Tag Archives: creationism

Anthropology, Archaeology, Paleontology, Reason, Religion, Science

Rebuttal to Ian Juby’s “’In 7 Days’ Crash Course in Creation” Day 3

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Read part one and part two.

Day 3:  Dinosaurs & Humans step on evolution

 

In this lesson, Juby recites a list of well-known and refuted creationist claims, essentially covering the Greatest Hits (complete with pictures!) from the Talk.Origins “Index to Creationist Claims.” The Talk.Origins page adequately covers the claims made in this lesson, so I will give brief rebuttals and link to the appropriate pages.

According to the scriptures, God created the dinosaurs (the land animals) on day 6 – the same day He created people.  Therefore, according to the scriptures, man and dinosaurs have lived together.

 

Actually, there are two accounts in Genesis of the creation of humans. The first account states that humans and the other land animals were created on day six. Nevertheless, the second account claims that a god created all the life on earth and man second to last. However, after seeing that man was lonely, the god decided to create a partner for him out of one of man’s ribs.

Furthermore, humans have lived with dinosaurs for our entire existence. Birds are dinosaurs!

According to evolution, dinosaurs became extinct at least 60 million years before people ever evolved.  So what would it mean if we found man and dinosaur together?

 

First off, non-avian dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago and modern humans first evolved ~200,000 years ago. Thus, Juby’s math is a little off. Second, this is not according to evolution; here Juby is equating evolution with the geological record. Third, it would mean nothing if humans and dinosaurs were found together, because humans and dinosaurs are found together (birds are dinosaurs). However, the point Juby is trying to make is what is the implication of finding evidence of humans and non-avian dinosaurs together. The only implication would be that our ideas of the extinction of all the non-avian dinosaurs 65 million years ago would be wrong and there is a problem with the geologic record. This would in no way invalidate our understanding of evolutionary theory.

Well let’s ask the evolutionists:
Dr. Richard Dawkins, one of the most outspoken atheists in the world, wrote “…there are certain things about the fossil record that any evolutionist should expect to be true. We should be very surprised, for example, to find fossil humans appearing in the record before mammals are supposed to have evolved! If a single, well verified mammal skull were to turn up in 500 million year old rocks, our whole modern theory of evolution would be utterly destroyed. Incidentally, this is a sufficient answer to the canard, put about by creationist and their journalistic fellow travelers, that the whole theory of evolution is an ‘unfalsifiable’ tautology. Ironically, it is also the reason why creationist are so keen on the fake human footprints, which were carved during the depression to fool tourists, in the dinosaur beds of Texas,” (The Blind Watchmaker, 1986, p.225, emphasis mine)

 

This is where I fundamentally disagree with Dawkins. It would not destroy our modern theory of evolution. It would however, throw a wrench in our understanding of the geological record, as I already said. There is far too much genetic data supporting evolutionary theory today to ever allow a field such as geology the ability to over turn it.

Juby goes on to quote two other evolutionary proponents to the same effect as above, so I see no need in repeating myself. However, I must point out that the Dawkins quote is the most recent; being from the year I was born. The other two are from before that and well before our modern understanding of genetics. This also makes me doubt that Dawkins still holds this position today, and is probably why Juby has to look to the 80s for his quotes (after all, these lessons were created in 2008).

Now we get into the Greatest Hits from Talk.Origins:

This is a replica of a cast-iron pot, found in a lump of coal supposedly 285 Million years old!  This is well before the first dinosaurs were supposed to have evolved, roughly 225 million years ago.

There are only limited conclusions we can draw from such evidence:

A) Aliens were around 285 million years ago, and inadvertently dropped a pot
B) Humans were around 285 million years ago
C) The assumed age of the coal, and the assumptions of the stratigraphic record are incorrect.
D) It’s a fake.
E) It’s evidence of time travel.

 

Alternatively, F) the pot is of modern origins that fell into the coal mine.

The London artifact was a hammer found in Cretaceous rocks near London, Texas.  Max Hahn and his family were fishing near a waterfall when they found a rock with a piece of wood sticking out of it.  They took it home as a curiousity, and broke open the rock later on to find out that the wood was actually the handle of an ancient hammer!

There’s only so many conclusions we can draw from this artifact:
A) Aliens were around during the time of the dinosaurs (the Cretaceous period), and dropped their hammer.
B) Humans were around during the time of the dinosaurs
C) The assumed age of the rock, and the assumptions of the stratigraphic record are incorrect.
D) It’s a modern hammer that got encased in old rock and fossils.
E) It’s evidence that man figured out time travel.

The anti-creationists will try and argue for “D”, though no one has produced a historic hammer that looks like this one, and this fails to explain the fossils found in the rock the hammer was encased in.  It can’t be a “concretion” of fossils and rock, because there are no fossils to be found in the dirt in the riverbed the hammer was found in!

 

Again, F). D) is only partially correct. A historic hammer was encased in travertine. The fossils may have been reincorporated onto the concretion or they might not be fossils at all and be modern mollusks. We may never know because Don Patton does not allow actual scientists an opportunity to examine this artifact.

In the Paluxy riverbed in Glen Rose, Texas, literally dozens of fossil human footprints have been found amongst the dinosaur tracks that make this area so famous.

…

There’s only so many conclusions we can draw from this artifact:
A) Aliens were around during the time of the dinosaurs (the Cretaceous period)
B) Humans were around during the time of the dinosaurs
C) The assumed age of the rock, and the assumptions of the stratigraphic record are incorrect.
D) They’re from a creature other than a human being
E) It’s evidence that man figured out time travel.
F) stands for “Fake!”

Most of the fossil human footprints from the Paluxy are found in trails, excavated from underneath undisturbed limestone, in the presence of multiple witnesses.
So much for option “F”.

 

Once again F), for at least the example provided. The photo Juby provides is a laughable example of a forgery, which is one of the two explanations of the Paluxy River human tracks.

The fact that Juby does not see this for the obvious fraud it is speaks volumes about his knowledge of anatomy.  The other explanation is misidentification of therapod dinosaur track ways, which explains the uncovering of track ways in front of witnesses. The Paluxy River is a wonderful source for dinosaur tracks. Many fossil footprints from the Paluxy River are on display at museums across the U.S.

The last picture on the right is of the Delk track, a fossil that came to light in May of 2008.  This was one of several fossils that have been run through a CT scanner to check for its authenticity.  I produced a video devoted just to this fossil entitled “The Delk Track: Evidence of dinosaur and human coexistence,” and it’s available for free viewing on my videos page:
http://ianjuby.org/videos.html

 

First, the photo provided is from his website, the one that should have appeared in the lesson does not format. However, I am familiar with the Delk Track, thus knew what it looked like. Second, this is the one example Juby uses that does not appear on Talk.Origins “Index to Creationist Claims.” Nevertheless, Glen J. Kuban has written up a superb refutation of the Delk Track entitled “The Alvis Delk Print: An Alleged Human Footprint on a Loose Rock” wherein Kuban refutes everything about this forgery, including an explanation of how the human and dinosaur prints are fakes. I encourage everyone that has not already read his article to please read it. It is well worth your time.

Perhaps you’re still not convinced those are human tracks?  Well not far from Glen Rose, during the construction of the Comanche peak nuclear power plant, a gravel layer, sandwhiched between two layers of the Walnut shale, was cut through.  This fossil human finger was found amongst the gravels.

 

Unbelievably Juby (and his creationist ilk) think a shrimp burrow is a human finger. If I needed to point to one example of Juby’s colossal ignorance or blatant dishonesty, this would be it. This whole lesson is an example of his ignorance or his dishonesty. Either way, Juby is a horrible source for information when it comes to the Origins Debate. Everything, except the Delk track, has been known to be a forgery, misplaced, or misidentified for at least a decade. The forged Paluxy footprints/misidentified dinosaur tracks are included in AiG’s list of arguments that should be avoided, for crying aloud. This is only his third lesson and he is already resorting to evidence this weak? PATHETIC!

Coming up in lesson four: Dinosaurs and the flood of Noah…

Geology, Reason, Religion, Science, YouTube

Rebuttal to Ian Juby’s “’In 7 Days’ Crash Course in Creation” Day 1

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Who is Ian Juby?

Ian Juby hails from Eastern Ontario, Canada. Inspired by Dr. Carl Baugh and the Creation Evidence Museum, he came back to Canada and set out to build Canada’s first Creation Museum, the Creation Science Museum of Canada.

– CreationWiki 

 

However, Juby is probably best known for his video response to AronRa.

On Ian Juby’s website, one of the first things one happens upon is his “in 7 Days” Crash Course in Creation. This delivers seven lessons over the course of seven days wherein Juby tries to prove the myth of creation over the science of evolution. I plan to debunk Juby’s crash course over the next few blog posts. So let us begin.

Day 1:  In the beginning…

 

The first lesson starts with Juby introducing the Origin Debate between creationism and evolution. There are no claims for creationism or against evolution until half way through the lesson. However, he does say this:

It has been my experience that evolution must hide behind assumptions, ad-hominem attacks, and lawyers.  It cannot be exposed to scrutiny because it will disintegrate.

 

Juby tends to do this throughout most of his work. He projects the faults of creationism on to evolution. Juby also goes on to state this:

I know when I first heard some of the information I’m about to share with you, I was angry.  I was not an evolutionist, and I was still angry because it became apparent that someone had lied to me.

 

I bring this up because Juby claims that he was upset that he was lied to by evil evolutionist, yet his whole crash course is full of half truths, blatant misrepresentations, and what could only be called lies.

After he is done projecting the faults of creationism onto evolution, he moves on to his first claim, which is:

Surprisingly, the debate did not begin with Charles Darwin.  The debate actually began with the age of the Earth, via one man, Sir Charles Lyell.  Lyell was a lawyer, and put his skills in arguing to work.  Though not trained in geology, he has become known as one of the founding fathers of geology.  I’m not arguing that a lawyer cannot do geological research.  I am simply pointing out that his “geological research” was everything from erroneous to downright fraudulent, and that he made an impression on the science of geology because of his argumentative tactics, not science.

 

Charles Lyell is indeed one of the fathers of geology because before men like him, there was no such thing as geology as we understand it today. Lyell could not go to school and obtain a degree in geology because no such subject existed until Lyell and others started to investigate the geologic formations found around them. Juby’s claim that Lyell’s research was “erroneous to downright fraudulent” is simply a lie. More importantly is the fact that Juby never brings up most of the evidence Lyell use to show deep time, such as many of the angular unconformities found in Scotland.

Juby moves on:

For example, it was Lyell who coined the phrase “The present is the key to the past.”

Notice what he has done here: He has effectively removed the idea of a global flood from the table, without ever mentioning it.  We do not see global floods occurring today, now, do we?  Therefore if only the present can be used to judge the past, then a global flood has just been disallowed in the interpretation of earth’s past – whether there was one or not!

 

No, he has not removed a global flood from the table. The idea of the present being the key to the past does not remove anything from the table except for miracles. One would be able to extrapolate the effects of a regional flood to a global system. A phenomenon happening today can be scaled up or down depending on the different variables we see. Juby simply does not understand how modern geology works.

Juby then goes on to speculate about Lyell’s intentions. According to Juby, the evil evolutionary conspiracy stretches back farther than anyone could have guessed.

In fact, he had secret intentions for his geological research, and his writings.  We would not have known his intentions except that after he died, his sister published his private writings and correspondence.  He wrote to one friend:

 

He follows this with a quote and his speculation as to how evil geologists got together to overturn the established teachings of the bible.

Whether Lyell had ulterior motives or not is not evidence against the ideas put forth in Principles of Geology. Lyell lays out the evidence for an old earth very clearly and the fact that Juby never mentions any of it is quite telling.

After this, Juby talks about Lyell’s visit to Niagara Falls where he points out that Lyell’s calculations were incorrect thus Lyell’s estimated age for Niagara Falls was also incorrect. For some reason, Juby feels that pointing out that Lyell was wrong about this is important to know, probably because he believes that if one thing Lyell said was wrong, than everything must be wrong.

Juby never comes out and says it, but it seems clear that he is trying to claim that the age of Niagara Falls is a good estimate for the age of the earth. This is wrong because there is no evidence that the river that created Niagara Falls has existed since the beginning of the earth.

Now we get into Juby’s big guns:

Lyell was also well aware of “polystrate fossils,” due to his visit to the Joggins Fossil cliffs of Nova Scotia, Canada.  Polystrate fossils are so called because they are buried vertically in the rock, cutting through several strata or layers of rock.  Hence, “poly” for many, “strate” for the strata of rock.  It cuts vertically through many layers.

 

That is right folks; Juby is still claiming that polystrate trees disprove deep time. First off, these fossils are not what creationist wish they were; they do not cut through vast expanses of geologic time, they belong to the same geologic period. They are found in depositional environments that form rapidly, such as swamps. In a depositional environment, such as a swamp, there can be many layers formed that all represent the same geological period that formed over hundreds to thousands of years and not millions.

Juby concludes:

Lyell’s research was fiction, yet everyone who read Lyell’s book concluded it was the Bible that was fiction.

 

Again, no it was not. The fact that Juby could not be bothered to bring up the bulk of what is found in Principles of Geology (essentially removing his ideas from the table, without ever mentioning them) speaks volumes.

Coming up in lesson two:

You want millions of years?  You got it.  It doesn’t solve the problems for evolution, and instead causes problems for evolution.

Reason, Science

Of species and kinds

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One familiar argument an evolutionary proponent will encounter when dealing with creationists is the “species problem”. Essentially the argument is that there is not a definitive definition for a species. This almost inevitable argument comes up because the evolutionary proponent asks the creationist if they could define kind. Creationists believe that since biologists cannot come up with a consensus on species that applies to every organism, it gives them a free pass to not define kind.

 

The problem with this argument and the reason we have a “species problem” in biology is that different forms of life reproduce differently. For example, a definition for bacteria will not work for a population of mammals because they reproduce in a different manner. Thus, one is able to produce a robust definition of a species for organisms that reproduce sexually (i.e. reproductive isolation), but have a more fluid definition for species when it comes to asexually reproducing populations.

 

However, this is all beside the point and can be considered a red herring, thus one does not even have to address it. The main issue with this creationist argument is that the definition for kind should be vastly more robust than any definition of species. Young Earth Creationists believe that their God came to Earth, seeded all life on this planet, and made sure that each kind would reproduce after its kind. Thus, if a god(s) truly wanted to do this we would be able to see distinct genetics unique to certain kinds, which are not shared with any other animal outside of their kind. That is, there should be genetics shared only between the cat kind or dog kind that are not found in other organisms and we should not be able to find shared genetics between the two kinds.

 

Nevertheless, this is not what we see when we look into the genetics of life. Every time we look into the genome of an organism, we can see its shared life history with every other living organism on Earth. To date, we have not found a gene sequence unique to a group of organisms except at the species level, and those unique genes are what make that species different. It is this fact that is the real reason creationists refuse to define kind and would rather hide behind the “species problem” when asked to define kind. If the creationists were correct, and god(s) created different kinds then geneticists would be unable to create phylogenetic trees linking all organisms into clades based on their evolutionary history. To make this problem worse, other phylogenetic trees, based on morphology, embryology, etc…, should not be able to produce similar (statistically the same) trees. One would think that their genetics would be different, since all the kinds were created separately with no relation to the other.

 

Thus, the next time a creationist refuses to define kind, kindly remind him that comparative genetics has definitively proven universal common descent and that there have been no genetic markers to indicate that there ever were unique kinds. The “species problem” is not equivalent to the lack of a definition of kind.

Edited by Dean, 25/02/2013
Reason for edit: Minor corrections of grammar & punctuation.

Anthropology, Archaeology, Introductions, Paleontology, Science

First blog post

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Seeing as how this will be my first blog post, I thought I would start by giving my CV.

I am currently a contract archaeologist; my specialty is human and faunal remains (I am not using that much today). I have been on excavations in Hawaii, Spain, and in my great state of New Mexico. I obtained my Bachelor of Science with honors in Biological Anthropology from the University of New Mexico in 2010. My senior thesis was about dental microwear on extant primate populations (it can also be used to reconstruct paleo-environments). I one day hope to return to school and continue studying skeletal anatomy, paleoecology, and cladistics. I also volunteer at my local natural history museum, which I also hope to obtain a larger role in soon (hopefully specimen preparation work and excavations). To sum it up, I like bones and fossils.

My main Ethernet hobby, as many of you already know from practically all my forum posts, is debunking creationism. With part of this blog, I am hoping to add just a little more firepower to the pro-science side of this argument, not only in biology, but also in all fields that creationism tries to distort and tamper with.

The other part of this blog I am hoping to answer general questions people have about archaeology, anthropology, and paleontology; a basic “ask an archaeologist/anthropologist/paleontologist” blog. I would welcome all questions; the main thrust of my volunteer work is answering questions from the public. Thus, any questions are welcome and will be answered by me (hopefully).

For the most part that is what I would like to blog about; I may blog about other things, such as how great New Mexico is, but look forward to creationism debunking and archeo-babble.

I guess this is enough for my first post. I hope everyone will enjoy my blog as much as I enjoy writing it.

Have a nice day. 🙂

Censorship, Entertainment, Religion, YouTube

Supporting the Free Speech of “Them” (Guest Blog)

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I’m sure most Leaguers (especially those who frequent chat) have heard of my creationist archive project FundieVideoHell or FVH for short. As the name might suppose, FVH is a treasure trove (or virtual hell, depending on the user) of creationist and fundamentalist seminars, presentations and other assorted videos.

While I had anticipated support and thanks from my fellow rationalists, I was surprised to see support from creationists too. It seems that FVH is a common ground for both sides: rationalists can use it as a resource for material to debunk (though, sadly, I have yet to see it used this way), and creationists have a source of entertainment.

So why do I spend my time and hard drive space on the opponents to rationality, freethinking, and science? The answer is simple: as long as FundieVideoHell exists, they cannot (or rather, shouldn’t) claim they are being censored by us. Well, at least they cannot claim all atheists are censoring them.

Now, I have, so far, done this entirely on my own resources. I enjoy finding out what is new and happening from the other side. But when I came across the brochure for the “2010 Creation Supercamp,” which is only a few hours drive away, I realized something. Something that deeply frightened me: I wanted to go to this conference. I want to film creationist conferences. But I also don’t want to be an e-begger like VenomFangX.

So I was wondering, should I start a PayPal so that I can take donations from those who are willing to support FundieVideoHell? And would you (the lucky readers) be able to spread the word about FVH? I think there may be creationists out there who would help support the spread of their message, both by word-of-mouth and monetarily.

Culture, Philosophy, Reason, Religion, Science

If Science Is A Conspiracy, Why Does This Computer Work? And Other Stories

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Believers.

Why can’t I just leave them alone, eh? Why can’t I keep my mouth shut?

Ok . . . because some of them think I’m going to hell, think I have no morals, and think my life is meaningless until I open my heart/wallet to Jesus/Allah. I find that fundamentally impolite. It’s hard to say who casts the first stone in these cases, but since I tend not to take issue with the fuzzy sort of believers – y’know, the nice ones who believe in love and redemption rather than bigotry and scientific wank – I only ever attack someone as a result of something they’ve said.

Then the issue was raised of “who’s to say who is right? Creationists take things on faith, atheists take things on scientific proof. Who’s right?”

It’s generally about this point that my brains start to drop out of my ears. Science is right. It has even been suggested to me that, since I haven’t analysed the data myself, scientists are feeding everyone bullshit.

Two words. Peer review.

Continue reading If Science Is A Conspiracy, Why Does This Computer Work? And Other Stories →

Literature, News, Reason

On the Origin of Stupidity…

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Isn’t it amazing what League of Reason bloggers get up to? Sure, some of us lead very mundane lives, doing absolutely nothing but drinking coffee and and tweeting about it. But others spend their days trying to make good use of speaker’s corner. And every so often (though arguably not often enough), one of our number produces cartoons with a very low frame-rate, that is more than made up for by the punchy writing and suspiciously brilliant voice acting.

Every week there’s some exciting new scandal involving a Leaguer, and I can’t tell you how proud this makes me. After all, scandal makes the world go round*. Perhaps then, you can imagine the smile on my face when our very own Godless-Romanian-Vampire-Gypsy-Witch captured the attention of not only atheist overlord PZ Myers, but also the Huffington Post. There’s no need for me to explain this story, when you can just watch the video after the break. Then read on…

Continue reading On the Origin of Stupidity… →

News, Reason, Religion, Science

Andrew Parker Lost The Game (And The Metro, Happily, Did Not)

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The last few hours have been full of nonsense.

Initially, a brief article in the London Lite detailing how a medium has told Jade Goody’s mother how Jade still loves Jack Tweed – the violent, sociopathic ass that he is – but doesn’t like him sleeping with other women.

That must have been the easiest work the medium ever did. “You’re the mother of a famous recently dead quasi-celebrity stupid racist bint . . . who could we possibly be here to talk about?”

There is no afterlife and anyone who says they can talk to the dead is either deluded or knowingly deceitful. And anyone who says they can talk to the dead and pretends to do so for bereaved relatives is just . . . reprehensible.

And this morning I found an article in the Metro, an interview with one Andrew Parker – an Oxford Uni biologist – who claims that God is behind the big bang, and has written a book (The Genesis Enigma – Why The Bible Is Scientifically Accurate). I was expecting to read the interview and find it full of mealy-mouthed delicacy and tolerance, but it seems the interviewer, Graeme Green, certainly isn’t taking Parker’s claims at face value. In fact, within the constraints of civility, Parker leaves with his ass in a sling. Instead of respecting Parker’s beliefs, something which happens with depressing regularity these days, Green submits him to fairly rigorous criticism – even levelling accusations of quote mining, a foul deed that all too many fundamentalists remain unchallenged on. In fact, I need to isolate that segment as you can practically hear Dr. Parker stumble:

“You say the second ‘Let there be light’¦’ refers to the evolution of the eye but you edited out the rest of the line, which clearly refers to the Sun, Moon and stars. There’s no mention in Genesis of the evolution of the eye.
Um, OK. I’ll probably have a look at this in more detail again. The first page of the Bible doesn’t spell out the eye but it doesn’t spell out any of the science in detail.”

“I’ll probably have a look at this in more detail again”? He’s already written the book, how come it’s only now that he’s deciding to reassess his source material thanks to a well-aimed question during a short interview? And he thinks creationism is unfounded and dangerous despite apparently subscribing to just that belief by thinking Genesis is completely true.

Full interview here.

And, of course, Parker would seem to be one of those people who doesn’t get how the eye could have evolved. For a recent diatribe on creationist tactics regarding ocular evolution CLICK THIS THING

Reason, Science

The Argument From Design Is Pretty Bad

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You’ve probably come across this one a lot. Variations on the theme of “Everything is really super complex\the universe is obviously custom made for our please\life is designed, it couldn’t have happened by chance ERGO GOD” crop up all the time.

When you think about it, it’s pretty disgusting. It reveals a shallowness of intellect and reasoning that’s staggering.

The evolution of the eye is the most oft-quoted piece of “evidence” for intelligent design. “Look at this thing,” they’ll bluster, spit rolling down their chins. “Look at it! It’s really super complex! How could it possible have happened by chance? It’s perfect! Can you lend me a nickel?”

Ignoring the fact that the eye’s evolution has been pretty well covered by a number of people, the eye is NOT perfect. Not by any means. It is our most important sensory apparatus, far more so than hearing or smell, and yet this apparently God-patented design can be rendered inoperative by simply poking at it a bit too hard.

The eye manages to be one of the most important and most fragile parts of our body at the same time. Get a piece of grit in it and you’ve pretty much lost the rest of your day. Expose it to minimal pressure and it’s gone. A lot of people don’t even have eyes that work properly in the first place; I wear contacts to correct the flaw that God must have deliberately inflicted on me.

How could anyone look at the eye and think it could be designed? How hard would it have been for God to cover it in a thick protective layer instead of leaving it moist and vulnerable to the world? If people are going to appropriate natural evolution as proof for intelligent design, they MUST take into account all the flaws and room for improvement. Except they don’t, of course. The standard response is something like “Everything was perfect until SIN (even though God knew it was going to happen and could have stopped it and therefore we should be absolved of all responsibility but shut up SHUT UP don’t tell anyone) and then everything started to degrade.”

It’s pretty bad.

Worse still are the tactics used to support this “evidence”. Probably the most famous quote mine of all is the one that seems to have Darwin saying “I freely admit that the eye happening by itself seems impossible” (to paraphrase.) This quote is launched by IDists the world over. However, the full quote doesn’t end there; Darwin goes on to say “oh wait, I was trolling. It’s entirely possible in small steps. See how I talk in detail for a few pages.”

To quote mine in this way, the miner MUST have read it in context and then decided which bit best supported his cause. This tactic goes beyond cunning, sly and underhand – it enters the realm of reprehensible duplicity. It’s really not cricket. And yet this tactic attends creationist arguments constantly; misquotes from Einstein, Hawking and even Dawkins pepper the creationist world.

Sensible people can see this as simply more proof for the shaky foundations of intelligent design, but it’s still pretty annoying.

Introductions

Introducing djarm67

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A quick scan at the overall membership of the “LOR” (which in my opinion should replace the common usage of “LOL” and would be a worthy activity for us all to work covertly across the internets to accomplish) and it is apparent that I am in the minority to a dramatic degree. That’s correct! I am an Australian.

Us Australians understand all too well how misguided those northern hemisphere folks are with their map making activities. They have even managed to infiltrate the ultimate education system with their unholy doctrine of Northpoleisupism. Yes you read it here first. I can boldly declare that the organisations who have traditionally targeted nautical navigation establishments and small travel book stores in Notting Hill have managed to reach their Holy Grail. Google Earth.

On a less serious note, I am actually quite honoured to be invited to contribute to this blog. It is a bold step by the organisers to invite someone to contribute to their blog where upon reading only a handful of my emails it is apparent that my writing skills are crap. I am encouraged however by the inclusion of someone with even less ability in this area, Theo Warner. If not for the inclusion of him, I might feel somewhat intimidated (lor). Much thankness must go to the “sporks” (cosmic or otherwise) for the amazing work accomplished on the technicalities of this site, e.g. should the light bulb be a bayonet or screw in fitting (P.S. I’m glad he went with the screw in. A wise choice in my opinion). We should also thank our resident Astrologer, Andromeda’s Wake for selecting the correct date to launch the updated version with optimal planetary alignments. I was puzzled for sometime over the constant emails with something about a Venus entering Uranus, but I finally worked it out.

So what role will I play as a blog contributor here at LOR? For those of you that are aware of my YouTube channel “djarm67”, you would no doubt be aware that I am a theist. Shock! So I guess my role here would be primarily to make fun of religions from the inside (lor) Alternatively, I could simply extend my attacks on creationism and its attempts to subvert the educational systems of the world. Who knows, we may even have a few interesting discussions.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy what I contribute. You may not always agree with what I contribute, but that’s OK. Just understand that you have been indoctrinated from a young age into the cult of Northpoleisupism.

DJ