It reminds me of when SNL, right after Clinton was elected, thanked the Republican Party for all the material.

Great stuff?

Praise Mr. D!

Oh noes. I just LOLSob’d. On behalf of all intelligent, critical thinking Kiwis, I apologize.

I spent all day yesterday catching up with the greatness that is Mr Deity. I’m spreading the love to my work mates too.

Did anyone else find the banana video/fits into the hand/curves into the face a bit…phallic? Yeah. They’d be a bit stuffed if they tried to eat the banana if they had it turned AWAY from the face…

Phil has to go after creationists. They have crossed into his specialty in their attempt to discredit evolution quite frequently.

The argument: to paraphrase “Evolutionists believe that the universe came out of nothing. How do you get something out of nothing? Scientists tell us that you can’t get something out of nothing, but they want us to believe in the Big Bang.” (Look up Kent Hovind for his exact phrasing.)

Not to mention when the Young Earth Creationists insist that the stars only look old and are really only 6 thousand to 10 thousand years old.

Make no mistake, the creationists frequently mix in cosmology and physics to attack evolution. Phil has the right to show them how wrong they are.

Technically, humans have 3 different cone cells, each with a particular EM wavelength (within visible light of course) that they’re sensitive to. The sensitivity is like a bell curve, with the greatest sensitivity to a particular wavelength, and the interference between curves of the three separate cone cells is what give us color perception. Birds and reptiles not only have four cone cells that are sensitive to different wavelengths, but birds in particular have small oil deposits between their cone cells that further enhances their color vision (I guess by further preventing the scattering of light, much like the oil used in microscopy to enhance certain details and highlight contrasts). One of the three cone cells present in humans (great apes in general) is actually an evolutionary derived cell from another cone. Basically, we were dichromats before a certain mutation in one of the cone cells resulted in a slightly altered wavelength sensitivity that proved useful in our ancestors. This development is relatively recent (in terms of evolutionary history), probably within the last 20 million years. There are certain New World Monkeys who have also even more recently developed trichromatic vision, but the mode of perception is muddled due to differences within sex and heredity.

Don’t feel bad. The first time I clicked a link to Richard Hoagland’s site, I thought it was a brilliant parody of alien woo believers. I posted such on the list I was reading and had to be gently informed that it was serious. I thought I was being put on by the person correcting me, but after a little investigation I found that it was true and Hoagland actually believes that stuff. I can tell you my belief in humanity got moved down a few notches!

If you like the banana video, do a google search on creationists and peanut butter.

- Jack

The phrase is “ontology recapitulates phylogeny”. IIRC it is an outdated biology idea that states that embryonic stages of an organism’s growth represent a “replay” its evolutionary past.

“ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recapitulation_theory

Keep up the stellar work, Phil!

and humans can only see in three colors (Birds can see in 4 primary colors into the UV)

Oh it’s worse than that: Mantis Shrimp can see up to 12 different colours, and can have 16 different photoreceptors. In comparison, we see in 3 colours via 5 photoreceptors (that’s 3 cone types, 1 rod, and 1 photoreceptive ganglion, in case anyone asks)

,,,and don’t forget that exceptional engineering that results in flat feet, lower back pain, rectal prolapse, hernia, etc, etc, etc,,,it just goes on ad nasueam. I rather expect if any corporation released a new car with so many defects, the entire company would be recalled. God reminds me of General Motors,,,he/she/it needs us to bail him/her/it out. Unfortunately, I just did that for GM so I’m fresh out of money.

Gary 7

We have to fight back. Okay, maybe Phil’s preaching to the choir here. I’d like to see the fight taken to the local level. For years, religious fanatics have had a successful program of getting members onto city councils and school boards.