The Onion Hits the Nail on the Head

[Chip]

...when it comes to delightful parody that is dangerously too close to the actual news these days:

http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4133&n=2

[Maksutov]

...when it comes to delightful parody that is dangerously too close to the actual news these days:

http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4133&n=2
Beautiful!

BTW, rumor has it that the "wedgie" strategy folks are considering combining Intelligent Design and Intelligent Falling into a unified theory called Intelligent Descent. Dr. Olåf Maelstrøm (BS, MS, PhD, Bob Jones University) of the Faith-based Education Center for Apostolic Living (an ECFR rival group) said in a press conference that "Intelligent Descent will replace all current and future ideas, hypotheses, and theories with the plain truth, which, of course, is the whole truth, our truth, and no one else's truth, so help me." Dr. Maelstrøm then mouthed a word but made almost no sound. Reporters agreed that the word was something like "got", or "jot", or "Bob", the last possibly being a reference to the founder of the university where Dr. Maelstrøm teaches Intelligent Calculus, Intelligent Material Science, and Intelligent Mechanics.

In other news, earlier today in Greenville, SC, an office tower designed by Intelligent Construction, Inc., an architectural firm whose staff consists entirely of Bob Jones University graduates, collapsed into a pile of rubble as work on the building's second story began. Intelligent Construction officials blamed the disaster on Satan.

[Taks]

i feel a little stupider after reading that... hehe.
hey! it is bliss...
taks

[Meteora]

Faith-based Education Center for Apostolic Living

:o I have definitely worked in the acronym-filled world of government too long...!

[Van Rijn]

ToSeeked! (http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=493995#493995) Well, mostly. It is the same joke/idea. Of course, the Onion developed the joke in more detail.

[Swift]

It is so close to the truth it is kind of scary
Proponents of Intelligent Falling assert that the different theories used by secular physicists to explain gravity are not internally consistent. Even critics of Intelligent Falling admit that Einstein's ideas about gravity are mathematically irreconcilable with quantum mechanics. This fact, Intelligent Falling proponents say, proves that gravity is a theory in crisis.
Physics books probably need stickers saying "Relativity is JUST a Theory"
#-o

[John Kierein]

I live too close to Kansas for this to be funny. What does Utah do with Intelligent Design?

[Richard of Chelmsford]

Kansas seems to be a hell hole of I.D.

There are some parallels here with the idea of Einsteins that there were no gravity waves and that gravity is just an effect of the space/time continium (I disagree), but the long and the short of it is that we just haven't discovered yet how gravity works.

Though these ID merchants don't need science, do they, just their own opinions.

[PatKelley]

It's a counter-attack in most of the ID and Creationist mindset. They see the first "attack" being science's divergence from the infallable text, or by disagreeing with it calling its infallability into question.

Some people require their faith to have all of the answers, and in addition a monopoly on the answers. Any failure, or even implied failure, might diminish their faith and thereby their only means of salvation. So, anyone who expresses doubt must be an agent of the enemy.

[Sticks]

This time I hope I have the right thread :oops:

But the satire does raise a point about Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Einstein IIRC did not take to QM.

His quotation "I do not believe God plays dice with the universe" seems directed at the quantum realm

[hhEb09'1]

But the satire does raise a point about Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Einstein IIRC did not take to QM.

His quotation "I do not believe God plays dice with the universe" seems directed at the quantum realmAs I said in another thread (http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=518939#518939) ( :) ), I think Einstein took to quantum mechanics pretty well. His objection was directed towards the "Copenhagen interpretation" of quantum mechanics.

[Sticks]

Thanks for that

I was having trouble keeping awake at the keyboard, so posted on the older thread. :oops:

[tracer]

Heh.

I like the bible-physics in the picture's background poster.

dx/dt = 1 Cor 1:10

[tracer]

...when it comes to delightful parody that is dangerously too close to the actual news these days:
Even more scary, that Onion article isn't entirely parody.

Look at the last paragraph:

"Anti-falling physicists have been theorizing for decades about the 'electromagnetic force,' the 'weak nuclear force,' the 'strong nuclear force,' and so-called 'force of gravity,'" Burdett said. "And they tilt their findings toward trying to unite them into one force. But readers of the Bible have already known for millennia what this one, unified force is: His name is Jesus."

Now, look at the Jack Chick tract/comic Big Daddy (http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0055/0055_01.asp), about 3/4 of the way down the page where it talks about the forces that hold an atom together.

:o

[Sticks]

So there is a point by point rebuttle of the stuff quoted in that tract? :-?

[Samara]

Fear Not Sticks!! look under The Connection to Jack Chick (http://www.kent-hovind.com/)[/url]

[Chip]

Jack Chick is a total lunatic. I remember his cartoon booklets being thrown around my high school campus in a feeble attempt by fundies to brainwash kids, (and that was back in 1969!) Some of my high school friends and I would pick them up and draw in them, greatly altering the stories. :D

[Gillianren]

somewhere, I've got a Pagan tract or two that are direct parodies of the Chick tracts. (for the record, they don't convert Pagans; we think they're funny.)

[tracer]

And let's not forget The Jack T. Chick Parody Archive (http://www.weirdcrap.com/chick/intro.html).

Nor this parody of "Big Daddy?" (http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/showquestion.asp?faq=4&fldAuto=46&page=2). (Beware, however, of the Bad Astronomy to be found on this page (http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/showquestion.asp?faq=4&fldAuto=46&page=11) of that parody.)

[AstroSmurf]

Here's that point-for-point rebuttal you were asking for, Sticks
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/feedback/mar01.html

(I started writing one, but this one is better than my attempt)

[Samara]

My favorite part - where the student tells everyone (with a straight face) that Jesus is personally holding every atom in the universe together. That is on par with the Xenu mythology IMHO

[genebujold]

Well done, Maksutov.

[mid]

My favorite part - where the student tells everyone (with a straight face) that Jesus is personally holding every atom in the universe together.

This is, of course, merely another literal reading of scripture.

He's got the sun and the rain in His hands,
He's got the moon and the stars in His hands,
He's got the wind and the clouds in His hands,
He's got the whole world in His hands.

He's got the rivers and the mountains in His hands,
He's got the oceans and the seas in His hands,
He's got you and he's got me in His hands,
He's got the whole world in His hands.

etc.

[AstroSmurf]

So... they've accepted that as Gospel?

*ducks*

:lol: