Poking Fun at the Science-Hating Populous.
This week on Music Monday, another video aimed at edumacatin’ the children!
How so, you may (should) ask? Primarily as an example for writing a song that rhymes only a single word the whole time. Also, lots of twirling practice! The resulting confusion and lack of coordination can be an extremely useful primer for absorbing the subject matter.
Archeologists who like to dig around in Chinese caves have discovered what might be an entirely new species of humanoid. The people, who have been dubbed the “Red Deer” people, lived 14,500-11,500 years ago and contain an unusual mixture of ancient and modern features.
“These new fossils might be of a previously unknown species, one that survived until the very end of the Ice Age around 11,000 years ago,” said Prof. Darren Curnoe from the University of New South Wales. “The discovery of the red-deer people opens the next chapter in the human evolutionary story – the Asian chapter – and it’s a story that’s just beginning to be told.”
The fossil bed was actually uncovered in 1989, but had gone unstudied until several years ago.
If the fossils turn out to be the remains of a previously undiscovered species, it could mean that our understanding of human history might need a slight revision. However, I think we can all assume that this revision won’t include a 6,000 year old earth and a domineering supernatural father figure.
Our friend Potholer54 has released the first round of nominations for this year’s coveted Golden Crocoduck award. So far, we have a man who believes that Jenna Bush is a reptile in disguise, some unconvincing giant skeletons, and a man who thinks that heredity is obviously controlled by god.
You can find the entire list of nominees here.
Earlier today, I got an email from Dr. Ed Buckner, former President and current board member of American Atheists. Buckner was kind enough to weigh in on our Dangers of Creationism series, and included several resources for those that might be looking to further their education:
On many subjects and in many circumstances, people having misinformation or lack of information may not matter much. But all too often creationists engage in what can reasonably (though I’m sure it seems insulting to creationists) be called “aggressive ignorance.” If, contrary to overwhelming evidence and broad and deep consensus in the worldwide scientific community, one wants to deny that species have developed in ways close to Darwin’s ideas about it, one has the freedom to do that. But if anyone who wants to ignore so much logic and evidence then wants to control science classes or curricula, at any level, or legislation, real threats erupt. [Read more...]
I received the following email to my Eternal Earth-Bound Pets post rapture pet rescue address yesterday:
Subject: Question
From: sspeer@richmondhill.org
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:11:09 -0400
To: eternal-earthbound-pets@msn.com
Just wondering why you guys serve in food banks, animal shelters and such? If you are atheists then you believe in some form of evolution. With all forms of evolution you believe in survival of the fittest. The work you are doing in those service organizations is actually working against what you believe is best for humanity. Doesn’t fit your belief system. At least be consistent.
ScottSent from my iPhone
My reply follows:
Scott,
I imagine you spend very little time “wondering” and even less time thinking.
Your confusion and lack of understanding of what evolutionary theory is; its basic precepts; and its non-relationship to morality, humanism, and ethics is startling and dangerous.
[Read more...]
This week, the crocoduck brings you a schizophrenic editing masterpiece.
The following trailer is for “Explore,” a whopping 2-hour music video aimed at educating children about creation vs. evolution (their claim, not mine!). It mostly defies description, but I feel safe in going with “Moo!”
If you’re interested in the full video across 2 DVD discs (maybe the outtakes use up a whole other disc?), you’ll be happy to know it’s often available on eBay.
JDN 2455997 EDT 21:27.
If you follow Crocoduck at all, you’ve heard us talk about how Creationism is ridiculous, make fun of Creationist stupidity, and point out the mountains of evidence for evolution. Yet I’m sure some of our readers are thinking, “Yeah, but so what? What’s the big deal? Sure, it’s stupid; sure, it’s crazy; but it’s harmless, right?”
Wrong. First of all, when most people hear about Creationism, especially Noah’s Ark, 6000-year-old Earth, totally whacky Young Earth Creationism, they tend to respond, “Come on! Nobody really believes that, except maybe a few fringe lunatic.”
39% of Americans agree that it is “definitely true” that the Earth was created in its present form less than 10,000 years ago. 53% say that God created man exactly as it said in the Bible (which apparently means Adam from clay, Eve from Adam’s rib). 54% believe that Creationism should be taught in public schools—only slightly less than the 61% who believe that evolution should be taught. These statistics are so horrifying I’ve heard people straight up deny their accuracy when I bring them up; but please, look it up. Poll after poll shows around 40% of Americans believe in the most extreme Answers in Genesis kind of Creationism. About another 40% believe in some sort of Intelligent Design or theistic evolution. Less than 20% of Americans believe in actual unguided natural selection—which is of course what evolutionary biology is actually about. It would be as if 40% of Americans don’t even believe in gravity, 40% think God occasionally intervenes in gravity, and only 20% actually understand how gravity works.
Dr. James F. McGrath took a little time out of his busy schedule at Butler University to write a pretty caustic blogpost pointed at the intellectually lazy dillholes behind the Left Behind franchise.
Obviously, we love the Left Behind movies because we get to watch teen-sensation and father of the crocoduck, Kirk Cameron, galavanting around the big screen with a distinctly outdated hairstyle. But McGrath’s criticism is a bit more thoughtful: [Read more...]
The University of Liverpool has been performing a series of tests that validates everything I’ve been saying about the monsters in my dreams:
The team artificially scaled up the skulls of a human, alligator, a juvenile T. rex, and Allosaurus to the size of an adult T. rex. In each case the bite forces increased as expected, but they did not increase to the level of the adult T. rex, suggesting that it had the most powerful bite of any terrestrial animal.
Previous studies have estimated that T. rex’s bite had a force of 8,000 to 13,400 Newtons, but given the size of the animal, thought to weigh more than 6,000kg, researchers suspected that its bite may have been more powerful than this. Liverpool scientists developed a computer model to reverse engineer the animal’s bite, a method that has previously been used to predict dinosaur running speeds.
Obviously they only threw the word “terrestrial” in there to make it sound like they were remaining objective and scientific. Even if a T-Rex and a Great White Shark were pitted against each other in a pay-per-view event, the T-rex would probably come out on top.
Unless it was a boxing match. Then it’s anybody’s game.
Check out the entire story here.
As intellectually harmful as it often is to listen to proponents of Young-Earth Creationism, it can often be extraordinarily instructive. Having read more articles from Answers in Genesis and listened to more YEC babbling than is healthy for any sane person, I think I probably have a handle on the way they operate. One of the things that I’ve noticed is the confused look that many creationists get on their face when confronted with “just one piece” of evidence for evolution. It is the look of a mind going right into autopilot, the glazed eyes of delusion.
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