Friday, February 13, 2009

Sorry, Charlie


High five!

Despite the best efforts of the public education system, a majority of Americans maintain that Charles Darwin was full of it. The bad news in that only 41 percent of weekly churchgoers believe their scriptures on the subject.

Cue response from CI Photog!

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Look who thinks evolution is bunk.
"Among those with high-school educations or less who have an opinion on Darwin's theory.....
respondents who had up to a high school level of education believe in evolution."

"Hot damn, I didn't Eee-volve from no monkey!"


A drawerfull of dull knives there. Wouldn't know a Scientific Method if it bit them on the caboose.

CI Photog

Splash said...

CI,

Knew you couldn't resist, you religious nut, you.

All that proves is people believe everything they read in the paper -- or in this case, hear from the myopic hoop-jumper standing at the front of the room. The majority of whom at my university, at least, were intellectual inbreds.

Higher education is like Hollywood -- you float with the prevailing current to get where you want to go. (Have you not seen "Expelled" or "Incroctrinate U"?)

Also proves a certain photog is a bit of a Bill Maher-caliber elitist, perhaps, hmm...?

Oh, and don't miss footage of your precious Educated Ideal jumping up and down like a monkey before his highly evolved president in "Julio meets The One" below. ;-)

Anonymous said...

This is a great opportunity to revisit "Galileo Had it Coming."
-CI Photog

SCIENCE DIDN'T HAVE A GHOST OF A CHANCE HERE
Anyone who has seen our fellow citizens talking to an ATM machine, buying lottery tickets or punching an already lit button to make the elevator come faster was not surprised by the results of a recent National Science Foundation survey.

For all of our ease with sophisticated technology, we're pretty much a bunch of superstitious peasants when it comes to understanding it. We Americans curse computers when they crash, even though the computer is an inanimate, insensate object, and if it weren't, it would probably speak Mandarin Chinese with a thick Taiwanese accent, not English.

Not a clue

Basically, the survey found, most of us have a shaky grip on how the natural world works. Almost half the people polled didn't fully grasp the concept of a "year" since they had no idea how long it took Earth to orbit the sun. If pressed, they might surely say that Galileo had it coming when Pope Urban VIII cracked down on him for saying Earth was not stationary and, further, was not the center of the universe.[Thanks, religon....--CI]
The survey found that over half the public believes in extrasensory perception and psychic powers, neither of which has ever been scientifically proven. I do not believe in extrasensory perception or psychic powers because of the law of averages. (This should really brighten the day of the gang over at NSF.) As a kid, I could never guess which hand the candy was in; growing up and as an adult, my premonitions have universally been wrong. If I bolt awake at night after dreaming that something had happened, it didn't. Somewhere someone's guesses, dreams and premonitions are always right. That person thinks it's psychic power. It's not; it's because I'm always wrong.

I do know that when the phone is for me, it most probably is not good. But that's not a premonition, it's old age and experience.

Somewhere between one-fourth and more than half of us believe in ghosts, haunted houses, communication with the dead and lucky numbers.

People believe in ghosts because they like to; intellectually, they know that there's a rational explanation, but why ruin a good story? [Bible. Cue Splash. -CI]
Up until the Truman administration, the White House was widely believed to be haunted. It turned out that all those creaks, groans, doors opening and closing by themselves and sudden drafts were because the building structure was in a state of near-collapse. Abraham Lincoln pacing the halls makes for a better story.

Defies logic

The lottery has been called a tax on stupidity. The odds of winning a recent big payoff were 1 in 78 million. But mankind is driven by a hope that defies the rational. Otherwise, when the first form of life slithered out of the primordial ooze and took one look around, it would have thought -- insofar as it could think -- "this ain't ever going to work" and slithered back into the primordial ooze.

Almost half the people polled believed mankind coexisted with dinosaurs. The dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago; the first Homo sapiens appeared about 30,000 years ago. So they're off by 64,970,000 years. The idea of people and dinosaurs is too good to give up, hence the popularity of T. rex, Barney and "Jurassic Park." Dinosaurs are too cool a concept to give up on.

About 30% of those surveyed believed that unidentified flying objects really are space vehicles from other civilizations and another one-third believed extraterrestrials have visited Earth at some time. The cool rationalists at the NSF must have flocked to the neighborhood saloon in despair when those results came in. All the billions we've spent in teaching science and math, and these Gomers still believe in E.T.

However, in defense of the irrational it's impossible to look at those first photos from the upgraded Hubble Space Telescope that turned up 3,000 new galaxies and not think that somewhere in those millions, billions of objects there isn't a planet like ours that we will one day visit -- and the dinosaurs will be waiting for us.

Dale McFeatters writes for Scripps Howard News Service.

Anonymous said...

Ben Stein rawks.

The science community needs to stop blaming Christianity and start going after the real culprit, postmodernism.

During the "modern" age, the reputation of science was at an all time high, yet there was very little Christian bashing.

Of course attacking postmodernism would put scientists at odds with most of the left, the principle source of government funding. Best to go after the religious and drive them further into the arms of the literalists.

Splash said...

Hey, no one's arguing that the general public is comprised of well-informed people. I'm arguing that the well-informed people are not automatically correct just because they adhere to the prevailing paradigm.

When evolution makes the jump from theory to law -- checking off every point on the Scientific Method along the way -- you may get back to me with your infallible framed diploma.

Dale McFeatters conveniently glosses over the fact that Galileo was up against not just the overreaching, unbiblical theories of the Roman Church but the prevailing paradigm of the University.

And as they did then, the Gatekeepers rabidly savage all dissent. (Again I refer you to 'Expelled' and 'Indoctrinate U'.)

If the Darwinist position was so manifestly secure and unassailable, they wouldn't be thrown into hysterical convulsions at the very thought of competing theories, criticism and free debate. (And boy do they react.)

And why is that?

Because they know both positions are scientifically unprovable. That both start not with evidence but with arbitrary PRESUPPOSITIONS.

The naturalist decides "There is no God, so what then?"

The theist decides "There is a God, so what then?"

And until CI Photog or anyone else can at least acknowledge the fact that both are positions constructed upon platforms of unverifiable ASSUMPTION, I'll waste no more time arguing.

Mrs. P said...

Yep, that Sir Issac Newton... what a loon! And Louis Pasteur phht... crack head! Not to mention Sir Francis Bacon, Johannes Kepler, Rene Descarte,Robert Boyle, Michael Faraday, William Kelvin (olde earther though he was), Christiaan Huygens, and don't EVEN get me started on that ignorant SLOB Albert Einstein- Denying the possibility of a non-created universe! What bunk!

Just a group on uneducated rubes, in my opinion.

Anonymous said...

Splash-
Have you had your kids inoculated?

CI Photog

Splash said...

Dude... You so don't understand the opposing argument, do you?

No one denies adaptability within species. As Christians we believe in a common ancestor, right? And clearly we have tall Scandinavians and pygmy Africans.

What we deny are macro shifts between species -- one thing becoming something else entirely, even gradually.

Mutations kill organisms, not make them stronger. Except when we're dealing the conveniently "too-slow-to-observe" fantasy realm of evolution, o' course. (Then it's "just take our word for it, kids.")

Anonymous said...

I notice where Bobby Jindal, the great Republican hope has signed into law the requirement that schools in Louisiana teach ID.

This will likely cost him in hope of getting nominated/elected President.

Anonymous said...

Next we need to get Evolution taught in Sunday School for fair and balanced...
-CI

Anonymous said...

Next we need to get Evolution taught in Sunday School for fair and balanced...

That's fine with me, just as soon as Sunday School is supported by everybody's tax dollars.

Splash said...

And K wins the cigar!

(Hadn't heard that about Bobby Jindal, btw. So far I like everything I hear about this guy.)

Anonymous said...

Light, K?

CI photog

Splash said...

I don't get it, CI. What's "light" mean?

Anonymous said...

As in, I'm holding a lit match out so K can light that cigar. -- CI

You beat Rush to the punch with that Islamic madman.

Splash said...

Ah. Now I gets it.

Yeah, I heard that on Rush later, too. Figured everyone would think I ripped him off.