Evolutionists Do It… With increasing complexity and diversity.
A brand new Evo-T inspired by an old National Center for Science Education bumper sticker, it comes in both men’s and women’s sizes and is sure to have creationists everywhere clutching their pearls in horror.
You know what comes next…
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Bye now!
A new Facebook friend asked me if it was me in the meme picturing a bearded guy looking over his shoulder with a pigeon and chessboard in front of him. I told him that I am indeed that guy.
It can get messy
He then asked if it felt weird when I started seeing such things on the internet and in the process of composing my response to his question I did a Google image search based on my original picture and discovered that my likeness had been added to a meme generator. Now, I knew that my picture was “out there” and even blogged about the fact my mug had been stuck into a “demotivation” style meme but it is still a rather odd thing to find a picture of yourself repeated over and over dozens of times with all sorts of different words plastered over top of them.
Most are variations of the original quote, though they often substitute “creationists” with “liberals”, “Republicans”, or whatever political point of view the various meme authors find objectionable. Some replace “creationists” with Christians in general and at least one changes it to Muslims. Others exchange “creationists” for the names of specific people—no doubt the result of dimly remembered arguments taking place forgotten discussion boards—and some take shots at the fans of disfavored sports teams:
Some stray from the original form but seem to be improvising based on the general theme:
A few were taking shots at President Obama’s handling of the war in Iraq:
At least one seemed to take issue with the premise:
Still others are indecipherable by me:
So, yes, as I told my FB friend, it is kind of weird. Especially when I see it used in ways I am either ambivalent about or in ways I would probably rather it not be used. For example, some used homophobic slurs, or rude terms for the mentally disabled and a few even attacked political or philosophical views that I have sympathies with.
Still, I am “Zen” about it. The internet is the modern day Wild West, and once you put a picture of yourself out there you have lost control. It is just something you have to get used to if you want to play in the game.
Though, with all these bits of me (get it?) floating around the net, there aught to be a way for me to get my beak wet (get it?) on the deal…
Since I must post any pigeon related humor I run across—especially if there is a science angle to it—I present the following, Fibonacci Pigeons:
This will be a departure from my typical novel length dissection of a creationist article and will instead be a short look at a single creationist gaffe. Perhaps I will make this into a series, we’ll see. Anyway, today’s nit will be picked with young Earth creationist Dr Carl Werner (a medical doctor).
I recently acquired a copy, of what I believe is the 1st edition, of his book Evolution: The grand experiment (2007, 2nd printing 2009, coauthored with his wife Debbie Werner) and while skimming through it I noticed a little error on page 57, which is chapter 5 of the book and is apparently meant as a refutation of the evidence for evolution from comparative anatomy. In this particular case he is discussing the homology of various tetrapod forelimbs (yellow highlighting mine):
The “nit” in this case is his illustration of the forelimbs of a whale in the dark blue circle above. When I saw it I immediately recognized that it was not in fact the forelimbs of a whale but rather the hind limbs of one. In this case those of an extinct archaeocete, most likely those of Dorudon (image source).
The skeleton of Dorudon.
And these are the hind legs of Dorudon (image source):
Dorudon hind legs at the Smithsonian Museum
For comparison here are a couple modern whale forelimbs:
Blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus).
Pacific white-sided dolphin (Lagenorhynchus obliquidens).
Clearly what Dr. Werner has pictured are not the forelimbs of a modern whale, rather my money is on them being the hind limbs of Dorudon. Is it a huge deal? No. It is just another example of sloppy creationist research (I mean if a printing press operator recognizes archaeocete legs when he sees them, come on).
Nit. Picked.
Relevant Links
A modified version of my creationist pigeon mascot, the “Patreon Protesting Pigeon“. A little reverse psychology to woo patrons [Psst, don’t tell the other readers, it’ll give the trick away].
The Patreon Protesting Pigeon
