You are alone in your house when suddenly you are surrounded by creatures who announce that they are from another planet. You aren't sure that you are awake--this could be a dream, but it feels very real.
Next you are aboard a spaceship, flying through the solar system. The aliens tell you that they have checked in on earth life periodically since it first started. They tell you that one day they abducted a lifeform from earth and changed it. They then returned it to earth.
Your alien captors give you a chance to guess what it was they changed. If you guess wrong, you will be killed. If you guess correctly, you will be returned to earth.
They give you two options. They say that one was designed by them, the other resulted from the Darwinian mechanism:
a) they changed a bacteria by adding a flagellum
b) they changed a beak on a finch on a Gallapagos island, which Darwin later attributed to natural selection.
Which do you choose? Which do you think was more likely to have been designed, and which is more likely to have resulted from the Darwinian mechanism?
48 comments
And let's not forget, if you choose the bacterium, there will be a just war with many war crimes, one of which will kill Hitler, one of which will kill ten scientists who would otherwise have won the Nobel Prize, and if you choose the finch, there will be an unjust war, with no war crimes, which will claim the life of a deliveryman who would have delivered 10 transplant hearts, to save exactly the same people who would have been killed in the first war, _plus_ a homicidal maniac and a brilliant neurosurgeon.
"Your alien captors give you a chance to guess what it was they changed. If you guess wrong, you will be killed."Oooh!
What the frell?!?
Hypothetical situations are supposed to preserve the characteristics relevant to a situation. This one does not, because there is no evidence that either (or any other life form, for instance) was designed in the real world. (In fact, if you were arguing intelligent design, since both would be designed, it's still not relevant!)
Hmmm... what's my level with Biology? Keep in mind it's (IQ/VH), so with even 1 point in the skill I'm going to be rolling vs. IQ - 3. And don't forget my Talent that gives a +1 to Biology! Oh, and I'm using Luck, so roll three times and take the best roll. Yeah, I know I can't use it for another 60 minutes now, but I'm not going to have any trouble kicking their butts with the Electron-Disruptor Magnetodisenfrabjulator Ray that I happen to have in my utility belt... yessir, that's one of my Gizmoes this session. they made both changes to the organisms, neither change resulted from the Darwinian mechanism.
Not fundy, IMO.
I'll bite since this hypothetical does have some merit. If it were to be verified that some organism did affect the course of Earth's biology. I would assume it more likely that they made the change on a bacterium than a bird. This being said, this hypothetical does nothing as there is no evidence for intentional interference in Earth's biology, so I can still think that both evoled unintentionally until the aliens land.
Given semi-retarded apes have been genetically modifying bacteria for thirty years, obviously the aliens added the flagellum which is a far simpler modification than trying to fuck with a complex lifeform like a finch.
So, you prefer to live in your bubble and now are you bringing Mulder and Scally around?, man reality is out there, the normal things of ordinary life, not aliens.
I would say, "Look, just give me the anal probe, because that would be less painful than listening to this stupidity."
Chan #94829
*turns on suspension of disbelief*later attributed it to natural selection, that implies it wasn't natural selection. Linguistic hints!
*adjusts for false parameters*
Neither. They presume I'm a fundie fuckwit and just want to fuck with me.
Or maybe the Cartesian demon put alien ideas into my mind, and there are no real aliens.
*injects Monty Python*
A DUCK!
*apologizes for repeating same joke*
*adjusts towards real-world probabilities*
It's a dream.
Or maybe I'm on candid camera.
*turns off suspension of disbelief*
There are no aliens, you fuckwit.
To be honest, I doubt this is Fundie at all. If anything, it seems to be an admittedly awkward indictment of the fundie "Believe or Die" mentality.
I could be misreading it, too, but that's what I gather.
Its a shame that Dover didn't have you on the defense team. They wouldn't have had their tails handed to them in court when they tried to convince a federal judge that ID is science.
And yes, that was sarcasm
"Next you are aboard a spaceship, flying through the solar system."
I thought that they were angels, but much to my surprise
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
To post a comment, you'll need to Sign in or Register . Making an account also allows you to claim credit for submitting quotes, and to vote on quotes and comments. You don't even need to give us your email address.
