Unintelligent Design - The Head Case

Sinuses in the human face

What's wrong with the human head?

1. Sinuses.
Sinuses are air-filled spaces extending from the nasal cavity into the facial bones. As well as making the facial bones lighter they give timbre to the voice and also help heat and moisturise inhaled air

Problem: Sinus problems are common in humans, usually because of inflammation caused by an opportunist infection following a cold. The problem is cause by our sinuses being poorly drained, especially when the lining is swollen or mucus production is high. These warm, moist, protein-filled spaces are an idea environment for several species of bacteria which the body finds difficult to cope with by the normal blood-born defences. White blood cells are sent into the infected sinus where they, together with dead bacteria, form pus.


In chronic infections an abscess may form which can erode the facial bone and even penetrate to the brain, causing bacterial meningitis and death.

Cause: The human face is rotated downwards by about 90 degrees compared to most mammalian facial skeletons to compensate for our upright gait. Our faces have also become flattened with the usual mammalian muzzle receding back under our noses. By normal mammalian standards, humans have a strangely deformed face. One result of this is to distort the sinuses and restrict the drainage channels.

Human skull

2. Middle Ear.
The middle ear is an air-space between the outer ear and the inner ear where the hearing mechanism is located. A narrow tube, the Eustachian tube, connects this space with the back of the throat so that the pressure in the inner ear can be equilibrated with the outer air pressure so maintaining a constant pressure on the eardrum. This tube is normally opened during swallowing.

Problem: During a cold the Eustachian tube can become inflamed and, like the sinuses, is prone to secondary infection by opportunist bacteria. It can then become difficult to drain and equilibrate the pressure in the middle ear. This can cause severe pain and may rupture the eardrum. In children especially it may lead to 'glue ear' needing surgical insertion of grommets to keep a hole open in the eardrum to allow the inner ear to drain. In extreme cases, it can cause an abscess to form. Infection may track down the auditory nerve to the brain causing meningitis and even death

Cause: The same as with sinuses due to distortion of the bones of the skull associated with an upright gait.

3. Wisdom Teeth.
Wisdom teeth are molar teeth which normally erupt in adolescence. A few individuals fail to produce them and suffer no detectable disadvantage.

Problem: Fairly frequently, the teeth develop but fail to break through the gum. They may even grow in the wrong direction and become impacted, causing pain and difficulty chewing food. They often need to be surgically removed. Occasionally they can become infected and an abscess may form in the mandible or maxilla.

Cause: As the human face has receded from the normal mammalian skull pattern the number of teeth has been reduced. This process in incomplete.

Human cervical spine

4. Cervical Vertebrae.
The cervical vertebrae, or neck bones, carry the weight of the skull and allow the skull to rotate from side to side and to flex back and forth. To help with this the foramen magnum, a hole in the base of the skull through which the spinal cord passes, has moved under the skull compared to the normal mammalian anatomy. It is also assisted by a broad ligament which attaches to the back of the skull and runs down to the shoulder bones. This helps stabilise the skull during running.

Problem: The neck muscles frequently become fatigued causing head-ache. During rapid acceleration such as during a rear-end automobile accident, or due to a fall, the skull can hyper-extend, bending the neck backwards and fracturing one or more of the cervical vertebrae. Fragments of bone may damage or transect the spinal cord, causing paralysis or death. Arthritic problems may also develop in later life.

Cause: Adaptation to an upright gait combined with a large cranium to house a large brain has meant compromises in the basic mammalian anatomy. This process is incomplete.

Human Pharynx

5. Laryngopharynx
The laryngopharynx is a passage common to the airway and the food passage. Air-breathing vertebrates have a basic flaw in their body plan in that the air and food passages cross in the pharynx. Protective mechanisms normally prevent food entering the airway. These may include mechanisms to close the airway during swallowing and coughing to expel inhaled food.

Problem: In humans, choking is a fairly common cause of sudden death in an otherwise healthy adult or child. Choking occurs when the air passage becomes blocked by food when the protective mechanism fail. In humans, a protective flap - the epiglottis - is present and is normally effective as the larynx is pushed up against it during swallowing. Occasionally however, this fails and food may enter the air passage. A second line defence reflex, coughing, may also fail and may make matters worse as the victim attempts to breath in in order to cough, driving the blockage further into the air passage. Vomiting, also a defence reflex, may also occur and may add to the problem as the victim is also unable to clear accumulating vomit.

Cause: As an adaption to speech, our pharynx - the space at the back of the throat between our mouth and the larynx - has lengthened creating a greater likelihood of food entering the laryngopharynx before it can be fully closed off. The protective mechanisms have lost some of their effectiveness in the process and have not yet been compensated for.

All these are perfectly understandable in terms of evolution as the advantages of the adaptations far exceed the disadvantages. The greater likelihood of survival and reproductive success of genes carried by people with these evolving adaptations outweighs the loss of some individuals due to the problems they may cause.

In terms of intelligent design, these flaws make no sense at all since an intelligent designer, especially a perfect, omniscient, omnipotent and omni-benevolent one, would have produced a faultless design in the first place.

The situation is exactly as you would expect with a mindless, utilitarian process of evolution driven by whatever works to produce more copies of the genes in the next generation, differentially selected naturally from among variants in the gene-pool.

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Liam Fox, Adam Werrity and No Brown Envelopes.

The first report into a Conservative Government Minister's abuse of high office during this period of Tory-led government.

It appears that no brown envelopes were involved.

• Allegations against Rt Hon Dr Liam Fox MP: Report by the Cabinet Secretary in PDF Format
• Letter from Ursula Brennan, to Sir Gus O’Donnell in PDF Format
• Occasions when Adam Werritty is known to have met with Secreatry of State in PDF Format

Intelligently Designed By A Loving God?

Some living creatures, which, if you believe in biblical creationism, you should be able to explain in terms of being perfectly created for a purpose by a loving creator god.

1. 

   Liver Flukes

   Liver Fluke (Fasciola Hepatica)
   
   A trematode or fluke measuring about 3cm by 1cm and infecting sheep, cattle and humans.
   
   Complex life-cycle involving water snails and water plants. When ingested the fluke develops in the intestine, burrows into the peritoneum and then to the liver where is eats liver cells for a few weeks then migrates to the bile duct where females can produce up to 25,000 eggs a day.  Eggs are released into the intestines from where they are expelled in faeces. On reaching water they hatch and infect a water snails and so complete the life cycle.
   
   Symptom:
   Diarrhea, eosinophilia (raised white blood cell count), fever, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, hepatitis, obstructive jaundice
   
   Benefits to the host:
   None.

2. 

   Blood Flukes

   Blood Flukes (Schistosoma mansoni, S. haematobium, S. japonicum, S. intercalatum, S. mekongi)
   
   A genus of trematodes causing snail fever, also called bilharzia. Infecting an estimated 200 million people worldwide.
   
   Complex life-cycle involving water snails and several larval stages. Eggs hatch in water and lava infect water snails where they develop into a second larval stage which is free-swimming. On detecting human skin then attach themselves and burrow through the skin, often via a hair follicle. They then migrate to the circulatory system where males and females pair up and migrate to rectal or mesenteric veins where they live for many years producing 300-3000 eggs per day which are shed via the faeces or urine. When in water they hatch and complete the life-cycle.
   
   Symptoms:
   Rash, itching, chills, cough, diarrhea, fatigue, fever and muscle aches. In children, anaemia, learning difficulties and malnutrition. Inflammation of intestines and liver may occur and, if the central nervous system becomes infected, paralysis, seizures and inflammation of the spinal cord may occur.
   
   Benefits to the host:
   None.

3. 

   Tapeworm
   
   

   

   Head or Scolex of Tapeworm

   Tape worms (Diphyllobothrium latum, Hymenolepis nana, Taenia saginata, T. solium)
   
   A group of segmented Cestoda known as tapeworms which live in the human intestinal tract, absorbing digested nutrients directly through their skin. H. nana can grow to a few centimetres in length, however, the other three listed here can reach many meters.
   
   The head, or scolex, of the tapeworm has hooks with which it attaches to the wall of the intestine. Each segment has its own male and female reproductive organs and can produce eggs on their own, however, they may mate with other segments from the same or another tapeworm. Eventually, when the segment is full of eggs it is shed from the end of the worm and is expelled from the host where it may be eaten by the secondary host (fish, rodent, cattle or pig respectively).
   
   In the secondary host the eggs hatch in the intestines, the larval form then migrate to muscles and form a cyst which may eventually be eaten by a human to complete the life cycle. In the case of H. nana microscopic eggs are shed via faeces from where they may contaminate food or be picked up on fingers. An estimated 30% of rodents sold as pets in stores in Connecticut are infected with H. nana.
   
   Symptoms:
   Anal itching, bloody diarrhea, diarrhea, headache, increased appetite, insomnia, loss of appetite, muscle spasms. nausea, nervousness, seizures, stomach ache, vomiting,& weakness, weight loss.
   
   Benefits to the host:
   None.

4. 

   Giant Roundworms in the Intestinal Lumen

   Giant roundworm (Ascaris lumbricoides)
   
   This nematode worm infects some 25% of the human population. It is passed on when eggs are accidentally swallowed from dirty fingers or contaminated food or water. Larva hatch from the eggs, penetrate the intestinal walls and enter the circulatory system via which they pass into the lungs where they develop for two weeks before travelling up the respiratory tract to the throat, to be swallowed again as adult worms.
   
   The worms attach themselves to the intestinal wall and get nutrients from the host. Adult female worms are 20-35 cm long and 3-6 mm in diameter. Males are 15-30 cm long and 2-4 mm in diameter. On mating a female can produce 200,000 eggs a day and can live for two years. The eggs are passed out of the host in faeces and can survive for several months until swallowed by a human to complete the life-cycle.
   
   Symptoms:
   Blockage of the biliary tract, diarrhoea, fever, nausea, obstruction of the bowel (which can be fatal), stomach ache, slower growing of a child or a teen, vomiting, weakness. During the larval stage, when the larva are developing in the lungs, symptoms may include breathing difficulty, cough and/or coughing up blood, eosinophilic pneumonitis.
   
   Benefits to the host:
   None.

5. 

   Entamoeba hystolitica

   Entamoeba hystolytica.
   
   A protozoan (single-celled organism) which causes amoebiasis. About 50 million people are infected world wide. The parasite lives in the large intestine and reproduce by simple binary fission. Some individuals form microscopic cysts which are passed in faeces and can survive for many weeks until ingested in food, contaminated water of by dirty fingers. Very occasionally they can be sexually transmitted.
   
   Symptoms:
   Flatulence, intermittent constipation, loose stools, stomach ache, stomach cramping, anemia, appendicitis, bloody diarrhea, fatigue, fever, genital and skin lesions, intermittent constipation, liver abscesses (can lead to death, if not treated), malnutrition, painful defecation, peritonitis, pleuropulmonary abscesses, toxic megacolon, weight loss.
   
   Benefits to the host:
   None.

6. 

   Plasmodium (Malaria) Life-cycle.

   Malaria (Plasmodium falciparum)
   
   A protozoan with a complex life-cycle involving the anopheles mosquito and infecting some 200 million people annually. It is the deadliest of all human parasites killing over 1 million people a year. Most deaths are of children under 5 years of age.
   
   Infection begins when a mosquito injects a form of the parasite into human skin when taking a blood meal. This form migrates via the circulatory system to the liver where it infects a liver cell. This can produce 30,000 - 40,000 daughter cells within six days, each of which can invade a red blood cell and produce 8-24 new parasites each of which can infect a new red blood cell. These cells may also produce a form which can infect a mosquito when it takes a blood meal. These then undergo sexual reproduction and via several stages migrate from the mosquito's digestive tract to its salivary glands, where it is ready to infect another human.
   
   Symptoms:
   Chills, diarrhea, fever, general discomfort, headaches, muscle pains, nausea, sweating, vomiting, weakness, enlargement of the spleen or liver, hyperpyrexia, increased breathing frequency, mild anemia, mild jaundice, breathing difficulties, coma, confusion, focal neurologic signs, seizures, severe anemia, abnormalities in blood coagulation, hemoglobin in the urine, high acidity of the blood, hypoglycemia, low blood pressure, kidney failure and death. In pregnancy it can cause premature birth and low birth-weight. Babies can be infected from the mother and may cause blindness, deafness, speech difficulty, dyskinesia and paralyses.
   
   Benefits to the host:
   None.

So Creationists, just six examples out of many, some more of which can be found here.

What on earth was your loving creator thinking of? How do these organisms fit into a model in which a creator created humans and made all the other living things FOR their benefit?

By the way, on a slightly different note. Some of the examples of parasitic worms have, during their evolution, become less complex since they no longer need to worry about evading predators, finding and digesting their own food, etc, so they show that an evolutionary process does not always mean increasing complexity. This is a very common phenomenon in parasites.

So tell me, how does less information give greater adaptation?

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Things a God Can't Possibly Know.

Thinking logically - after all, that's what Atheists do, so you can expect nothing less of me - there are several things no god could know about itself.

1. That it is omniscient.
   • To know this, any god would need to know that it knows everything, but how could it be aware of something it doesn't know about? It could only know what it knows it knows. It could not possibly know about something it doesn't know about.
   • As Donald Rumsfeld once painfully reminded us, there are unknown unknowns.
   • So any claim it might make about omniscience may be false and can not be made with any certainty.

A Memo From The CEO

Memo

Number: 327

Date: 14 October 2011

From: The Chief Executive Officer

To: All executives, managers and employees

Subject: Disobedience and Failure to Obey Directives from the CEO

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I have become increasingly aware of and concerned by the above and have taken advice on how best to deal with it. God has now given me the solution, in Leviticus 26 so, with immediate effect:

If ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant I will do this unto you;

I will appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies : they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.

If ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.

I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass:

Your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.

If ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins.

I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children , and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number ; and your high ways shall be desolate .

If ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins.

I will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant: and when ye are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied .

And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me, then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.

And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat .

I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you.

I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours.

I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it.

I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.

Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.

Upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth .

And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth : and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies.

Ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.

They that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them.

If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me; And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity:

Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.

The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them: and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because, even because they despised my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes.

And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the LORD their God. But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the LORD.

These are the statutes and judgments and laws, which the LORD made between him and the children of Israel in mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.

So, be thou in no doubt whatsoever, that determined am I to stampeth out this disgraceful outbreak of disobedience unto me thy Lord and master and CEO.

I hope that maketh clear my refusal to tolerate this disgraceful situation any longer.

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Memo

Number: 328

Date: 15 October 2011

From: The (Acting) Chief Executive Officer

To: All staff

Subject: Restoration of Internal Disciplinary Procedures

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With immediate effect, I have agreed to take over the full responsibilities of the former CEO who is now on extended leave following an emergency meeting of the Board called at the request of several major shareholders.

Memo 327 dated yesterday is withdrawn with immediate effect and all internal disciplinary procedures current at 13 October 2011 have been restored. The Board have reiterated their continued commitment to a culture in which employees at all levels can expect to be treated with dignity and respect and feel free from threats and intimidation regardless of their ethnicity and religious persuasion or lack thereof.

Threats of physical or mental abuse will not be tolerated under any circumstances. All employees will conduct themselves in a civilised and respectful manner whilst at work.

There are no plans to bake bread on the premises nor to confiscate the land of employees.

The Board also expressed their thanks to the CEO and extend their best wishes for a speedy recovery.

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The Unintelligent Designer - Arms Races

In biology, what's the point of an arms race?

An arms race, as with that between nations, is where a pair of rivals become locked in a spiral of offensive capability leading to increased defensive capability leading to increased offensive capability, with new layers of arms being developed and funded by a hugely wasteful expenditure on these weapons in order to remain in exactly the same place with respect to each other.  Running fast to stand still.

Consider the cheetah and the gazelle in Africa (this is an example I've lifted from Richard Dawkins).

The cheetah has evolved speed and maneuverability to help it catch gazelles; the gazelle has evolved speed and maneuverability to help it avoid being caught by cheetahs. Both have an 'interest' in improving their speed and maneuverability at the expense of the other, and neither can afford NOT to improve their speed and maneuverability.

The the extent to which they can do this is limited only by the potential of their anatomy and physiology to evolve further in that direction without the radical reorganization which would involve temporary loss of some other function, giving a disadvantage which would be immediately selected against. So both prey and predator can evolve only in one direction, being driven by the evolution of the other and the selection pressure this produces in their respective environments.


Both cheetah and gazelle are literally running fast to stand still with respect to each other.

How could an intelligent designer arrive at this situation?  Why would an intelligent designer create gazelles as food for cheetahs, then make it difficult for cheetahs to catch them?  If gazelles had been designed as cheetah food, they would be slow and easy to catch, wouldn't they?

Similarly, if cheetah were designed for catching and culling gazelles, why did they need to overcome the ability of gazelles to avoid being culled?

Neither species gains anything from the extra effort involved and the investment they make in developing the ability to out-maneuver the other, other than in the context of the other's presence. No intelligent designer would create a system whereby one of its designs tries to make it difficult for another of its designs to work properly, and so needing otherwise pointless and wastefully competitive modification.

About the only reason an intelligent designer would have for designing cheetahs and gazelles and then making them try to out-evolve one another in a wasteful arms race, would be if it enjoyed watching blood sports. But then, as an omniscient designer, wouldn't it know the outcome of the chase in advance anyway?

Another example from Africa is the Acacia tree and the giraffe. Trees are naturally selected for taller trunks by the shorter ones being eaten by giraffes. Giraffes are selected for longer legs and necks to avoid starvation by increasingly tall acacia trees.

What does the acacia tree get from having to grow a very much longer trunk than it would otherwise need if there were no giraffes? What does the giraffe gain from having to grow longer legs and a longer neck than it would otherwise need if acacias were shorter? The entire purpose of an acacia tree is to produce acacia trees and it does this by producing flowers and seeds.  This would work just as well at ground level if only there was nothing around which regarded the seeds as food.

So why would an intelligent designer make it difficult for the acacia?

And why would an intelligent designer design giraffes to eat acacias, then place them almost out of reach?

Would any intelligent designer of a motor car design it so the gasoline it uses could avoid being burned so the car had to develop more and more elaborate and expensive ways to get the gasoline from the tank and the gasoline had to develop more and more elaborate and expensive ways to avoid being consumed?

Would this be intelligent design?  Would YOU buy a car designed by such a designer?

Clearly, as these arms races demonstrate, there is no intelligence involved at all. What we see is exactly what we would expect if the process were an unintelligent, utilitarian process, selecting only for those solutions which work best to produce more of the next generation and having no ultimate goal in mind and with no concern that the process might be leading to the eventual extinction of one or both protagonists.

What we see is exactly what we would expect to see if there were no intelligent designer but only an evolutionary system driven by natural selection.

Further reading:

Evolutionary Arms Race
Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker.

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How Do You Know Satan Didn't Write The Bible?

Okay, Christians. Tell me how you know for sure that Satan didn't write the Bible.

Yes, I know. I'm an Atheist so I don't believe in Satan or any other spirits, evil, benign or supremely indifferent - but YOU do.

So, how can you tell that your god either wrote the Bible or inspired its authors and not Satan, the Great Deceiver?

One problem you have is that you claim that morality, and especially our knowledge of right and wrong, was revealed to us by your god in the Bible or by communication through various prophets and saints as recorded in the Bible. So you have no external references by which to judge the morality of the Bible.

So, what if Satan wrote the Bible to mislead you? What if your god has given us science so we can discover the lies Satan wrote in the Bible?

Noah, Dead or Alive.

Here's a funny thing:

And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.

Genesis 7:23

And yet:

And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.

Genesis 8:10-11

So, are olive trees not living substance?

You'd have thought the creator of life would know what's alive and what's not.

Or is this just another example of how a legend of a local flood was badly grafted onto a made up story of a frightening god who would do terrible thing to those who didn't obey the priests and the petty despot kings they worked for?

What a Racket!

Knock! Knock!

Good afternoon! Have you found time in your life for Jesus?

Er... why would I need Jesus?

Because if you accept Jesus you will be saved!

Saved from what?

From pain and suffering.

I don't have any pain and suffering so what good would that do?

You will have pain and suffering if you don't accept Jesus!

So, If I accept Jesus he'll not cause me pain and suffering, otherwise he'll hurt me?

Jesus won't hurt you, he's kind and gentle and loves you, but he knows someone else who will...

Are you threatening me?

No! No! Just offering you some friendly advice. Don't say you haven't be warned...

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Knock! Knock!

Good afternoon! Have you got time for Big Ron?

Er... who's Big Ron?

Big Ron takes care of shop-keepers like you. If you accept him your shop won't burn down.

But my shop isn't going to burn down.

It will be if you don't accept Big Ron's protection.

So, if I accept Big Ron, he'll not burn my shop down, otherwise he will burn my shop down?

Big Ron won't burn your shop down, he's kind and gentle and loves you, but he knows someone else who will...

Are you threatening me?

No! No! Just offering you some friendly advice. Don't say you haven't been warned...

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Ring! Ring!

Hello! Is that the Police? I'd like to report some protection racketeers... Yes! Jehovah's something or other... They wanted money!

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The Unintelligent Designer

Just a few of the mistakes that wouldn't have been made by an intelligent designer:

Problem: Humans have the highest perinatal mortality rate of any of the great apes. Without good medical care, the commonest cause of death in Homo sapiens is child-birth. In the other great apes, perinatal death for mothers and babies is a rarity.

Cause: During our evolution, a large brain, giving a large fetal head, was such an advantage that the benefits outweighed the disadvantage of loss of genes due to high infant mortality. The same applies to an upright gait, which led to a curved birth canal as the pelvis was adapted. A large fetal head being expelled through a curved birth canal is the reason human birth is a prolonged and exhausting process for the mother and the basic cause of perinatal death for both mother and baby. Evolution is driven by selecting for whichever group of genes results in more surviving descendants in the gene pool with no regard to what happens to individuals.

Problem: Humans suffer from vertebral disc problems, especially in later life.

Cause: As an upright gait evolved, our spines needed to develop two curves not normally found in other vertebrate animals. We have evolved a curve in the lumbar region to bring our upper body into an upright position with our thorax and upper limbs above our pelvis to reduce strain on our back muscles. We have also evolved a curve in our cervical vertebrae to bring our face into a forward-facing position and to balance our large skull efficiently. Both these adaptations are incomplete and cause the discs between the vertebrae to herniate and become displaced but usually in later life, after we have passed on our genes to the next generation, so there is only weak advantage to our genes in correcting these defects.

Problem: Humans suffer from arthritic joint problems, especially in later life.

Cause: Arthritis is the result of wear and an auto-immune response in which we produce antibodies to our own tissues. This is normally only a problem for individuals in later life, after the genes have been passed on to the next generation so there is only weak selection pressure towards elimination of these traits. At the same time, as humans domesticated more species we became more exposed to the diseases they carry so our immune systems needed to become more responsive. This has led to an over-eager immune system. One recent piece of research has suggested that we have inherited some of our immune responses from interbreeding with Homo neanderthalensis. These gave us such an advantage in early life that they spread throughout the H. sapiens gene pool regardless of the problems they cause us later on.

Problem: Humans have an increasing chance of dying as they age from degenerative diseases, including circulatory problems leading to strokes and myocardial infarction, cancers, respiratory problems, loss of vision and hearing, and dementia.

Cause: Like Arthritis, all these problems tend to develop in later life often long after we have passed our genes on to the next generation. Eliminating them makes very little, if any, difference to the survival of our genes in our descendants, so there is weak or no evolutionary pressure to correct these defects.

Problem: Some humans carry a defective gene for production of haemoglobin and people who inherit this gene from both parents have a condition called sickle-cell anaemia in which the oxygen carrying capacity of their blood is impaired. Left without treatment, these individuals have a low life expectancy and a reduced probability of producing descendants.

Cause: One would expect the defective gene to be eliminated as carriers have a reduced chance of producing descendants, and indeed, throughout much of the world, the incidence of this defective gene in the indigenous population is very low. However, carriers of one normal gene for haemoglobin, and one defective gene have a greater resistance to the parasite carried by mosquitoes which causes malaria, giving these individuals a slightly improved chance of reproduction in areas of the world where malaria is endemic or was endemic in recent history, which correspond to areas where the anopheles mosquito is or was recently endemic.

In the presence of anopheles mosquito, evolutionary pressure ensures the survival of an otherwise harmful mutation.

Problem: The vertebrate eye has a 'blind spot' caused by the nerves from the retina being wired the wrong way round and having to pass through the retina at a point where there are no light receptors. This has meant our brains have had to evolve compensatory mechanisms for infilling the missing information using sometimes invalid assumptions. To demonstrate this, draw a coloured spot on a sheet of white paper and draw a cross about 3 inches from it. Close one eye and move the sheet of paper closer whilst staring at the cross. The black spot will disappear. Your brain has infilled by assuming, in the absence of other evidence, that the sheet of paper is uniformly white.

Cause: As the eye evolved the wiring of the nerves became fixed early on. Such were the advantages of even this degree of environmental awareness that the genes for it spread throughout the gene pool and the eye continued to evolve to its present form, complete with its inefficient wiring. Since de-evolving would have given a distinct disadvantage, any tendency to do so, in order to correct this problem would have been selected against. Evolution is utilitarian, directed only by environmental selection and improved survivability and lacks any capacity to intelligently correct for inefficiencies by scrapping a design and starting again.

Problem: Human eyes have a much poorer acuity than many other vertebrate eyes of essentially the same design. An eagle or a falcon can see detail from a mile away that we might have difficulty seeing at the distance of a few yards.

Cause: There is no special advantage in humans being able to see with any greater degree of acuity because, given our lifestyle, we do not need it. For raptors like eagles and falcons however, it can make the difference between eating or starving so the evolutionary pressure has been much greater for them than for us, and the investment in the additional density of receptors in the retina, and in the processing power in their brains, has paid off in terms of gene survival. In humans, there would be no return on this investment.

All of these defects and imperfections can be understood perfectly well with evolution by natural selection. None of them make any sense at all as the product of intelligent design.

Manifestly, the human body was not intelligently designed but is the product of an undirected, utilitarian process of gradual adaptation which retains and passes on only those characteristics which give a net advantage to the genes carried in terms of their frequency in the gene pool.

One thing is for sure; there is no intelligence behind the design of the human body. (Tweet this)

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The Darwin Creationist Award - Last Few Days of Voting

Time to vote for the Darwin Creationist Award.



The award is given for the Creationist tweet so spectacularly stupid that it reduces the incidence of the creationist meme in the human cultural meme pool.

Use the comments box to register your vote by giving the entry number. A short supporting sentence or two may optionally be included.

If there is no clear winner there will be a vote-off between the top two or three.

The candidates, in no particular order, are:





1. 03-Jul-2011 22:09 @WhySoloWhy:
 Even satan know God is real #atheist

2. 04-July-2011 20:59 @laserlytinmyeye
@chummy4life @RosaRubicondior @freethinkgeek nne m ur on point...don't mind dem goofers...d big bang is still keeping dem alive....hahahaha

3. 27-June-2011 @05212011
OCTOBER 21, 2011 IS THE END OF THE WORLD/UNIVERSE!. GOD SHALL BRING EARTHQUAKE, RAPTURE, & ANNIHILATION FIRE...IN A SINGLE DAY!
GOD SAID SO!

4. @imhOme 
obviously evolution is garbage because rocks are not conscious,

5. 07-July-2011 08:53 @davidknight63
@FlyingFree333 So how come apes at the zoo dont become human? Maybe they have 2 be jungle apes. But wait, they ain't turn'in into man either

6. 08-July-2011 13:02 @CasReeves
If we only share our faith with #Christian people how will the #atheist, #Buddist, #Muslim, #Pagan, #Evolutionist, etc hear about #Jesus?

7. 08-July-2011 22:16 @WhySoloWhy
Dear #Atheist Explain The Baby in China that falled from an 10 Story BUILDING in a Woman Arm? Yes, the Baby is still ALIVE!

8. 09-July-2011 14:38 @MissRaissa
#Fact 95% of #Atheists on twitter are racists. #Atheism

9. 09-July-2011 17??:39 @PepperGOP
@RosaRubicondior So you think the earth spontaneously combusted? Let's just start at the beginning. This is my feeble attempt to understand

10. 10-July-2011 15:47 @ChicoZoe
Fuck u and I hope u watch ur mom and grandma get raped today u piece of shit CRACKA RT @DavetheAtheist @ChicoZoe ... http://tmi.me/cOAtv

11. 13-July-2011 06:25 @erichovind (In reply to my blog "Eric Hovind's Very Silly Questions")
@RosaRubicondior LOL, I can't stop Laughing! You call those answers? Wow, trying super hard to suppress the truth that you really know!

12. @AngryUScivilian 16-July-2011 08:14 
 #Atheist worship Allah and admit to wanting Christians dead, they are all for Sharia Law! #tcot

13. @simplyBNreal 1 July 2011 (Submitted by @GodsDontExist)
Why do atheist want proof there is a God when they can't prove there isn't a God?

14. 17-July-2011 14:52 @Weirdodo
@RosaRubicondior No, just looks like #Atheist are Muslim in disguise, trying to undermine Christianity, live in America, live by OUR rules!
[As my bio points out, I live in the UK]

15. @schicagos 18-July-2011 22:30
@GodsDontExist so one last time: Good and evil are distinguished by distinction. and youre a moron if you dont think so. #god #atheist

16. @Steveufc 22-July-2011 05:04
@RosaRubicondior You're a socialist piece of shit, go die the world doesn't need people like you, fucking athiest loser

17. @schmoollala 20-July 2011 00:30
God only makes happy endings. If it's not happy it's not the end. If it is happy, just remember, you're gonna die really soon.

18. 22-July-2011 18:38 @AshtonBrit93
@RosaRubicondior you have fun burning in hell. Just because you're too stupid to believe the truth doesn't mean we care about your opinion.

19. 23-July-1845 @TheFloodsCame
@RosaRubicondior Well I guess I'm just not an idiot then. Sorry to disappoint you. Only an idiot would think that a universe creates itself.

20. 23-July-2011 22:03 @Thessaly
@RosaRubicondior Every scientific "fact" about the beginning of time is a theory cause no one saw #!@%*#. So I'll leave you to your atheism. Bless

21. 28-July-2011 21:00 @lauramzy
@RosaRubicondior i havent been judgmental. I'll defend my religion and beliefs from ignorants such as you.

22. @IslamNotMuslims 30-July-2011 21:00
@TroyBeast @RosaRubicondior Evidence?! Evidence doesn't prove anything, only suggests. I have proof!

23. @IslamNotMuslims 30-July-211 20:41
@RosaRubicondior "All the others"?! You silly little atheist! There's only One God! If there were more, they'd all be fighting!

24. 31-July-2011 10:03 @OhDengItsColy
Your gay for being athiest.

25. 31-July-2011 20:49   @kramerassman
@RosaRubicondior cool lets see how far being a pentadactyls gets you when your burning in hell sinner #darwinhadsexwithmonkeys
[This in reply to my answer to his question about why humans have five fingers if there isn't a god]

26. 05-August-2011 19:15 RT @American_NazBol
why is the hatred of God called "a theism"? because it requires more faith to be an atheist than a theist. #atheism

27. 09-August-2011 20:30 @gemimms
 @RosaRubicondior if atheists believed that all Christians should be put to death, would you worship them?#idiots

28. 20-Aug-2911 10:20 @jesslansdowne
 I teach my students that 9/11 was done by #atheists because true followers of "Allah" (the Muslim name for God) wouldnt kill people #atheism

29. September 4th, 2011 at 11:33 PM @Frankfurt4
ATTN. all evolutionist think they came from rocks or dirt or dust or a hot steamy turd on the edge of a lake>LOL

30. 06 September 2011 21:37 @_nataleigh
I know he is the right one. Many of the other gods were just regular people who couldn't do any of the things God has done. There
(Submitted by @JoeUnseen)

31. 10 Sept 2011 04:47  @ITSDEEJAYBITCH
If your an #atheist go fuck your self you life is pointless and your dumb as hell.

32. 19 Sep 2011 21:48  @shotglass49
@RosaRubicondior  perhaps if you studyed a little more U would know.  he knew U would doubt him, yet U where created..

33. 20 Sept 2011 01:02 @JeffreyHarkins
 @RosaRubicondior You know your an atheist when you kill your brother because he looks to much like a ape.

34. (Undated) @yprimachenko
 @JoeUnseen Secondly... Every other religion their god died and has a grave... But when you go to Israel you will find His grave is empty...
(Submitted by Joe Unseen)

35. (Undated) @ImH0me
@JoeUnseen Believing stupidly w/out knowing, that ur Origin are Unconscious Dead Stones over Conscious GOD, is also an exercise of freewill.
(Submitted by Joe Unseen)

36. 26 Sep 2011 22:17  @That_0ne
 @LionheartOF Well, I hope you know Evolutionists control censorship in America so you honestly can't see good books on science.
(Submitted by @vinctee)

37. 26 Sep 2011 22:25 @Frankfurt4 The common evolutionist probably has pictures of female monkeys playing in swamp water making poop castles. WE Still Dont Understand this
(Submitted by  @vinctee)

A Universe From Nothing | Unreasonable Faith

Creationists won't watch this (Tweet this)

a) It tells them something they don't want to know and answers a question they don't want answered

b) It's far to long for their normal attention span of about 4 seconds.

A Universe From Nothing | Unreasonable Faith:

'via Blog this'

Jesus the Sinner

Baptism of Jesus - looks like there was some difficulty pushing him under.

Listening to his supports you'd think Jesus was pure and free from the sin we are all supposed to have inherited along with our humanity. Mary was free from sin, having been 'immaculately conceived', and was still a virgin when he was born, and Jesus' father was God, so he wasn't contaminated by any inherited paternal or maternal sins, so Jesus was free from sin, so we are told.

But was he?

John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins And there went out unto him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins

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And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John in Jordan.

Mark 1:4-9

So, if John was "preaching baptism of repentance for remission of sins" and part of that baptism was confession of sins, why did John need to baptize Jesus?

Obviously, the author of Mark thought Jesus was a sinner who needed to confess those sins and repent, and who are we to disagree... (Tweet this)

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Set a Trap to Catch a Fool

In Psalms 14:1 credulous believers are handed a useful slogan to use in lieu of rational thought: The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.

They're handed another in Proverbs 26:11: As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.

You'll see Christian fundamentalists especially, still using these today, presumably assuming their targets are equally credulous.

And yet in Matthew 5:22 we see: ...but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire

Blimey!

I wonder what possessed God to set this trap to catch the foolish bigots who haven't read the Bible but like to pretend they have.

And not so much as a hint of an escape clause... Nasty! Lucky it's just a story, eh?

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The Ancestor's Likely Tale.

LUKE 2.3-4. And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)

So, Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem because Joseph was descended from David, who lived about 1000 years earlier.

Obviously it was different for Joseph but I have a father, two grandfathers, four great grandfathers, eight great great grandfathers, 16 great great great grandfathers, etc.

With some four generations a century, forty in a thousand years, that gives me 1,099,511,627,776 (i.e. over 1 trillion) male ancestors who lived about 1000 years ago.

But, isn't that more than the population of the earth now, let alone then?

Okay, allow for a few marriages between cousins, second cousins, etc and say only a billion or so. Still more a than the population of the earth 1000 years ago. Well, let's be generous and say marriage between cousins, second cousins, third cousins, cousins once removed, etc, was common place and say I probably only had about a million, or maybe just a few hundred thousand male ancestors.

And I don't know anything about a single one of them with any certainty. Some of them could have been people we know about. It would be surprising if a few weren't. Apparently, most of us Europeans are descended from Charlemagne I, and a lot of us from Genghis Khan but most of them would have been complete nonentities who left no mark on history other than the genes they passed on and which eventually found themselves in me. (Thank you very much).

With that many ancestors, I could probably pick practically any town or village in England and probably most of Europe and a good deal of Central Asia, and claim it as my ancestral home.

But not so for Joseph, if we're to believe the Bible. Joseph only has ONE male ancestor from 1000 years ago, and he knew who that was and where he lived. He was King David from Bethlehem.

So too did the Roman authorities, it seems. How else would they check that no one had cheated and just popped down to the nearest town? And they knew it for everyone else in Judea, who also knew their (only) remote ancestor's home town. This is record-keeping far above what any modern, bureaucratic state can accomplish.

Blimey!

Can YOU name all the towns all your ancestors from 1000 years ago lived in? Do you know any of those ancestors' names?

A mystery, eh? No doubt Christians can explain this curious puzzle...

Twinkle, Twinkle.

Now here's a conundrum.

When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.

Matthew 2:9-10

So, this star stood over where the child was!

Don't take my word for it. Go outside tonight, go some distance from your house and find a star that's over your house but not over any other.

In fact, make it easier... find a star that's over your town and not over any other...

I wonder how the 'wise men' managed it.

Still. I can't see anyone getting away with a silly tale like this nowadays.

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I Know It In My Heart

How did the authors of the Bible understand the function of the heart?

... and thou the mightiest know the thoughts of thy heart

Daniel 2:30

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... thou didst set thine heart to understand...

Daniel 10:12

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The pride of thine heart has deceived thee...

Obadiah 1:3

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Why reason ye these things in your hearts?

Mark 2:8

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... and shall not doubt in his heart...

Mark 11:23

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And Jesus perceiving the thoughts of their hearts...

Luke 9:47

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Why are ye troubled and why do thoughts arise in your heart?

Luke 24:38

Quite clearly, they believed the heart is where thoughts occur and emotions are felt.

We now know that the heart is a muscular pump and its function is to pump blood round the body to supply it with nutrients and oxygen and to remove waste via the lungs, kidneys and liver. We now know that thinking is done in the brain. Curiously, the word 'brain' is nowhere to be found in the KJV Bible! You would have thought the Creator of Life would have known how its creation worked, yet even Jesus would have failed basic Anatomy and Physiology it seem.

I wonder how the Creator got things so hopelessly wrong... (Tweet this)

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Science vs Religion - The Lesson from CERN

A couple of days ago, scientists working at CERN published a paper with data which seems to question one of the very fundamental principles upon which modern physics is built - that nothing can travel faster than the velocity of light in a vacuum (c). They appear to have discovered that a fundamental particle - the neutrino - does, by a very small, but significant margin.

They have asked the scientific community to scrutinise and criticise their data and methodology, in short, to pull it apart and find fault with it. To crawl all over it, to shoot it down in flames whilst blowing it out of the water (mixed metaphor intended).

They have applied the basic principle of scientific honesty and integrity which understands that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and they have submitted their findings to peer review.

This is the principle which gives science its extraordinary power of discovery and self-correction. The principle is based on the intellectually honest and humble position that, we could be wrong; we are human and capable of making mistakes or allowing our biases to influence us.  Please look and tell us if we are wrong.

Can anyone see the similarity in their approach to that of exponents of religion, in particular to that of Creation 'scientists' to discoveries which cast doubt upon their fundamental beliefs?

In fact, one of their main governing bodies, the Institute for Creation Research, insists they swear an oath not to admit to anything which does.

Clearly, when religious people claim to hold a monopoly on moral integrity and presume to lecture the rest of us on it and on humility, they are thinking of something very different to that of normal intellectual honesty and humility, as practiced by scientists.

It's easy to see why science can be relied upon to tell the truth whereas religions only supply unreliable dogma.

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