And You Thought Anti-Evolutionism Was Bad…
September 29th, 2008
|
| Share |
Update: Apparently this video was not serious. It was made as a joke by someone who is not a Fundamentalist Christian or an idiot. This was only apparent by viewing the other videos by the same person. Really, it can be very hard to tell. Making a mockery of these types by taking the anti-evolution arguments to the next degree of absurdity is hard to do because often there are people who actually truly really do believe stuff this wacky and ill informed.
Maybe I’m just gullible, but this didn’t seem any worse than other videos I’ve seen. Maybe if it denied gravity or something that would be a clue. It’s just really really hard to top the real thing for ridiculousness.
Now here’s something even worse! Plate tectonics: An evil, satanic conspiracy of atheists to destroy the faith of people in the true word of god!
Do I even need to point out all the ridiculous flaws, untrue statements and logical fallacies in this crap?
Plate tectonics and the concept of land masses moving over long periods of time is not supported by just a few fossils and the fact that the continents fit together. It’s based on seismic data that has shown the structure of the earth and an understanding of geophysical forces. It’s based on everything from rock formations to isotopic signatures that are found around the world. It’s based on precision measurements of geography, surveys, observations of natural formations, subduction zones and volcanic areas.
If not for plate tectonics there would we’d have no explanation for the existance of the Rockey Mountains or the Great Rift Valley other than “God did it.” Our only explanation for things like earthquakes and tsunamis would only be “God must be very angry at us.” Volcanoes would be explained as “Must be hot magic fire from down in hell.” There was a time when this was how the earth was viewed, apparently this guy wants to go back to it.
There’s no freakin difference between “macro movement” and “micro movement” which, according to this guy everyone accepts because it can be shown to be happening. Plate tectonics did not “happen” as this guy seems to think. It *is* happening. it continues to happen and will continue to do so. Macro movement is what happens when you have many consecutive years of micro movement. (The same goes for evolution by the way.) If something moves about half an inch a year then in sixty million years it will have moved close to five hundred miles, and sixty million years is not even that long a time, geologically speaking. We can even measure the movement of plates and the drift of continents, current surveying methods are precise enough to see it continuing to happen.
Finally, Jesus, if he existed sure as hell was not a scientist. I’m also not aware of anywhere in the Bible where Jesus explicitly disputes plate tectonics or says “Land masses moving? Nope. Doesn’t happen.” I don’t even know of any instances of Gallello dismissing the idea directly, of course, it didn’t really exist in his time, but still, the Christians found plenty of reason to damn him to hell.
I guess erosion must be false too, because I’ve never seen water wear away a rock. Well, I’ve seen it wear away sand and dirt and I’ve seen rock tumblers erode down stones, but those are small stones so that’s “micro-erosion” it proves nothing! And the hour hand on analog clocks doesn’t move. It magically changes place when nobody’s watching. I know because I’ve looked at the hour hand and I don’t see any movement. (Well, maybe some micro movement)
This entry was posted on Monday, September 29th, 2008 at 12:12 am and is filed under Bad Science, Conspiracy Theories, Education, Just LAME, Not Even Wrong, Obfuscation, media, religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
View blog reactions
September 29th, 2008 at 12:51 am
Looking at the other videos the poster’s website, it seems the video is a parody.
To quote the poster….
“I do not feel obliged to believe the same God who endowed me with reason, sense, and intellect intended for me to forgo their use.”
Cheers,
Mike
Quote Comment
September 29th, 2008 at 12:54 am
mike said:
You think? Maybe.. I’ll have to look, but I’ve seen stuff this bad so it’s hard to tell. If this guy was trying to spoof it by making something so ridiculous it was beyond what the fundies would be out then sorry but he failed, because this is totally within the realm of stuff I’ve seen that is serious.
Quote Comment
September 29th, 2008 at 12:58 am
“Finally, Jesus, if he existed sure as hell was not a scientist.”
Definitely not, he was a carpenter by trade, or so says the Bible.
Quote Comment
September 29th, 2008 at 1:58 am
I’m pretty sure that in this case, this guy is trolling.
Quote Comment
September 29th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Technically, the Bible never even says Jesus was a carpenter. We assume it because that was his father’s job.
But the “if he existed” stuff is beneath you, buzz. The dude’s a historical figure, no matter how nutty his followers are. There’s no reputable historian who disputes this.
Quote Comment
September 29th, 2008 at 9:31 am
“Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed . ‘Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?’ And they took offense at him. Jesus said to them, ‘Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.’”
(Mark 6:1-4)
Unless of course the Gospel of Mark has been struck from the cannon since I last looked.
Also the Jesus myth hypothesis, while admittedly flimsy, is a recognized position in historical study. I don’t personally think they have proved their case, but it is considered a valid hypothesis none the less.
Quote Comment
September 29th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Of course no scientist would say that Jesus did not exist.
First of all from a purely logical standpoint you cannot prove (with the means we have available today) that something or someone did not exist. If I ask you to prove that Invisible Pink Unicorns did not roam the Earth twothousand years ago you could not do that.
Second, the impact of such a stance would mean that the scientist in question makes himself if not an enemy at least massively disliked by a big bunch of people… oooh, say about a billion of them. Dan Brown got himself in hot water because he dared to popularize the theory (he did not create it), that Jesus of Nazareth and Mary Magdalene got married and had children. Kevin Smith (Clerks, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back) not as much so but at least got picketed for pointing out that “to believe a married couple never got down, well that’s just plain gullibility!”, i.e. Jesus had sibblings, born of Mary and Joseph.
Similarilly, let’s look at the neighbouring religion Islam. Saying that the prophet Mohammed did not exist… well… just don’t go there, for your own safety, ok? You just don’t do that sort of thing and expect to survive as a scientist.
The fact remains though that, as Wikipedia recollects, “the historical outlook on Jesus relies on critical analysis of the Bible, especially the gospels”. How do we know Jesus of Nazareth existed? Well basically becasue the bible says so. So here comes the killing blow children: how do we know the bible is accurate in this respect?
The existence of Jesus of Nazareth is a hypothesis at best. You need to make a leap of faith not only for the more outlandish claims – that he was born from virginal conception; that he was dead for three days before he stood up again and walked the earth; that he is the son of god – but also that he even existed as a physical person. Noone has proven conclusively or even convincingly that Jesus of Nazareth existed.
Suppose we invent a time machine, one that at least lets us look back in time to see what happened in history. Suppose that the day we turn it on, we prove once and for all that Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha never existed. That, my friends, will be a disaster that makes any LHC black hole seem like a pee in the Nile. Because that day we shatter the faith of approximately 2-3 billion people…
Makes you wonder what price we are willing to pay for scientific truth, doesn’t it?
Quote Comment
September 29th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Micah said:
In what sense? Do you mean that there was someone named Jesus? There were many and there still are. If you don’t believe me, go to Mexico. (they do spell it with an accent mark and pronounce it differently, but it’s the translation of the same name).
Are you saying there was one individual born circa 1 BC and who the bible stories are based on? That’s not history. That’s a religious thing. There’s no verifiable history of anyone who was the source of the character in the Bible. There may have been, but if there was then the guy’s life was corrupted by a lot of tall tales before it was ever recorded. More likely the figure was a combination of different religious leaders and a few mythological stories thrown in too.
Quote Comment
September 29th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Though opinions vary in detail, most historians that study the period in question generally agree on these basic points: Jesus was a Jewish religious figure who attracted a small following of Galileans and, after a period of ministry, was crucified by the Romans in the Judea Province during the governorship of Pontius Pilate. The exact date of his birth is conjecture, however it would seem that circa 1 BCE is close enough.
Now question on how accurate the stories of his ministry are, and how much of it is a fabrication of
Luke and the unknown author of the Q document is another matter. Certainly there are indications that they took some literary license in their witting, and some of the items they reported might be attributable to others. Judaism was going through a doctrinal upheaval at the time, and Jesus of Nazareth was not the only one preaching reform.
But there is every indication that someone named Jesus preached and was crucified for it in that general area, at around that time.
Quote Comment
September 29th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
This is definitely meant to be a joke. In fact, check out this blokes other video’s, he’s actually doing exactly what Dr Buzz0 asked for a few posts ago. He’s articulately refuting creationism and the likes. Hat’s off to this bloke… DonExodus2. I strongly recommend checking out his other videos.
That being said, I did have a moment watching the video in this post where I thought this might be real because I’ve seen this kind of stuff before too. Scary
Quote Comment
September 29th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Holy crap, where do you find this stuff?
I like the part about scoffing. lf someone scoffs at my ideas, it automatically means I am correct.
And I learned something! People used the direction of the dipoles in rocks to figure out how the continents were originally aligned?? I’ve never heard of that. It’s really cool. I mean, who thought of that? really brilliant.
Quote Comment
September 29th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
More than that. The magnetic orientation of rocks are set as the material cools and solidifies from being created at expansion boundaries so as you more away from somewhere like the Mid Atlantic ridge, the youngest rock is closest and then you get older and older and this can be shown through radiometric dating of some minerals.
By measuring the orientation, it is possible to determine the location of the magnetic north and south poles of the earth and the strength of earth’s magnetic field. It’s been discovered that it has fluctuated and reversed hundreds of times in the planets history. On occasions the magnetic field has suddenly shifted or diminished or shifted and the reasons are not entirely known.
Quote Comment
September 29th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Dalyn85 said:
I agree that if he tried to make the video so bad that it would be obvious it was a joke then it was not clear enough because this video is really not any worse than any number of real christian videos.
I don’t know how you parody these kind of videos though. No matter how stupid you try to be to mock them, there is probably someone who already believes something even worse.
Quote Comment
September 29th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Just as delusional, but not a parody: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6121325902129285904
Quote Comment
September 29th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Gordon said:
DonExodus has done many excellent videos refuting Creationism. In this video, he simply uses every Creationist arguement against evolution that’s been thrown at him time and time again but just applies it to plate tectonics. His point is that you can use the same ignorant arguements against any scientific theory.
Perhaps he should have declared gravity a conspiracy instead to make it a bit more obvious that he isn’t serious. But I suspect that’s been done already…
Ah yes, the flat earthers have that covered.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_Society
Quote Comment
September 29th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Soylent said:
Well, the earth is growing. That much is true. It’s not growing nearly that fast and the change in mass is far too small to be noticable even over a millennium. The earth gains hundreds of tons of mass annually due to meteorites. The vast majority of the mass gained comes from micrometeorites which may be smaller than dust.
There are also charged particles from the solar wind or other cosmic sources which are captured, but their mass is far less significant.
The mass of meteorites more than compensates for the forces that are removing mass from the earth. not just artificial space launches, although that seems like the most obvious. Molecules of the atmosphere can be stripped by the solar wind, and hydrogen atoms are light enough to sometimes escape earth’s gravity. heavier elements are less common but something like a small particle of volcanic ash or something might occasionally reach a high enough altitude to be ejected from the earth by electrostatic forces in the ionosphere or something. Most will likely end up just in orbit but some might escape if they’re hit by a high energy particle or gain enough electrostatic potential. Then there are sprites and jets associated with electrical storms. I don’t believe those are entirely well understood yet.
But all in all meteorites are sufficient for a net gain in mass of the planet.
Quote Comment
September 29th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
DV82XL said:
I stand corrected.
Quote Comment
October 12th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
I think you guys need to look up Poe’s law.
///In this video, he simply uses every Creationist arguement against evolution that’s been thrown at him time and time again but just applies it to plate tectonics. His point is that you can use the same ignorant arguements against any scientific theory.///
Well put.
-Don
Quote Comment