Splendid Elles

This week’s Ignunt Fool of the Week is…

Eckhart Tolle

Image Source: His website.

That’s his book. It’s about “spiritual awakening”. He wants us to think positively and be nice to each other… stop being dysfunctional. That’s all well and good, but whenever the man says something about science, as with all New Age “gurus”, his ignunce is clear.

I heard about him in English class. A kid had mentioned that his mum was obsessed with the book because it had been on Oprah, and I was immediately sceptical considering that Oprah was sponsoring it. That dumb bat (no, bats are fine creatures… I will not bring them down to her level) tosh-bag supported The Secret after all, and here we are… still needing self-help. When I told my English teacher my criticisms of the book, I earned the remark… “You know what? I think you need to lighten up and deal with a little spirituality.”

So, I saw the book at a book store, picked it up, and started reading.

“The first flower probably did not survive for long, and flowers must have remained rare and isolated phenomena since conditions were most likely not yet favorable for a widespread flowering to occur (emphasis added). One day, however, a critical threshold was reached and suddenly there would have been an explosion of color and scent all over the planet…”

So… we have flowers randomly popping up out of nowhere but they’re not thriving because selection pressure doesn’t favour them… and then, after the flowers are formed the selection pressure is there? Anybody who knows anything about evolution (less than 50% of this country, actually, so he’s not too far behind the curve) can see what’s wrong here.

Flowers don’t pop out of nowhere onto plants for no reason. They evolve from flower-like structures because selection pressure (in this case sexual selection) pushes them to do so. No selection pressure for structures good at attracting insects, no flowers or other structures that serve the same purpose. Not the other way around.

The ignunce continues.

“It is believed that the life forms on this planet first evolved in the sea. When there were no animals yet to be found on land, the sea was teeming with life. Then at some point, of the sea creatures must have started to venture onto dry land. It would perhaps crawl a few inches at first, then exhausted by the enormous gravitational pull of the planet, it would return to the water, where gravity is almost nonexistent and where it could live with much greater ease. And then it tried again and again and again, and much later would adapt to life on land, grow feet instead of fins, develop lungs instead of gills (emphasis added).“

First of all, gravity was not the only problem fish had to overcome. Though it was a bit of a problem, the other more pressing matter was breathing. Hence, the lung fish.

Second of all, it is not believed that life started in the sea. It is verified by fossil evidence that life started in the sea.

This time, he doesn’t use the same fallacy as above. I’m not sure if he actually believes that the organism is getting the traits because it’s trying to evolve, but is it just me, or does that sound like Lamarckian evolution? If this guy really does believe in Lamarckian evolution… FAIL.

“The pain-body (the thing he says makes us depressed), however, is not just individual in nature. It also partakes of the pain suffered by countless humans throughout the history of humanity, which is a history of continuous tribal warfare, of enslavement, pillage, rape, torture, and other forms of violence. This pain still lives in the collective psyche of humanity and is being added to on a daily basis, as you can verify when you watch the news tonight or look at the drama in people’s relationships. The collective pain-body is PROBABLY ENCODED WITHIN EVERY HUMAN’S DNA (emphasis added), although we haven’t discovered it yet.”

Oh, I get it. My ancestors were violent so it encoded something in my DNA. I see.

Show of hands, please. How many people know that DNA is a molecule that manufactures proteins? How many people know a way that acts of violence could encode the DNA within us?

Later on in the book, there was some more ignunt jazz about how everything is a “vibrating energy field” vibrating at a certain “frequency” and because thoughts are vibrating at a different frequency we can not interact with them.

No.

Thoughts are electrical impulses in your neurons inside of your cranium. That’s why we can’t interact with them. But no… we have to have jargon that doesn’t mean anything so that we can sound like we know something.

Most surprisingly, though, is that I didn’t encounter any shit about quantum mechanics in the parts I read. But, still…

How to be a New Age guru.

1. Write a book. No need to do any research. Just make stuff up as you go along that sounds good.
2. Ramble about quantum mechanics. All you need to do is… “vibration, frequencies, ramble ramble, quantum mechanics! Law of attraction, ramble ramble, magnetic forces, vibration frequencies ramble.”
3. Tell people that wanting makes it so.
4. Distort science some more.
5. Go on Oprah.
6. Laugh your way to the bank.

This week’s ignunt fool of the week is…

Ben Stein

Ok, maybe you’re annoyed that I’ve repeated him… But sometimes you just come across an ignunt fool that you just can’t stop laughing at.

Alright, the truth is I was so bowled over by the extent of his ignunce that I could think of no other ignunt fools. His ignunce is so dumb that no other ignunt fools could enter my mind.

I promise I won’t do it again.

In the mean time, here’s a lovely video which does a splendid job of explaining why he’s an ignunt fool.

In fact, the entire Why do people laugh at creationists? series of videos is splendid. Thunderf00t, you’re brilliant. Please marry me. Or not?

This week’s ignunt fool of the week is…

Ben Stein.

Actually, I think he did Clear Eyes commercials but I don’t remember anymore so I’ll just have to boycott all eye droppers and suffer because of him…

His ignunt film, Expelled comes out today, and unless something comes up, I’m hoping (probably not the right word) that I’ll be able to see it this evening so that I may laugh at Ben Stein. I’ve already had loads of fun seeing him call DNA “digital” in the Super Trailer as well as confuse abiogenesis with evolution.

Be expecting a review here either today or Sunday.

But you’ve also gotta love the other documentary he made… Sexpelled: No intercourse allowed!

Big Science is so oppressive that it won’t even let scientists consider the stork hypothesis!

Even though he’s already dropped out of the election (thank the FSM), this week’s ignunt fool of the week…

Mike Huckabee

You can also find the video here.

I have to hand it to him, I’ve seen far more ignunt things said about evolution. Huckabee’s not the first one to confuse evolution with abiogenesis. It’s easier for them to attack the origin of life instead of evolution. That would be because evolution is a fact, and abiogenesis is a theory.

As for him saying that scientists have to resort to aliens (I assume he means panspermia) to explain the origin of life, I can think of at least two books and one video in which Richard Dawkins says that he does not believe in panspermia off the top of my head (the books being River Out of Eden and The Ancestor’s Tale, and the video being one of his Royal Institution lectures in case you’re interested). Inconveniently, he mentioned panspermia as a possible way in which Intelligent Design would be correct, and the Expelled folks went ahead and made some (il)logical inferences to try to make Richard Dawkins look like an ignunt fool.

I think that it ought to be worth noting that the only way they can teach ID in schools without it violating the separation between church and state (see first amendment) would be to say that the intelligent designer was an alien.

Thankfully, this ignunt fool isn’t going to be our next president… Oh, I do not doubt that we may end up with another ignunt fool, but the evolution deniers are pretty much out.

Evolved Rationalist, you are just like Richard Dawkins, deserve each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ha! I almost forgot to do this but I remembered!

This week’s ignunt fool of the week is…

“Creationist”

He won’t give out his real name because if he does, the nazi darwinist Evolved Rationalist (who he even more laughably believes to be Shalini Sehkar) might come and murder him in his sleep!

You may remember the above quote from this post I did about him. Even after losing so horribly due to lack of ability to provide evidence (a common trait of creationists for some odd reason) he kept coming back to spam the Evolved Rationalist’s blog.

The posts he has commented on are here:

First Hand Account of the Expelled Teleconference

Is this video pro-IDiot or pro-science?

As you can tell, Creationist has a talent for making off topic comments.

In case you don’t feel like going through all his comments (they’re redundant and delirious anyway) I’d like to summarize the main stuff you’re likely to hear him say.

1. You’re Shalini Sehkar EXPOSED!!!!!!!!! BUSTED!!!!!!!!!
2. You’re Shalini Sehkar because you use the theistard word!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3. You’re Shalini Sehkar because your blog has blasphemy on it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4. You’re Shalini Sehkar because you’re pro evolution!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5. Shalini Sehkar is a nazi darwinist!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
6. I’m a scientist at AiG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
7. Creationists are being persecuted by nazi darwinists!!!!!!!!!!!!

Though he comments extremely often, the comments are so redundant and delirious (he really does use that much punctuation) that they can be summarized into that list. I have no idea how he came up with numbers 5, 6, and 7 (numbers 5 and 7 are probably because he’s read so much Expelled propaganda that his thoughts are reeking with it), but 2, 3, and 4 apply to practically everybody who writes an atheist blog.

I’m trying to figure out who fails less epically… “Creationist” or Mike Hallett.

On a side note, the real Shalini Sehkar who I talk to occasionally has told me that she has fallen in love with Michael Behe even though she was desperately in love with Gould.

Hope you eventually feel better, Shalini. I await your return to the blogging world someday…

Alright, provided I don’t forget, this will become a regular thing on my blog. Random facts are fun but hard to come up with. There is no end to the supply of ignunt fools. Even when I run into blog-writer’s-block, I will have a good superfluous supply of ignunt fools to point to… provided I don’t forget that I’m doing this. So, check back every Friday! Friday is a good day.

This week’s ignunt fool of the week is…

Mike Hallet

See that rock he’s standing next to? That’s not actually a rock. That’s a Halletestoneion Zoria. In other words a rock sea dragon which apparently is 540 million years old. Around the skull, he also found several pointy rocks teeth which are made of calcite which is calcium proving that they are teeth!

And now I know what the inside of a rock Halletestoneion tooth looks like.

His book is a great work of science, filled with his analyses of the rocks Halletestoneions that are so advanced I can’t figure out how he came to those conclusions. A quote from it that bowled me over…

Shattering All previous records With Age And Size Halletestoneions are the worlds oldest Biology is Also the worlds most Advanced Biology.

It’s in his book. Seriously.

And now, I’ve gotta wonder… Even the people who see faces in the rocks on Mars (I see it too, and I don’t think much more of it than the smiley face crater) wouldn’t think that those rocks look remotely like dinosaur skulls (or would they?). This man is deluded not in the religious sense, but in the psychiatrist’s use of the word (though religious people can fall under the psychiatrist use too). Also, I doubt that this guy could do all this by himself. Somebody had to be holding the camera for him.

Does this man have friends? Do these friends know that he’s mentally disturbed? If so, it’s their responsibility to not allow him to dwell in his fantasies. They ought to get him the help he needs, however harmless his delusions might be to others.

Update: I think they’re serious. I took the liberty of e-mailing them and said…

I’m curious about how many people are working on this project with you, who they are, and how they got involved.

The reply…

Dear Fish, about 12 major contributers so far in time and money. They have had an open mind and field experience at the zoria graveyards. One must not dissmiss this discovery using dinosaur technology. The proof is in the repeating biological structures. We will soon post such specimens on the site. We have a current lab in Kaysville, Ut. for anyone who is serious about an in depth look and personalized explanation from Mike himself. We have had 5,000 hits from 57 countries on our web site the last 2 days. Ron McEwen, Hallettestoneion Research Project

I’m not sure how I should feel about being called ‘Fish.’