It's a Bumper-Crop of Idiocy

First, the man who thinks that lame observations about bannanas overturn long-proven scientific fact, and who demonstrates that he knows nothing about evolution by carting out an image he refers to as the "Crocoduck" has a book out which claims to disprove evolution.

Read more at: http://friendlyatheist.com/2008/04/17/evolution-is-a-fairy-tale-for-grownups-says-man-who-believes-in-crocoduck/

And an excerpt is available at: http://www.livingwaters.com/Merchant2/graphics/pdf/Evolution_excerpt.pdf

My favorite part? Where he claims that quote-mining is a valid way of getting at truth because the words surrounding the quote he wants are like the dirt around a nugget of gold.

Let's try an experiment shall we? You are attempting to prove that one John Smith is a murderer. As evidence, you submit the fact that one Nathan Wilson wrote, and this is an exact quote, "Smith stood over the murder victim holding a bloody blade."

Looks bad for Smith, doesn't it? Unless the quote was excerpted from the following paragraph:

"At the Morgue, Dr. Smith, the county coroner, continued his work. Smith stood over the murder victim holding a bloody blade. He had made the incision, and was prepared to proceed with the autopsy."

Rather different, isn't it? But, Mr. Comfort would like you to think that the words surrounding the favorite quote don't matter. Of course, Comfort also hangs out with Kirk Cameron, so his judgement is clearly lacking.

On a similar topic, the professional dogmatists and liars at the horribly mis-named Discovery Institute are out to prove evolution is evil, pretty much as usual, this time using newspaper columns to try to fool people into agreeing with them. I would dissect it and make my gripes, but Sam Ogden has beat me to it, and done a better job than I would: http://skepchick.org/blog/?p=1298



Oh, and on the groovy side, check this out, and attempt to recreate Neandertal speech (and, no, that's not a typo, the correct spelling for the fossil type is Neandertal, no "h"): http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/04/16/neanderthal.sound/index.html

I am dubious as to the accuracy of the reproduction - so much of speech is reliant on soft tissue that does not rpeserve, and the relationship between the soft tissue portions of the human vocal system and the hard tissue ain't so simple as many folks think, but the fact that someone is even trying is pretty damn cool!