Shorter Ken Ham Supporters: Magnets, How Do They Work?

[phantom power]

photo essay from Juggalo Nation....

I was skeptical about the Bill Nye/Ken Ham debate because I tend to fall on the side of believing that debating things that are fact just gives credence to lies. Also, the fact that the Christian right is obsessed with debating—seriously, Christian right homeschooling is completely absorbed with teaching kids how to debate—suggests to me that they’ve determined that a debate is a good format for elevating lies so that they seem truer. I’ve never had a more secular conservative offer to “debate” me, but you get those offers from Christian conservatives all the time. I suspect the main reason they love it is because the debate format leaves little to no room for fact-checking, and most audience members, especially conservatives, struggle to tell the difference between an argument and an assertion. (Indeed, that’s why one of my favorite games on Twitter is asking conservatives to explain what the latest talking point they’ve been fed by Fox News means. They can never do. I can usually do a better job of it, and I don’t even believe it.) The debate format is good if the audience understands these limitations, but, in my experience, Christian conservatives love it because they understand the audience doesn’t understand these limitations. Therefore, the only good one I’ve ever watched was one put on by a philosophy department at a university, mainly because it was clear the creationist was out of his league with a group of philosophy and science students who can very well tell the difference between evidence, argument, and assertion. I have zero doubt, therefore, that the price of injecting Bill Nye’s common sense explanations of scientific facts was that Christian conservatives walked away feeling validated in their lunacy.

But Matt Stopera of Buzzfeed really managed to extract an unvarnished good from the whole thing, which is to use the occasion to expose the self-satisfied intellectual incuriosity of the right. He asked the Ham supporters at the debate to write little notes to the reality-based world, telling us what they think we need to hear. It was a great project, because the contrast between their self-satisfaction and their idiocy is just so horrible it turns around and becomes wonderful again. It reminded me of nothing more than the Insane Clown Posse’s infamous demand that magnets are a miracle because no one knows how they work. Indeed, many of the “questions” that the creationists seem to think were slam dunk gotchas are just as easily resolved by a Google search as the question of magnet magic.

[Scuba]

1. That picture is scary on so many levels it's, well, scary!

[FBaggins]

2. Tut tut...

... I believe Bill's term was "troubling".

[Scuba]

3. "Troubling" perhaps, for the ignorance of science and spelling ....

... but "scary" for those Michele Bachmann eyes.

[LondonReign2]

4. She really does, hilariously, seem to think that is a gotcha question

Misspelling and all

[sakabatou]

12. I hope that picture's fake

[PasadenaTrudy]

14. Looks like it, writing looks fake at least...n/t

[Aristus]

13. That fevered light of fanaticism in her eyes gives me the willies...

[progressoid]

20. PIcture is fake. But the sentiment is real.

I've met people like that.


And of course there's Billo...

[NightWatcher]

5. you cannot debate someone who's answer is always "Magic"

Especially when you hold the "debate" surrounded by others who believe in the "magic".

And pointing to a book and saying "cause it says so in here" is not a valid argument in a scientific debate.

[X_Digger]

6. So many times, Ham's answer boiled down to: 'cause.. bible! {lather, rinse, repeat}

[Warren DeMontague]

8. I was going to say "you just can't debate *****"

but your answer is more tactful.

[SamKnause]

9. Debate

Every time Bill Nye would ask Ken Ham a question his standard reply was we have a book that answers that.

Bill Nye did an excellent job!

[Warren DeMontague]

7. Because every night the Mountain-Monsters eat the friendly glowing Orb of Warmth, silly!

Fortunately she is reborn on the other side of the world every morning.

[MineralMan]

10. If their what is no God?

Misspellings reveal the ignorance with these folks.

[kwolf68]

11. Oh my!!!

I thought we had this sunset issue figured out. But maybe 'their' is more study to be done.

[SamKnause]

15. 22 messages

Sad frightening individuals.

How do you explain "God" if you use the word their incorrectly ?

Her question was not the worst one out of the 22 questions.

Off topic: She has Michele Bachmann eyes.

Why do so many believers have Michele Bachman eyes ?

[phantom power]

22. Michelle Bachman has believer's eyes

[tridim]

16. This is the same reason I don't bother debating teabaggers IRL.

It's pointless to debate with people who completely ignore reality.

[Bigmack]

17. Not enough faces... not enough palms... to respond to this shit. nt

[Iggo]

18. Yikes! That's an unfortunate pic!

[world wide wally]

19. It was only about a year ago that Bill Nye was being ridiculed for asserting that the

Moon did not give off it's own light and merely reflected light from the Sun. This is first grade science, but full grown adults were outraged at his heresy. The most "troubling" thing is that these are the same people who's answer to any international dispute is to "Nuke 'em" and suddenly rely on science because it is wonderful.
Perhaps, even more troubling, is that these are the people so many politicians cater to and they have a frighteningly unbalanced influence on America's foreign and domestic policies.

[phantom power]

21. Agreed, this lack of understanding of grade-school science creeps me out

They're walking around in 21st century clothing, using 21st century technology, but it's an illusion. Their world view is... I don't know what. Bronze age?

For fuck's sake, even Aristarchus had a heliocentric model of the solar system.

[pokerfan]

23. “Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that."

They revel in their ignorance.

[Arkana]

24. All those people look like miserable human beings.

I particularly like the idiot who goes "Well how come we found only ONE Lucy but a whole bunch of other things? Checkmate libs :smug:".

[Brother Buzz]

25. If there is no God, who pushes up the next Kleenex?

[valerief]

27. Not to mention, it defies the theory of gravity.

[Brother Buzz]

29. Gravity? I got some gravity right here

This dude, Agassiz, really, really is in Ham's Creation Science Hall of Fame, and it proves God has a wicked cool sense of humor.


http://creationsciencehalloffame.org/deceased/louis-agassiz/

[frylock]

30. that's because it's only a theory derp

[valerief]

26. I knew these people were stupid, but I didn't know they had a problem with their/there until now. nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. Lord, protect us from these morons!!!!!

Who can't do grammar.

And we say Amen.

(Lady that is so basic SCIENCE somebody did you a disservice)

[frylock]

31. everyone knows that the sun sets because it rolls off the edge of the earth..

aduh.

[tblue37]

32. "The tide goes in, the tide goes out. They can't explain that." (Bill O'Reilley)