PZ Myers. 2005 Sep 17. Dance, Birdnow, dance!. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/dance_birdnow_dance/>. Accessed 2008 Nov 20.

Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Saturday, September 17, 2005

Dance, Birdnow, dance!

Here's a little tactical tip for dealing with creationists. In their presentations, they lie and distort at a frantic pace, babbling out unsupported claims so quickly that you can't possibly keep up—it's far easier to puke up another lie than to carefully and accurately correct one. So what can you do? Focus on one. You can't correct an entire dictionary of dishonesty, but you can thoroughly discuss one entry.

Case in point: Timothy Birdnow. He wrote that appallingly bad essay on evolution at the American Thinker to which I gave an omnibus answer. However, I also zeroed in on one representative paragraph of his essay and challenged him to deal with the answers specifically.

I'm a right wicked bastard. Birdnow discussed revisiting this subject in another article, so I hit him with a challenge. Creationists typically dance from error to error, keeping the balls juggling so fast that you can't keep up, and definitely can never pin them down. So I picked one point in his article and told him to explain it. Here's my challenge:

By the way, if you do revisit this subject, please address this one point from your article.

Consider the Permian Triassic Extinction, the so called "Great Dying", 250 million years ago,in which 9 out of 10 marine creatures and 7 out of 10 land creatures died. Before the Great Dying five phylla walked the Earth; insects, mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles. After the Great Dying we had the same 5.

You should be aware that in those 3 sentences, you made 4 immense errors.

  1. There are many more than 5 phyla; about 30.
  2. Mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and insects are not separate phyla. The first four all belong to one phylum (Chordata) and the last belongs to another (Arthropoda).
  3. There were no mammals or birds in the Permian.
  4. There were no mammals or birds in the Triassic.

In other words, your entire point was wrong in multiple ways. Those are simple errors of fact that show you have no knowledge at all of the subject about which you were babbling.

Consider this a challenge. If you can't address those gross errors when you revisit the subject, I'm going to point out the fact with great amusement.

I wonder what will happen? Dodge, weasel, stonewall, or do some kind of spastic flibbertigibbet dance?

He has replied (oh, wait—he's created a whole new blogspot weblog to deal with it*). And the winning answer is…spastic flibbertigibbet dance!

Professor Myers goes on to insult me in every way imaginable, showing himself to be not just closed-minded but also quite intolerant and nasty. He devoted an enormous amount of time to what he views as extraordinarily stupid-which proves that I touched a nerve. To paraphrase Shakespeare "Me thinks he doth protest too much!" He even used my name as the title of his post! Does anyone devote so much time and effort to something they think has no validity? Dr. Myers clearly fears what I had to say.

I can imagine quite a few other ways to insult Birdnow, I assure you. And I don't think that a guy who sets up a new weblog to address the criticisms of one of his articles can claim that others protest too much. The point of my original post, though, was to demonstrate the numerous errors of fact—basic, fundamental, gross mistakes—in his essay. His attempt to address the specific issues I brought up in my challenge is pathetic.

You are correct in that there are 30 total animal phyla; I was writing a piece to explain this concept to a general audience, and I included the chordates plus insects. You, as a revered Professor of Biology, may find my pique with my carelessness. Fine(after all, I`m not a biologist). Nonetheless, it does not matter to the argument wether there are 2, 8, 15, 30, or 2000 phila (ouch! my knuckles!); the point is that we there was no real crossovers between creatures. I suspect you understood my point, but quibble over it because you think you`ve got me. If it salves your ego to gloat, go right ahead! The fact is, the great point you think you scored was wide of the argument.

Remarkable.

It is not more difficult to use the number "30" instead of "5" for a general audience, unless perhaps he thought the readership of the American Thinker was so benightedly stupid that they were unable to count above 5.

He still doesn't seem to have grasped what a phylum is. None of the examples he listed are phyla; they are classes. As written, he was saying that there were mammals in the Permian, and there were mammals in the Triassic after the Permian extinction. That claim is false.

It does matter how many phyla he claims existed and now exist. It's a matter of credibility. It's extremely easy to look up the number of phyla, and definitions of phyla, and examples of phyla—he did not, and still hasn't, and doesn't know the meaning of the word. He lacks the basic concepts (not to speak of any integrity), and is not a competent or reliable source.

The point I made was central to his argument. He's trying to claim that there were no changes in the kinds of fauna present in the fossil record over time, and has misrepresented the record to support his assertion. Try as you might, you will find no evidence of birds or mammals before, during, or shortly after the Permian extinction. Fish, reptiles, and insects straddled the event, but there are differences in each; the oldest known fly, for instance, is from the upper Triassic.

I could go on to tackle his new lies, but as you can see, all he will do in response is trot out more, a process that could go on forever. Let's leave it with one incontrovertible fact which Birdnow wishes would go away: his argument about the Permian extinction was completely wrong and based entirely on obtuse arrogance and an utter lack of actual information. He's a pretentious liar and fraud.

We can also be content now with the results of a Google search for Timothy Birdnow.


*His excuse for setting up the new weblog is a wonderful recognition of my puissance: "PZ Myers' desperate attack on my American Thinker article The Case Against Darwin has destabilized my blog's formatting." My blog fu is most effective. Fear me.

Posted by PZ Myers on 09/17 at 06:42 PM
Creationism • 1 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink
  1. Welcome Flat Earthers! Since you, the disingenuous and narrow minded, have enjoyed your little Jihad in defense of Darwin so much, I`ve moved it over to this site to offer you an outlet for your anger. Enjoy.


    Bah, he's just taunting us now. Flat Earthers? Narrow minded? Jihad?? He does relize you're atheist right???

    Obviously, Dr. Myers is my superior in knowledge of biology and I`m not going to get sucked into an argument over biological minutia. I am a real estate guy, after all!


    Then why the bloody hell is he arguing with PZ about evolutions since he clearly has '0' knowledge about it???
    #: Posted by  on  09/17  at  06:51 PM
  2. Excellent post, PZ. You are correct in how sticking to one lying assed point by the likes of Birdnow is important, and I am more than happy to help heap scorn on the fetid roadkill that is all that remains of his sorry reputation.
    #: Posted by  on  09/17  at  06:57 PM
  3. Does anyone devote so much time and effort to something they think has no validity?


    Yes. Especially when it's dangerously stupid.
    #: Posted by Ali  on  09/17  at  07:25 PM
  4. What in the heck is up with that guy's apostrophes? They're all going the wrong way.
    #: Posted by  on  09/17  at  07:25 PM
  5. Part of my blog fu. I have destablized his apostrophes; soon they will begin to spin, and their ferocious torque will shred his pitiful blog.
    #: Posted by PZ Myers  on  09/17  at  07:37 PM
  6. Oh, and by the way...he has also declared that he has and will delete all "off-topic" comments on his site. He just deleted all the comments that pointed out how ridiculous his position is.
    #: Posted by PZ Myers  on  09/17  at  07:39 PM
  7. Did you see the poem he dedicated to you and other "radical Darwinists".

    I especially liked the last line "close your eyes, shut your ears." This coming from a guy who refuses to grasp basic biology.
    #: Posted by  on  09/17  at  07:46 PM
  8. Leave it to evolution to cause a further fall in the majesty of man... or one of them anyway -- well, just his blog formatting this time, but every little bit helps, evolution. Looks like you definitely "found his pique with his carelessness" as they say.

    Apparently, they say that -- somewhere.
    #: Posted by QrazyQat  on  09/17  at  07:56 PM
  9. Does anyone devote so much time and effort to something they think has no validity?


    You know, there was a time that I would have agreed and simply said "you know, he's obviously believes what he believes for emotional reasons so you might as well just leave him alone and let him rant."

    However, after watching the advance of frightening borderline neofascist ideology in the US for several years I have this to say:

    Down with tolerance!

    You see, tolerance toward people who say dumb irrational things is what got us to this point. Not only do I think we should debunk and insult creationists but also right-wing faux intellectuals, religious fundamentalists, new-age twinks, racists, people who claim to be able to speak to the dead, spoon benders, and so on.

    Stupid irrational ideas based on unquestioned emotional reactions, bad acid trips, or thousand year old books of mystical blathering have no business guiding one of the most advanced and militarily powerful democratic *republics* on the face of this planet.

    So go for it PZ. Tear him a new one.
    #: Posted by Adam Ierymenko  on  09/17  at  08:01 PM
  10. Heck yeah, Adam. Raise the standards! Stop pandering to the lowest common denominator! Poke fun at willful ignorance!
    #: Posted by Ali  on  09/17  at  08:15 PM
  11. I just found out my mother is a young earth creationist. I'm so depressed. I don't have the will to try to catch her in the problems with that, just the fact that my own mother, who can be so sensible about some things, can be so dumb and blind about this, is an awful feeling.

    And what's worse is, I don't think she always was. When I was a kid, I often heard stuff like "For God, one day is a thousand years, so when it says the Earth was created in 6 days, it could mean thousands or millions of years."
    #: Posted by Stacy  on  09/17  at  08:20 PM
  12. It's 9 of 10 marine and 7 of 10 land species, not "creatures" (i.e., individuals), that vanished in the "Great Dying." Not germaine to his "arguments" but just another indication that he doesn't know wtf he's talking about. As if more proof were needed.
    #: Posted by  on  09/17  at  08:33 PM
  13. One of the creationist commenters there, StaticMind wrote this:

    "The human mind - the scientifically trained like yours and the curious like mine - on a whole finds uncertainty unbearable and we crave certainty in Darwin (you) God (me)."


    I, for one, do not find uncertainty unbereable. Au contraire, I relish uncertainty.

    But this is one of the essential components of the way religious people think. They are horror-stricken by the notion that all knowledge is tentative. I have linked (inone of the most recent threads here) to an interesting juxtaposition of articles and blog-posts dealing with exactly these psyhological phenomena - ignorance of one's own ignorance, fear of ambiguity, group-think - and how they relate. One of the bloggers points out that this may be explained by something called "Wobegon Effect".
    #: Posted by coturnix  on  09/17  at  08:45 PM
  14. Or perhaps, as someone suggested on the previous Birdman thread, this guy is old and Older people are less tactful.
    #: Posted by coturnix  on  09/17  at  08:49 PM
  15. Good job pointing out Birdnow's errors.

    I would guess that he is more ignorant and misguided, perhaps even "misled," than a liar and a fraud.

    While moving the blog was a pathetic move on his part, I didn't notice any comment deletion. I've participated in his comment thread and they all seem to be there. (There may have been one comment, the last on his old blog, that got lost in transition.)
    #: Posted by The Commissar  on  09/17  at  09:14 PM
  16. The amusing thing was raher than speaking to any of the points PZ made, Birdnow basically resorted to "so what, big deal, don't be a nit picker" types of answers. As one of the commenters on that thread pointed out Birdnow's response seemed to be "so what if I don't know what I'm talking about I'm still right". It was pretty pitiful. About the time Orac and Bayesian Bouffant showed up I couldn't watch anymore - the man had been totally torn to pieces.
    #: Posted by  on  09/17  at  09:23 PM
  17. Oh, I just now went to his original blog after reading just the stuff on the new one (and how on Earth does it get "destabilized" by links from your blog??!!) - he's a total Wingnut crackpot on everything he touches. Pathetic!
    #: Posted by coturnix  on  09/17  at  09:48 PM
  18. Arguing with these creationists is shockingly like arguing with a racist about his beliefs. Bear with me. I deal with a person on my Ivy League alumni list who is off his head about Jews. A total racist pig, he distorts facts, throws out lie after lie and, when confronted or called on his facts, complains he's being persecuted, that his points are valid for "discussion" in a "civilized" manner - as he's saying that the Holocaust was justified, that Jews control the US, etc. - and otherwise whines and moans.

    My point is that these are similar for a reason: they both demonstrate a total intolerance of rationality in furtherance of a belief system that can only be sustained through lies and intentional ignorance. You can't expect anything but insults, whining and lies.

    The bottom line is that form of argument, that form of belief is inherently wrong. One can say it is evil, because this form of irrationality dehumanizes and furthers cruelty toward those who don't believe or who don't fit.
    #: Posted by  on  09/17  at  10:24 PM
  19. Just to amplify on coturnix's post (40469), with which I wholeheartedly agree, you can't really do any science in the realm of certainty. If you're certain about something, what exactly are you supposed to study, exactly? People always make certain assumptions (you've got to start somewhere), and often have one conclusion they expect, but their results evaluate the things they are uncertain about, at least in theory. If you fear uncertainty, then you really fear science itself, since you rule out all the questions that can be asked. ID, with its faith in 'irreducible complexity' and other unproven principles, fails the scientific test because of this, among other reasons.

    Perhaps some of the confusion stems from the fact that scientists are happy to use definite terminology to refer to things they will admit they understand only in part (either large part or small part). "Evolution" need not be a complete theory with every component perfectly understood (like some Biblicists seem to think of their picture of the universe); instead, it represents a set of principles and observations that provide the best picture we have of the development of species over time. In physics, people always get uppity over "dark matter" (see Gregg Easterbrook of The New Republic, among others), claiming that physicists don't even know what it is. Of course we don't, that's why we call it dark. Really, dark matter is a hypothesis about one mass component in the universe, defined in terms of certain properties it seems to possess (reacts to gravity, evolves over time like non-relativistic particles rather than radiation does, doesn't interact with photons much,etc.) Based on what we know, it's the best explanation we have, and fits the observational data best. The term actually implies the unknown knowledge of its exact nature, rather than expressing some unjustified faith in spite of our ignorance.
    #: Posted by  on  09/17  at  10:36 PM
  20. Shermer on the known, the unknown and the unknown-unknown:
    http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=13&articleID=0005144A-F774-1305-ACCE83414B7FFE9F
    #: Posted by coturnix  on  09/17  at  10:47 PM
  21. And the winning answer is…spastic flibbertigibbet dance!


    I don't know, PZ, I think I was right with "all of the above."

    And "The 5 Phylla" still sounds like a musical group made of dough.
    #: Posted by  on  09/17  at  10:53 PM
  22. My goodness, that was the most inane, childish "defense" I've ever read. Timmy pretty much ignores everywhere he is wrong, claims that he has hit a nerve, thus proving "darwinism" is a religion.

    What a joke.

    I'd post over there, but then I'd need to take a shower. I'm getting too old, or too obsessive-compulsive, to wade through a swamp like that.
    #: Posted by  on  09/17  at  11:21 PM
  23. here's the key phrase:
    I was writing a piece to explain this concept to a general audience


    Theorem: ALL anti-evolutionary literature produced by creationists is aimed at people who have limited knowledge of science in general and of biology in particular.

    People in this target audience can be impressed (convinced?) by the bafflegab and misrepresentations. [Remember, this audience is far larger than than the community of scientists.]

    This is particularly true if refutations of the arguments can be censored or otherwise suppressed (as generally happens on creationist websites -- witness Birdnow's actions), so that the audience hears only the falsehoods.

    I have a suggestion for PZ (or perhaps someone else with time and blogging skills): establish a 'shadow' website: post Birdnow's paper verbatim (with appropriate citation to avoid cries of 'plagiarism') and allow all interested parties to b*ttf*ck criticise it.

    Later, perhaps, collect all cogent responses and dump them on Birdnow's site. Repeatedly.
    #: Posted by  on  09/17  at  11:25 PM
  24. One of the problems is that this guy published his rant in an online magazine. "American Thinker (sic)" appears to aspire to be something like a Right-wing equivalent to Commondreams.org or Alternet.org.

    If he just ranted on his blog, it would be fine. How many readers can he possibly have? And of those, how many are not already political and religious fundamentalists?

    If people blogged only about stuff that is incontrovertibly based on facts or peer-reviewed literature - poof - there go 20 million blogs and only a couple of dozen remain.

    I have separated my blogging into two blogs for a reason. On one blog, I write only about stuff I know based on published scientific literature. There are no ad rectum rants to spoil my credibility there.

    The other blog is full of rants, mostly based on gut feeling, information garnered from media, blogs and books. It makes me feel good. I am having fun when I poke fun at my political opponents, creationists, etc. Yet I wish that the stuff I rant about I can support with links to PDFs of peer-reviewed papers.

    For instance, very early on my blog, I wrote a couple of posts in which I made errors about the history of marriage. Later, after reading a book on history of marriage I realized I was wrong and in the next post I admitted I was wrong. Recently, I read another, even better book on history of marriage that showed me that I was even more wrong than I thought. In the next post on that topic, I will certainly acknowledge that I was wrong.

    Much of my blogging is an attempt to dissect conservative psychopathology: why conservatives think and behave the way they do. It is based on my own observations (I live in a Red State), my personal history (growing up in a very macho culture), and books. There is preciously little real research on the topic and I keep linking to the same two available PDFs over and over again.

    I am hoping that one day someone will come to my blog and post in comments a link to a PDF of a paper that shows me I am wrong. The next day I will post, in huge bold red letters that I was wrong. Why? Because every time someone shows me I was wrong, it means that I now possess BETTER information that what I had before. There is an exhilaration in learning. My future blogging will get even better, if nothing else.

    Every one of us overestimates how much we know about any particular topic. But, more we know about something more aware we are of how much we do and do not yet know. I do not have time to read every paper in my field (there are too many), even less to read it with focus it deserves. More I read them, more I feel like I know nothing about it. There are so many details I do not know off the cuff. There is lots I am not sure about, or I need to check the literature to verify. There is even more stuff that I am painfully aware that the field as a whole does not yet know. I need to actively remind myself, before I get depressed and give up science, that no matter how I feel about not knowing even my own field, 99.99% of the Earth's human population knows LESS about circadian clocks than I do.

    Is the opposite also true, i.e, the less you know about something the less you understand how little you know? Is that the Lake Wobegon Effect? And why some people, when confronted with information that invalidates their gut-feeling opinion do not jump with joy that they have learned something today?
    #: Posted by coturnix  on  09/17  at  11:55 PM
  25. Dealing with ID types is like playing a rather poorly designed fantasy game. Too many orcs. You've got to swat 'em down, but they aren't very challenging.
    #: Posted by Jim Harrison  on  09/18  at  12:07 AM
  26. #40469:
    Well, what else would you expect from someone with a nick "StaticMind", coturnix?
    #: Posted by  on  09/18  at  01:04 AM
  27. Let me just add some thoughts on the subject of tolerance. Tolerance, in the sense of refraining from lynching your neighbors for failing to attend your church, or sending thugs to beat them up for looking at a woman that you have decided is part of your "race", is a fine thing.

    The problem is, that "tolerance" itself has had its meaning corrupted in the last few decades to mean "refraining from any kind of critical judgment at all". This is what lets all manner of loonies, from astrologits to scientologits to creationists to holocaust deniers, demand to be treated as if they were proposing rational arguments.

    When the IDiots propose to sneak their religious indoctrination into science classes to proselytize to everyone's kids, they must be rigorously exposed for what they are. Oh, if only Henry Louis Mencken were still around.

    -jcr
    #: Posted by  on  09/18  at  04:07 AM
  28. coturnix, the opposite appears to be true according to this paper:

    Kruger, Justin; Dunning, David: Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, December 1999 Vol. 77, No. 6, 1121-1134

    Full text at: http://www.phule.net/mirrors/unskilled-and-unaware.html

    Psychology is not my field of expertise, so I don't know what other articles have to say, but it is interesting reading if true.
    #: Posted by  on  09/18  at  05:19 AM
  29. Perhaps I am a bit obtuse, but I was not able to find a way to respond to Birdnow's blog in a direct fashion, so...

    Dear Mr. Birdnow,

    As a layman to a layman, if you want to try to refute a theory on its own turf, you first need to know the theory itself, not just the bunk produced by the Discovery Institute and its minions. Then you really do need to get your facts right. Facts are used to give credibility to a thesis, otherwise you are just making a bunch of assertions. False "facts" only serve to discredit the author. It is only natural to lose focus on an argument whene it has no underlying factual basis. Without facts the argument isn't worth the fertizer put down by my dachsund.

    Think about it, Mr. Birdnow: how many times do you say to the TV, "yeah, right (sarcastically)" when you hear some tidbit that has no factual basis. If there is no reason to believe an assertion we, as rational beings, do not. That is why Colin Powell stood up with a piece of paper saying that we had proof of the threat posed by saddam hussein. That paper was his "proof", ie, "factual basis" for the administration's position. It would appear now that that paper was actually blank ;)

    As a final note, an interesting side effect of knowing the theory: you will find that it works very well. Try reading Ernst Mayr and Stephen Jay Gould. You will want to pick up couple of biology texts from your local (secular) college bookstore (or St. Louis U)including one for the intro year and genetics.
    #: Posted by  on  09/18  at  06:29 AM
  30. I think it's interesting that the Birdnovian response has been based so much on emotion - focus on the hurt to Mr B's feelings rather than the damage to his case; approval for his original piece based on its "message" (i.e. its appeal to pre-existing feelings) rather than on the "scientific gobbledygook" which one of his commenters happily admitted went straight over his head. Interesting because creationists often seem to identify "Darwinism" with the left wing, which the right wing likes to depict as "girlymen" privileging emotion over rationality.
    #: Posted by  on  09/18  at  07:49 AM
  31. Heh. This Birdnow guy is even more of a loon than I had thought the first time around.

    Poor guy. He doesn't realize what a fool he is making of himself, but instead sees himself as some sort of brave warrior against the "evil" of "Darwinism."

    Let him continue to dance.
    #: Posted by Orac  on  09/18  at  08:18 AM
  32. This reminds me of another nutcase, who concluded, in effect, "that even though I'm wrong about the facts, my argument still holds".
    #: Posted by Arun  on  09/18  at  08:20 AM
  33. Magnu: that paper just strengthens the case, doesn' it? Less you know about something, less you understand how little you know.
    #: Posted by coturnix  on  09/18  at  08:46 AM
  34. Magnus,

    I don't have time to read that paper, but the title/abstract reminded me of a somewhat sarcastic comment I tell my students, especially the arrogant ones and the ones who think their professor is supposed to have all the answers:

    Education is exposure to the vast universe of knowledge. The higher your level education, the more you realize how much you don't know.

    After I finished my dissertation, I added the followup (usually mumbled under my breath):

    And once you fully understand how much of an idiot you are, you earn a Ph.D.
    #: Posted by  on  09/18  at  08:53 AM
  35. Stacy: I just found out my mother is a young earth creationist.

    My sympathies.

    You might want to check on her media diet: a mental deterioration like that seems unlikely to have occurred spontaneously, but is probably being fed by some televangelist or other mind parasite who may be spreading other mental infections as well. Few effective treatments are known, but perhaps she can be redirected to a less virulent form of this disorder.
    #: Posted by  on  09/18  at  09:34 AM
  36. "Name calling is the last refuge of the loser of an argument..."

    I can help but notice that his responses to PZ are littered with both this sort of irrelevant posturing and numerous references to PZ's own alleged character flaws (e.g., calling him a "petty, mean-spirited little man). First time I've seen that sort of hypocrisy from a right-wing nutbag...oh, wait! Actually that's all they do!

    I submit that by this time this "strategy" (incessant whining about well-earned smackdowns) qualifies as an official creationist canard even though it's divorced from science.

    It's convenient -- heck, vital -- to resort to nonsense such as "Why would Darwinists get so upset if they were really sure of themselves?" This is summarily debunked with an example: If I insisted someone's mother was a whore, could I take his repudiation of same as evidence that it must be true? Better yet, why do creationists and fundies go to such lengths to vocally defend the good name of an all-powerful deity?

    The Birdman has earned the label of buffoon in this extended exchange because it is clear scientific illiteracy is so far-flung and toxic that he literally have no idea what people like PZ are talking about when asking you questions. He lacks the background to recognize it is that he doesn't know. He's able to pick out the personal criticisms, though; good for him.

    People expect to be taken seriously merely because they are passionate in their galactic ignorance. Birdman's original screed -- which, by the way, was very much the type of ad hominem attack he purports to condemn, this one leveled at all of "Darwinism" rather than a meandering twit with the writing acumen of a glue-addicted fifth-grader -- was riddled with more technical errors than one would expect of someone who was actually aiming for a maximal mistake-to-word ratio.

    He hates hearing it, but facts can be rough: Birdman is desperately wrong, far out of his league in every conceivable way, and, absent dedicated study of the subjects he has addressed, badly misguided in even approaching evolution or biology in general.

    Simply put, he launched an attack rooted not a whit in sound science and one hundred percent in dogmatic garbage and were thoroughly marauded by the opposition. This is how it usually works, and it's fun to watch.

    Immunity to facts must be a painful thing to endure.
    #: Posted by  on  09/18  at  09:45 AM
  37. The shorter Timothy Birdnow:

    "You fools! You've discredited every argument in my article. But you can't touch my conclusions! I can just restate them!"
    #: Posted by  on  09/18  at  10:40 AM
  38. Birdnow wrote:
    "Does anyone devote so much time and effort to something they think has no validity?"

    Since Birdnow apparently devotes a great deal of time and effort to "Darwinism" -- which he believes has no validity -- then his answer to his own question must obviously be "yes."
    #: Posted by  on  09/18  at  11:17 AM
  39. From Mr. Birdnow's comment section (new persecution blog):

    Dr. Meyers was so fixated on the scientific inaccuracies he couldn’t or wouldn’t hear anything that the piece was trying to say.

    Yes, I'm afraid that this does show the shortcomings of the rational and scientifically educated person - being stopped short by the "scientific inaccuracies" used to support an argument. Why couldn't we just see what was being said...or trying to be said...or something?

    Just because all of the supporting evidence offered was completely wrong and the rest was stongly suspect and it was offered by someone with no knowledge of or training in science or biology we automatically (knee-jerk) dismissed the conclusions and focused instead on providing refutation of the incorrect evidence. When all along the conclusion was obviously correct (this style of argument is so brilliant and clever that I almost missed it).

    Between the lines, Mr. Birdnow was obviously expressing a powerful and moving gut instinct that has great appeal to many other people's gut understanding of complex issues. And, lord knows, we have more than enough evidence these days to highlight that leading by divining the rumblings of one's gut can bring about much change and wonderment leading to very interesting times. And, what more can we ask for than to live in interesting times? You know, like the Darks Ages - very, very interesting times.

    Ultimately, I have been convinced by Mr. Birdnow's bold, forceful and completely unsubstantiated stance that evolution, and science in general, have no real foundations - after all, I don't want to be made fun of as authoritarian or prejudiced or as an elitist evidence demander. I don't want to be a Jihadi for Evolution or a poopie head. So I say Dr. Meyers, shame on you. I hope that you have been sufficiently chastened and will now renounce your misguided empirical, fact-based biased ways. I mean really, what are you going to believe? Your own eyes, training and reason or someone else's unsupported yet sincere, deep, and long-held gastric intuitions....uh, I mean convictions.
    #: Posted by  on  09/18  at  01:33 PM
  40. Careful, now, Birdnow's calling in the big guns...


    I`m being assaulted by PZ Myers and his Panda`s Middle Finger minions at my website. It`s vicious, and I would appreciate any help anyone could give me.


    http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/339#more-339

    Of course, if Demski's flock had particular interest in open debate, they might not be hanging around UD...
    #: Posted by  on  09/18  at  05:34 PM
  41. I think Mr. Birdnow's belief is that since Evolution is wrong, one doesn't have to know anything about it to refute it. I mean, after all, Jesus 'wants him to win'...

    Besides, he probably steers clear of learning too much about Evolution or Biology for fear of being 'corrupted' by it.
    #: Posted by  on  09/18  at  08:03 PM
  42. Mr. Birdnow's jumbling of the facts on evolution is really no different than the rampant bastardization of the christian faith that has worsened over the last 25 years. The big divide amongst the faithful has pitted the new vs the old testament and the old testament believers are the ones who are taking the bible as literal truth, (forgetting that it is full of contadictions, sexism, racism and incitement to violence, murder and slavery, long since controlled by law and order). So it is really no surprise to me that facts don't matter in the arguements put forth. Who needs facts anyway, they just get in the way of good old fashioned religous brainwashing.
    #: Posted by BC Waterboy  on  09/18  at  09:03 PM
  43. This post is pretty amusing to see in the pirate mode.
    The ornery cuss wrote that appallingly bad essay on evolution at th' American Thinker t' which I gave an omnibus answer. However, I also zeroed in on one representative paragraph o' his essay and challenged that scurvey dog t' deal with th' answers specifically.


    Seems like a decent way to refer to Birdnow
    #: Posted by  on  09/18  at  10:16 PM
  44. Yeeeaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgh!
    Oops, that be Dean mode, not piratical mode!
    As a public servvice, I have here catalogued the varieties of ignorance exhibited by Birdnow:\

    orthography -- I was going to give him a pass on this one, as it's 'definately' a dying art, but when you use technical terms to make your arrrrrgument, you gotta get it right, else ye look like a simpleton.

    diction -- it's a mute point anyway, he said facetiously (note all the vowels in order there).

    syntax -- it's own explanation.

    physics -- atomic theory disproves evilution, arrrrgh!

    biochemistry -- my cousin is not a part of me, and RNA is not a component of DNA.

    argument -- facts be damned, I'm right anyway!

    American lit. -- if you're going to misuse a quote from Emerson, at least get it right, hobgoblin.

    thermodynamics -- his brain is a closed system.

    punctuation -- why use a humble apostrophe ' when the acute ` is available? And quotation marks "" are so pedestrian, why not use 2 acutes ````?

    biology, evolutionary theory -- goes without saying.

    Any more?
    #: Posted by moioci  on  09/19  at  08:14 AM
  45. Similar to an "attempt" to draw out another of these thinkers.
    http://joustthefacts.typepad.com/joust_the_facts/2005/08/lileks_takes_on.html
    #: Posted by  on  09/19  at  04:21 PM
  46. Yikes - that's a bad one!
    #: Posted by coturnix  on  09/19  at  04:59 PM
  47. It's 9 of 10 marine and 7 of 10 land species, not "creatures" (i.e., individuals), that vanished in the "Great Dying." Not germaine to his "arguments" but just another indication that he doesn't know wtf he's talking about. As if more proof were needed.

    Not "species". "Kinds". "Species" is Darwino-commie agitprop terminology to hide the insidious atheo-materialistic core of this malignant and pernicious doctrine. HTH. wink

    Cheers,
    #: Posted by Arne Langsetmo  on  09/19  at  08:20 PM
  48. I just think it's wonderful that he managed to spell "phyla" three different ways (phylla phyla phila).
    #: Posted by Lowk  on  09/20  at  12:47 AM
  49. He wins both ways. If people point out the errors, it isbecause he has hit a nerve, if they don't, it is because what he is saying is inarguable. If only everything in life was that simple
    #: Posted by  on  09/20  at  06:59 AM
  50. To be fair to little Timmy, if he has been deleting comments there are still plenty of very damning ones on there: it doesn't appear that he's quite pulling a Dembski yet.
    #: Posted by  on  09/20  at  12:21 PM
  51. Some years ago, I read a bunch of creationist literature. I had the idea that creationists might have discovered inconsistencies in current theory that would lead to interesting new ideas. I eventually gave it up as a bad go. Every claim that I tracked back to the primary literature turned out simply to be wrong, and a lot of it appeared to be intentionally dishonest. I realized that the creationists see themselves on a holy crusade. In their minds, evolution is a threat to belief in God, and since they believe that all morality derives from God, a threat to the social order. When so much is at stake, who can quibble about truth and accuracy?--they are trying to save civilization! Scientists and creationists (and, it seems, IDers) are debating at cross purposes. Scientists are talking logic and evidence, while creationists are engaged in public relations and spin.
    #: Posted by  on  09/20  at  10:17 PM
  52. Tim Birdnow gets his brother Brian (who has a PhD. which means he's gone done lots of book learnin' and such) to weigh in on the Scopes Monkey Trial:

    So we find that evrything "Inherit The Wind" tells us about Scopes v. Tennessee is not the whole story. The public should read some of the new works out there concerning the Scopes trial including Marvin Olasky's new work on the subject. Without this information most observers will not know the truth of the "Monkey Trial". Come to think of it, that is exactly the thing the evolutionists want!


    Read it here.
    #: Posted by  on  09/27  at  05:32 AM
  53. There's an old navy saw that goes, "If you can't blind 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit." Thank you, Dr. Myers, for characterizing these idiots for the dingbats they are.
    #: Posted by  on  11/15  at  11:59 PM