The past few weeks in my cell biology course have been dedicated to an introduction to DNA: structure, replication, and transcription. I’ve thrown a lot of stuff at the students, but I’m ready to move on to other fun stuff, like developmental regulation and evolutionary origins, but I may have to go back and revise everything I said. I neglected to consult the source of all knowledge, Facebook, and there are so many True Facts I failed to communicate.
We know this is truth, because he says it is. Also NOT JOKING. I had no idea that DNA had so much fuel for trans- and homo-phobic interpretations. I’m also always entertained by by folk etymology.
Dioxy-RIB-o-neuclic-acid [sic] is not a reference to ribs. It does refer to a 5-carbon sugar, ribose, that can be extracted from gum arabic, and is related to another sugar, arabinose, that got strangely contracted and mangled by a chemist sometime in the 19th century to “ribose”. It has nothing to do with ribs. In particular, it has nothing to do with the cosmetic surgery of rib shaving, which is done to narrow the waistline of both men and women, but somehow you’ve got to incorporate a raging transphobic obsession into the storytelling.
DNA is also not an acronym for “Dicks N Ass”. It wasn’t named by depraved, sick, and degenerate clowns. That’s a privilege reserved for the people who invent pseudoscience on Facebook. You know, the ones who complain about “sodomy eyebags” and “turbogay”.
What baffles me, though, is that after that silly rant misinterpreting DNA to distort it into support for the author’s weird hatred of gay and trans folk, he announces that DNA is bogus and fake, because it’s found in bullshit things like dinosaurs and apes, and that DNA has nothing to do with heredity. So why is he making up stories about DNA in the first place?
One wonders what the idiot would try to make of RNA…
No, not really. I got lost by the time he put a turbo on a sexual orientation, likely because he secretly knows that he’s entirely full of hot air.
I want to be turbogay. It sounds like fun!
<
blockquote>DNA is also not an acronym for “Dicks N Ass”.
Ugh! That takes me back to 7th grade. I had made a model of DNA for a science fair project. The assholes who picked on me kept asking me if it was a “Dicks N Ass” model.
Just a little window into the mentalities we’re dealing with here.
How would they know? Is Adam’s skeleton on display in some religious “museum” somewhere?
Dem bose, dem bose, dem RIB-ose… now heeeear the Word of the Lord!
If I had to guess, I would say that ARAB – inose would not be an improvement in this person’s mind.
OH so that’s what complete lack of self awareness looks like.
What in the world does “sodomy eyebags” purport to mean?
He’s not saying DNA is in disnosaurs and apes, he says it is “shown among” them, which I think means something like, a book (or website, let’s be real) about dinosaurs or apes might have a picture of DNA as well.
I am not really clear, though, on why he thinks an ape is a “bullshit thing”. Has he never been to a zoo? I gather something is elided in that sentence.
Phew! I was beginning to worry.
As for “sodomy eyeballs” I googled but I wouldn’t click on anything with “Illuminazi” in the URL. However, from the search results snippet apparently “Permanent puffy eye bags can not be the result of sleep disorder or so many party nights, this is a fact.” Did not know that. The writer goes on to ask for any “scientific study that correlates lower eyelid puffiness to sodomy or any other lifestyle decision.” (I also saw several results calling eye bags “Panda eyes”.)
I’ve come to realize that a statement like “this is a fact” or “Fact!” is a clear signal that it’s not a fact, similar to “trust me” is a warning to not trust.
“Dioxy-RIB-o-neuclic-acid [sic] is not a reference to ribs.”
Of course not, it is DIOxy-rib-o-neuclic-acid, a clear sign that Ronny James Dio is god! (Or at least that he was a fantastic singer.)
What an incredible collection of rubbish and another reason I am happy not to be involved in any form with Facebook or whatever its name is now.
What is a baffo? It looks like this guy is making up words to go along with his making up of gibberish.
In Realityland, men (literally only ) becoming gods is the central tenet of the Mormon church. All the males get their own planets if they quality by being good Mormons. Jesus and his dad El are just men who have been around longer and followed the rules.
Women are second class beings but they get to be mother goddesses off in the shadows giving birth to billions of spirit babies.
You would never know Mormonism was made up by a man.
In the older religions, humans could sometimes ascend to become gods. Some of the Roman emperors supposedly managed to do that.
Timecube – DNA Version
Not that I/we know of.
Whatever that means.
Kook is just making up stuff as he goes along.
This is basically a second grader saying, “So because this word looks like this, it actually means that! See, I’m super smart because I can see these things!” 😑
Well, apparently, in Italian it means moustache.
My first though, presuming it wasn’t more gibberish, was a typo for boffin, which sort-of, vaguely, fits with the rest of paragraph-in-context.
Well, I did spend sixteen wasted hours over this last weekend hanging round in sleazy cruise bars trying to get some sodomy happening. It failed entirely, as it usually does, and now I’m shattered and suffering from bleariness and eye bags. Is that what he means?
The New York Times is doing its best to compete! This editorial title might be peak Tom Friedman: “Want to Save the Earth? We Need a Lot More Elon Musks.”
This is the reason why I dont have facebook. I need to stop reading anything that has facebook in the title. Now where did I put that melon baller?
I respond with “a fact is something I can see for myself”. It’s part of interrogating the beliefs of the aggressively politically ignorant.
“Dioxy-RIB-o-neuclic-acid [sic] is not a reference to ribs.”
Actually, it IS a reference to ribs, but there’s a misspelling. It’s supposed to be Dixie Ribs o’ nucleic acid (the latter being a special Dixie sauce used on ribs).
The only response that insane screed deserved was a giant BRUH!
Uh, is DNA = RNA with all the oxygen taken out?
Yes, baffo means indeed moustache in Italian. But the plural is baffi, so the meaning of baffos remains shrouded in mystery. Maybe blf is right and it’s supposed to mean boffins, but that was too difficult a word to write, apparently.
But seriously, Perfesser, why subject yourself to this kind of abuse?
We’re seeing the depth of madness in written form here. I hate to think about the state of mind of someone writing this crapola.
@Pierce R. Butler 23
Just the -OH at the #5 position.
Ribose is 5 Cs single bonded to each other with an aldehyde at one end (C single bonded to an H and double bonded to an O) and in ribose the other 4 Cs have hydroxals (-OH).
With one oxygen per ribose unit taken out, yes — hence deoxyribose (not “dioxy”, which would be two oxygen atoms added). Lots of oxygen left, though.
“real hereditary stuff, that’s still a big mystery” – I think this is my favourite part…
It’s hard for me to even parse this, but… he doesn’t believe in apes? Is ape denialism a thing now?
Re: ribs, I remember back in 5th grade or so, a classmate at my parochial school claiming that men even today had one less rib than women, because of the Adam’s rib thing. (Spoiler: They don’t.) But we were kids, and there was no Internet to instantly check things.
I meant the #2 position. Oops.
You mean, RNA doesn’t stand for Republican Neurotic Arseholes ?
@23 Pierce R. Butler
Given the latest idiocies from these sorts of people I would probably suspect, instead, that they would try something like, “RNA means Racist Nation Association and is part of the CRT conspiracy!” I mean, geeze, keep up man! lol Then again, scratch that, we don’t need to be giving the politics trolls (and I am being generous by not suggesting something else they might be instead), any new ideas.
Awwww, I don’t want steroids. Do I have to?
Adding Sodomy Eyebags to my list of possible band names.
Brony… & cvoinescu @ #s 25-29 & Kagehi @ # 31 – thanks!
I wrote that in mostly-jest – but had always had the impression that DNA is significantly more elaborate than RNA.
Would really hope all this doesn’t start a thing linking genetic molecules to initials of US political parties…