Best. Rebuttal. Ever.

....of the Fallacy of the Golden Mean:

Origin of Species: The Chick Flick

Just joking! Creation is much better than that. "Skeptical" Jon Abrams thinks so too.


Minor historical gripes: Annie was not the Darwin's first child, but the second. And she died in 1851, while the bulk of the movie's plot clearly takes place in 1858 and 1859, with the arrival of Wallace's letter precipitating the completion of Origin of Species. Was Darwin really a cranky hysterical for seven long years? I know, time gets compressed in Movieland....

Ken Ham: Liar, Hypocrite and Hate-Monger.

Ken Ham doesn't trust us:

The Scripture tells us [atheists] “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1). Basically it comes down to the fact that they don’t want to have to answer to anyone—they want to set their own rules. They generally want to abort babies if they want or make marriage whatever they want to make it to be (or reject it altogether). They want to do what is “right” in their own eyes! Thus, a Creator who owns them, to whom they owe their existence, and against whom they have rebelled, is anathema to them!

It baffles the mind as to why these atheists even bother to try to aggressively convert people to their meaningless religion—after all, what’s the point? The only reason they would even bother is if they are engaged in a spiritual battle. Otherwise they wouldn’t care. They know in their hearts there is a God, and they are deliberately suppressing that, as the Scripture so clearly tells us.

[.....]

I’m sure most of you realize that you often can’t trust what atheists say. After all, if there is no absolute authority, there is no basis for right or wrong (just one’s own opinion). Thus, atheists can say whatever they want—even if it is not the truth.

Dear Ham-head: I've read your website. I've been in your joke of a museum. I even exchanged brief words with you, some years ago. Substitute "creationist" for "atheist" in the last paragraph above and then it might be somewhere in the same ballpark as the truth. You wouldn't know truth if it ran over you on the Interstate.

And while I'm on the subject of Christian douchebags, I may as well as join the chorus pointing out that Pat Robertson is an evil old man whose God is created very much in his own image.

Chronology of a Cold

Day 1: You feel like you're coming down with something.
Day 2: You definitely have a cold.
Day 3: You feel like you're gonna die.
Day 4: You wish you'd just hurry up and die already.
Day 5: You realize you're not going to die.
Day 6: You start feeling better.
Day 7: You're mostly better.
Day 8: Back in the pink of health.

Currently working on Day 5.....

2009 in Review

Actually, this isn't, but that's what you're supposed to write on New Year's Eve, so stickler for tradition that I am....

I/we are obviously not the world's most prolix bloggers -- this post will be #37 for the year. I'm a dreadfully slow essayist, and have other hobbies. And it doesn't help when some of your output goes to another blog, in this case the Humanist Association of Ottawa (to which I really also ought to contribute more). Posts that went there and not here this year were:

They're So Cute When They Play "Science Museum": part 1, part 2, part 3; a series about our visit to the Creation Museum in Kentucky back in August, in company of PZ Myers, Hemant Mehta, Ed Kagan and about 300 others. There is actually a Part 4, currently bogged down in the edit space.

A post-event followup to Blasphemy Day: Blasphemy: Free Speech or Obnoxiosity?

Merry Newtonmass 2009

Today marks the 367th anniversary of the birth of Sir Isaac Newton, on 25 December 1642. Here is our traditional Newtonmass carol, with a new verse for 2009:

God rest ye merry, physicists
Let nothing you dismay.
Remember Isaac Newton
was born on Christmas Day!
His gravity and calculus and "f" equals "m" "a"!
Oh, pillars of physics and math, physics and math,
Oh, pillars of physics and math!

A factor of big G - the same
for flea and giant star.
Then multiply the masses
and divide by square of "r".
The force that keeps us on the earth
and orbits moons afar!
Oh, pillars of physics and math, physics and math,
Oh, pillars of physics and math!

Now, calculus is math for those
who change things bit by bit.*
To figure out derivatives
and get the curve to fit.
Then integrate and you can find the area under it!
Oh, pillars of physics and math, physics and math,
Oh, pillars of physics and math!

*little bits, not computer data bits

[Yes, Newton was something of a religious nut, but nonetheless significantly advanced humankind's understanding of our universe.]

How We Are Celebrating the Season

My grown sons showed up last weekend, along with the partner of the older one and a college buddy of the younger one. So we spent a couple of evenings playing Dungeons & Dragons.

'Cuz hacking through a cavern full of kobolds with edged weapons is such a great, family-friendly activity, no?

And at a certain moment, a sacred rite was enacted. Dice were rolled. Tables were consulted. Libations were poured. Libations were quaffed. And poured again. And quaffed again. And poured....um where was I? Oh yes: Candles were lit. And one member of the party intoned an arcane incantation in the ancient holy language of her ancestors. And this was the scene:


So like, Happy (belated) Chanukah, eh?