QuickiesSkepticism

Skepchick Quickies, 1.26

Jen

Jen is a writer and web designer/developer in Columbus, Ohio. She spends too much time on Twitter at @antiheroine.

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22 Comments

  1. Wouldn’t your average deludedly scientific creationist claim the catfish thing is an example of devolution? The “new” catfish is similar to both a group of climbing catfish and a group of non-climbing catfish, indicating that the ancestors of both groups of catfish were climbers. At least that’s what I got from one quick browse.
    So some of god’s original tree lobstersclimbing catfish lost the ability to climb, most likely as punishiment after weaving clothing from fibers from two different plants. Evidence _against_ evolution!

  2. At great personal sacrifice not to mention marital strain, I promise to boycott the Superbowl this year and do something fun instead. Never let it be said I’m not willing to pitch in for the cause.

  3. Hmm…they eat goat there, don’t they? I’ve heard of police destroying evidence, but destroying the accused? LOL

    Maybe they’ve been eating hallucinogens, too?

    Re: Minnesota: Sad in this day and age, isn’t it?

  4. Should atheists target…. why??? The religious machinations of a private entertainment/sports business is of what concern to those who do not think there is sufficient reason to believe in God or gods??

    The public safety issues and related scientific and medical ignorance in the unfortunate Minnesota vaccine related deaths seems worth making some noise about.

  5. Re: The Hib vaccinations in MN.

    How about this for a new federal law…

    If MY child dies because YOU chose not to immunize YOUR child, then I get to haul your ass to jail on 2nd degree murder charges.

    Seems fair to me.

  6. The Hib incident really underscores the impact of “herd immunity”. It looks like the number of immunized kids dropped below some critical threshold that allowed it to spread. I wonder how many adults ended up carrying it without knowing.

  7. @SteveT: I like it.

    And shouldn’t they be charged if their own child dies because they are stupid?

    The anti vaccine crowd is the group that makes me most angry.

  8. After all of the science following evolution and confirming Darwin, why think that having a social conscience makes Darwin less of a scientist, nor his theories less reliable? It seems like much ado about nothing — it doesn’t undo his theory, just shows some background thinking. I’m surprised it spawned an entire book, let alone controversy.

    M

  9. That Darwin article isn’t even right.
    “But you have to look at some sort of marshalling principle. Every ship carried more than one naturalist generally in those days — why did none of them come to this kind of common descent view and yet most of them had seen exactly the same evidence?”

    Alfred Wallace independently discovered evolution. Lamarck had already suggested that species can change (although this doesn’t necessarily mean common descent it makes it possible). Not to mention that Linnaeus already classified humans as primates.

  10. @Mauri: Exactly. James D. Watson has been called a racist and an advocate of eugenics. It’s likely his views affected his work to some degree. That doesn’t mean that DNA isn’t a double helix, though.

  11. My wife and I saw Lucy here in Houston. I was impressed by the significance of the exhibit. It cost us around $20 a piece, but seriously how often do you get the opportunity to see a 3.2 million year old skeleton.

    I guess it’s harder to bring in the crowds these days. Maybe if it had been an animatronic Lucy being chased by a T-Rex.

    But seriously, in these hard economic time when people are cutting back I can see how museums unfortunately get left out.

  12. @Vene: Yeah, Wallace rarely gets enough credit. Also how many of those naturalists had a grandfather who’s one of the earlier writers on evolution?

    The book seems to me to be based on an unnecessary idea, merely to profit off the year of Darwin.

  13. This picture (finally, thank you, Rebecca), is of my dog Lucy. Cute as she is, I can’t get people to pay to come see her, either.

    M

  14. Dearest

    Compliments of the day. My name is Sammy. I am the only child of Jingles, the most wealthiest goat in all of Nigeria. Jingles was arrested by Nigerian authorities in a mix-up with a rival goat, FuzzyChin and is now in jail. The only thing he has left for me is the deposit of the sum of $10,500,000 (10 and a half million dollars) left in a trunk box abroad.

    I would ask you in the name of Jesus to become my international investor to get these funds. Please contact our family friend and Barrister Collins Steven at [email protected] and he will assist you with the modalities. You can keep 20% of the funds for your efforts, with 75% for me and 5% for any business expenses that may arise from this transaction.

    I urgently await your conscent.

    Thanks and regards.

    Sammy

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