Saint Gasoline says:

Hey there guys, I noticed a lot of commentary here, so I thought I’d share my perspective, being the author of this Venn Diagram and all.

1. The “Republican” part is not meant to be taken seriously. I closely followed the trial in Dover, and guess what? Judge Jones, a Republican, ruled that Intelligent Design was not science and also wrote a very erudite report on the whole matter as part of the judicial process. I certainly don’t belive that he is an idiot. Nor do I believe that no Democrats are stupid. Consider that aspect of the diagram to be the purely humorous part, inserted for comic value at the expense of social conservatives by someone who is a hard-nosed liberal–that being me.

2. I am not saying that all religious people are stupid or believe in Intelligent Design. The Venn Diagram clearly shows that subsets of “religion” are not included in the set of stupidity or ID. (I do believe that all religions are wrong, of course, but that doesn’t mean they are necessarily stupid. Newton was wrong, for instance, but he was hardly stupid!)

3. There are many testable theories concerning the origins of life. All that it takes is determining the initial conditions of the Earth at the time life arose and then performing experiments or using our knowledge of chemistry to arrive at reasonable conclusions regarding the formation of the basic building blocks of life.

Thomas says:

#16, #22
Ooooh..Santa is a belief unlike ID which clearly based on testable hypotheses (presumably one has no need to test a fact).

So, we should rephrase our theory of Intelligent Presents. ID is akin to claiming that all gifts for which you do not know the originator are clearly from a magic fat guy in a red suit whose existence and presence are impossible to prove. It’s just too complicated to have happened any other way.

Misanthropic Scott says:

#13 – Mike,

You said, “what does the viability of abiogenesis have to do with proving or disproving evolution?”

Actually nothing at all, I was just answering post #5. I was also pointing out that the term is not really used by scientists, but primarily by apologeticists. Then, I got sidetracked on a personal pet peeve about it.

I guess I’m only human after all, which is rather embarrassing for a misanthrope actually.

OhForTheLoveOf says:

#21 – The comic is sweet I laughed myself silly yesterday.

Lauren the Ghoti says:

#30 – Brian

You a trip, homes!

You do a lot of ASSuming, chum. Apparently someone taught you that bit back in grade school, so you keep trotting it out to show us what an objective, scientifically superior mind you must have to know such a thing! OK, we’re impressed. Happy?

First in your laundry list of arrogant, invincible ignorance is this: I simply stated that your absurd and laughably out-of-date “argument” is one that is USED BY creationists – because the only people stupid enough to fall for it at this point are the mouth-breathers who occupy the pews at fundamentalist churches. Nowhere did I state or imply that you yourself are one. You are good at reading shit into things that isn’t actually there, which goes a long way toward explaining why your abilitiy to use logic reasoning is so severely impaired.

“Evolutionist (sic) is definitely religious” “Evolution requires faith” “Dogma”
Oo yas. Keep repeating it. It might come true if you just cross your nubby little fingers and say it over and over. But we’ll return to that later…

“So, life doesn’t spontaneously evolve?” Nope. “That wins you the day, eh?” Well it certainly flushes your assertion down the Toilet of Knowledge, now doesn’t it? So you try to conceal your embarassment by a lame attempt at smugly minimalizing your loss. So sad.

We’ll put the decaying, maggot-infested “meat” of your so-called “argument” under the microscope when I return from errands…

Oh, and your pitiful parting shot there?

Ad hominem fallacy. And like Fusebox’s attempts at same, rather lame. No fire, no music, just schoolyard crap.

BBL!

“Why that doesn’t bother everybody in your camp can only be described as dogma.” Of course, by “everybody in your camp” you are referring to virtually every bioscientist of the last 150 years.

Mr. Fusion says:

#31, And here I was about to suggest I well written post. That is until I got to the last paragraph. I should point out that – You are good at reading shit into things that isn’t actually there, which goes a long way toward explaining why your abilitiy to use logic reasoning is so severely impaired. .

You did make a good attempt to show Brian how stupid his argument is. But next time, try not to look so stupid yourself. It is demeaning.

Lauren the Ghoti says:

#33 – Fusebox

Let’s talk a minute about looking stoopid, shall we?

“…until I got to the last paragraph.” Uh, I don’t know how to break this to you, but that wasn’t anywhere near the last paragraph – it was the third…

And the entire point of my followup post was an implicit acknowledgement of the typos (guess you missed the other in that para) – and of leaving that last para at the end, which went unnoticed when I hit the “Say It!” button, having pushed it down earlier to where it wasn’t visible in the tiny piece o’ shit editing box… so I added the word ‘reasoning’ and forgot to go back and change “logic” to the adjectival form. Big whoop.

But enough of that.

Brian!!

In the interim, I happened serendipitously upon a perfect example of the kind of arrogant stupidity you display here. It appears that you’re in good company, since Scott Adams has made it a point on his blog to publicly declare himself one of your intellectually-impaired brethren.

I ran across this on a science blog I frequent, and I stumbled right into this perfecly wonderful post, which directly addresses the egotistical stupidity that ignorant laymen like you and Mr. A are so prone to and enamored of.

Maybe NASA’ll rent you the VAB so you’ll have a place to store your ego when you’re not using it to set the bumbling, ignorant world of science straight. It comes with a lifetime supply of diapers for those times when you can’t control your ‘eager anticipation.’

How did science ever survive without your unique, timeless insights?

Brian says:

Lauren,
First, some tempting peeks into the rat hole. Isn’t Scott Adams the Dilbert guy? Also, sure I’m a layman. I haven’t seen any credentials to suggest you are not. So are you invalidating your premise, or admitting your ignorance? And now for something completely different.

Well, following an (admittedly) unusually pleasant post from me, rather than stun me with any kind of extraordinary fact, what you do is come back with some personal attack. It amounts to an (admittedly) sophisticated raspberry.
You almost inspire one to choose a religion at random to adhere to if only for the benefit of not ending up where bitter people of your ilk congregate.
Since I can learn nothing more from you than senseless bickering (a skill I assure I already posses) I’m going to spend my time elsewhere until something else here at dvorak.org/shameless_plug gains my interest.

Don’t worry, just in case you think you came up with one hell of a zinger just as I “ran away”, I’ll read your reply should there be one.

Brian says:

Thomas

Get off of the internet (and especially this blog) this instant! You are far to decent and level headed to hang out here.

Sarcasm aside, you are a breath of fresh air. Someone who doesn’t like my argument, but responds with both civility AND a relevant link. I’m speechless. I can’t wait to check it out.

All I have ever said about evolution, btw, is that there are significant holes in the story as it was taught in school. It was taught as fact, and it’s open to debate. I think that is irresponsible.

What I said about intelligent design is only that I see instances of designing of lifeforms in science today, so while I don’t subscribe to that school of thought, it seems awfully close minded to be condescendingly dismissive of the idea. I mean, using the standard of observable and reproducible, it is the theory with the most legs.

Now, if you haven’t guessed by now, I’m not a strict “6000 years” creationist either. I have a hybrid theory of how it makes sense to me, but despite what others claim, I understand the issue is much larger than I, and I hardly believe I above all humanity have figured it out. That is why my personal cosmology is very fluid and I seek out debate on the subject.

I’ve listened to brilliant men from all 3 schools of thought. I feel the best course of action is to challenge all the arguments, and see what survives the refining fire. Is that really so bad?

Anyway, we could all learn a lesson from Thomas on how to handle our disagreements. Thanks.