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Three Republican Presidential Candidates Say That They Are No Dinosaurs. Or Was It, That They Don't Believe in Dinosaurs?
My able and politics-obsessed colleague Dave Weigel spent his evening blogging the Republican presidential candidates' debate last night. Weigel noted that when moderator Chris Matthews asked the candidates who didn't believe in biological evolution, Congressman Tom Tancredo raised his hand. Blogging on the fly Dave didn't get to mention that two other candidates also professed a disbelief in biological science.
So who were the other two evolution deniers? One would be Sen. Sam Brownback who has the honor of representing a state that has twice tried to ban evolution from its classrooms in recent years. The other was one-time Baptist minister and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
With candidates like these, no wonder that fewer and fewer Americans identify themselves as Republicans.
Good Xtian|5.4.07 @ 3:00PM|#
Enough of the Christian bashing, heathens!
Only stupid Christians [God bless even them! :)] don't believe in
dinosaurs. Read about good Christians and dinosaurs
here.
Does Jake Boone comment here?
If so, Hi, Jake!
biologist|5.4.07 @ 3:03PM|#
Organic evolution isn't a belief system, it's a set of
scientific theories and principles supported by empirical
observational and experimental evidence.
That said, I'm glad Ron Paul wasn't one of the "unbelievers" in
evolution.
Now, let's ask the candidates if they believe in gravitational
theory, and if so, which gravitational theory has had the most
profound effect upon their lives.
Good Xtian|5.4.07 @ 3:09PM|#
Whoops, my link was broke. :)
I'll try again here.
The point is that of course dinosaurs existed. We have their bones.
It is quite clear to everyone, except stupid evolutionists [God
bless them, too :)], that the dinosaurs failed to survive the great
flood. You are all a bunch of smarties, so I'm sure you knew that.
:)
Brian|5.4.07 @ 3:09PM|#
The current president is in office due to his belief in an almighty creator so I don't see what's so surprising about it.
ktc2|5.4.07 @ 3:22PM|#
Yup, and his successor will doubtless be the same.
"I'm voting for him! He believes the same unbelievable nonsense I
do!"
Great way to elect an executive by popular delusion.
Bhh|5.4.07 @ 3:26PM|#
This fundy fad can't get over soon enough for me. These things usually exhaust themselves sooner or later right?
|5.4.07 @ 3:32PM|#
Does Jake Boone comment here?
If so, Hi, Jake!
Hi, GX! No time to argue - I'm teaching children that there's no
Santa!
ktc2|5.4.07 @ 3:43PM|#
Good Xtian,
OYG! That link is so funny. LOL. I thought it was satire but they
really do believe their nonsense.
It's like a bigfoot website mysterious "tracks", blurry photos and
drawing of what somebody saw.
|5.4.07 @ 3:53PM|#
Stating that you "believe" in evolution seems somehow silly to
me.
I no more "believe" in evolution than I "believe" in the principles
of internal combustion.
Things are either facts, or they aren't.
I suppose one can choose to disbelieve facts, but that would be
kind of silly, and might lead to all sorts of bad side-effects,
like land wars in Asia.
ktc2|5.4.07 @ 4:03PM|#
But it's not a FACT! It's a THEORY!
So we can not believe it!
Like gravitational theory or atomic theory!
ROFL.
Good Xtian|5.4.07 @ 4:06PM|#
Sure it's funny. Funny like you'll be burning in hell for all eternity funny. :)
|5.4.07 @ 4:07PM|#
Belief or disbelief in evolution doesn't seem like a relevant
criteria for public office. Is the president going to veto laws
that support evolution? Is he going to call out the National Guard
to get evolution into our schools?
And for those who might say that belief in evolution may be a
bellweather for science based policy like global warming or stem
cell research funding, I say that's apples and oranges.
We all believe in some superstition or another--feng shui, autism
caused by measles vaccines, the Stooges were really better than the
Beatles. It's their policy preferences that count.
Seitz|5.4.07 @ 4:08PM|#
Okay, so 1/3 are complete morons.
That assumes the other seven understood the question well enough to
answer. I'm not convinced.
Untermensch|5.4.07 @ 4:13PM|#
I thought it was satire but they really do believe their nonsense.
Then you've been duped…
Look at the rest of the site. My favorite bit:
"Diamond" Jack Holgroth is a Game Theoretician who currently teaches a course in Advanced Game Theory for Theologians at Fellowship University. He served our country during the Cold War as a Game Theory Tactician for the Department of Defense and single-handedly developed an elegant solution to the "Fisherman's Quandary", a game theory problem that was crucial to the winning of the arms race and that was famously intractable - until Diamond Jack came along. Jack also enjoys vexillology and can signal Bible passages from memory in fluent semaphore.
Edward|5.4.07 @ 4:14PM|#
Fewer and fewer Americans identify themselves as Republicans, but probably more Americans identify themselves as Wiccans than as Libertarians. Is believing that dinosaurs never existed as preposterous as believing that anything remotely resemnbling Libertopia ever could? People who live in glass houses....
|5.4.07 @ 4:21PM|#
Ah yes, libertarianism.
The only philosophy which states plainly that it doesn't solve
absolutely every single problem, yet its adherents are still
accused of being utopian dreamers.
|5.4.07 @ 4:24PM|#
...might lead to all sorts of bad side-effects, like land
wars in Asia.
Or going against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
|5.4.07 @ 4:25PM|#
Funny like you'll be burning in hell for all eternity
funny.
Good Xtian, don't you know that fear is the mind-killer?
Urkobold®|5.4.07 @ 4:39PM|#
Untermensch,
Urkobold has bigger fish to fry right now.
(and Urkobold isn't sure if Untermensch isn't a distant relative.
Maybe we'll meet at the family reunion.)
Urkobold IS WARNING H&Rers THAT GEEKY REFERENCES MAY BE PART
AND PARCEL, BUT FRESH GEEKY REFERENCES ARE TO BE USED. Princess
Bride WAS ALREADY REFERRED TO THIS WEEK. SO WAS Monty Python.
FIND SOMETHING NEW.
NO PUNISHMENT - THIS IS ONLY A WARNING.
Untermensch|5.4.07 @ 4:49PM|#
Darn, I was hoping to finally solve the controversy about Urkobold's esact appearance. But perhaps I could not see Urkobold and live to tell the tale...
ktc2|5.4.07 @ 5:27PM|#
Oh no! I've been duped!
Next you'll tell me the theory of gravity is a fact too and I can
let go of the ground!
Good Xtian|5.4.07 @ 5:29PM|#
No, no, no. Not duped. Untermennsch is duping you. He made that Wikiedia page as a joke, right, Untermensch?
|5.4.07 @ 5:39PM|#
Good Xtian is right, though.
You guys (Ronald Bailey especially) have got a lot to learn about
creationism. A lot of hilarious crap to learn.
Lots of young-earth creationists think dinosaurs lived alongside
humans (after all, dinosaurs ought to have been created along with
the other land animals, on the sixth day of creation). It's the
standard view, I think. Some think dinosaurs were destroyed in the
flood. Some think they still exist (thanks to baby dinosaurs taken
aboard Noah's ark), and they cite retarded stuff like stories from
Pravda as evidence. "Dr." Carl Baugh claims to have fossils of
dinosaur and human footprints together. "Dr." Kent Hovind runs a
theme park called Dinosaur Adventure Land.
It's a common misconception among educated people, non-Americans,
and high-class Northerners (who typically have never dealt with
creationists) that creationists have a problem with dinosaurs. On
the contrary, creationists are crazy about dinosaurs!
|5.4.07 @ 5:44PM|#
Also:
With candidates like these, no wonder that fewer and fewer
Americans identify themselves as Republicans.
Given that there's a solid consistent 45% of Americans who think
humans were created as-is sometime in the last 10000 years, and
given that a 2005 Harris Poll had 70-80% of Republicans denying
human evolution, I doubt this is the issue.
|5.4.07 @ 5:53PM|#
FIND SOMETHING NEW.
Careful of what you wish for. I could up and go all Jacques Barzun
on you and have you digging up cultural allusions that even Google
won't help you with.
And my abject apologies for not religiously following every thread
so as to realize that the PB quota had already been used
up. Feh!
|5.4.07 @ 5:59PM|#
"And for those who might say that belief in evolution may be a
bellweather for science based policy like global warming or stem
cell research funding, I say that's apples and oranges."
Not really. If you're willing to ignore solid science, evidence,
and fact in favor of your bizarre millenia-old goat-herder-designed
superstitions, that suggests a wide range of public policy that
you're going to be willing to decide based on your 'feelings', your
chosen superstition, or your schizophrenic inner
Voice-Of-Jesus.
I'm not comfortable with our executive making decisions based on
the voices in his head. I'd rather he make them based on evidence
and fact. Regardless of whether we're talking science policy,
reproductive policy, or foreign policy.
Urkobold®|5.4.07 @ 6:05PM|#
juris imprudent ASSUMES THAT Urkobold WOULD BOTHER LOOKING UP
HIS REFERENCES. THIS SMACKS OF HUBRIS.
THIS DOES MERIT PUNISHMENT.
YOU MUST MAKE REFERENCES TO "BLOSSOM," LIKE "WOOOAAHH" AFTER
SOMETHING THAT SURPRISES OR EXCITES YOU.
|5.4.07 @ 6:56PM|#
"Urkobold IS WARNING H&Rers THAT GEEKY REFERENCES MAY BE
PART AND PARCEL, BUT FRESH GEEKY REFERENCES ARE TO BE USED.
Princess Bride WAS ALREADY REFERRED TO THIS WEEK."
Uh, actually, I was using the phrase quite literally and not as a
reference to Princess Bride.
Urkobold®|5.4.07 @ 7:09PM|#
mediageek,
YOU ARE EXEMPT FROM THE "BLOSSOM" DISCIPLINARY ACTION. HAVE A GOOD
WEEKEND.
|5.4.07 @ 7:25PM|#
Not really. If you're willing to ignore solid science,
evidence, and fact in favor of your bizarre millenia-old
goat-herder-designed superstitions, that suggests a wide range of
public policy that you're going to be willing to decide based on
your 'feelings', your chosen superstition, or your schizophrenic
inner Voice-Of-Jesus.
The person that came up with the myth was a genius. The order of
creation is quite good. People believing it today are, well, not
geniuses. However, some are quite intelligent. I think some people
choose not to question their faith. I was terrified to do so at 18,
but I did, and I lost my faith.
If you keep just the beginning of the statement it becomes quite
general:
Not really. If you're willing to ignore solid science,
evidence, and fact in favor of your bizarre... insert
almost any ideological belief here.
A cousin of mine is far stupider than any creationist could be.
He's an athiest, but refuses to believe that his distant ancestors
were ape-like creatures. He actually says, "I didn't come from no
ape." I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't heard it with my own
ears.
|5.4.07 @ 7:25PM|#
THIS SMACKS OF HUBRIS.
Reeks more then smacks; hubris is my brand of aftershave.
And mediageek shouldn't throw such fat, hanging curves , especially
on Fridays. Time to drink now.
ktc2|5.4.07 @ 8:11PM|#
Yes, we should all go the creationism museum!
http://www.answersingenesis.org/museum/
We can laugh till we pass out or they throw us out whichever comes
first.
|5.4.07 @ 9:39PM|#
"I'm voting for him! He believes the same unbelievable
nonsense I do!"
Isn't this the only reason that anyone votes for anyone?
Jim Bob|5.4.07 @ 10:32PM|#
Satan magicked dinosaur fossils into the ground to test believers' faith. Duh.
Elmo|5.4.07 @ 11:03PM|#
Jim Bob: Satan magicked dinosaur fossils into the ground to
test believers' faith. Duh.
No Creationists believe that, but, like Dave2 said above, it's a
caricature that is common among people who have had no dealings
with Creationists.
Creationists believe in idiotically silly enough things as it is
without having to make up beliefs for them. If your aim is to
discredit them, instead try explaining as clearly and as accurately
as possible what they actually believe.
Untermensch|5.5.07 @ 9:01AM|#
Eat it, heathens!
You'd think someone trying to make a fake would at least find out
that fossils don't appear surrounded by packed dirt and looking
like prepared specimins in the ground. I'm going to guess that
"Stefan" set up that site to see just how credulous some people in
fact are. Of course the fact that some religious people
believe this obvious hoax (Highnumber, I hope I'm not spoiling
another joke!) will be taken as proof by some that all
religious folks are stupid and gullible. Sigh...
Jim Bob|5.5.07 @ 11:08AM|#
Creationists believe in idiotically silly enough things as
it is without having to make up beliefs for them. If your aim is to
discredit them, instead try explaining as clearly and as accurately
as possible what they actually believe.
How about I make fun of their head-in-the-sand, reality-denying
pseudoscientific dogma in the most appropriately hyperbolic and
sarcastic manner I can muster? That okay with you? Because they
certainly don't need any help from me to be discredited- they do
that handily enough by themselves. Such manifestly obtuse people
deserve my derision and ridicule, not my calm and reasoned
refutation of their nonsense.
By the way, thanks for your insight into what Creationists actually
believe. I can't speak for their party line and I don't really give
a shit, but I know some cheerful fundamentalist fellows down here
in Georgia who will tell you all about how Satan (or God) planted
dinosaur fossils into the ground to test their faith.
Elmo|5.6.07 @ 6:18AM|#
Dear Jim Bob,
How about I make fun of their head-in-the-sand, reality-denying
pseudoscientific dogma in the most appropriately hyperbolic and
sarcastic manner I can muster That okay with you? Because they
certainly don't need any help from me to be discredited.
If you'd stop lashing out in poorly aimed anger for a moment, maybe
you'd see that that is exactly what you are doing. You're going out
of your way to try to help them by making up stuff that they don't
actually say.
(I am calling bullshit on your claim that you know people in
Georgia who think Satan planted dino bones. Care to point to some
writings from these people, or are they primitive hillfolk without
access to computers? In my years of reading creationists writings I
have never encountered people who actually argue that -- although
it's a commonly repeated claim among people making fun of
creationists -- and frankly I think you are just inventing them to
conform to your own knee-jerk, ill-informed stereotypes.)
More over, you think that you're helping them to discredit
themselves, but actually you're helping them discredit
anti-creationists. "Look," they'll say to their congregations and
would-be converts, "the Atheistic Darwinists are ignorant of what
we are actually saying. Maybe they don't know everything like they
think they do?" You're giving the ammunition.
Such manifestly obtuse people deserve my derision and ridicule,
not my calm and reasoned refutation of their nonsense.
You'll notice that I didn't advise calm and reasoned refutations,
but rather accurate depictions of their actual beliefs. If their
beliefs are truly as nonsensical as you believe (and they are) then
that would be the most effective way of damning them, wouldn't
it?
But hey, you don't give a shit, so why worry? You know creationists
are wrong, even if you don't know what they believe. I mean, that's
not the slightest bit similar to the sort of ignorant/arrogant
stance that creationists take when claiming that mainstream science
is wrong without even bothering to familiarize themselves with it.
You are on the right side so you can do no wrong.
Glad we have you on our team.
GILMORE|5.6.07 @ 11:42AM|#
ktc2 | May 4, 2007, 3:43pm | #
Good Xtian,
OYG! That link is so funny. LOL. I thought it was satire but they
really do believe their nonsense.
Yeah, that site is actually a DEEP parody. It's been misread for
years - which is partly what they intended - but some of their
pieces are just mind blowingly funny...
like the creation-science fair?
http://objectiveministries.org/creation/sciencefair.html
my fave project =
""2nd Place: "Maximal Packing Of Rodentia Kinds: A Feasibility
Study"
Jason Spinter's (grade 12) project was to show the feasibility of
Noah's Ark using a Rodentia research model (made of a mixture of
hamsters and gerbils) as a representative of diluvian life forms.
The Rodentia were placed in a cage with dimensions proportional to
a section of the Ark. The number of Rodentia used (58) was
calculated using available Creation Science research and was based
on the median animal size and their volumetric distribution in the
Ark. The cage was also fitted with wooden dowels inserted at
regular intervals through the cage walls, forming platforms which
provided support for the Rodentia. Although there was little room
left in the cage, all Rodentia were able to move just enough to
ward off muscle atrophy. Food pellets and water were delivered to
sub-surface Rodentia via plastic drinking straws inserted into the
Rodentia-mass, which also served to allow internal air flow. Once a
day, the cage was sprayed with water to cleanse any built-up waste.
Additionally, the cage was suspended on bungee cords to simulate
the rocking motion of a ship. The study lasted 30 days and 30
nights, with all Rodentia surviving at least long enough afterwards
to allow for reproduction. These findings strongly suggest that
Noah's Ark could hold and support representatives of all
antediluvian animal kinds for the duration of the Flood and
subsequent repopulation of the Earth.""
|5.7.07 @ 10:19AM|#
Dearest Elmo,
No, I will not provide you with names and addresses of people I
have met here in Georgia who have said what I said they said. You
want to call them and do a phone interview? Or does it surprise you
that not everyone in the year 2007 publishes every opinion they
have somewhere on the intertubz? Call bullshit all you want. I
acknowledge that what I said is anecdotal, but that doesn't make it
any less true. I never claimed that it was an opinion of
creationists at large, either.
More over, you think that you're helping them to discredit
themselves, but actually you're helping them discredit
anti-creationists. "Look," they'll say to their congregations and
would-be converts, "the Atheistic Darwinists are ignorant of what
we are actually saying. Maybe they don't know everything like they
think they do?" You're giving the ammunition.
I didn't say I'm helping them discredit themselves. Take two
seconds to read what I said again. They DON'T NEED my help to be
discredited. Everything they say is suspect because it rests on
questionable principles. None of that pesky scientific method stuff
to get in the way, just questionable conclusions stemming from poor
reasoning that itself comes from their insistence that observations
conform to theory.
You'll notice that I didn't advise calm and reasoned
refutations, but rather accurate depictions of their actual
beliefs. If their beliefs are truly as nonsensical as you believe
(and they are) then that would be the most effective way of damning
them, wouldn't it?
That is exactly what I said, Elmo. Gratz on reading
comprehension.
Besides, creationists can accurately portray their own beliefs to
anyone they want, by themselves, and I don't need to help them.
Creationism is not a science, or it's bad science. I would not
spend ten seconds arguing with someone who believes the earth is
flat, or with someone who believes that since because I cannot show
them a real live anti-down quark it must not exist, or with someone
who insists that Minkowski spacetime is nonsense.
But hey, you don't give a shit, so why worry? You know
creationists are wrong, even if you don't know what they believe. I
mean, that's not the slightest bit similar to the sort of
ignorant/arrogant stance that creationists take when claiming that
mainstream science is wrong without even bothering to familiarize
themselves with it. You are on the right side so you can do no
wrong.
I said I didn't know what the official creationist party line is,
yes. I'm surprised that matters so much to you. The difference
between creationists ignoring and ridiculing actual science and
actual scientists ignoring and ridiculing creation "scientists"
should be obvious. Creationists want facts to fit an agenda.
Creation science does not deserve the consideration of rational
thinking human beings as a legitimate scientific theory of how the
universe came into being and operates because it wants to make
predictions a priori true and then find ways to make
observations conform to those predictions. That is bad
science.
If you think I should know more, send me some links. It seems that
this entire argument was predicated on your belief that I just
stick my fingers in my ears and go "la-la-la" instead of finding
real reasons to doubt creationism- namely, that it is bad science-
and also because you wanted to play "gotcha!" with me by pointing
out my supposed hypocrisy.
Anyway, while we're here, I'm going to go ahead and accuse you of
being a viral creation apologist.
|5.16.07 @ 6:28AM|#
The title of the article does not make sense. Disbelief in
evolution does not imply disbelief in dinosaurs.
A different but common misconception that I often see is the
equating of disbelief in evolution to belief in biblical
creationism, another false assumption.
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