Why should creationists miss out on all the fun of Earth Day? From a press release that hit my inbox this morning:
BROUGHT TO YOU BY GOD: EARTH DAY
Surgeon/Scientist Issues New “Find Where He Signed” ChallengeGod underwrites and sponsors Earth Day every day and signs his work. On Earth Day’s 40th anniversary, Dr. Charley Gordon, brain surgeon, scientist, and author of the new book In Plain Sight issues the nation’s first annual Earth Day challenge to “Find Where He Signed.”
A signature is defined as evidence in nature of clear intelligence, humor, beauty, natural laws, or unlikely but obvious match-ups. In Plain Sight’s 40 examples include:
1. Match-up: Galaxies and hurricanes, seen from above, show the same coil.
2. Humor: 1) The cerebellum, the fist-sized structure at the brain’s base, in a salad bar, would be mistaken for cauliflower. 2) Chickens.
3. Beauty: A magnificent sunset or a full-circle rainbow has been known to stop traffic. Why is that? Why do humans brake for beauty?
4. Natural principles: The Golden Ratio, the swirl in shells and roses, shows up also in galaxies and grains of sand. Coincidence?
5. Clear intelligence: Unlike every other substance, water’s solid form (ice) is lighter than its coldest liquid form. Except for this, oceans would be frozen solid, killing all life.
Get in on the “Find Where He Signed” Earth Day challenge here.
But which god’s signature are we supposed to be looking for? Loki, Ra, Jaweh? Any tips on how we’re supposed to tell them apart?
Could it be …. SATAN?
How about man’s capacity for drawing unjustified conclusions? Pretty amazing, no?
Oh, and “chicken” is funny because it contains a “k.” I forget who said that, but it’s a universal truth.
These people make their deity look so stupid. Sort of like them, no?
I like that he just said “chickens” and left it as that, with no explanation.
You know what else is funny? That God put all those dinosaur bones in the earth and made them look like they were 80 million years old.
Fucking magnets, how do they work?
Chickens are not a creation of God, but of man. Same with cows and horses, not to mention most food plants, especially corn.
Forget chickens. Pigeons are far more hilarious.
I almost facepalmed myself to death reading this.
“Things are the way they are, therefore God must have done it, or else they might be different!”
Well, I’m sold.
It’s corny as hell, but it’s not necessarily anti-evolution.
All the ideas that Nature is designed to accommodate human life kind of miss the point that human life developed to accommodate itself to its environment.
Um. Duh.
The spiral structure one sees in disk galaxies and hurricanes is nothing more than the result of density gradients within a fluid rotating system with differential radial rotation. In other words: some parts are more clumpy (or just more visible) than others, and as the system spins, it stretches those out into arms and bands that constantly merge and reform.
Nature is full of density gradients and fluid rotating systems, such as the foam on top of an americano, which if you stir it, forms the same structure. Does that mean my barista is omnipotent?
I’m seeing Thor in Iceland right about now…
@13 “Does that mean my barista is omnipotent?”
Well, that might explain why they expect the tip prior to performing the service…
You know, “chickens are God’s signature upon his creation” is perhaps the most convincing argument I’ve ever heard for creationism. I’m tempting to start believing it just because I love that argument so much.
“It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end. Observe, for instance, the nose is formed for spectacles, therefore we wear spectacles.”
Voltaire noticed this ‘reasoning’ back in 1759 in Candide.
Of course it would have been funny only because it was hackneyed then too.
In all seriousness, if someone wants to win this thing, the answer is the solar eclipse. That the moon is just the right size and distance to perfectly block out the sun when viewed from Earth is an incredible coincidence, especially given that the moon’s distance from the earth has changed throughout geologic time– so a few million years either way in time and the trick wouldn’t work. I think it’s possibly the only natural phenomena out there that’s best explained by a creator who takes a particular interest in ourselves.
@14, I hope you’re using protection.
And does he have a brother?
“Unlike every other substance, water’s solid form (ice) is lighter than its coldest liquid form Except for this, oceans would be frozen solid, killing all life.”
There is not one true thing about that statement.
If you totally ignore the laws of physics but arbitrarily notice their effect, religion (and hilarity) ensues!
@6 Win.
@20
I’m glad someone else noticed that.
@18 – I’ve often thought that was one hell of a coincidence too. But hardly anybody thinks about it.
20: Me too!
My entry was “Human shit is exactly the same color as the cover of an average Bible”
The golden ratio showing up in shells is only amazing if you don’t have any understanding of development. It’s just the Fibonacci sequence, which in the context of cell division you would really expect to find.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/…
@18 @24: have you guys never heard of a partial solar eclipse? I saw one back in about 1996 I think, I got out of school to go watch it at the library. It was awesome. All the shadows made little weird shapes.
…but the point is the moon isn’t perfectly sized for total solar eclipses. It just lines up sometimes to do that. And sometimes it doesn’t line up quite right.