Intelligent Design
.
This isn't about me faking anything, it's about how the proponents of Intelligent Design are faking a pseudo-science while all the while they're really Creationists. Christian Creationists. All other religions, and their stories of the Creation Myth, are wrong.

It's a knocking certainty that some of you reading this will be believers in Intelligent Design. But how otherwise bright people can believe that nonsense just flabbergasts me. A couple of friends of mine, both really bright people, just won't accept Darwin's Theory Of Evolution. They think that Humans are just too special to have come about by accident and they can't accept that we're descended from Apes.

That's because we aren't descended from apes. Darwin never claimed that and students of evolution never claimed that. Ever. But this is one of the arguments you'll hear time and time again from Creationists - they'll claim that Evolutionists believe that we're all descended from apes.

Let me clear this one up for you. What Darwin said is that Apes and Humans shared a common ancestor. Sometime in the dim and distant past, the ancestors of the current-day apes and our ancestors were one and the same species. Then we gradually split over eons. They went down one evolutionary route and we went down another until you have what we have today. Humans and apes, both totally separate species.

But you'll still here the Creationists cry:

"They say we're descended from apes!!"

Lying bastards.

Cheers

This short public information announcement was brought to you by Legless who's stuck trying to do something whizzy while coding.

( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 7:34, 61 replies)

according to my theory
of unintelligent design, we share a common ancestor with Tom Cruise.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 7:49, closed)

If you want to annoy a Creationist
just mention 2 words.

Carbon. Dating.
(Halfy By light alone, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 8:25, closed)

True,
I always say, that if we descended from apes, then why the fuck are apes still about?
(Miggyman, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 8:39, closed)

to be fair though
I don't understand dogs. Cats are fairly obvious, they are all pretty much cat shaped no matter the breed but dogs? what the fuck?
(Halfy By light alone, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 8:46, closed)

Yeah, ran across this
I never thought I'd meet a Creationist over in Korea (except for American expats), but just found out a Korean Jehovah's Witness adult student of mine doesn't believe in evolution. She asked me just that, "Do you believe we're descended from apes?" I said exactly that, "No, we just share a common ancestor." Is it really that hard to believe? I look at my cats and I see the biological similarities we share as mammals. This shouldn't offend anyone, not even religious windbags.
(racetraitor has an alibi for, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 8:51, closed)

@Miggyman
That response baffles me. I've heard the "Why are there still monkeys?" line several times, and I can't make sense of it. It cuts one of two ways:
1) If - arguendo I really am descended from apes, it makes no more sense to expect them to have vanished than it does to expect my parents to have vanished. I'm descended from them, too.
2) Closer to the truth, humans and apes are like cousins, descended from one metaphorical grandparent. But, again, quite why anyone would ask "If you're descended from the same grandparent, why are there still cousins?" is beyond me.

To anyone who does believe in ID:
Why, in that case, is the mammalian eye so badly designed? (The squid eye is much more effective, since it doesn't have the optic nerve passing right through the retina.)
Why are mammalian lungs so inefficient? (Bird lungs do the job much more effectively.)
Oh, yes: fistulae. Explain that one, you twats.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 9:33, closed)

Hmmm...
Fistula?
Nature's way of pointing and laughing.

Re: Lungs, isn't it something to do with mammalian ancestor mammal-like-reptiles having rubbish lungs?

In theory, of all the major animal groups, birds are "new". Mammals kinda are too though...
Argh!

That's the beauty/frustration of evolutionary biology. We don't have all the answers.
( Cawl, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 9:41, closed)

This is why I never discuss religion or politics.
(Not really, it's because I dont know much about either, although I have read the New Testament and I think I understand it. It's about chicks right?)
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 9:42, closed)

Kaol
You're probably right about the lungs. That's the point: it's an evo-devo thing. Nature is good at making things good enough, not necessarily good. That's something that no creationist could accept.

Pointing to the fact that, had we the technology, we'd've designed things otherwise ought to shut them up. Mysteriously, it doesn't.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 9:46, closed)

*nods*
Nature creates functional designs.
Not excessive ones.
It's all down to careful balancing of resources. Why waste energy growing hyper-efficient lungs that work at a capacity beyond what you'd ever need, when you could pump *ahem* the resources into reproduction.
( Cawl, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 9:54, closed)

Evolution isn't necessarily a process of "improvement"
Evolution generally follows a principle of adaptability for a certain environment. For example, a Cheetah is highly adapted for speed at the expense of agility, strength and size when compared to a Leopard.

You only need compare modern man with Neanderthal man, with whom we shared a common ancestor. Neanderthals were physically much more hardy and had bigger brains that humans. So why did they die out and we proliferate?

The counterweight to any arguement that evolution is about superiority can be expressed in two words - "Peter" and "Andre".
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Thu 17 Jul 2008, 10:05, closed)

@PJM
It depends what you mean by "improvement", of course. Any creature that survives better than its ancestors is an improvement. All living things are simply machines for passing on DNA. Whatever passes on DNA more efficiently is, therefore, improved. To that extent, evolution is a matter of improvement - albeit in the context of a fairly malleable scale of comparison.

(Neitzsche makes a nice point along these lines in Twilight of the Idols: "To call the taming of an animal its 'improvement' is in our ears almost a joke. Whoever knows what goes on in menageries is doubtful whether the beasts in them are 'improved'. They are weakened, they are made less harmful, the become sickly beasts through the depressive emotion of fear, through pain, through injuries, through hunger. - It is no different with the tamed human being..." ("The Improvers of Mankind", sec. 2).)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 10:12, closed)

I suppose in my clumsy and ineloquent way
I was attempting to suggest that our perception of "improvement" isn't necessarily in keeping with an evolutionary adaption which enables a species to better cope with it's environment.

A T-Rex and a chicken share a common ancestor...

*edit*

Neitzsche's point is somewhat disturbing when you think about it... Humankind has become "tamed" I suppose, along with many creatures we've attempted to domesticate.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Thu 17 Jul 2008, 10:15, closed)

PJM
In theory, EVERYTHING shares a common ancester...

What it all boils down to is how recent the ancester was, and how recently the tree branched, as it were.
( Cawl, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 10:17, closed)

Richard Dawkins
Try reading 'The Selfish Gene'. Utterly fascinating, and a real eye opener.
(w4I4q1O1 was hard at work on, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 10:18, closed)

I.D. != Science
I know Ma'am Nature can usually be trusted to come up with a system or design that 'just works' and tend to go with that, but she obviously has no sense of aesthetics. Case in point: the male doo-dad. HR Gigers 'Alien' re-upholstered in pink!

Back on-topic, decades of cross-referenced, peer-reviewed and demonstrable science simply cannot win in a 'debate' which very rapidly sinks into a shouting match between 'bigots' and 'heathens'. The lunatic sky-being worshipers drown everyone else out. That's simultaneously the greatest strength and greatest weakness of 'proper' science; you don't need to bleat loudly; just engage your brain. Whereas the loopy god-botherers put their frontal lobes in neutral, proceeding to scream and shout until everyone else gets bored and buggers off.
(blueberrypossum wants to Jaffa your Cake, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 10:18, closed)

...
What amazes me is that it only took 500 million years for life to start on Earth after its formation. And then that, for the subsequent 3.5 billion, it was wholly single-celled - and only that at a stretch, since the cell itself took a lot of work. In other words, it's only the blink of an eye, really, since I shared an ancestor with Marmite.

(For similar reasons, that's why I'm increasingly unfazed by conservation disasters. It's unlikely that anything we'll do will end all life - it'll just truck on without us in some other form. It's thanks to pollution caused by plants breathing out highly toxic oxygen for half a billion years that animals got a foothold in the first place. The point: there is no such thing as pollution - only pollution seen from a certain perspective. I think that's amazing. Far more amazing than anything the creationist can give us...)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 10:21, closed)

I like this conversation
Some intelligently designed points here.

I really think that the problem in this whole debate is that a lot of people on the science-side of it are unwilling to accept that they don't have all the answers.

We'll never know the entire history of evolution, that's just the way of the fossil record, but we get a good general idea of it, and that's what matters.

In my opinion it's the new discoveries that keep evolutionary biology exciting.

But yeah, I don't for one second believe that there's much credibility in Magic Sky Deity making the whole lot, a few thousand years ago, for a laugh.
( Cawl, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 10:31, closed)

Heh
You'll be singing a different tune when Satan puts his pitchfork in your ass you heathens!
( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 10:34, closed)

Speaking as a physiologist
I can say that PJM and Kaol have pretty much expressed the opinion of the modern science community - Darwin was trying to explain how natural selection allows for the most effective (animal) designs to continue breeding in an environment, thereby spreading increasing their numbers and becoming numerically dominant (numbers matter in the wild, where there are only so many resources to go round).

The opposite goes for poor designs - due to inability to sustain their "lifestyles" (which in animal terms pretty much means feeding and procreating) they die out.

Next is the idea of mutations - perhaps a more modern theory as this was after Darwin's time - which enable a species to change. Mutations happen RANDOMLY (this has been hammered into me by my teachers for some reason) in the DNA and it is purely by chance whether a particular mutation will be beneficial to an animal (meaning it eats and has more sex and therefore more babies to spread the mutation) or be bad (i.e. has a third nipple which turns off the opposite sex, therefore it can't procreate or something...).

This means that the modern theory of evolution (which is still considered "Natural Selection" and attributed to Darwin, BTW) is actually about the trial and error system that nature seems to use. This way, a particular trial/mutation can be beneficial, spread widely and therefore lead to an adaptation of a species to its current environment.

Then again, I'm hardly the authority on the theory. After all, I've lived with a few flatmates who would make for a strong case in favour of devolution.
(thecurriedavenger, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 10:34, closed)

I like kittens and teh fluff
*Ahem* Sorry. As you were...
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Thu 17 Jul 2008, 10:36, closed)

Compelling stuff
I have to comment on with what Deep Thought Enzyme said about life on Earth being essentially single celled for several billion years...

It's also mind boggling to think that if you went back in time to the beginning of life on Earth, you wouldn't be able to breathe the atmosphere - which consisted of CO2, Ammonia and other unbreatheables. Life has in effect terraformed the planet so that virulent life can exist... and life itself seems to reap the rewards by proliferating.

*edit* (sorry!)

The idea of randomness in evolution isn't necessarily correct.... For example, there is evidence of a "genetic memory" so to speak, the example I'll cite (as I heard on Radio 4 a few weeks back) is of people who'd suffered from tuberculosis and subsequently produced children who are no better able to cope with the disease. However, their grandchildren often inherit immunity.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Thu 17 Jul 2008, 10:43, closed)

Yep...
"Pollution" is only bad because it's fucking up the things we notice, and depend on.

Once we've fucked ourselves to death, then something else will enjoy itself.

My money's on bacteria, at least for a while.
( Cawl, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 10:45, closed)

PJM
"So that life can exist" implies some kind of teleology, and that's not quite right. It's just that the was things are now strikes us as just right because we couldn't have had it any other way. If you're around to ask the question, then the world cannot but to be all baby bear.

(Otherwise, one might just as well comment on how lucky it is that my legs are the exact length of the distance between my pelvis and the floor. No shit.)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 10:47, closed)

*considers employing Enzyme as his spokesman*
it could be reciprocal, any time you need someone to hold forth on such diverse topics as where to surf, or the merits of each Led Zeppelin album I'll be ready and waiting.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 10:47, closed)

@Enzyme
Damn my ineloquence. I wasn't necessarily stating that life effectively terraforming the Earth is a means to an end, but that the proliferation of oxygen breathing life is a happy byproduct.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Thu 17 Jul 2008, 10:49, closed)

Damn it I hadn't heard of that, PJM
Compelling stuff indeed. But you're mentioning grandchildren - what about the other side of the family? Surely something there could have accounted for it (like a resistance gene on the maternal side that wasn't on the paternal side, or vice versa).

Anyway, its 10pm here in NZ so I'm off to sleep. Might bring it up tomorrow in class though...
(thecurriedavenger, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 11:02, closed)

@enzyme
"For similar reasons, that's why I'm increasingly unfazed by conservation disasters. It's unlikely that anything we'll do will end all life"

I've been bandying the same theory around my increasingly incredulous friends for a while now... first time I've heard someone else express it.

It's not just that it's unlikely that anything we do will end all life, it's that even if we destroyed 99% of the planet's biodiversity tomorrow, then over the blink of an eye (in terms of geological time), that biodiversity will recover - albeit in a different form.

Each ecological niche will recover, or be replaced by analogous ecological niches, and will be filled by an organism adapted to that niche - just as the organisms that occupy them change over time anyway.

If say, all the orangutans die out tomorrow, another organism will come to fill that ecological niche (although probably not in the lifetime of our species), just as the orangutan itself has come to occupy an ecological niche previously occupied by something else. If all the orangutans don't die out tomorrow, then over time, the same would happen anyway.

By "time" - I mean a long-ass period of time. But still, a blink of an eye in terms of geological time.

That's not to say that conservation doesn't matter - it's just only important for the here and now, for the biodiversity we have at present.

And I'm not saying "Pollute away", just that ultimately (as long as we don't end up blowing up the entire planet), it doesn't matter if we royally fuck things up.
( rofl harris, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 11:23, closed)

It was no accident!

What really annys me is when people say, "but what are the chances of us being on a planet where the conditions are just right for life to thrive?"

Probably a trillion billion to one.

However they've missed the point entirely, we aren't lucky to have been plonked on the one technically habitable planet. We evolved so that we could survive on this planet on oxygen on water etc.

Our biosphere may be incredibly toxic to a creature from another planet who likes to breath amonia and drink something generally poisonous to humans like buckfast.
( Naked Ape call me Caitlyn, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 11:24, closed)

I want to have a problem with this post
I want to see it as an arrogant Darwinist gruffly denouncing ID as "wrong", and then using fallacies in Judeo-Christian mythology to back up their point.

But you've not done that. You've worded this marvellously, better than Dawkins and his awful The God Delusion

For that, you get my click. And applause, too.

Silent, Internet applause, but applause nonetheless.
( Thinker, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 11:30, closed)

The Eye
Creationists ... sorry ... Intelligent design enthusiasts will also often bring up the example of the Eye. How can such a complex organ evolve with no intelligent guidence?, surely something as complex as the Eye cannot be plucked from thin air as natural selection suggests?

well, excellant work by Nilsson and Pelger not only demonstrates exactly how the eye has evolved, but also how an eye can evolve from a crude patch of light sensitive cells within less than 400,000 generations. (assuming a generation is 1 year, a generous assumption for lower order creatures), an eye can evolve in less than half a million years under the right condidtions.

Always drop the names Nilsson and Pelger into any conversation you are unlucky enough to have with creationists and other wackos
( RadG Drinking Mojitos in the sun, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 11:33, closed)

@mrgibbles and Enzyme
It may not matter to the planet as a whole if we royally fuck things up. But it will certainly matter to millions of human beings.

You can argue about the semantics of there being no pollution, but only pollution to a certain population, and you may well be correct, but since we are the population, it does matter if we are polluting environments that we want to use (or exploit if you want to view it that way).
(Bazongaloid, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 11:33, closed)

@NakedApe
Quite.

What are the chances of that sperm fusing with that egg in that way in those circumstances and producing you as you are now? Tiny. But still, you're here.

With billions of stars in billions of galaxies, it'd be more amazing if we were the only life about. Probably a good deal of it is very like us. Probably a lot isn't, too. Even when the chances of something happening are small, roll the dice enough times and it'll still happen a lot...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 11:35, closed)

@al
Kind of...
I was thinking about this last night. Clearly, extinguishing humanity would be bad for any humans caught up in the event. But that's all - it wouldn't be a bad thing for humanity to disappear. I'm bothered about (some) humans. Humanity in specie doesn't warrant my concern at all, though.

Now, when it comes to pollution, I think that there are still duties. But I think that we have to rethink what they are and how they're understood.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 11:39, closed)

On the whole,
Humanity is rubbish.
Given the option, I'd press The Button.

Dunno what the Button would do. Maybe release a mighty plague or something.
( Cawl, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 11:42, closed)

Pressing the Button
I just did that.


The page refreshed.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 11:45, closed)

I've got no problem with humanity
We're a force of nature, just like any other animal.

Quite a few species rely on our existence in their current form.

But if we left, the weak of their species would die, the strong would reproduce, and the species would simply evolve to no longer need us.

We're not really as important as we seem to think.
( Thinker, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 11:45, closed)

@al
Yes, extinguishing millions of humans would be bad for those humans concerned, but ultimately beneficial for the rest of the planet.

To think of conservation simply in terms of what it means to us, is exactly the kind of thinking that's got us into this mess in the first place.
( rofl harris, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 11:48, closed)

I agree
that we aren't as important to the world as we like to think we are, but because of things we have done lots of species are in danger, and some of them are pretty cool to watch and learn about.

And while humanity as a whole may be pretty crap in many, many ways, I happen to like being alive and I happen to like a lot of other people being alive and at some point I would quite like to have children and I would like them to live in a world that isn't rubbish (or as least rubbish as possible).

so nerrrr.
(Bazongaloid, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 11:50, closed)

mrgibbles
I'm not sure it would benefit the rest of the planet. Rather, I think it would be a matter of complete indifference to the rest of the planet.

www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0753513579/ref=ord_cart_shr?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 11:51, closed)

@mrgibbles
I don't think conservation thinking got us into this mess at all.
(Bazongaloid, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 11:51, closed)

Humans
are unbelievably arrogant.

If we tried, really tried, to extinguish all life on the planet we'd fail. If we used all our vaunted technology and tried to make Mother Earth a lifeless husk we couldn't.

'Cos life is tough and, in the grand scheme of things, we're insignificant little ants crawling around on the surface.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 11:55, closed)

@al
No, sorry, I meant thinking about Us.
( rofl harris, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 11:55, closed)

*muses*
I'd've expected some trolling numbskull to appear by now bleating that Darwinism is "just a theory" and that belief in it is just the same as a religion blah-di-blah-di-blah... But: no.


Crikey. We might have got away with it...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 12:21, closed)

Enzyme;
I came close to it..
( Thinker, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 12:22, closed)

*shakes hands with Enzyme*
Jolly good show, old bean.
I rather think we've gotten away with it too.
( Cawl, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 12:25, closed)

Darwinism
It's just a theory you know.

/Sorry, couldn't resist.

Who is this Darwin of whom you speak anyway?
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Thu 17 Jul 2008, 12:26, closed)

@DG
Darwin? He's just some guy who had a theory, he couldn't prove anything.

I suspect the reason we didn't get any ID whingers on here, is that this isn't exactly the sort of place the ultra religious incredibly stupid like to hang out.
(Bazongaloid, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 12:33, closed)

@al
But we did get a couple in the "Books" QotW. Remember that thread on the final day when somebody suggested The God Delusion?

Link: www.b3ta.com/questions/books/post163053
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 12:36, closed)

There is always...
...the 33% probability that the whole universe only exists as algorithms in a giant computer program.

I forget who calculated those odds, but it was figured out when scientists suggested we're only a few decades away from being able to simulate the desires, motivations and thoughts of a human being within a computer program.

*edits*

Types LOAD"" and presses play on tape.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Thu 17 Jul 2008, 12:41, closed)

@PJM
If you ask Nick Bostrom (Philosophy, Oxford), he'd tell you that the chances are higher than that.

See www.simulation-argument.com/
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 12:45, closed)

@Enzyme
Aaaah, that thread takes me back. Whatever happened to some of those characters?
(Bazongaloid, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 12:50, closed)

It's not that creationists don't hang out here
it's that they know better than to get involved in this argument.

The core of the dispute, once you strip away everything else, is the question of whether or not you believe that God exists. If you believe there is a God, ID makes some sense. If you believe there is no god, it's all rubbish.

This is why the ID/evolution debate will never end- you can't prove God's existence or non-existence. It becomes a question of faith.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 17 Jul 2008, 12:52, closed)

Loon
if you believe in the right kind of god, then ID might make some sense. But, that being the case, you can't use ID to demonstrate that there is a designer, since you'd thereby be begging the question.

And how many more times does it have to be said? There's NO NEED to prove the non-existence of god, for exactly the same reason as there's no need to prove the non-existence of the tooth fairy. Jeezuz. Will you never learn?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 12:55, closed)

I like the way Jerry Pournelle put it
"If I find a watch lying there in the woods, I look around for the watchmaker."

If you go here you'll find a lot of very intelligent and eloquent discussion on the subject, from both sides. Pournelle has never stated which way he himself believes, but the people who mail him are a very opinionated bunch. Lots of fascinating stuff there, and well worth your time to investigate.

And who is Pournelle? Here ya go. He's certainly not someone to be dismissed offhand- he's a very impressive mind.

EDIT: and by the way, I'm not saying either which way I believe. *grin*
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 17 Jul 2008, 13:03, closed)

@TRL
The watchmaker argument has been invoked many times since Paley. It's also been debunked thoroughly. It simply doesn't work. It has no explanatory power (since we'd still be faced with the question of the designer's origin), it's based on the assumption that the world appeared as it is now, and it tells us more about the human propensity to look for a watchmaker than about the origin of the watch itself.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 13:06, closed)

If you'd spent the last 15bn years as God
and then elected in the last few million years or so to make beings in your image who wage war, kill or enslave other species and buy Westlife CDs, you'd lose all hope and off and do something else more worthwhile instead.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Thu 17 Jul 2008, 13:09, closed)

@Loon
If you're not a defender of ID, then what you're doing looks as though it's verging on Troll territory. Sorry to say it...

Look: the deal is that there is NO debate about evolution, and the ID mantra that we should "teach the debate" is mendacious. (If I said that your skeleton was made of oak and you denied it, that wouldn't mean that there's a debate to be had, since my claim was preposterous to begin with. The same applies here. Balance doesn't mean listening to everyone...)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 13:12, closed)

Or it might be
that God gets a chuckle out of making such contrary things as ourselves, that he made us just so he could sit back with a bag of popcorn and see what happens next. We may well be his version of Saturday morning cartoons or the Three Stooges.

In fact, I kinda like that theory. *grin*
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 17 Jul 2008, 13:13, closed)

No, I'm not trolling.
Nor am I defending ID. I find it to be a good thought exercise, a fun idea to play with. And that is exactly how seriously I take the whole matter- it's a fun game and no more.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 17 Jul 2008, 13:14, closed)

A quote
"...when two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong." - Richard Dawkins
(Vice Admiral Sir Charles Cockbrush KCB MBE DSO, who is finding it increasingly difficult to log into b3ta.com wants to duck your aunt and kick your puppy, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 14:06, closed)