I rather like Arizona Senator John McCain. He seems level-headed, thoughtful, and unwilling to toe the party line if he disagrees with it.
Or I should say, I liked him, until this came out.
McCain told the Star that, like Bush, he believes “all points of view” should be available to students studying the origins of mankind.
To be fair, this is a small quotation, and I don’t have the whole story yet. Still, we’ve seen this before. As usual, I assume he doesn’t mean the Greek Pantheon, Babylonian creation myths, Native American dream legends, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or the Great Green Arkleseizure, for that matter.
Given McCain’s history, he may simply be trying not to offend a proportion of his constituency. Still, it would be interesting to try to push for these other myths to be taught alongside ID. Can you imagine how the ID proponents would react if, say, someone advocated that out-and-out atheism should be taught alongside ID? I wonder how they’d react to that… they did say “all points of view”, didn’t they?
August 24th, 2005 at 7:54 pm
Hey, fair is fair right? Maybe I’ll bring that up when they bring this noise to my backyard…
http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=ba70e95d-0abe-421a-0142-d41e05f8d971&TEMPLATEID=0c76dce6-ac1f-02d8-0047-c589c01ca7bf
Colorado, by and large, is a fairly educated state so I have some hope…I’ve been up in arms and super pissed since I saw this. Leave to Aurora to drag the rest o the state to it’s knuckles..I was in the terrible Aurora public schools until 8th grade…at which I point I (a diehard outspoken atheist) went to a Jesuit school, where, believe it or not, I was tought evolution…Not one shred of creationism at a private religous school…
Speaking of which, if anyone knows any good folks to talk to organize an oppostion to this in January, or would be willing to sign to a letter or somethign of the sort the sate legislators, let me know…
Sorry for the rant and tangent…It’s hard seeing this go on right up the street.
Anyway, I by and large like McCain..This really surprised me.
Patrick
August 24th, 2005 at 7:57 pm
Here’s yet another theory, from Linwood Barclay:
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0822-26.htm
August 24th, 2005 at 8:53 pm
The thing I wan’t to point out is your approach to the two quotes, President Bush’s and Senator McCains. One seems filled with anger and vitriol and the other a sense of ‘oh those darn republicans’. Two different responses to essentially the same quote. Both political bodies, McCains Senatorial office, and the WhiteHouse, have taken the official position that evolution is scientific fact and a foundation of modern biology, if not a cornerstone to all of science. Yet this essentially identical politically slippery quote from them garners two starkly different responses from you. Don’t get me wrong, you are one of my heros, I just have to remember that heros are all (by definition) human. I think it is a good thing that in the end your final stance on both quotes is intelectually identical, and quite correct.
August 24th, 2005 at 10:25 pm
As I said in the entry, I don’t have the whole story yet, so I’m not yet ready to take a firm stance on what McCain said. We have the whole quotation from President Bush, so the context was clear. Plus, McCain has a history (as I pointed out) as being more pro-science, whereas before he was President, Bush had already made statements about believing in creationism. Given that, I felt a somewhat softer stance is called for.
August 25th, 2005 at 12:31 am
[...] A little bit of attention lately to a statement by Arizona senator John McCain that seems to be in support of teaching intelligent design. Like the BadAstronomer says I’m going to hold off for a little bit untill I read the whole context. But, in the past year many would say that McCain has sold out to the right in an effort to buck-up support for a possible run in 2008. I can’t find a story with full information, but it appears he said something about “all points of view.” Hopefully the FSM and the IPU will be included. [...]
August 25th, 2005 at 2:32 am
I can think of one area of science that all creation myths could be explored, including ones from the Aborigonie Dream Times. That science would be anthrpology. Would there be any objection to these subjects being taught there? Would your US 1st Amendment still have a problem with this, if the class is billed as anthropology, or say as they did with us in the late 1970’s in England, call it Humanities.
That way everyone is happy ?
August 25th, 2005 at 4:36 am
Here’s an article by a scientist who feels the Discovery Institute misrepresents itself to the public. He’s one of the “400″ scientists that the Discovery Institute says have serious doubts about evolution. This guy has no doubts about evolution, but he sure has serious doubts about the Discovery Institute.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002450329_danny24.html
The Discovery Institute is a political entity. Even getting involved in the argument of whether ID is a scientific thoery is buying the bait. The Discovery Institute will not settle for ID being taught as a philosophy because they know philosophy classes are electives, not required in grade schools. The goal is to re-entrench Christianity as the primary political force in the USA by finding ways to bypass the clause in the US constitution that prohibits the establishment of a religion.
They will tell you that this is not their goal, and that ID doesn’t mention God or Christianity per se, and so on, but it’s a smokescreen – watch them for a day or two, study where their money and backing comes from, and you will see Christian right-wing extremists trying to establish their religion by hook or crook. Forcing the teaching of Christian dogma in public schools is certainly one way to try to establish Christianity as a primary authority in the land.
Call a spade a spade people. This is covert religious politics and nothing else. The Discovery Institute is simply a front organization whose main tactic is to obfuscate and muddy the waters. Their main tool is pseudo-scientific jargon and doublespeak.
August 25th, 2005 at 4:58 am
Yes, all points of view have the right to be examined rationally. Problem is that they’re not adults. They’re children. They believe in adults to teach them. They won’t think it over rationally, they’re learning how to think rationally.
And anyway, a lot of people viewed ID rationally and concluded it’s religious propaganda bogus.
August 25th, 2005 at 5:20 am
Indeed students SHOULD have access to ALL views, all the time, if they so desire.
They should then be taught why evolution is the only one that has any scientific data to support it and where the basis for the others can be found (ignorance, religion, etc.) so they can learn to make such deductions themselves in the future.
August 25th, 2005 at 5:52 am
Sticks said:
I can think of one area of science that all creation myths could be explored, including ones from the Aborigonie Dream Times. That science would be anthrpology. Would there be any objection to these subjects being taught there?
There would be no constitutional problem with it, nor would I object.
That way everyone is happy ?
This wouldn’t make everyone happy. The creationism advocates would object to an anthropological approach. They don’t want their ideas taught as somebody’s creation myth; they want them promulgated as science.
August 25th, 2005 at 6:36 am
Your Rockstar normally doesn’t get political on blogs, but L. Ron Hubbard Christ – I just agreed with Howard Dean and disagreed with John McCain in the same week. That’s a first.
Dammit, and I wanted McCain to run for prez next!
YEEEAAAAAAARRRRGHHHH!
August 25th, 2005 at 7:21 am
I presume McCain is talking about ID in science classes. Is he arguing it is science? [I would guess he is.]
Yogi- There is no “clause in the US constitution that prohibits the establishment of a religion”. The founders were quite religious on the whole. [Interestingly, Deism was popular back then with some and would, likely, not be in coflict with evolution.] It would be interesting to hear how historians think they might view ID. Our founders did not want to see religion interfere with gov’t. and some religious denominations were happy with this because they did not want gov’t. to mess with them.
I wish someone would invent a word for those creationists which are against established evolution to minimize the erroneous generalization which implies all creationists are this dense.
IMO, many christians simply want to avoid traveling this rough road until it gets paved over. ID has no paver and their squirting of oil on the road may make it look nice for the unknowledgeable but it messes-up those who travel it.
August 25th, 2005 at 7:27 am
Sticks Said:
> I can think of one area of science that all creation myths could be explored, including ones from the Aborigonie Dream Times. That science would be anthrpology. Would there be any objection to these subjects being taught there? Would your US 1st Amendment still have a problem with this, if the class is billed as anthropology, or say as they did with us in the late 1970’s in England, call it Humanities.
> That way everyone is happy ?
A class in Comparative Religion for High Schoolers? Sure, that would be great. The problem is you then start doing things like pointing out the flaws in the religious beliefs. “Oh look, Transubstantiation, what a load of rubbish.” That’s the antithesis of what the religious folks want. They want their religion taught as real – the truth. Equate their religion with every other goofiness out there and that’s an insult.
August 25th, 2005 at 8:52 am
George, maybe I’m missing some subtle point here (Zeus the Thunderer knows it’s possible), but there is a clause in the Constitution that prohibits the government from “establishing” a religion:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
U.S. Const. amend. I
Nowadays–thanks to the “incorporation” of much of the Bill of Rights via the 14th Amendment–”Congress” in the First Amendment means any government actor. Including, of course, public schools. To me, a lot of our problems could be solved by understanding that, yes, we don’t want the government supporting any religion, but we also have an equally powerful right as individuals to freely exercise our religion (or lack thereof).
I’m actually mildly sympathetic to Christians who complain that the zeal against allowing any hint of religion in public places has gotten out of hand. Attacking anything that smacks of religion in the public sphere can easily turn into attacks on the individual’s right to freely practice his religion. On the other hand, I like my science pure, like my women
Really, we could avoid all of this if we got the government out of education, but I’ll leave that discussion to a site dedicated to politics, not to science and sketicism.
August 25th, 2005 at 9:30 am
I would be in support of putting all of these creation myths and legends into a complete mythology class. Imagine if we were giving our children real educations that didn’t just include the necessary skills of proper American English, high level math skills, and a firm grasp of history but also included the refinement of teaching them about multiple cultures, works of fiction older than Christianity, and exposure to the world in its entirety, not just the small part of the world they walk on.
But for God’s sake, put ID where it belongs…outside the science classroom!
August 25th, 2005 at 10:54 am
George Said:
> I wish someone would invent a word for those creationists which are against established evolution to minimize the erroneous generalization which implies all creationists are this dense.
That word is “Creationist”. If you want to discuss a religious believer who thinks god is behind evolution, then you are talking about a theistic evolutionist, not a creationist. Creationists by definition reject evolution in favor of god snapping his fingers and *poof* there’s a fully formed duck.
August 25th, 2005 at 11:09 am
Thanks for the response. I do understand the frustration with the whole ID thing. It is an aggravating debate that you can’t really have with ID proponets, but with the people that may be listening.
I do however think that ID is a retreat by creationists. It is an attempt to retain ground in a debate they realize they are losing. Out of all the talk of it being a wedge, it is a profound backtrack from older creationist ideas. It is almost as if they gave up and said ‘Ok evolution is a fact…. but God is in there somewhere’. I don’t think IDers generally understand this, that the whole ID thing is a weasly dishonest trick. The more light it’s exposed too the more people will see it for what it is. I think most IDers don’t know that it takes on board most of evolution as fact in order to nit pick about the details and confuse issues. That it is really about the origin of life and not the continuing evolution of life.
August 25th, 2005 at 12:09 pm
In wikipedia there pretty much exists the same issue, which worldviews and opinions should be included in an article? Everyone understands that in most cases (especially when it comes to history and politics) no single explanation is a correct one and you have to take the opinions of different parties into consideration. In the same time, you cannot include every single nutjob’s opinion on the topic, because everyone can then make something up and pollute the good information with it.
In my opinion it is the creationist’s fault that they have discredited themselves in the eyes of the massstream in the recent years, simply because of their ignorance and total denial of some key and established facts. In a way Einstein was a creationist, because he believed that God set the world in motion during the big bang and he did not interefere ever since, but he was not denying neither evolution, neither the age of the Earth, its mass and so on.
However, “die hard” ID supports ofteb spit out nonsense are met with I must add justifiable dismissal from people of science background. Their major problem being is that everyone seems to have its own “agenda” about what exactly is wrong with science. Some simply say God created the world with the Big Bang and left it alone (which I do not necessarily believe in but also do not find unreasonable) while other wackos say that the world was created 6000 or whatever number of years ago out of nothing.
Universally however, they ID supports are pretty much “hands on” people believing in things they can see, touch and smell. I personally, have not had a chance to see the curvature of the Earth (yet), though I hope some day I will (and land safely
) but knowing how even Eratosthenes did it is pretty much amazing.
August 25th, 2005 at 12:53 pm
Bah, this “pretty much”
I apologize!
August 25th, 2005 at 1:20 pm
He’s playing the typical McCain ‘indifferent’ card. I wouldn’t read too much into it.
August 25th, 2005 at 1:22 pm
Wikipedian said, “In a way Einstein was a creationist, because he believed that God set the world in motion during the big bang and he did not interefere ever since, but he was not denying neither evolution, neither the age of the Earth, its mass and so on.”
Care to share the documentation for this statement with the rest of us? What you say makes Einstein sound like a Deist, not a creationist. “Creationist” tends to mean someone who accepts the Genesis story as literally true, contradictions and all.
August 25th, 2005 at 2:02 pm
Hmmm … here we all go again. I think most regular readers of the BA’s blog know what I think already on the issues of evolution vs ID vs creationism.
Sticks – in my experience, “Humanities”, by the early ’80s, was a collection of several subjects, each of which had a good historical basis for being taught in schools in England. These were things like history, geography and, yes, religious education. At the time I thought it was just an umbrella term for those topics I didn’t like very much (no equations, no chemical symbols, no rules), but with the benefit of hindsight it does seem to be an appropriate term.
Anyway, back onto the BA’s post…
Phil, you do know, don’t you, that the Great Green Arkelseizure theory has never been widely accepted outside Viltvodel VI? Who, apart from a Jatravartid, could handle living in perpetual fear of The Coming Of The Great White Handkerchief??
August 25th, 2005 at 2:18 pm
Want to know why these things are happening?
http://www.theocracywatch.org/audio-video.htm
August 25th, 2005 at 2:27 pm
VKW,
I used the term “creationism” to (loosely) refer to someone that believes that the universe was created by someone, rather than springing into existence by itself or whatever other way of coming about without divine interference.
You can check this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism
August 25th, 2005 at 2:36 pm
I’ve been trying to mull over why there is so much heat over evolution, and why there is such a popular support for the idea of ID and even Creationism. While there certainly is an element of religious indoctrination at work, I don’t think that’s the only factor.
There’s one element of Evolution as it is often presented that I think makes theistic evolutionists uncomfortable, which is what makes them give ID an ideological foothold. I quote from the Discovery Institute website:
>>Is intelligent design theory incompatible with evolution?
It depends on what one means by the word “evolution.â€? If one simply means “change over time,â€? or even that living things are related by common ancestry, then there is no inherent conflict between evolutionary theory and intelligent design theory. However, the dominant theory of evolution today is neo-Darwinism, which contends that evolution is driven by natural selection acting on random mutations, a purposeless process that “has no specific direction or goal, including survival of a species.â€? (National Association of Biology Teachers’ Statement on Teaching Evolution). The theory of intelligent design specifically challenges this neo-Darwinist claim.
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2190
The characterization of natural selection and random mutations as a purposeless process with no specific direction or goal is the underlying feature for attention. From a theistic position, god is using evolution as his method for generating the diversity of life. Thus there is a need for god to somehow be guiding the process – god has some intent and some means for influencing the random mutations and natural selection so that he can achieve his goals. But if evolution is directionless and goalless, then that makes in difficult to argue that god is the provider of that direction and the guider to the goal.
What does that statement about evolution being directionless and goalless really mean? Within the mechanisms of Evolution (as they have been identified to date) there does not appear to be any mechanism for determining some goal and then changing to reach that goal. Random mutation is just that – random, unguided changes. Natural selection is a process of weeding where individuals with the most advantageous traits statistically survive longer and reproduce more than those with less advantageous traits. Advantageous is determined by the ecology and circumstances, including circumstances that are affected by the individuals in question. For instance, sexual selection is a process where animals determine their mating partners, thus affecting the reproductive success value of traits. So even when species affect their environments, that effect is not necessarily conscious on the species’ part. An example would be early Native Americans killing off the larger mammalian species in North America, thus affecting their ability to continue living off those species. Or cyanobacteria (blue-green “algaeâ€?) generating oxygen through photosynthesis and thereby changing the atmosphere. There is no structure determining what the environment is going to be, then shaping exiting life forms to meet the coming environment. Changes to species occur in response to changes in the environment, not prior to the environment changing, even if the species itself is causing the environmental change.
Notice the underlying assumption – “random” mutation, “natural” selection. These processes are defined in such a way to preclude their being a guiding force behind them. How do we prove that the mutations are random, and not subtly influenced? How do we disprove some guiding hand intervening in natural selection every once and a while? The religious would hold that these features are not quite so random.
Well, we don’t see this “hand of God� in action. We don’t see changes occurring toward specific goals that we can project from the changes themselves. We don’t witness a non-random sequence of mutations. And without direct evidence, science cannot presume it exists and is present. So science looks at processes as uncontrolled and evaluates them for their ability to achieve the results that we see. And when we do this, we find that it seems to work out.
Now ID proponents would have us believe they don’t work out, that the naturalistic laws for biology (evolution) somehow don’t quite add up, and there is a gap that can’t be reconciled. This “gap� is the opening for “Design�. What are their indicators of this gap? Irreducible Complexity (IC) and Specified Complexity (SC) are the current proposals. But these two “indicators� are only the justification of the premise that there is a gap. The problem is they presuppose the gap, then generate indicators for this gap based upon assuming it exists. Even so, when these two justifications are examined scientifically, they fail on the merits. They are based on assumptions that aren’t valid, they’re flawed in premise, or they use statistics in invalid ways. Thus the “evidence� for the gaps is shown to be faulty.
What does this mean for the religious believer who wants to accept evolution while retaining god? I submit that there’s still a hint of room in the “random mutation� and “natural selection� angles for some Divine influence, though that influence must be subtle.
August 25th, 2005 at 2:41 pm
Maybe assuming that “God doesnt play dice”
will do the trick.
August 25th, 2005 at 3:00 pm
Wikipedian, 2 things:
1. I disagree with your use of “Creationist� in that sense, though I understand what you’re saying. In my mind, there is a big enough philosophical difference between theistic evolutionism and creationism in all other forms that it merits making the distinction in the terminology. Your focus seems to be that the fundamental aspect of creationism is the act of creation, i.e. influence of a deity. In that sense, a religious evolutionist is a “creationist�, it’s just creation for him is evolution. Given that “Creationism� itself is being used as a label for the alternative to evolution, that makes evolutionary creationism an oxymoron. It also makes communication on this topic more confusing than it needs to be.
2. There appears to be a typo in the article, second paragraph:
“while others maintain the scientific data is compatible with creationism� should be “incompatible�.
August 25th, 2005 at 3:00 pm
Test Post.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism
August 26th, 2005 at 4:54 am
I studied religion in an Australian high school under the umbrella of Ancient History (an elective). The field of study was rather narrow – just Asian religions before the birth of Christ, but this was enough to show me that teaching religion in this way is not just educational, but life-changing.
My Ancient History teacher told our class that she got a complaint from two parents. They claimed that their daughter had left home because of her alleged religious indoctrination. It seemed that this girl had been raised in a very strict religious community that did not allow the introduction of heretical thought.
All this teacher had done was teach her the basic tenets of major world religions other than her own… this alone was enough for her to question her basic assumptions about the universe, causing her to split with her family.
Sometimes, I wonder what the arguments were like between the girl and her parents when she broke from her faith. I would have loved to have been there… to see her stand up to authority and assert her independence… That young girl did more to create her own freedom than any government or authority could ever do for her.
If ID – or any other religious beliefs are taught in school through the Social Sciences, we will be empowering people to change their lives for the better.
Of course, some people will see this as useless, as it is just substituting one religion for another, but if religions are free (or are forced) to contradict one another, the contradictions will become more apparent – to believers.
There’s another young girl out there ready to question everything she has ever assumed… and she doesn’t know it yet.
August 26th, 2005 at 7:34 am
Irishman,
The passage that you refer to is correct as far as I can tell, it says that cretionism does not necessarily come in conflict with scientific data if the act of the creation of the universe is discussed (maybe because there’s no such scientific data)
August 26th, 2005 at 10:54 am
Assuming that there is a creation of the universe is an antiscientific move in itself.
August 26th, 2005 at 11:18 am
Wikipedian, I see what that paragraph is saying now. It thought it was juxtapositioning those accepting evolution and those not, rather than two different ways to accept evolution.
August 26th, 2005 at 12:47 pm
Please don’t look to politicians for straight talk. You will only be disappointed.
August 26th, 2005 at 1:56 pm
“Notice the underlying assumption – “randomâ€? mutation, “naturalâ€? selection. These processes are defined in such a way to preclude their being a guiding force behind them. How do we prove that the mutations are random, and not subtly influenced? How do we disprove some guiding hand intervening in natural selection every once and a while? The religious would hold that these features are not quite so random.”
Even if they are, the fact that a process has random elements does not guarantee a random outcome. Ask any casino owner. The term “convergent evolution” recognizes this–many similar features (e.g. eyes) have clearly evolved multiple times, with different pathways and mutations leading to a similar outcome.
The primary objection many religiously inclined scientists have to Creationism/ID is that a God who has to micromanage the creation of individual species seems kind of…well…stupid.
August 26th, 2005 at 4:52 pm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shermer/skyhooks-and-cranes-deep_b_6179.html
A little bit on the quote from Bush by Michael Shermer. I think it is pertinent to McCains quote.
August 26th, 2005 at 5:02 pm
For completeness here is the response to Shermers comments.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/huffpost/20050825/cm_huffpost/006223_200508251828
Wow, Deepak Chopra is a loon.
August 27th, 2005 at 12:15 am
tgibbs – I’m not sure what you mean by a “random outcome”. Surely, if I were to toss a coin ten times and have it come out heads ten times in a row, the outcome is just as random as the system that generated it? As I understand it, the key feature of randomness is unpredictability. Any truly random system will be intrinsically unpredictable, except by pure chance (e.g. for one coin toss, I have a 49.99% chance of correctly guessing the outcome [arbitrarily assigning a 2 in 10,000 chance of it landing n its edge], so for a single coin toss I might, if I were lucky, be able to pretend that I knew the outcome in advance). Consequently, the key feature of random mutation is that it is unpredictable. However, natural and sexual selection are not random and are not unpredictable. For instance, the warming of tropical seas is exerting a selection pressure on coral to tolerate higher temperatures. The amount of food we humans leave lying around exerts a selection pressure in favour of pigeons that tolerate the presence of humans. And so on.
So, the outcome of the mutation process IS random, i.e. unpredictable, but the selection pressures that act on the population containing that mutation are not.
August 27th, 2005 at 2:52 am
“Wow, Deepak Chopra is a loon.”
My reaction was the opposite. Chopra appears to be a lot less loony than I thought he was.
August 27th, 2005 at 7:04 pm
The sad truth is that Sen. McCain just goes with the majority. I am not completely sure about the poll numbers, but I read that more than 2/3 of US citizens support teaching ID in school.
A majority of people are perhaps interested in space, “cool” astronomy pictures etc., but
they are not interested in real science. They probably do not even understand what the ID vs. evolution controversy is really about.
August 28th, 2005 at 4:44 am
McCain always struck me as a publicity hound more than anything else. Actually, this seems to apply to all U.S. Senators. Don’t stand between them and a microphone!
August 29th, 2005 at 12:15 pm
one minor clarification – the “founders” of our country support of the separation of church and state was NOT generally in order to keep religion out of the government – they wanted to keep the government out of their religion. it’s a subtle but pointed distinction. john adams, who was one of the biggest (if not the biggest) proponent of the separation of church and state was one of the few men you would recognize as one of our nations “founders” who as a devout christian.
and i think that most politicians will try to sound “open” to many ideas, because it makes them sound reasonable, without any specifics (i.e. direct support or condemnation of i.d.), because specifics nail them down to a viewpoint that people can disagree with. they respond in this manner on most every OTHER issue, why should this one be any different?
August 30th, 2005 at 9:04 am
You dare question the Flying Spaghetti Monster (blessings upon him, er her, uh it)
August 30th, 2005 at 8:24 pm
There is a study in New Scientist that claims over 50% of all scientific studies are wrong. You might be interested in that article. I have an article about in my blog.
Check it out. I have put a link in my site to yours. You were great on George Noory by the way!
New Scientist Article http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7915
September 6th, 2005 at 11:26 am
Unintelligent Design
Life cannot have possibly evolved; the resulting life that has been created is just too dumb and poorly designed. I mean, look at the penguins – talk about unintelligent design – why would anyone build penguins out of bird DNA? It would be much easier and intelligent to make something like that out of mammal DNA. After all they can’t fly, so why are they a type of bird? Duh. So all life must have been created by a designer, but that designer was a bit … slow. I mean, I just dare you to take a look at a wombat and look me in the eye and tell me that whoever built that goofy thing was intelligent. And don’t even get me started on the human appendix. What is that thing for? Not only is it useless, it also tends to EXPLODE at random intervals, killing the organism. Smooth move, designer. Nice one. And those woolly mammoths you made, what was the point of that? They’re all dead, Mr. Designer. Why design something that was doomed to die before any of us could appreciate them? So much wasted design effort. In fact, most living species were designed with major flaws that have caused them to go extinct. These are obvious, amateurish design mistakes that are, frankly, dumb. So we can only surmise that life was designed by a dimwitted being of some kind. Who created freaking mosquitoes for us to enjoy. And blind cave crayfishes. And frogs that can only lay their eggs on one weird species of plant that lives up in the tops of tall rainforest trees. And billions of stars that have absolutely no purpose at all. Creating all those stars couldn’t have been easy, why not just make them all smaller and closer to us if they were needed to light up the sky, rather than going through the trouble of making them so huge and spreading them all over the universe like you did. That was a lot of needless work on your part. C’mon, designer, you’ve got to think about this stuff. Here’s a clue: maybe if hadn’t been flitting all over the universe stupidly creating useless galaxies and stuff, you could’ve spent a wee bit more time figuring out what to do with our appendixes. LIKE HAVING THEM EXCRETE MOSQUITO REPELLANT!
September 11th, 2005 at 10:08 am
WHat does this has to do with astromomy? I though this was a sight about space and the wonder of the night sky..
As far as the current debate.. How do you prove something that happen way in the past? Because one beleives science says one thing does not mean it is correct… I remember a book a number of years ago, about a number of science fact with were proven… Well it turned out all of the science
facts proven were disproven later…
September 13th, 2005 at 3:14 pm
Wasn’t that the Bible?