Well, it makes as much sense as anything the Discovery Institute has ever said.
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About Bad Astronomy
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He's written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic and fights the abuse of science, but his true love is praising the wonders of real science.
The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking, movie reviews, and all that) can be found here.
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February 25th, 2007 at 10:28 am
Saw that this morning and was wondering if you were going to comment on it.
February 25th, 2007 at 11:28 am
Perfect!
February 25th, 2007 at 11:35 am
No, it’s purrfect.
At least my cats think so. And what they say goes.
So it goes.
February 25th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Hey, if God is standing up, you have to find the next-most comfortable source of heat…
On the other hand, if the universe were created by a being with the basic outlook of a cat, it would explain a lot. Especially if he was dreaming and twitching his paws and tail randomly at the time…
February 25th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Anyone who have ever belonged to a cat know that our (humans) only purpose in this universe is to serve them.
February 25th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Wow. I have two cats, and a stray cat that I’ve fed for a year. Now there are four newborn kittens – I mean, just within the last few hours in one of my cat’s carriers. Stray kitty was crying at the door, so I let her in and then saw a spot of blood, knew it was going to happen, but my male cat was getting hissy at her. So I put the carrier in front of my apartment door with a towel inside for warmth, a little catnip to get her in, and then went back to the PC for the last the several hours. I just opened the door and there are four newborn kittens. Two black, two grey. I brought the carrier inside and locked my two cats in the bedroom…and nature is just taking its course.
I’ve had cats my whole life, but have never experienced newborn kittens (nor kids of my own). It’s cool.
Just had to share that. Anybody want any kittens? ((-:
February 25th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
OK. I’ve found a religion I can follow at last.
CAT-astrophic Evolution
Sort of Velikovskian, don’t ya think?
>> Just had to share that. Anybody want any kittens? ((-:
What flavor are they?
Hey! I tease! I grew up with cats. Dig ‘em.
February 25th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
That sort of thing (i.e. intelligent commentary and satirical mockery of willful ignorance) is what got “Non Sequitur” removed from my local newspaper’s comics page. Yep, it’s the good ol’ Daily Oklahoman…the paper that ran a full-page article about Noah’s Ark in the science section, and also once highlighted a public creationist lecture about how dinosaurs didn’t really exist. You can bet they still run “Family Circus” and “B.C.” though. Yikes…
February 25th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
>> Family Circus
If you hate FC, there’s a wondeful repurposing of it on the web.
http://accordionguy.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2005/11/28/1425558.html
It’s basically FC panels with H.P. Lovecraft quotes. Oddly it works. There others that use Nietzsche, but they are a bit cumbersome. But then so was Nietzsche.
There was a site a while back where people could post their own caption to Family Circus panels. Oh my goodness… I have a very dark and basically unbounded sense of humor, but even *I* winced at some of them.
February 25th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
My cat insists that this is how the whole thing really happened. One thing you learn from living with them – they don’t have a sense of humor.
February 25th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Thanks for the FC link, Quiet Desperation, I thoreauly enjoyed it.
February 25th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
This is just yet another example of the typical left-wing bias in the media today. You’re all obviously too closed-minded to understand, but if you want a real examination of the alternatives to the THEORY of evolution I’d suggest you watch this:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=aj1KGZSFmfs
February 25th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
>>> I’d suggest you watch this:
FG rules! They’re always taking on the kooks. They once had Mel Gibson walk off a cliff because “Christians don’t believe in gravity.”
February 25th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
Hey JSW. I love that family guy video. I thought that was hilarious. We are in the 21st century and some people still don’t accept evolution even with 150 years of evidence to back it up. I don’t get it. Evolution makes perfect sense to me. If religion somehow vanished tomorrow I think the number of people that reject it would go down substantially. What do you guys think?
February 25th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
I figured this would get posted on the BA Blog. BZ!
“Anyone who have ever belonged to a cat know that our (humans) only purpose in this universe is to serve them.”
I experience this every day!
My cat has claimed my window sill as her personal outpost for observing the world.
February 25th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
Of course; and cats are natural zen masters, you know.
February 25th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
I think you can leave out the “zen” to get closer to their view, Chip.
February 25th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
South Park does a good job of explaining evolution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsep_954x88
February 25th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Congrats, Melusine!
I’m sure you feel honoured that the stray kitty judged your place as a worthy nursery. We all know how particular and fussy moggies are.
A month ago we picked up an abused kitten, who still doesn’t consider my wife and I “acceptable”, and refuses to come close to us, despite our abject pleading, begging, and bribery.
Vaguely back on topic: A few years ago I came across a program that claimed it could detect “cat typing”, and then automatically lock the keyboard. If God had installed that, I guess we wouldn’t be here to discuss this!
February 26th, 2007 at 7:47 am
Ummm, cats. My Chow dogs LOVE cats,,,,in much the same way as other Asians,,,
I’ve had cats so smart no mere dog could ever catch them. Of course, like me, they were mutants who could obviously walk thru walls.
Gary 7
February 26th, 2007 at 7:50 am
In 1990, while working in Arabia, I had a Philapeno buddy who was walking with me in my resedential compound. As we passed a fat cat sitting on the side of the street, my friend said,
“You guys must pay your Philapeno workers really well.”
“Why?”, I asked.
“Because that cat didn’t run when it saw me,,,”
Gary 7
February 26th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Gary, it’s a good thing you don’t post on BAUT, because there are some serious cat-lovers there!
Stuart, it’s a long story how long I’ve watched over this cat, but I was trying to get her spayed (last year she had kittens, and she had them in a box I believe that someone had junk in on their patio). She disappeared for a while, I thought she was dead, then when the kittens were spunky enough she moved them to the patio enclosure below me. I was her steady source of food, so she wanted to be close, I gather. When I figured out she was pregnant I couldn’t see a good place close enough to me. I had let her inside in the cold, just for a while, but I have cats and she has no shots. Anyway, she’s lucky I was home yesterday – she cried because she knew there was a safe place inside. Well, it worked. Now they’re in my bathroom. She has taken some serious bites out of me – if I move to rapidly, but then she gets affectionate. It’s all about protecting her kittens. They will do what they have to do. It’s not that I’m special to her, I was the best option for the survival of her babies and we had some trust built up.
So, I guess cats have me “ruled” more than anything else. These little buggers are CUTE though – I strategically managed to change out the bloody towel and put in a clean one, so I had to pick up each one – their eyes are shut, but they’re soft fuzzy blobs with spindly legs. I’ve never held a newborn kitten – as I said I’ve had cats my whole life but they always were fixed by 6 months.
I bought a meteorite on Saturday, so I was reading about the stellar birth and death, and the Sikhote-Alin meteorite and saw this cool, old movie about it. That’s where my meteorite is from. Anyway, thinking about the birth of the universe, supernovas, iron, lodestone, etc. dovetailed nicely to a very Earthly birth…of kittens.
BTW, that film above makes you appreciate the work geologists had to go through without the instruments that we have today.
February 27th, 2007 at 3:02 am
God’s cat could explain much of why things are so wild!
February 27th, 2007 at 11:55 am
I showed the cartoon to my cat. She loved it but she is still pissed off at me for getting her fixed!
Chuck
February 28th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Now that line from Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy : “My Cat, I call him The Lord” makes sense.
March 10th, 2007 at 6:35 am
JSW: Thanks for the link. Enjoyed it. To quote: “This is just yet another example of the typical left-wing bias in the media today. You’re all obviously too closed-minded to understand, …”
I would whole heartedly agree. I would add: They’re viciously anti-religious!
June 6th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
As can be expected, I don’t agree with everything said or promoted here (though this whole thread here is quite funny!). But, then, this is what makes everything interesting!
Case in point is Dr. Phil’s (the less famouse one – Phil Plait!) views on Creationism and Intellegent Design. In reading his views on this I would suggest that he is making the same error as the extreme Creationists: they maintain that their view is exclusive and so does Dr. Phil. Neither he nor the extremists allow for any wiggle room.
As a Creationist, I stand by my views. However, I would be a fool to discount what science clearly shows. So, rather than adopting an “either/or” stance (either Creationism is correct OR Science is) I find it more helpful to take the “both/and” position (both Creationism AND Science can and do contruibute to our understanding of the Universe and all that it entails).
I guess I am a typical Canadian: always trying to keep the peace!
Brett
Anyway, keep up the good work!