PZ Myers. 2005 Dec 03. Wrathful Dispersionism. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/wrathful_dispersionism/>. Accessed 2008 Dec 04.

Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Saturday, December 03, 2005

Wrathful Dispersionism

You can breathe new life into discredited ideas just by giving them a new name and backing away from the evidence. Maybe we can even rescue creationist genetics by renaming it "optical genomic imprinting".

Posted by PZ Myers on 12/03 at 07:41 AM
Creationism • 1 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink
  1. A brilliant piece of satire! I also liked this cleaver response from a reader, no_sword23:

    The fact remains that Grimmism's "language evolution" has never been demonstrated under scientific conditions. You can put a Chinese speaker, an English speaker, and a speaker of any Altaic* language you like together in the same room, but will they end up speaking Japanese? Hardly!
    #: Posted by removed  on  12/03  at  08:46 AM
  2. Hehe, is the "Aryan Invasion Theory" also an example of Wrathful Dispersionism?
    ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_invasion_theory )
    #: Posted by Arun  on  12/03  at  09:42 AM
  3. Well, you can USE OLD MOTOR OIL TO FERTILIZE YOUR LAWN.

    Or so I´ve been told.
    #: Posted by  on  12/03  at  10:14 AM
  4. Well, since Darwin made the analogy between the evolution of languages and the evolution of life, then it stands to reason that neither happened.
    #: Posted by  on  12/03  at  10:16 AM
  5. I remember reading a post somewhere in which the poster complained that many Hindu fundamentalists invaded sci.lang and insisted that all theories of historical linguistics conform to Hindutva myths about Sanskrit. In the West it seems outlandish, but I think that it's only because Christianity has no holy language whereas Hinduism does.
    #: Posted by Alon Levy  on  12/03  at  10:23 AM
  6. Hab SoSlI' Quch !

    Qapla'!
    #: Posted by  on  12/03  at  11:00 AM
  7. Christianity has no holy language whereas Hinduism does.

    It almost did -- at one point, anyway. Popular theory amongst 19th-century Biblical scholars was that Koine Greek was a "divine" dialect, something that was peculiar to the New Testament. This was laid to rest when archaeologists began digging up grocery lists and bills of sale written in Koine.

    Even stranger, today many hard-right types only accept the King James translation as the "real" Bible -- even in preference to the original Greek mss!

    But if you want real heat, spend some time reading the arguments in Islam over whether Qur'an and its version of Arabic were "created" or not.
    #: Posted by  on  12/03  at  12:22 PM
  8. Some years ago on 'As It Happens', a CBC radio newsmagazine program noted for the ability of its researchers to find nuts, they interviewed an opponent of bilingual education (English/Spanish) in the US who said of English "If it's good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me."
    #: Posted by  on  12/03  at  01:59 PM
  9. Answer me this, you gawd-hating Grimmists - if English evolved from German, why do some people still speak German? Ha! Gotcha!
    #: Posted by No More Mr. Nice Guy!  on  12/03  at  03:44 PM
  10. "if English evolved from German, why do some people still speak German?"

    Right on, No More Mr. Nice Guy! And -- WHY DO NO MONKEYS SPEAK ENGLISH OR GERMAN?
    #: Posted by  on  12/03  at  11:51 PM
  11. Why Sanskrit is important:

    http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Panini.html
    #: Posted by Arun  on  12/05  at  01:49 PM