I love LOLcats. I really do, and I am not yet tired of them. But this one in particular will come in handy on this blog. Yes.
<img src=”http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/files/2007/doomed.jpg” alt=”LOLcat: Doomed”
For example:
Creationism.
<img src=”http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/files/2007/doomed.jpg” alt=”LOLcat: Doomed”
See?
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
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 has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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-- Daniel H. Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising
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July 17th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
There’s an appealing theory that the widespread popularity of lolcats is explained by the fact that ~30% of the population is infected by the feline borne toxoplasma virus.
Have fun!
July 17th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
July 17th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
One for science nerds…
http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/9939/catzpb9.png
July 17th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Are LOLBots as funny as LOLCats?
http://www.lolbots.com/
This might be one of the best:
http://lolbots.com/?p=760
July 17th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
The thing is, non-specific images like this are just as easily hijacked by your enemies. Just replace Creationism with “SETI” or “Evolution” or “NASA”…
July 17th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
More science:
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/06/17/im-in-ur-fizx-lab/
http://cosmicvariance.com/wp-images/entangled1.jpg
July 17th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
For example:
Creationism.
Just beggin for some complaining aren’t you?
July 17th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Christian…do you mean the human population or the cat population?
July 17th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
It’s unfortunate that simple Creationism seems to get lumped in there with all the press getting backwards Christians who espouse the Bible as raw fact. But inflamed ignorance makes the news more easily than unemotional and critical thinking. Creationism is nothing more than the belief that a greater power had a hand in the creation of life and probably in our evolution, verses the string of coincidences required to make it happen naturally.
There is no ’smoking gun’ one way or the other to debunk either belief. Honestly, it’s a wasteful pursuit to engage in finding said smoking gun simply because, in the end, what you believe stemmed our existence matters less than what you make of it.
Not all Creationists are naive enough to believe the Earth is 6000 years old, please stop assuming we all think Jesus rode a dinosaur. Making senseless posts for the sake of reading enraged comments is no more mature or intelligent than a mean spirited nine year old teasing a dog through a fence. As an intelligent member of the human race you must have more going for you then that.
July 17th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
I’ve been collecting science-themed lolcats for a while now. They can be. . . addictive.
Good finds, Louis and Lars — mmm, replicant. . . .
July 17th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Something bleeding obvious, but many fail to see.
Cats… and Dogs for that matter.
We Humans use “selective” breeding to “artificially evolve” our live stock.
Nature uses “natural selection” to “evolve” life forms to suit their environment.
Very simple really.
Creationists are not terribly bright, if they can’t see the bleeding obvious.
Cats, Dogs and pretty much all Human pets and live stock are not in their natural state. They were created through selective breeding by Humans. Thus their genetic traits change over time. Likewise nature alters life forms and their genetic traits alter over time.
Folcrom.
July 17th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
Phil, you have seen i has a tardis, right? (Warning: There are spoilers. They’re all tagged, but they’re there. FYI.)
July 17th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
LOLCATS and the like come from one place: 4chan.org. Although some pretty funky stuff gets on /b/ (mostly guro/gore, porn, goatse, etc.) it’s a place filled with creative folks with resources to get things done. I suggest browsing /b/ if you’re like me and have no soul or just like messed up things. It’s one of the top thousand sites on the planet, according to Alexa. So yeah. They make a ton of memes, really. Everything comes from there.
Just thought I’d get that out there.
July 17th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
OK, cute. I’ll admit it. Some of those were cute.
But I have to ask, what is with all the captions in pseudo-baby talk? I iz watchin uz?
And not a single pirate-cat! What’s up with that?
OEJ
July 18th, 2007 at 2:12 am
>>> please stop assuming we all think Jesus rode a dinosaur.
But I’d totally make a movie about that if I could get the funding.
The Raptor Of The Christ
Dude. It would rule! There’d be lasers and ’splosions and all sort of noisy crap.
JESUS: You turned to the dark side!
JUDAS: Jesus, join me.
JESUS: Never!
JUDAS: Jesus, I am your father.
>>> what is with all the captions in pseudo-baby talk?
I think it was supposed to be the cats talking, hence a primitve sort of pidgin english. It’s actually developed an ad hoc set of grammatical rulez- er, rules.
July 18th, 2007 at 10:07 am
With his constant digs at creationists I sometimes wonder if Phil has had a personal run in with a YEC who was in some position of authority over him, and the YEC abused their authority. Sort of like the animosity towards the RC church some experience because they were taught by Nuns who abused their power.
Yes I remember the fiasco at the Dover School board where they tried to impose the fatally flawed ID on to school teachers. (It is the kind of thing that makes me wince)
Are YEC’s wielding so much power in the US?
To my knowledge that does not happen in the UK
July 18th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
I can’t speak for Phil. Personally, I find YEC annoying because it is an insult to science, something I hold dear. The lies they spread and the methods they use (bastardizing good science) are offensive.
But that’s just me.
OEJ
July 18th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
r337ard, the use of “Creationist” is an unfortunate choice of words. The intent behind the word is to mean something beyond just “Christian” or “theist”. If that was the intent of the word, then we would use one of those words.
Creationist is used to imply a step beyond “God being involved”. Rather, it is a description of the mechanism of origins. It is an attempt at a juxtaposition to Evolution. Evolution is, at root, a description intended to mean serial change over time, development from one thing to another. Creationism is the opposite case, static life forms, no developmental change. It is also an assertion of a sort of appearance by fiat, the *poof* of instantaneous appearance in final form.
The notion of God playing a directing hand in Evolution is still a form of Evolution, and is not Creationism.
With that clarification of terminology in hand, it is easier to see why scientists oppose Creationism so strongly. Creationism is premised on a notion that is strictly contradicted by strong scientific evidence. It is also possible to understand why Old Earth Creationism is still opposition to science.
Of course I would be ecstatic if we could come up with a new label for the scientific discussion of the mechanism of Creationism that did not have an overt God reference in it. That is because the overt God reference hijacks the argument to be over God’s existence rather than the science of how life diversified. Unfortunately, I have not been able to come up with a good term, much less get anyone else to use it. I suspect even if I did, the Creationists would avoid it because it would make clear the obvious conflict of the position with nature. They would rather cloud the issue with God, so moderate Christians will think they are being attacked by those opposed to Creationism.
July 18th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
They did come up with a new label: “Intelligent Design”. Unfortunately, nobody trusts the people who use it.
July 18th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
Ross,
Thank God, that the “Intelligent Designer” thought to create evolution as part of his/her tool set.
If God does exist, he was obviously a scientist and would be the first to strike down the book of Genisis as complete rubbish.
Folcrom
July 19th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
No, Ross, “Intelligent Design” does not remove the God reference, it just buries it in nebulous wording.
I’m thinking more along the lines of “Instantaneous Appearance” or “Unique Origins” or “Static Life Forms From Independent Origins”. I realize those labels aren’t catchy, but they more accurately describe the mechanism being compared against “descent with modification from common ancestry”, i.e. “Evolution”.
Maybe we can call it “*Poof* Theory”.