JABbering Stooge

This one is dedicated to the IDiots on the Texas SBOE (Don McLeroy, Cynthia Dunbar, Barbara Cargill, etc.):

(h/t, Brendan)

Pat in Georgetown tries to bitch-slap those stoopit 3vilutionists, and ends up proving the value of TalkOrigins.

Please explain where the stuff came from when evolution began.

Since evolution “began” when life first appeared, the answer is self-explanatory. However, I suspect that Pat is making a clumsy effort to demand “proof” of abiogenesis. I would suggest that Pat check out this section of TalkOrigins’ An Index To Creationist Claims.

I have never heard evolutionists explain it in a proven scientific matter.

See here and here for some scientific explanations and “proofs” of evolution.

It’s always a blob oozing out of the muck or a big bang in the universe.

The “blob oozing out of the muck” is a creationist’s strawman way of refering to abiogenesis. The Big Bang Theory has nothing to do with evolution, as one involves astronomy and cosmology while the other is the purview of biology once life finally arises on a planet. But if you really want to learn about the Big Bang (and are not asking a rhetorical question), you can find out more here.

OK, where did the muck come from?

If it was a big bang, how did the universe get started?

The big bang IS how the universe came into being. Pay attention.

At this point, I should note that the big bang and evolution are NOT mutually exclusive theories. You can have your cake and eat it in this case because the two theories are concerned with entirely different subjects.

What is the universe inside of? What is beyond the universe? If you say there are more universes, where does it stop?

Huh? I have no clue what your point is, dude. If anyone else wants to take a stab at parsing this nonsense, be my guest.

Science has no answers. God does.

Science has no answers? Not one? Okay then, if that’s what you believe, then I suggest that you turn off your computer, unplug your fridge, sell your TV, stop going to the doctor when you get sick, renounce all technology and go back to the caves. If you really think that a Bronze Age book written by committee and assembled by early Iron Age authoritarians with an agenda can do better at answering all of life’s questions, then you need to remove yourself from modern society and stop mooching off of the productive citizens who accept that science has at least some minuscule value, you damn freeloader!

I would’ve used today’s virtual town hall to say the following:

This is the 21^st Century. We need to have science education standards that reflect that fact. And the Theory of Evolution is at the core of modern biology. Therefore, I will withhold federal education dollars from any school district, any state board of education that makes any effort to weaken or eliminate from the curriculum the teaching of the Theory of Evolution in order to serve a narrow religious viewpoint.

Unfortunately, it would probably come too late to stop the shenanigans going on here in Texas, but it would definitely get the attention of the hypocritical theocratic nutbars attempting to dumb down science. Hopefully, it would stop future attempts to water down established science in the name of theocracy.

The fine folks at the Texas Freedom Network are ably liveblogging the burning stupidity of the IDiots at the final SBOE hearing before the vote on whether or not to actually teach our children science. Go read. Now.

THEY DON’T GET ANY DUMBER THAN THAT: Cynthia Dunbar FTW!

2:51 - Board member Cynthia Dunbar characterizes listening to science experts as bowing to an “oligarchy.”

Right. So we should be bowing to the “oligarchy” known as the Discovery Institute, then?

How about those volcano monitoring funds? They sure don’t look so porky now, do they?

PZ on our crumbling intellectual infrastructure.

The New Zealand Herald is reporting on a story out of Brazil that could easily serve as an object lesson for the evilution/cretinism debate here in Texas:

Brazil’s geography lesson without borders

RIO DE JANEIRO — Where’s Ecuador? Better not ask that question in Brazil.

A new Brazilian geography textbook for sixth-grade students doesn’t even include the South American country on the map.

In fact, the book distributed by the Education Ministry in Brazil’s most populous state botches the location of most of Brazil’s neighbours.

[…]

The geographical jumbling baffled sixth-grader Joao Gabriel Anchieta, who looked over the map while being interviewed by Globo, Brazil’s largest television network.

Asked what would happen should he have to take a geography test based upon the map, Joao said he “would get a bad grade.”

This was the publishing equivalent of the Kingston, TN coal ash spill. Imagine if that were the deliberate goal of a right-wing special interest group, and you have exactly the sort of situation we here in Texas face if the likes of Cynthia Dunbar, Don McLeroy and Barbara Cargill get their way. And Texas is the second-largest purchaser of textbooks in the country. Because of this massive economic influence, the theocratic ravings of the creationists on the SBOE will inflict severe collateral damage on kids living outside of Texas.

So no matter where you live, you have a stake in this fight. Contact the SBOE and demand that they stop farting around and start putting students’ education ahead of their theocratic impulses.

Aww yeah!

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Monday cleared the way for a significant increase in federal dollars for embryonic stem cell research and promised no scientific data will be “distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda.”

President Barack Obama — 1
Zygote Zealots — 0

But this is my favorite line in the story:

“Promoting science isn’t just about providing resources, it is also about protecting free and open inquiry,” Obama said. “It is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient — especially when it’s inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.”

HAHAHAHAHAHA! Suck on it, wingnuts!!!!

Yo, Free Speech Warriors™! Care to comment on this?

And an idiotic anti-evolution video from a new recipient of WND’s wingnut welfare who calls himself “Molotov Mitchell” is to blame. And since I’m such a caring guy, I thought I’d let you share my pain.

I’d do a point-by-point rebuttal of this, but I seriously cannot find one single thing that could be considered a point. And so my only possible response would be to say this to ol’ Vodka Bomb:

Mr. Madison Mitchell, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

(h/t, Ron Britton)

Tags: BPSDB