all PCs use binary data, why can’t you fit 5.25 inch disc into USB port? Moronic question.
8. Bah, It’s a scam. They don’t have this money or any intention of paying it.
9. Every. Fucking. Organism. Is. Transitional. If only it managed to reproduce, that is. I’m transitional form between my parents and my kids.
10. Explain why something as simple as water drop could happen by chance, but something as complex as space shuttle must have a creator. (Show your math solution.) Another moronic question.
11. Fossils are formed today. Ever seen mummified frog? Coal is not forming because extant plants have much less lignin content in cell walls. Also some extant organisms are capable of producing ligninases, which there weren’t when the coal formed. Oil is not forming in significant amount because there is so little shallow, warm water bodies full of algae and zooplankton present.
12. Why not 5000? Too bothersome to answer.
13. Because the money is a lie.
14. Under populated? At 7 billions human, approx two times more that can be sustained without rapid biodegradation of the planet is underpopulated?!
15. Why should it? Different conditions and different colonizing species lead to diversity rather than uniformity.
The physicists’ Universe can’t be ex nihilo but the magical sky fairy’s can be just that? Color me innocent, but what am I missing here?
The virtue of special pleading.
It’s not good for sudden creation, of course, as Brownian points out, but even for IDiot “evolutionary design” scenarios it gets ridiculous when you consider some of the vestigial organs (which are not necessarily non-functional).
Think of all of the now toothless animals that develop teeth prior to birth, like platypuses and baleen whales. Microsoft is rather unlikely to keep parts of programs that actually consume meaningful amounts of resources, only adding in software to make the product fall out around the time of birth.
And some bird species develop claws on their wings (bird wings evolved from dinosaur claws) only to reabsorb them prior to hatching. Makes plenty of sense in evolution, not much as a computer program.
I know your answer was actually to an abstract question, wouldn’t even one vestigial organ disprove creationism?–which is abstract. Well, if we move away from the perfect Creator creating instantly, probably not, indeed. Yet we shouldn’t leave it like that, because the vestigials we find are often rather more costly than normally designed vestigials (actually, a lot of vestigials are found in human design for the sake of “looking right,” but then those oughtn’t be compared to vestigials found in life), and then are just thrown out. The vestigials we find are like what we’d expect from evolution, not like bits of disabled code, or vestiges kept to “look right.”
To be sure, vestigials themselves probably aren’t the best thing to point to in evolution. It’s the strange and clearly undesign-like derivation that points to evolution, and away from design, simultaneously. Like, why do vertebrate optic rods use cilia, which were originally motive organs? Well, what does evolution have to use, except what already exists? So rods use cilia, and bat wings aren’t adapted from bird or pterosaur wings, like we’d expect of a sensible designer (the Wright brothers and their predecessors copied bird wings as much as they could, then the Wright brothers used wind tunnels to improve what they had), they’re simply derived from mammal forelimbs. Dumb for a designer, practically the only things that evolution could use.
Vestigials are just particularly useless, or at least subpar in functionality, derivations in a biology that is hereditarily derivative to the extreme, far more than we’ve ever seen from actual designers–and just as biological evolution is constrained to be.
Glen Davidson
Brownian? After #78 I am falling in love.
Can I have gay, gay, sequined, homosexual, gay secks with you?
I’m still wondering if that site is serious. On the one hand, you’d think there’d be more tipoffs if it is a parody site, but that whole stupid vestigial organs illustration sure does look like a tipoff. Those are actually all appendixes hanging out all over the guy’s body, aren’t they? And wouldn’t even a creationist be smarter than to presume that evolution would cause there to be appendixes externally all over one’s body?’
If it were just the vestigial page I’d say it was parody, or simply trying to be even more stupid than ICR and AiG. Other pages seem far more serious, though, exactly what “serious creationists” would say.
I guess in the end it doesn’t really matter. Creationist or Poe made something that caricatures the caricatures that are standard in evolution, and they are fun to poke at. The core creationist stupidity, though, is shared by this site and the DI, claims that the highly derivative nature of life most certainly indicates that evolutionary constraints held in an undefined “microevolution,” while the same highly derivative features in the equally undefined (hypothetical) “macroevolution” is all the result of “design.” And that core idiocy is what denies legitimate comparisons of evolution vs. design, for an transparently overt reason, that such legitimate comparison indicates that life did evolve, and was not designed.
Glen Davidson
Chigau:
I think the key question here is: were all the vaginas on Evolution Woman dentata?
Crip Dyke:
Take a number and get in line, Sister.
I killed this test.
Except #8, I need more ammunition for this one.
Honest request for help.
Remember: Poe’s Law states that it’s impossible to create a parody of creationism that will be clearly distinguishable from the real thing if it’s not explicitly stated to be a parody by its creator.
Wow.
This question actually has an answer!
(1)…the eye,
(5)…the eyelid,
(8)…the eyebrow,
(4)…the eye sockets,
(3)…the eye muscles,
(7)…the eye lashes,
(6)…the tear ducts,
(2)…the brain’s interpretation of light.
Any questions? It’s late at night, so I don’t want to explain how I arrive at these numbers right now.
Yes. Also, they’re trying to claim that evolution is so random that any new organ would appear in random places and in random numbers instead of in the right number in the right place.
(Little thought have they ever given to what “the right number” and “the right place” might mean.)
Thread won.
…assuming the environment hasn’t changed.
It has.
QFT.
Complete nonsense. Where did you get that from?
This may (!) possibly (!) have been the case in the Carboniferous, but not all coal is of Carboniferous age! There’s brown coal that’s just 40 million years old, and that’s just off the top of my head.
So, coal is being formed right now, in peat bogs especially, but at much slower rates than the rates at which we burn coal.
I don’t think there’s ever been more. Oil is simply forming at a much smaller rate (equivalent to 0.1 Gt of carbon per year, right?) than we burn it.
Oh, most actually keep them. Have an actual look at the next one that ends up on your table.
Besides, bird wings didn’t evolve from claws. Bird wings are arms. Entire forelimbs.
Caine
vagina dentata
No need to evolve one, they can be bought.
http://antirape.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6&Itemid=18
M first thought upon seeing that graphic? I felt happy. Specifically, I felt happy that someone has skin tags far worse than I do.
And yes, some of my skin tags look like little itty-bitty penises. Or is that too much information?
It looks like the evolution man is supposed to be Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean.
Check out at the very end, where he hides his identity:
http://missinguniversemuseum.com/faqanswer11.htm
He claims to be a “former Atheist” and yet today he is a “Bible believing Christian.” Somehow I don’t believe that he was ever a non-believer. It’s just a ploy to show just how powerful his truth is, that it moved even him, a non-believer. Right.
His domain is registered to:
Ark Webs Ministries
167 Grazing Meadows Dr.
Jonesborough, Tennessee 37659
United States
Which I originally thought was a dead giveaway that it was a preacher creating the site. However, ArkWebs seems to be a Christian hosting site, if you can believe it.
I think you should give your students these questions – the answers are pretty simple though so stick some proper tricky ones on the end.
Here are my polite answers to these stupid questions – most of the evidence can be easily found by reading lots of books, on wikipedia, using common sense, looking out the freaking window, but hey, we can spell it all out once again.
1. Which evolved first, male or female?
Evolved together
2. How many millions of years elapsed between the first male and first female?
0
3. List at least 9 of the false assumptions made with radioactive dating methods.
There is no reason to assume that any of the assumptions made in radioactive dating are false, but these are the assumptions made:
1. Radioactive decay is constant
2. Equivalent levels of radioactive isotopes to today at time of rock formation or death of animal i.e. assuming that the original amount of isotopes is known
3. Samples are not contaminated
4. No leaching from sample occurred
5. Measurement is accurate
But…
1. Dates are established by radio-dating multiple radioactive elements to reach a consensus.
2. Multiple distinct samples are taken from a test subject to reduce likelihood of contamination and take errors into account
3. The half life of radioisotopes has never been observed to alter with temperature, physical or chemical state, the environment outside the nucleus
4. Steps are taken to ensure that samples are not contaminated by researchers
4. Why hasn’t any extinct creature re-evolved after millions of years?
Stupid Question: Evolution takes place as a result of changes in a population of organisms over time. Therefore new species are derived from old ones, and will carry along traits from the parent species. Extinct species are extinct for a reason, they were less successful than surviving species, and may have gone extinct due to environmental change, for which their evolutionary strategy was unsuccessful.
However there are many documented cases of convergent evolution, which show that certain traits are successful and have evolved more than once. E.g. they eye.
5. Which came first:
…the eye, 2
…the eyelid, 4
…the eyebrow, 6
…the eye sockets, 3
…the eye muscles, 3
…the eye lashes, 5
…the tear ducts, 4
…the brain’s interpretation of light? 1
First photoresponsive cells evolved, sending signals along nerves. This spot then became concave allowing some detection of direction of light signal. The diameter of the iris became smaller and smaller to allow better detection of directional light until the photoreceptive cells were enclosed in an “eye ball.” Then a lens evolved to focus the light, allowing better vision and the ability to see specific objects. In some species the lens shape is changes to focus the vision (e.g. humans) while in others the lens in moved backwards and forwards to focus (e.g. octopus).
Numerous features evolved to protect this delicate organ including eye sockets, eyelids, eye lashes and eyebrows. Once species came out of the water eye lids were required to protect the eye as well and keep it moist. Tear ducts evolved to keep the eye moist also.
I am not entirely convinced that eyebrows evolved to protect they eye, they may be a more socially selected trait, allowing easier detection of facial expression in human primates.
Approximate order of the acquisition of these traits is provided above
6. How many millions of years between each in question 5?
Complex eyes first evolved within a few million years around the time of the Cambrian Explosion.
7. If we all evolved from a common ancestor, why can’t all the different species mate with one another and produce fertile offspring?
Speciation – by definition populations evolve – if two populations are separated by habitat or niche etc. they will become gradually more different from each other, eventually due to changes in chromatin structure and other characteristics these two populations will be unable to interbreed. This is the definition of a species (in general – there are subclades and so forth which complicate this issue)
There are examples where two similar species can interbreed such as the horse and the donkey, which give rise to a mule – which is viable but infertile.
The more genetically and physically diverse the species the less likely it is for an interbreeding to successfully take place
8. List any of the millions of creatures in just five stages of its evolution showing the progression of a new organ of any kind. When you have done this, you can collect the millions of dollars in rewards offered for proof of evolution!
See E. coli evolution experiments at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=%22Lenski%20RE%22%5BAuthor%5D
Give this group your millions of dollars – then they can prove you even more wrong!
9. Why is it that the very things that would prove Evolution (transitional forms) are still missing?
They aren’t – go to any natural history museum.
10. Explain why something as complex as human life could happen by chance, but something as simple as a coin must have a creator. (Show your math solution.)
Natural Selection / Survival of the fittest
Actually coin production has evolved too, look at the process of how coins were made in ancient times compared to now. The types of metals and the techniques for casting have changed over time. Science has come up with better and better ways of making coins that wear better and are more reproducible and harder to forge. A type of selection if you will. So if humans can select a better characteristic for a product over time, why can nature not select a species based on ability to survive nature itself?
11. Why aren’t any fossils or coal or oil being formed today?
They are – it takes a really long time though.
12. List 50 vestigial or useless organs or appendages in the human body.
Caecum/appendix, ear muscles, coccyx/tailbone, wisdom teeth, nictating membrane of the eye, palmaris longis muscle (absent in 14% of the human population, pyramidalis muscle (absent in 20% of the human population), plantaris muscle (absent in 7-10% of human population), Compressed olfactory system and sinuses, loss of a functional l-gulonolactone oxidase gene to produce vitamin C (pseudo gene is still present, a functional gene would have been real handy though for all those sailors with scurvy), pilli erection. Check it out on Wikipedia.
I am sure if I could come up with 50 they would ask for 50 more!
13. Why hasn’t anyone collected the millions of dollars in rewards for proof of evolution?
Because no amount of evidence is apparently enough. Evolution is a process that takes lots of time, and thousands of generations, it is difficult too see this process occur within a human life time – but evolution has been observed in E. coli which have a “generation time” of 20 minutes.
14. If life began hundreds of millions of years ago, why is the earth still under populated?
It is actually overpopulated by humans, and most other species maintain a balance in numbers dictated by food supply and predation.
15. Why hasn’t evolution duplicated all species on all continents?
Different continents have different environments and species evolve from those already present on those continents, leading to some limitation of diversity. For example the land mass of New Zealand was isolated from the rest of the continents, and no land mammals were present, so in the absence of mammalian predators birds evolved to expands into various different niches. Such as the flightless, nocturnal kakapo, the giant moa (now extinct), the flightless, nocturnal, only bird with nostrils at the end of its beak, the kiwi, any ground nesting sea birds etc etc. The different diversity of species on isolated geographic areas is actually evidence FOR evolution – not against it.
However there are examples of convergent evolution where genetically diverse species have a similar form/function but diverse ancestry. Check out the marsupials of Australia.
Isn’t evolution awesome!
Glen Davidson @19 said:
“
I think it’s both and I’d add extortionist to the list as well…perhaps we could label it the “trifecta of idiocy!”
But that’s not Genesis creation. YHWH created everything ex nihilo. There should be no vestigial.
This statement gives me the oddest vision of YHWH meeting Jesus and Mo in the bar and mumbling in his beer, “I create the universe out of nothing and what do I get? A bunch of people whining about how I forgot to make the appendix functional. People! What are ya gonna do?”
@palefury: If we can use genes and not just organs, 50 more will be no problem at all. Take factor VIII for example. It has another gene stuck within it. Backwards, IIRC. And it’s on the X chromosome. Why put something critical on a chromosome that has no backup in half of people? And then there’s the Y chromosome. Not quite vestigial but it’s got a lot of random crap on it that is.
Well, the Jawa supposedly created woman out of a rib; hardly ex nihilo, that.
(Genesis 2:21–22)
It does make sense, PZ. Looking at the image of “Creation Man”, it is obvious he doesn’t have one.
WHAT IS A MAN? A MISERABLE PILE OF PENISES!
It is hard to not look at this as child abuse. How can it be fun to have such a narrow minded perspective of life. As Hitchens says, “Your life in bondage to the celestrial dictator.”
13. No one has submitted to your million dollar reward because you have no place to make submissions.
And that’s ignoring the fact that you’re demanding they be living species as transitions, due to some twisted idea that extinct species should still be with us.
I think you and I must have grown up listening to different versions of My Way because I don’t remember that verse.
Well, yes. But they have a strategy. Once upon a time, when they thought they’d just come up with a real hum-dinger this time, they began with “Oh, yeah? Name one.” To their discomfiture, the response was immediate. So, like any playground bully, they responded with “Oh, yeah? Name another.” Which they smugly repeat ad nauseam until the other throws up his or her hands in disgust and goes away. From experience, they have found that by the time they get to seven times seven iterations of “Oh yeah? Name another”, rational people give up in disgust and walk away. So they leave it at 50. (The sibling with his or her fingers in his or her ears while shouting “la-la-la, I can’t hear you” can always outlast the other kid. It works.)
Amen.
Chigau – Not only can they be bought, but the actual intent of the campaign is to give them out for free to absolutely as many women in the province as possible. Purchases outside of the area subsidize free distribution to women at hideous risk of rape.
35 years of fertility * 12 months per year = 420 periods.
420 periods to knock out 2.1 kids!?!?!???!?!?!?!?
WHERE’S THE INTELLIGENCE IN THAT!?!?!?!??!
Oh, right….Male God.
Crip Dyke
Yeah.
The whole thing hurts my head.
I go back and forth so often, I get whiplash.
Ing at #97:
Doh! Another First Folio typo! So what Hamlet was really saying was:
“What a piece of work is a man! How noble in
Reason! How infinite in phalluses!”
(And what was that soliloquoy about Michael Behe? “Behe, naughty, Behe”?)
[Well, Creationism/ID is hack work, but they are used to intellectual dishonesty in the service of self-aggrandizement. Perhaps they’ll switch to claiming to have written Shakespeare.]
You know what they say about men with big piles of crotch leaves, yeah?
Why no, Naked Bunny, what do they say about men with big piles of crotch leaves?
That it’s best if you leaf it alone?
What do you use for safe sex for someone like that? Spray on Aphid Guard?
Does he use viagra or just miracle grow?
How remarkable. Being, of course, utterly convinced by this site’s airtight logic, I’ve seen how it can be applied to other fields of knowledge. For example, economics.
An economic transaction requires a buyer and a seller to be present at the same time. This means that the first buyer and seller needed to be immediately aware that they wished to transact with each other, otherwise economics would never have got started. You also need money to complete a transaction, as without it, the buyer has nothing to give the seller in return for their goods or services.
With that in mind, it’s obvious that trading practices didn’t gradually develop from civilizations living thousands of years ago into the sophisticated (if problematic) setup we see today. Instead, people traded nothing with each other until some extremely clever – even godly – fellow took two people aside, explained in detail how transaction making worked, showed them the money, then sent them forth with instructions on how to spread the practice. This has to be the case, as otherwise you’re faced with the absurdity of sellers living for centuries with no buyers around to purchase from them.
Also, if people really did start trading several thousands of years ago, why do so many people today still not have enough money?
Take the money, PZ! Surely it can’t be hard to find transitional forms … prosimian paw to prehensile thumb? Cute sea-otter nose, to high, flat seal-nose to dorsal blowhole? Oh wait, lemme guess, ‘transitional’ means feathered at one end, kangaroo pouch at the other, doesn’t it?
My answers to that qustionnaire are all along the lines of baffled “Wha?..”
Do I pass?
@87 David Marjanović
From half remebered articles like this:
The burial of organic carbon as affected by the evolution of land plants.
Though I admit, on second reading it says something a little different than I remember. I guess I fail this quiz.
Right. Let’s see.
1. Neither.
2. None.
3. Ken Ham thinks Carbon dating works on things with no carbon in them. Not sure about the other 8.
4. Because they’re extinct for a reason. Even if a species did regress to an earlier state, in an unreasonable amount of time, the more primitive form would be likely to go extinct again, for the exact same reasons it went instinct last.
5. Watch Richard Dawkins explain this on YouTube. Seriously. Also, which eye? All eyes are not created equal.
6. Depends on which kind of eye your talking about.
7. Because they’re no longer compatible. Like Transformers. You can’t use a half of generation 1 Constructicons, and half of generation 2 Constructicons, to build a complete Devastator.
8. Watch AronRa explain this in YouTube. Seriously.
9. You’re confusing ignorance for fact. They’re not.
10. This is trivial. Complex things cannot be designed, except on a very high level of abstraction. Simple things like coins, with no power source, no moving parts, and no chemical reactions are trivial to design. As you create more complex things (for example glow in the dark coins, or coins with intricate clockwork) the task, and amount of energy required increases exponentially, as complexity increases linearly.
11. They are.
12. I can’t even list 50 organs in the body. Much less 50 vestigial ones. I’ll settle for “The Tail”.
13. Because there isn’t one. You’re confusing it with James Randi’s million dollar challenge.
14. It’s not. It’s overpopulated. Not the same thing.
15. For the same reason that you can’t roll a six on a dice indefinitely. The different continents have vastly different parameters for climates and animal survival. An animal who is king of the jungle, is going to die out pretty quickly in the tundra or the desert.
This is why we don’t have flying cars yet.
I just sent them a description of how ring species work. You know, species that have several adjacent populations that can all interbreed with their neighbours, but where the further separated populations cannot interbreed and are (technically) different species. This has the double effect of proving that each population is related to the next, and that gradual changes can lead to new species forming.
As I am sure that the director of that fine website is a honest man who searching for the truth and not a fundie whackjob who dismisses all evidence that doesn’t support his beliefs out of hand, and because I have no doubt that he actually has the $1 000 000 and already set up this impartial panel he uses to judge claims and isn’t just making up childish challenges to taunt others, I am happy to say that I will soon be able to donated a goodly sum to P.Z.’s cephalopod breeding program. Though I will have to keep some to make sure Evolution Man gets some plastic surgery first.
@83
There’s a line, you know. Wait your turn.
Ooh, this looks like a lot of fun. I’m gonna have a shot at this. My answers are uninformed by reading up on the actual answers, so this should be interesting. As well as an appropriate reply to the asker. (I’m especially proud of my answer to #10).
1. Which evolved first, male or female?
Neither. Asexual reproduction would come first (presumably in some form of mitosis-related manner?), then if anything, I’d imagine hermaphroditic reproduction like worms have. Then eventually some differentiation would occur until we got male and female as separate organisms derived from the same initial starting point.
2. How many millions of years elapsed between the first male and first female?
None. Why would you even assume that there is a time difference. That makes no point.
3. List at least 9 of the false assumptions made with radioactive dating methods.
…I can’t think of any. If there were any assumptions I knew to be false, why would I make them? If you said ‘assumptions’ I might be able to come up with 9, but false ones? (I’m concerned about the fact that I’m unable to answer this question, so after the test can I ask that the teacher shows us an acceptable list of answers?)
4. Why hasn’t any extinct creature re-evolved after millions of years?
To answer this question, I will attempt a direct metaphor phrased in the same way. ‘If a person dies, why don’t their parents just recreate them? They did it once before.’ The obvious answer being that even if the parents are still alive (which should not be assumed), the creation of a child was determined by the vagaries of chance and the situation it grew in. No matter how hard the parents try, the new child they have is pretty much guaranteed to be unique.
5. Which came first:
…the eye,
…the eyelid,
…the eyebrow,
…the eye sockets,
…the eye muscles,
…the eye lashes,
…the tear ducts,
…the brain’s interpretation of light?
My guess says: An organ/patch of skin that has a positive reaction with light-> Details that make the patch more effective/beneficial->Possibly surrounding parts to protect the patch of skin-Possibly something like an eye socket that both protects the eye and focuses the light->Anything else essential that was missing from the eye-> The brain.
6. How many millions of years between each in question 5?
Some? Seriously, what kind of a question is this for students? I doubt that even the most dedicated teacher of evolutionary biology has memorised the answers to this.
7. If we all evolved from a common ancestor, why can’t all the different species mate with one another and produce fertile offspring?
All creatures on Earth evolved from a common ancestor and the degree of difference between each of these different outcomes affects how well we can interbreed. The DEFINITION of a species is the group of animals that are sufficiently similar to interbreed. Thus by definition, different species cannot interbreed. The question as phrased is akin to asking why creatures that live underwater tend to live underwater. (Perhaps this question might be improved in later editions of the test?)
8. List any of the millions of creatures in just five stages of its evolution showing the progression of a new organ of any kind. When you have done this, you can collect the millions of dollars in rewards offered for proof of evolution!
I provided an example of this earlier (see question 5). Unfortunately, when I attempted to claim the reward, I was informed that someone had already claimed it about 150 years ago. (I was quite disappointed about this. Perhaps this question should also be updated in later versions of the test?)
9. Why is it that the very things that would prove Evolution (transitional forms) are still missing?
I am slightly uncertain about the definition of transitional forms here. The usual interpretation of evolutionary theory is that due to the constant nature of evolution, every single biological specimen is a transitional form. I believe however that this question may be meant in a ‘missing link’ sense. If that is the case, then the definition of ‘transitional form’ is a piece of evidence in the evolutionary chain that is inbetween discovered pieces of evidence. Thus, by that definition, such transitional forms are no longer transitional forms once discovered. This is why they are still missing.
10. Explain why something as complex as human life could happen by chance, but something as simple as a coin must have a creator. (Show your math solution.)
Alright then. Start with a parent who is capable of breeding. They can have two types of children: Type A, who has a 40% chance of surviving long enough to have children of her own; and Type B, who has a 60% chance of living long enough to procreate. Each parent has 2 children, and the parent has a 75% chance of each child being the same type as them. If we start with a Type A parent and a Type B parent and compare, we see the following math: (Type A: chance of Type A child=0.75×0.4. type B=0.25×0.6 Overall chance of the first child surviving to breed=30%)
(Type B: chance of Type a child=0.25×0.4. Type B=0.75×0.6. Overall chance of the first child surviving to breed=55%). Thus with this mathematical model, we can show that a slight tendency in survival leads to a particular type of creature having improved levels of offspring. From here, it is self-evident that speciation can occur once a mutation has arrived, and moreover, that this mechanism has occured via ‘chance’.
Now, let us perform this calculation for the coin, changing only two variables: Let the chance that a coin will give birth to a Type A coin=0. Let chance that a coin will give birth to a Type B coin=0. (This adjustment in values is necessitated by the fact that coins do not reproduce by themsleves.)
It is thus shown that coins, being non-reproductive, cannot have evolved via a reproductive mechanism, such as evolution.
11. Why aren’t any fossils or coal or oil being formed today?
Trick question. All of them still are being formed today.
(For further reference, I would appreciate being informed in advance that the test contains trick questions. For a moment there I was left wondering whether the test originator might have made some sort of small error that caused them to phrase the question in a manner diametrically opposed to the truth, until I realised the tricky nature of the question).
12. List 50 vestigial or useless organs or appendages in the human body.
1. Heart.
2. Lungs
3. Kidney
4. Liver
5. Brain
6. Skin
7. Large Intestine
8. Small Intestine
9. Pancreas
10. Appendix
11. Bladder
12. Gall Bladder
13. Lymph Nodes
14. Womb?
15. Testicles?
Unfortunately, despite racking my brain, this was all I was able to come up with. I regret to admit that I am unable to come up with 50 organs that reside in the human body.
(Oops, missed the ‘vestigial or useless’ part of the question).
13. Why hasn’t anyone collected the millions of dollars in rewards for proof of evolution?
Upon seeing an opportunity to make some cash (see question 8), I attempted to approach the person who was offering the reward, however I was informed that they did not personally have the money, and that I should seek the reward from unspecified Scientists. I attempted to approach numerous scientists requesting that they give me millions of dollars for providing the proof, however they informed me that they had no intention of giving me millions of dollars for something they could do themselves. They were furthermore unable to answer my questions about why Creationists were on the judging panel for a prize which was awarded by Scientists, or why the errata for the prize listed those two categories separately. (I am concerned that the group listing the prize; The ‘Missing Universe Museum’, might be biased against Creatonists as they mentioned the group as being an entirely separate category from ‘Scientists’. I would like to urge those reviewing the test to avoid mentioning this group in further tests, as they appear to be subconsciously sending the signal that Creationism is unscientific.)
14. If life began hundreds of millions of years ago, why is the earth still under populated?
Because Mother Nature is inefficient, and couldn’t even come up with something simple like agriculture or Tractor Harvesting in order to squeeze as many creatures in as possible. I’m not even going to deal with the ludicrous notion that until these things were invented, the world WASN’T under-populated.
15. Why hasn’t evolution duplicated all species on all continents?
Because those wussy Polar bears can’t hack it here in Australia.
Maybe all the body penis growths are a result of the Giant Mutant Domino Leeches! on his chest.
I found a random article about nematodes in the lunchroom a few months back (I know nothing about nematodes so this was extra exciting). The gist of it brings some strength to the consideration of questions 1 & 2.
Some nematodes use an XX/XO sex determination system:
the XX “female” is hermaphroditic
the XO “male” where 0 indicates the absence of a matching sex gene
Additionally, XX/XY systems are observed in other branches of nematodes that would appear to be “newer”.
To me, this implies “females” evolved first (with the assistance of the hermaphroditic trait). And later, after males had something more to contribute, the hermaphroditic trait faded leaving sexual reproduction with the opposite sex a requirement rather than simply optional. This would also qualify as an intermediate or transitional form between asexual reproduction of simpler life forms and sexual reproduction of more complex life forms. Finally, this shows very nice genetic scaffolding around an problem for the “complexity” crowd.
A more tenacious person or expert could probably put an evolutionary timestamp on this set of division steps.
Intended to post a reference, but didn’t, I confirmed the basic facts of my memory at:
http://www.wormbook.org/chapters/www_genomevol/genomevol.html
alwayscurious
Why do you have nematodes in your lunchroom?
At least the picture is accurate in one regard. The leaves are all autumn colours, so clearly this took place after (or during) the fall.
Who doesn’t?
Actually, one of my biology professors said that if suddenly everything else where to disappear but nematodes, you’d still be able to tell where everything had been from the outline they’d leave behind. It gives me a pretty creepy mental picture.
Because those wussy Polar bears can’t hack it here in Australia.
…and if you transplanted a Tasmanian Devil to the arctic, I’d be betting on the wolverine.
OTOH, if you put them both underwater….
Oh wait, lemme guess, ‘transitional’ means feathered at one end, kangaroo pouch at the other, doesn’t it?
or catdog
This test is a perfect illustration of the difficulties that the light of reason and knowledge have in penetrating the occlusion of ignorance.
After I saw the picture, I was crying from laughter. Then I read all the way through that “test” and my tears turned to shame from being the same species as whoever wrote it.
I took the test!
http://thoughtsofcrystaleye736.blogspot.com/2011/12/id-like-million-dollars-please.html
Can I have that money now Mr Random Creationist?
Completely missing the fact that teachers do not have to know every freaking thing about evolution to know of it’s effect, as usual.
It’s a famous quote: