Dennis Campbell On Evolution

Ken AshfordEducation, GodstuffLeave a Comment

I don’t know Dennis Campbell — I’ve never read him before — but I like him.

Another loony theory from the wonderland of evolution

Proponents of evolution remind me of the slightly dumb class clown who thinks people are laughing with him, while all the time they are snickering as he makes a goofy spectacle of himself.

Largely beside the point, but I think the class clown knows he’s making a goofy spectacle of himself.  And is laughing along.

Since they hold a materialist view of the world, evolutionists must have a materialist answer for everything from lust to love. It quickly reaches absurdity.

For example, why are men — at least some men — attracted to women with slim waists and flaring hips? Well, because it indicates the ability to pop out babies. Preservation of the species, you know. Of course, that fails to explain why some prefer the emaciated runway model look.

Well, sure, Dennis.  There are always outliers.  In fact, that’s part and parcel of evolutionary theory.

Examples of this foolishness are endless. But recently, a theory to explain why the majority of the public rejects the theory of evolution exceeds any previous preposterousness by an order of magnitude.

Foolishness?  Presposterousness?  I think Dennis had his copy of Roget’s open when he wrote this.

Writing for TCS Daily (http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=122607B), Lee Harris comes to this conclusion: The unenlightened masses that find evolution an impossible pill to swallow reject it because apes and gorillas are loathsome to most people.

Yes, we just cannot abide the thought that our forebears were ugly, grunting, grub-eating hominids pooping in public and picking lice off one another.

No, you can’t.  Going back to the Scopes trial, this has been one clear point of anti-evolutionsists.

Harris says the rejection of Darwinian babbling has nothing to do with the Bible and its story of creation. He writes: "The stumbling block to an acceptance of Darwin, I would like to submit, has little to do with Christian fundamentalism, but a whole lot to do with our intense visceral revulsion at monkeys and apes. This revulsion, while certainly not universal, is widely shared, and it is a psychological phenomenon that is completely independent of our ideas about the literal truth of the Bible."

Furthermore, says Harris, "This visceral revulsion against monkeys explains why so many people prefer to hold on to the far more flattering mythology of man’s creation as it was presented in Genesis. It is not Genesis that turns them against Darwin; it is Darwin that makes them turn to Genesis."

Is that so? Well, here is an alternative theory: People reject evolution because it fundamentally is an illogical — make that irrational — concept.

Okay, now the fun begins:

We are to believe that billions of years ago in the great nothingness the Big Bang spewed out an incomprehensibly large volume of matter. Somehow, the laws of nature just happened. Some matter became stars. Some, planets.

No, you’re right.  Instead we are to believe that billions of years ago, an invisible magic person spewed out incomprehensibly large volumes of matter.  Billions of galaxies, each containing billions of stars, and hundreds of billions of planets.  And then, this magic invisible person concentrated on one single planet orbiting around a rather obscure star located on a rather obscure corner of a rather obscure galaxy.

Yeah, that’s far more logical and rational.

Frankly, I am more inclined to believe in the Tooth Fairy.

Yes, we know.

I would rather sandpaper a bobcat’s butt in a phone booth than completely jettison rational thinking….

You would — what?  Well, ain’t that some downhome spun homily thar.

…which is what the cosmic leap of faith necessary to believe this fairy tale requires.

Right.  Evolution, which is supported by things like fossils, and — oh, yeah, — human observation requires a "leap of faith".  Religion on the other hand?  Apparently not.

But it gets more absurd. After the requisite billions of years passed, a truly remarkable thing happened: A microscopic cell popped into existence. What caused it? Oh, just the random interplay of electricity and various chemicals, akin to the first microchip sprouting under a mushroom in Silicon Valley.

Uh, not quite.  In fact, before the first cell, there were billions of years of chemicals combining to form compounds and isotopes amd molecules.  Surely you believe in chemical reactions, don’t you, Dennis?

Not only did this cell survive, but it also managed to thrive. Somehow, it got nourishment from its soupy, primordial environment….

Somehow it got nourishment from its soupy primordial environment?  That’s because it evolved from the soupy primordial environment.  It’s kind of like wondering how it is that fish "somehow" became able to swim.  They became that way because they evolved in watery environments.  If a species of aniial evolved in water that wasn’t able to swim, then it would die off.  This is what natural selection means.

…and then it "learned" how to multiply. How long did that take? A second? An hour? A million years? The latter seems improbable, because even the longest-lived creatures on Planet Earth live a few hundred years, at best.

Well, now we’re into serious nutjob logic here.  Basically, Dennis is arguing that each advance in evolution cannot take place longer than the span of a generic creature’s lifetime. 

I think I’ve identified the problem here.  Apparently Dennis thinks that ONE cell was created from the primordial soup, which led to ONE fish, which led to ONE salamander, which led to ONE monkey which led to ONE man.  Because he’s seen all those charts showing evolution, and there’s only one type of each species in the chain.

So, it must have been that this brand-new life almost immediately learned to multiply. Then, it "adapted" to its surroundings.

Kind of easy to reject evolution when you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about.

Then…well, the story just gets loonier and loonier. To believe it one must function at a high order of gullibility.

Indeed.  Unlike buying into Genesis?

Here are the facts: Human DNA is enormously complex, with 20,000 to 25,000 genes and three billion chemical base pairs. A cell is a veritable factory, with individual components performing myriad complex tasks.

DNA is computer code far more complex than anything mankind has developed. A computer program requires a programmer, and to conclude that what we see in life and the cosmos was designed, and thus requires a designer, is perfectly logical. This is what Intelligent Design postulates. ID is not creationism, that is, literally interpreting the Genesis creation account, as is dishonestly maintained by evolutionists.

It’s not logic; it’s giving in to ignorance.  It’s scratching your idea and saying, "You know, this stuff is complex.  Therefore, someone smarter than us must have been responsible for it.  Therefore, ID."

The problem of course is that mankind has fallen for this before.  Our pre-Christian ancestors did not understand the complexity of astronomy, so the stars were — to them — actual Gods riding chariots across the sky.  Diseases were attributed to demons and other supernatural things, rather than viruses.  Science led us to discover facts about these things — facts that even people like Dennis take for granted as true. 

ID, however, is a conscious rejection of science in favor of ignorance.

As the human past has shown, just because something is complex and beyond our (or should I say, Dennis’s) understanding does not mean that there is a designer behind all creation.

What is not logical is to say that perfect order came unaided from utter chaos.

Ah, but where is the perfect order?  Are trees perfectly symmetrical?  (No.)  Is the earth a perfect sphere?  (No.)  Where exactly is the "order" to ALL of creation?

There is order, I suppose, if you want to argue that creatures "fit" with their environment.  The giraffe, one could argue, was "designed" by a "designer" to have a long neck because he eats the leaves from the tall trees.  But evolution explains the giraffe’s long neck as well, and — more importantly — has scientific evidence to back it up, (i.e. fossils indicating giraffe-like creatures with shorter necks, okapis, etc.)

What is clear is that evolution is little more than a poor attempt to justify the rejection of God.

Even that is wrong.  Evolution doesn’t reject God.  It rejects a literal interpretation of Genesis.  In fact, evolution might explain the process through which God created all (and if it does, then by rejecting evolution, you may be rejecting God, Dennis).

My rejection of evolution has everything to do with rational thinking and nothing to do with my supposed revulsion for apes and monkeys. In fact, I find chimpanzees and their cousins immensely amusing — almost as amusing as people like Lee Harris and his sublimely preposterous theory.

Yes, Dennis, I believe you.  I think you do have a special fondness for monkeys…

Campbell

Pictured above: Dennis Campbell

Drzaius

Pictured above: Dr. Zaius

Just sayin…..

New Black Is The New Black

Ken AshfordScience & TechnologyLeave a Comment

Scientists have come up with a substance which is 30 times darker than the standard benchmark of "black" used by the  U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Huh?, you say.

Black, as we all know, is the absence of colors.  Things that are black are black because they absorb all colors of light and reflect none of those colors.

Trouble is, there isn’t actually anything known that absorbs all the spectrums of light and reflects none (what is known as "ideal black").  Black paint, for example, has a reflective index of 5 percent to 10 percent.

By comprison, this new substance — which is really really black — has a reflecting index of 0.1%.

Practical uses?  You betcha.  Because the substance catches much more light than other "black" things, it works better as a solar panel.

Read more here.

This of course leads me to ask, "How much more black can things get?" 

And the answer is "None.  None more black."

Sign Of The Times

Ken AshfordEducation, Sex/Morality/Family ValuesLeave a Comment

High schools students in Denver are demaning maternity leave.

Pregnant students in a Denver high school are asking for at least four weeks of maternity leave so they can heal, bond with their newborns and not be penalized with unexcused absences.

The request is unusual in Colorado’s public schools, where districts tend to deal with pregnant students or new moms with specialized programs or individualized education plans.

Denver Public Schools has no districtwide policy, leaving it up to schools to work out plans for students to continue their education.

Well, sad that this is an issue, but that’s a separate topic.

It seems to me they should get it — they certainly shouldn’t be penalized academically for being an unwed teen mom (as if that’s not "penalty" enough).  That said, how exactly would that work?  If you miss four weeks of school for maternity leave, how do you come back in to class and pick up what you’ve missed?

Election 2008 Analysis: Michigan

Ken AshfordElection 2008Leave a Comment

Well, Romney won, as many Democrats had hoped.  Dems hoped for a Romney win, because they would rather face Romney in the general, as opposed to McCain.  (The "best of all worlds" Republican nominee would be Huckabee, but that ain’t gonna happen).

The Romney win means that the Republicans will continue in a clusterfuck kind of fashion.  Thompson is far from out (he’s polling great in South Carolina) and could surge at any moment.  Rudy really is dead, but doesn’t know it, and is bound to do well (if not win, although I doubt it) in Florida.

Sadly, there’s still a three-way clusterfuck on the Democratic side.  Today’s news shows that Obama and Clinton are tied nationally, according to the latest Zogby poll.  That’s huge news because, despite being close in the recent primary and caucus states, Clinton has always enjoyed a 10 point or greater advantage nationally.

There was a Democratic debate last night In Nevada.  Sadly, I missed it, but from what I understood, Clinton did well.  Maybe not a blowout (and of course, people see into the "winners" what they want to see), but she didn’t implode. [UPDATE:  Yglesus summarizes: "I suppose the trouble with this debate is that while it was very annoying when the moderates were focused on inane trivia, once they moved to substance it turned out that the candidates don’t really have large disagreements on the issues."]

I think the pack — in both parties — is going to stay the same until Super Duper Tuesday, when 22 states (including New York and California) have their primaries on the same day.  That’s February 5, I believe, which, in politics, is an eternity.

“Reasonable Expectation Of Privacy”

Ken AshfordConstitution, Courts/Law2 Comments

So I was perusing the legal brief (pdf) that the ACLU wrote in support of Larry Craig (the Idaho senator who was caught attempting to engage in hanky-panky in a Minnesota airport restroom).

And I came across this passage:

Expectation

Now, I happen to think that the law for which Craig stands accused is unconstitutional, at least as applied to the (hilarious) facts of the Craig situation.

But I must say, I have a problem with the argument, apparently adopted by the Minnesota courts, that one has a "reasonable expectation of privacy" with respect to sex in a public restroom. 

That phrase, "reasonable expectation of privacy", is one that constitutional and criminal lawyers and scholars love to discuss and dissect — it is, indeed, a term of art.  But it means just what it says.  The query is simple and two-fold: (1)  Does one have an expectation of privacy; and (2)  If so, is that expectation "reasonable" (employing an objective person standard)?

Of course, the answer may depend on outside circumstances.  Obviously, one does have an expectation of privacy — and a reasonable one at that — when one goes into a public restroom stall and closes the door for, well, for the purpose intended by public restroom stalls. 

But is it "reasonable" to expect privacy when you use a public restroom stall for other purposes?  Such as sex?  What about shooting up heroin?  Constructing a bomb?

The counterargument, I suppose, is that shooting up heroin and constructing a bomb are, on their face, illegal, while sex (standing alone) is not.  But that, to me, is a distinction without a difference.

I guess my problem with the Bryant case (cited in the passage above) is that a public restroom stall doesn’t become "private" for all intents and purposes just because you close the stall door.  It is still a public restroom, and the zone of privacy that you create by closing the door is circumscribed by what you are doing in the stall.

That’s just my gut reaction, and perhaps reading more case law will point me in a different direction.  I just thought it was an interesting legal issue.

B Roll Of Katie Couric

Ken AshfordElection 2008Leave a Comment

From My Damn Channel, a look at Katie Couric when the camera is rolling, but she’s not on the air:

There’s nothing particularly controversial about it — in fact, Katie comes off as normal, engaged and personable.  It’s just kinda weird to hear her say, "Oh shit oh shit oh shit"

FISA Fear-Mongering

Ken AshfordWiretapping & Surveillance1 Comment

White House Spokesman Tony Fratto, urging Congress to pass FISA legislation (which will, among other things, give telecom companies retroactive immunity for breaking privacy laws) told Congressional Quarterly yesterday:

“We’re exactly three weeks away from the date when terrorists can be free to make phone calls without fear of being surveilled by U.S. intelligence agencies”.

I have two points to make from this statement, quite separate and apart from the fact that the statement is untrue and not-so-subtly designed to gin up fear:

(1)  If we know they are terrorists, why don’t we just get them?  Why surveil them?  The answer is because we don’t know they are terrorists.  You see, even from the government’s perspective, that’s why one taps phones: to find out who the terrorists are.  And necessarily, you are going to being tapping a lot of phones from people who turn out not to be actual terrorists.  So watch for this Orwellian language game and remember: they won’t actually tap terrorists’ phones;  they’ll be tapping whoever’s phones (yours?) in order to find the terrorists.  Big difference.

(2)  If the U.S. intelligence agencies are that concerned about tapping so-called "terrorists", maybe it ought to pay its phone bills:

Telephone companies cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau’s repeated failures to pay phone bills on time, according to a Justice Department audit released Thursday.

***

And at least once, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation — the highly secretive and sensitive cases that allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies — "was halted due to untimely payment."

Prediction

Ken AshfordPopular CultureLeave a Comment

Britney Spears will become born again, and change to gospel.  Her trademark song will be "Amazing Grace" and her newfound Christian audiences will go nuts whenever she sings "I once was lost, but now I’m found".

You read it here first.