Dumbest astronomically misconstrued comment I can ever remember receiving is when, at the end of a planetarium program I had just ran, a teacher approached me and said she wished the show hadn’t talked about evolution so much. The show never mentioned evolution and I told her so. She then said, “The narrator said ‘evolution’ many times over!” “Wait,” said I, “Are you talking about ’stellar evolution?” “I don’t know what kind of evolution it was, but I don’t agree with it.” I felt obligated to explain that stars evolve and that the word doesn’t always have to be about her. She ended with, “Well they should pick a better word to use then.”
40 comments
lol.
"I was watching a space shuttle lauch and then someone said there was a problem, so they'd have to abort the mission. I don't know what they meant, but I don't agree with abortion at all. I'm pro-life."
Evolution comes from a latin term meaning to unfold (literally to roll out). Initially used only in geometry, the word evolution came to mean change over time in the same way that we talk about events "unfolding" (though I'm not sure which phrase came first).
Anything that changes over time evolves, by definition, so stars evolve and so do populations. Clearly, individuals might be said to evolve too, but in biology this common idiom is not used to avoid confusion, instead individuals are said to "develop".
"She ended with, “Well they should pick a better word to use then.”"
I agree, in future the change in a star's character over time will be referred to as "stellar satanworship".
So, stellar satanworship is the process by which a star undergoes a sequence of radical changes during its lifetime. Stellar satanworship begins inside a stellar nursery with the onset of gravitational collapse, also called "the fall" ...
"She ended with, “Well they should pick a better word to use then.”
You think if they used a different word, the "thoughtcrime" of evolution will disappear? How very Orwellian of you.
I don't know what it is, but I don't agree with it... lulz!
My bachelor's degree in astrophysics from Caltech is crying.
"I was watching a space shuttle lauch and then someone said there was a problem, so they'd have to abort the mission. I don't know what they meant, but I don't agree with abortion at all. I'm pro-life."
Mayhem wins the threadXD.
“Well they should pick a better word to use then.”
(Well, at least the languages without an authoritative body that defines the standard variety and even then it really only applies to the standard {written} language, and only erratically since language really has a life of its own and doesn't always do as it's told. And in any case it CERTAINLY is not the case that technical terminology gets changed just because someone outside the field disagrees with it.)
"I don’t know what kind of evolution it was, but I don’t agree with it."
If you don't understand it, why do you oppose it? Also, evolution isn't something to "support" or "oppose" as you might "oppose" a political candidate, for example. It's just a fact.
Um, unless stars reproduce and fight each other over resources, that is technically inaccurate.
Stars evolving, as I remember from science class, is about stars aging through the different stages and turning into dwarfs or black holes or whatever.
It's a lot more like Pokemon evolution.
It confuses the meaning of evolution, anyway.
"I don't know what kind of evolution it was, but I don't agree with it."
What a retard.
Evolution simply means "Change over time". This can apply to any number of things. Stars change over time, therefor they evolve, that's called stellar evolution. Life changes over time, therefor it evolves. That's called biological evolution.
Around the time of the supernova explosion in the (I think) Small Magellanic Cloud in 1987, I was explaining to a Baptist fundie I worked with at the time that the star, 'had come to the end of its life'. His shocked response was, "So you think the stars are alive?". I must have stood there for a full 10 seconds with my mouth open. I (foolishly) tried to explain what I meant but it was like talking to a brick wall.
anonymous_troy wrote: "Um, unless stars reproduce and fight each other over resources, that is technically inaccurate."
Ah, what you are describing is Stellar Natural Selection, which is a much rarer phenomenon!
This reminds me of a moment from Arrested Development.
Klimpy's Waitress: "Plate or Platter?"
'And it was a teacher who said that???
Wow, I´m really sorry for the kids who have her as teacher.'
I had a teacher once say, 'Insects aren't animals. Animals are, like, panda bears!' Granted she wasn't a biology teacher, but still... Hopefully at least this is an English teacher or something along those lines.
I started reading this and thought, wow, this is really intelligent for a fundy, what in God's name is going on?
Then I realised that it wasn't the fundy talking, and I fell back to the original view:
Fundies have yet to evolve brain cells
It is actually the same principle
'Change over time' is still not acceptable, seeing as the universe is very young indeed (In the fundy view)
@Deep Search
I bet she thought that she wasn't an animal either
Grigadil -
Evolution!
Use any of these seven words to stimulate a fundy knee-jerk. Use them all in one sentence for extra credit.
The liberal homosexual feminist atheist used the scientific method to explain evolution.
This is an old one, but I had to respond. I must say, the fact that this woman is a teacher, having influence over young children, makes me want to homeschool my girls. Honestly, should I find out that any of my children's teachers honestly had such a discussion with someone, I would demand that my child be removed from that class, and put with a teacher who actually knows the subject she is supposed to be teaching (as I would assume that a teacher at a planetarium was probably taking a class of students with her, and as the teacher taking a group of students to such a place I would assume that she was also teaching some form of science class and doing some kind of lesson dealing with stars and astronomy and such things.) If a teacher doesn't know terminology relating to the subject she teaches, she should not be working as a teacher of that subject.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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