Creationists are getting sneakier. I predicted they’d be attacking astronomy more and more, but this is simply too much.
Of course, it won’t work. For one thing, Hubble can’t focus on objects that close. And for another, proving the existence of the teapot won’t help creationists. It’s very clear that it Hubble simply evolved the teapot for itself.
Still, as dumb as it is, it’s cheaper than texting…
Tip o’ the dew cap to ToSeek.
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
DISCOVERmagazine.com: Latest Articles on Space DISCOVER Blogs: The Loom
May 12th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
*snickers* That was pure comedy gold.
May 12th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
ugh. White text on black background.
The layout made eyes hurt, and the content made my brain hurt.
May 12th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Funny stuff!
May 12th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
“Hubble can’t focus on objects that close.”
I haven’t heard that one before. I mean, it can focus on Mars, why not something halfway to Mars? That’s still far enough that the light rays are entering the telescope essentially parallel.
Which reminds me, what is the real reason we can’t photograph the flag on the moon with Hubble? I always thought it was just b/c the resolution wasn’t good enough.
May 12th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Uhm, the original article is a joke. It’s even intended as a joke.
I don’t see how a skeptic site as this; can really believe the assertion that this was ‘found in a photocopier by an undisclosed source’.
May 12th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Of course it is a joke, this is why it tagged with “humor”.
It wouldn’t be as much fun if it is prefixed with a huge joke warning disclaimer.
May 12th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
What the Hubble cannot focus on, Zandperl, is something hanging from it’s front door. That is definately NOT “Halfway to mars”.
That article is Poe^2 – beautilful piece of work!
JC
May 12th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
zandperl
I think that Phil meant that HST can’t focus on things that are dangling (I know that they’re in microgravity… shhhh) from the front cover.
And yeah, resolution is why we can’t image the stuff that Apollo left behind.
May 12th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
I cracked up when I saw the image of the tea pot dangling in front of the telescope!
May 12th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Brilliant. Unbe-freakin’-lievably brilliant.
May 12th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
A comedic delight indeed.
Top line: “Institute of Discovery scientists have devastatingly pointed out that, since the speed of light is constant in the vacuum of deep space, it naturally follows to be worthless looking for objects further away than the 6000 light-year ‘creation-horizon’.”
I love it!
Hey Phil, what about calling a throwdown to the creationassts – we’ll have go at looking beyond the creation-horizon, and they can have go at the event-horizon. First one to see god wins!
May 12th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Best part, to me:
May 12th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
I bow to the awesomeness of Poe!
May 12th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Surely you know satire when you see it Phil?
May 12th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
@Ryan
Surely you read the “humor” tag at the start of his post?
May 12th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Even if we did have a telescope with the resolution to pick out Apollo items on the Moon, it’s still a question as to whether there’s enough contrast between the objects and the background to be able to do so.
May 12th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
That was good satire. Thsnks for sharing that!
May 12th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Brilliant, indeed!
May 12th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
What is sad is that we had to read most of the article before we knew it was a joke. The truth is, I don’t put anything, no matter how stupid it may sound, past creationist fundie ignoramuses. Their stupidity knows no bounds.
May 12th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
@Brian:
Well – *I* didn’t have to read that far – and I would lay long odds that most of the others here didn’t either. It got amusing pretty early – and obvious rather shortly after that- but kept it’s tone throughout. A quality piece.
Sad? Not at all. The best satire may appear only thinly veiled. Or perhaps, not at all.
JC
May 12th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Hubble 2.0 can zoom in. We got some beta pictures yesterday and yes, no teapot. Well, not a chinese one. It was made in Hong Kong. In 1991.
May 12th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Oh yes, that teapot, I drink tea every morning with the space teapot.
May 12th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
“Clearly we require two factors to achieve our aim;
1) Russell’s teapot,
and
2) A powerful space telescope.”
Haha, priceless. What can you say, there is a powerful space telescope out there! Alas, 50% of the atheists theory is already disproved!
May 12th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
What a h00t! I knew something was up when I read the line at the top about the “Institute of Discovery”, an obvious spin on D.I. but different enough to dodge their lawyers.
Thanx!
Richard Drumm the Astronomy Bum
(in Charlottesville)
May 12th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Make sure to check the deleted scene from Expelled Exposed featuring Jules and Vincent (Pulp Fiction).
VINCENT Also, you know what they call peer review in the Discovery Institute?
JULES They don’t call it peer review?
VINCENT No, they’re not scientists, they wouldn’t know what the frak peer review is.
JULES What’d they call it?
VINCENT “Denial of academic freedom”.
May 13th, 2008 at 2:13 am
If I may self-indulge a little… http://community.livejournal.com/loltheorists/95061.html
May 13th, 2008 at 2:55 am
ROTFLMAO!
(I never used that acronym before… Started on the title: The Wedgewood Document
1 China Teapot: $2,000,000.00
1 Hubble Servicing Mission: $500,000,000.00
1 Wedgewood Document: Priceless!
May 13th, 2008 at 7:34 am
There’s a flaw in this line of experiment.
Discovery of the teapot will not lead to the imaging of an intelligent designer if it is, in fact, resident on the dark side of the Teapot.
May 13th, 2008 at 9:23 am
I know the blog post was satire – and a very good one at that -
but this quote from the piece I would like to compound upon:
“The Hubble Space Telescope is widely recognized as being one of the most successful projects in the NASA’s history. Its cameras aimed at the heavens have, for nearly two decades, provided spectacular views of the wonders of Gods creation. The startling clarity of these images of galaxies, nebulae, star clusters and even our planetary neighbors have been, for many, a testament to the ingenuity of NASA’s staff but, unfortunately, an inspiration for many young people to think that materialistic based ‘science’ can provide the ultimate answers to their deepest questions.”
That is the one problem people associate with science, namely that
it can provide answers to all their questions and thus fulfill their
feelings of belonging in the Cosmos.
That is not the purpose of science, despite how some people might
think. Most people are looking for answers akin to religion, such as
is their meaning and purpose to existence? Is there a God who
made me and watches over me? Science does not and cannot
provide those answers. And scientists for the most part are
probably the least likely group of people to provide comfort to
the masses. Carl Sagan tried awfully hard to relate science to
the public, but in the end science would have to become another
branch of religion in order to fulfill people’s need for belonging
and purpose. And that would have been anathema to Sagan
and all other legitimate scientists.
It isn’t bad or wrong that science cannot fill tht emotional void
people have about the Universe. That isn’t what science is about.
Unfortunately certain people over the last few centuries have
touted science as being the cure-all for everything in human
society. It can’t really satisfy our emotional needs any more
than a photograph of a sandwich can actually provide food for
a hungry person. If anything it just makes the person who
hungers long even more for sustenance, and if they get hungry
enough, will start reaching for all sorts of things that are not
proper food, including trying to eat the photo.
This is a tough call, because I personally find religion to be a
human-made construct and thus a fantasy or at the least a
major league distortion of purpose and truth. But science is
not enough to satisfy most people. So what is the best middle
ground for a species that is more aware of the way things are
than ever before, but are still living in the caves and fearing the
night just as the Cro-Magnons did?
May 13th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Dude, it was satire. O_o
May 13th, 2008 at 11:03 am
My favorite bit has to be:
“While repair of the Hubble as originally planned would provide for the continuing employment of hundreds of astronomers worldwide, the continuation of the USA’s pre-eminence in the field of astronomy and the inspiration regarding science of further generations of American schoolchildren it can be argued that it may indeed provide some positive benefits too. Unfortunately these are not enough to outweigh the destructive effects of scientific materialism.”
But this runs it a very close second:
“We have every hope to emulate our successful approach towards Darwinian evolution (described as “breathtaking” by liberal activist Judge Jones at Dover) in disciplines such as physics, geology and chemistry.”
Thanks Phil, I needed a ROTFLMAO session badly.
May 13th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Clever. very clever. THX. Good satire & a good laugh.
Perhaps as a joke we could persuade one of the astronauts on the next Hubble servicing mission to bringa teapot up with them and display it in orbit. Course we wouldn’t want them to let go of it otherwise the DI may take the satire seriously! Plus there’d be another bit of space junk …
Could they try to serve tea in microgravity – could be a messy if funny experiment!
Hmm… I’m off for a cuppa now …
May 14th, 2008 at 2:38 am
So. Freaking. Funny.