A story, continued

When we last saw our intrepid (and inebriated) pair of godless ladies in Seattle, they had just buzzed the Discovery Institute’s door and been admitted by the ever-eager Casey Luskin. Now read about how Luskin protects them from the Terrible Annika, and then, after getting loaded down with free propaganda, learn a deep dark secret from Luskin: Judge Jones, the infamous trial judge in the Dover case, wasn’t a real Christian. Lordy. No wonder he was in the pocket of the ACLU, the devil’s own lawyers.

A fine example of Christian cowardice

Raving creationist nutbags get shredded pretty thoroughly when they make comments here, I know. Still, that doesn’t excuse the efforts of the craven lackwit to hide from criticism by scuttling over to my daughter’s blog and whining that I’m a wicked parent who has condemned his own daughter to hell.

It’s awfully stupid, too, since Skatje and her friends are having all the fun of using their claws and sharp, sharp teeth on him. If anyone wants to join in the evisceration, go on over. Ask for Gustaf.

But analyzing it takes all the funny out of the joke!

Lots of you have been mailing me this comic today, 9 Chickweed Lane, because it contains a bizarre proof of god. I know, it’s supposed to be funny, but let’s take it seriously just for a moment.

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To summarize the argument: Darwin’s theory predicts a progressive increase in human intelligence, refuting the Christian account; people are stupid; therefore, Darwin is refuted; therefore, god exists.

I assume the humor in the comic lies in the blatant illogic of the silly rationale the pompous ass in the blue overalls is bloviating (I hope…I don’t read this one very often, so I don’t know if the artist is one of those pontificating nitwits who really believes his captions [see Dilbert; see Poe’s Law]). But anyway, every step of his reasoning is wrong. Evolution does not predict a progressive pattern to our intelligence. The Christian account is an unsupported assertion instead of a description of the natural world, and many people interpret it in many different ways which do not necessarily preclude the observed natural distribution of intelligence. People are actually smarter than most, if not all, other species — compare us to cockroaches, for instance. Therefore, neither Darwin nor his strawman Darwin are refuted. Even if it were, though, disproving evolution does not mean one among many possible other alternative theories are proven.

OK, I’m done. Stop taking it seriously. You may now resume laughing at the arrogant fool in the comic strip.

Origins conference

If any of you are going to be in the neighborhood of CalTech around the 4th of October, you might want to sign up for the big Origins conference — it definitely has some great speakers. Sean Carroll, Leonard Susskind, Paul Davies, (wait…what’s with all the physicists?), Donald Prothero and Christof Koch (OK, that’s better) will be presenting there. The late afternoon will feature the comedy stylings of Hugh Ross, crazy creationist, getting spanked by Victor Stenger. The evening will be topped off by a visit from Mr. Deity — how can you miss that?

One disappointment in the schedule to me is the afternoon panel discussing “Does science make belief in god obsolete?” While the four speakers lined up are interesting people, they aren’t the kind of people who will get it into a good brawl over the issue — I predict that the answer they’ll deliver is a waffly “no”, emphasis on the waffle. Maybe some of you readers can show up in the audience and add a little godless fire to the proceedings.

Proud Ecuador

When we were in Ecuador, much of the local political discussion was around their efforts to write a new constitution for the country. I’d heard that there were some significantly progressive elements to the work, but this is the first I’ve seen some of the articles being considered: as is perhaps unsurprising for a nation well-endowed with natural resources and reliant on maintaining those resources to support the economy, they’ve done something terrific: they’ve not only written rights for nature (personified as “Pachamama”), but they’ve acknowledged the importance of evolution.

Art. 1. Nature or Pachamama, where life is
reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain and
regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in
evolution.

Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to
demand the recognitions of rights for nature before the public
organisms. The application and interpretation of these rights will
follow the related principles established in the Constitution.

Art. 2. Nature has the right to an integral
restoration. This integral restoration is independent of the obligation
on natural and juridical persons or the State to indemnify the people
and the collectives that depend on the natural systems.

In the cases of severe or permanent environmental impact, including
the ones caused by the exploitation on non renewable natural resources,
the State will establish the most efficient mechanisms for the
restoration, and will adopt the adequate measures to eliminate or
mitigate the harmful environmental consequences.

Art. 3. The State will motivate natural and
juridical persons as well as collectives to protect nature; it will
promote respect towards all the elements that form an ecosystem.

Art. 4. The State will apply precaution and
restriction measures in all the activities that can lead to the
extinction of species, the destruction of the ecosystems or the
permanent alteration of the natural cycles.

The introduction of organisms and organic and inorganic material
that can alter in a definitive way the national genetic patrimony is
prohibited.

Art. 5. The persons, people, communities and
nationalities will have the right to benefit from the environment and
form natural wealth that will allow wellbeing.

The environmental services are cannot be appropriated; its
production, provision, use and exploitation, will be regulated by the
State.

It’s awfully fuzzy on exactly how they’re going to protect the rights of Nature (will she have lawyers working on her behalf?), but the sentiment is excellent.

My interweb poll-fu is defeated!

It’s true, I cannot overcome this poll on WorldNutDaily. They are ‘reporting’ on the Large Hadron Collider and the weird fact that people are fretting over whether the Swiss will annihilate the word, so they ask their readers about why they’re worried.

The first way they stumped me was by not giving any good answers (the seventh and eighth are probably closest to what I think). Then they threw in so many possible answers, which contain a lot of insane answers, which I thought at first were intended to be jokes…until I looked and saw that several of the crazy answers were leading in votes.

So here’s the lunacy, with the current leading answers flagged. I don’t think we can crash this poll — it’s too bizarre to be addressed.

I DON’T WANT TO SET THE WORLD ON FIRE. Are you concerned about scientists turning on a machine some say could destroy the planet?

  • No, I trust the scientists to know what they’re doing
  • No, doomsayers said the world would end two weeks ago when the supercollider was being tested
  • No, somebody has been watching too many science fiction TV shows
  • No, it’s simply not plausible that a machine underground could destroy the entire earth
  • #2: No, this kind of catastrophe doesn’t fit into Bible prophecy
  • No, if Al Gore isn’t worried, I’m not worried
  • No, the risks have been wildly exaggerated
  • No, the benefits of the research are worth the risk
  • #1: No, the only black hole I’m concerned about is the one that sucked billions of dollars from taxpayers to fund this boondoggle
  • What’s the difference? Global warming is going to kill us eventually
  • I don’t know, but if the worst happens, you can be sure some lawyer will find a way to make money off of it
  • Yes, it could ruin my whole day
  • Yes, this may be the time scientists finally go too far
  • Yes, these are forces of nature man was not meant to monkey with
  • Yes, the courts should halt the startup until more studies are done
  • Yes, these scientists are nothing more than al-Qaida in lab coats
  • Of course, creating black holes is dangerous
  • #3: Yes, this arrogant search for a “God particle” is no different than building the Tower of Babel — God is not mocked
  • Yes, I’m convinced this is putting us all at risk
  • Other

I surrender. The drunken monkey style of WND is victorious.