Anti-Science

Da Vinci Code rises from dead, claims more victims.

stupid nonsense

Like a zombie preying on the brains of the living, the Da Vinci Code has once again dodged death in order to lower the collective intelligence of the human species. This time, the conspiracy involves The Last Supper and the “discovery” of a “woman with a child” hidden within the painting. If you’d like to find these hidden figures, simply paste the painting into Photoshop, copy onto a new layer, reverse one layer, decrease the opacity so both layers are visible, lick a tab of LSD, stare at your hand for 40 minutes, then look at the image. Wow, it’s so clear I can’t believe art historians didn’t discover this sooner.

So who did make this great finding? I’m glad you asked. It’s “amateur scholar” Slavisa Pesci. That’s right, Slavisa Pesci, the famous amateur scholar! Now you’re asking, “What the hell is an amateur scholar, Rebecca?” Great question. Let me provide a simple definition using my handy dictionary

amateur: one who is not paid.

scholar: one who studies.

So, friends, an amateur scholar is someone who is not paid to study. Well gosh, I guess that makes me an amateur scholar, since I paid Boston University $10,000 just to let me study! And I’d be willing to be that a bunch of you are amateur scholars as well, and if you’re not now, I bet you used to be. My two nephews are amateur scholars (note: pending investigation, as nephews may receive some sort of allowance to complete spelling or math homework, etc.). You know that dipwad who showed up once to your 8 a.m. Intro to Astronomy class? Amateur scholar! I can’t wait for him to send out his press release announcing his discovery that the moon is really God’s wiffle ball sailing through space.

. . . oh yeah and I guess the mystery woman in the picture is Mary or Jezebel or Tom Hanks or something, I don’t know.

Rebecca Watson

Rebecca is a writer, speaker, YouTube personality, and unrepentant science nerd. In addition to founding and continuing to run Skepchick, she hosts Quiz-o-Tron, a monthly science-themed quiz show and podcast that pits comedians against nerds. There is an asteroid named in her honor. Twitter @rebeccawatson Mastodon mstdn.social/@rebeccawatson Instagram @actuallyrebeccawatson TikTok @actuallyrebeccawatson YouTube @rebeccawatson BlueSky @rebeccawatson.bsky.social

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10 Comments

  1. You know I wonder. If you were able to hop on a time machine back into the past. And show Da Vinci just how influential he was going to be some 500 years in the future; If you also showed him the sort of ridiculous dreck that people would be spewing about him, would he still want to write down all of his inventions or do you think he would just toss himself off of a cliff.

    Can you imagine someone as intelligent as Da Vinci if he were alive today, would he even be able to comprehend just how stupid people can still be in light of everything we've learned about the universe in the last several hundred years. In my mind I have this picture of Da Vinci waking up in the 21st century like some rip van winkle and his head just explodes like a balloon from all of the stupidity the permeates the atmosphere.

  2. If you haven't yet, Anthony, I recommend you watch the Mike Judge movie Idiocracy, about a guy who wakes up in the future to find that the lowest common denominator rules the planet. Hilarious/scary.

  3. I just can't understand the attention this story has gotten. It makes my brains hurt. BAD.

    When I saw the purported images linked off of Fark sometime last week, I was amazed at how stupid the whole thing seemed. I could see NO magic hidden figures appearing, only (obviously) a weak superimposition of one half of the image over the other, causing a bizarre doubled effect to some of the figures.

    How many other paintings do you suppose would look odd when viewed in a fashion other than that in which they were intended to be viewed? "OMG If you flip Van Gogh's self portrait, his OTHER ear is missing! Clearly it's a conspiracy that shows Van Gogh was replaced by a lookalike missing the wrong ear because he was really the son of Jesus and Mary Magdalene brought through time by 'Space Aliens' to fight the Illuminati!"

    In other news, flipping Magritte's "The Treachery of Images" reveals that it was, in fact, a pipe all along.

  4. The ability of the human mind to find patterns where none exist is truly boggling.

    I suspect we're about to see a whole wave of overlay based 'amazing findings'. Surely theres some way you can get the martian face involved.

    Otara

  5. Many moons ago, a friend told me that the Playboy pictures were placed in the pages so they would provoke additional excitement via the subliminal superposition (heck, his words weren't so fancy) when you turned them. Proof of that is the erotic intersection of body parts when you look through the pictures against the light.

    Amateur masturbation, I guess.

    In the race to justify one's existence, self-appointed revisionism becomes the most pathetic sport in the pedant-crowded world of art.

  6. ::notes sidebar::

    Hooray, I have become quoteworthy! :-D I consider that ABOUT as prestigious as winning a Molly over at Pharyngula, and more gratifying, for me, since I comment here with far greater frequency.

    And yes, in case anyone was curious, I'm WELL beyond the point of being embarrassed of being pleased by small, internet-related victories. I'll take happy things however I may come across 'em :-P

  7. @ Rebecca,

    If you haven’t yet, Anthony, I recommend you watch the Mike Judge movie Idiocracy, about a guy who wakes up in the future to find that the lowest common denominator rules the planet. Hilarious/scary.

    Sounds more like a documentary of the current administration…

    Funny, as I was just beginning to read the title of this post, I got to "Da Vinci Code" and said "It's like a zombie!" (only there were two F words in there when I actually said it)…

    By the time I got to the end of the first sentence, I was laughing maniacally.

    Thanks for the chuckles.

    Kisses

  8. If there was a god…

    Why wounldn't Tom Hanks go straight to hell for THAT HAIR?

    I think I've proved my point…

    (Mind you, I"m not cutting mine until the troops come home, but that's me. It's getting WAY too long).

    rod

    BTW: I liked Tom until now…

  9. I've been running a series of posts on Famous Mirrors over the last few weeks and because there's a thread of relationships to Leonardo through them I attracted an A-Grade Loon to post a novel comment…

    The guy reckons you can read all kinds of things into the Mona Lisa… Like her real name. Which was evidently 'Mary'. Or something. Because.

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