The Nerf Flagellum

Even scarier is that the guy who runs the "museum" says that he's a member of Mensa.

Wow. It is intelligently designed!

I would be impressed if they had done it with ball-and-stick organic chemistry sets.

(That would require that we have the solved structures of all the flagellum proteins, which we don't, but still a fun thought. I think it would be as big as a house and require tens of thousands of such sets.)

So much for feeling superior to Americans because they have Hovind, etc.

I know, I'll blame it on the flood of American cultural propaganda crossing the border. I wonder what kind of fence would keep out this trash. Something antibiotic, maybe

So much for feeling superior to Americans because they have Hovind, etc. I know, I'll blame it on the flood of American cultural propaganda crossing the border. I wonder what kind of fence would keep out this trash. Something antibiotic, maybe

Comment #137515 Posted by Miguelito on October 5, 2006 09:02 PM (e) | kill Even scarier is that the guy who runs the "museum" says that he's a member of Mensa.

I'm not impressed. That thing won't get anything off my floor. It's pointing up! And it's wilted!!!

My hypothesis is that as human brains are finite, a human gifted in one capacity usually pays for it in other place. "Psycho nutjob" can have extraordinary intelligence, but it may just mean that he uses perfect logic to get from wrong assumptions to wrong conclusions much faster than other psycho nutjobs.
As for myself, I used to be a Mensa member, but my particular failing is in the social context. The company simply wasn't that important to me to keep with.

Aww! That's so cute!

That website is appaling. It even has that hydroplate theory:
Based on Genesis 7:11, Dr. Brown has suggested that underground chambers of water, containing roughly 2/3rds of what is now in our oceans, broke open at the onset of the flood. The erosion caused by the rising waters eroded the overlying granite crustal plates. The removal of the overlying crust allowed the underlying basalt crust (now the ocean floor) to spring up from the lack of weight. This formed what is now our mid oceanic ridge, from which the continents then slid away from, downhill, to their current positions.

It all happened rapidly, with the continents achieving speeds of up to 45 miles per hour! No wonder the Himalayans were formed! This answers questions all other models have failed to explain. Plate tectonics, for example, has no mechanism or force to move continents, yet supposedly it's been doing it for millions of years!
Plate tectonics explains movement by reference to the heat emanating from the Earths core.
And how exactly is the erosion of lots and lots of water going to erode sea floor rocks, which are surely more like basalt or gabbro, and even more importantly, where is all this eroded material? And how exactly are we supposed to believe that the continents slid away from each other during the flood, leaving different species on each one, yet Noah had a pair of each on his ark?

OK, that attempt at formatting iddnt work. Try this:
That website is appaling. It even has that hydroplate theory:

Based on Genesis 7:11, Dr. Brown has suggested that underground chambers of water, containing roughly 2/3rds of what is now in our oceans, broke open at the onset of the flood. The erosion caused by the rising waters eroded the overlying granite crustal plates. The removal of the overlying crust allowed the underlying basalt crust (now the ocean floor) to spring up from the lack of weight. This formed what is now our mid oceanic ridge, from which the continents then slid away from, downhill, to their current positions.

It all happened rapidly, with the continents achieving speeds of up to 45 miles per hour! No wonder the Himalayans were formed! This answers questions all other models have failed to explain. Plate tectonics, for example, has no mechanism or force to move continents, yet supposedly it's been doing it for millions of years!

Plate tectonics explains movement by reference to the heat emanating from the Earths core.
And how exactly is the erosion of lots and lots of water going to erode sea floor rocks, which are surely more like basalt or gabbro, and even more importantly, where is all this eroded material? And how exactly are we supposed to believe that the continents slid away from each other during the flood, leaving different species on each one, yet Noah had a pair of each on his ark?

guthrie: More importantly, how the heck did the Ark survive billions of gallons of hot water shooting out at it?

Now, ask yourself a question: Do you think that motor could have been formed by natural processes? Maybe some molten lava flowed down a mountain side into some water, which formed the rotor in just the right shape and size, and right at the same time, wrapped around it was some molten lava that rolled down the mountain side and was also quickly cooled landing in the water. Perhaps some other lava got mixed in there which was copper - just the right metal to make the wires which happened to get interwoven through, in, and around the stator just right. The bushing was exactly the right size around the drive shaft which just happened to be attached to the dead center of the rotor...... Okay, you get the point. It's ridiculous to suggest! If any part of that motor is incomplete, or not doing its job exactly the way it was designed to, the whole motor breaks down and doesn't work!

— Member of Mensa Canada

Not to mention the rocks that were blown out with it. Most rocks didn't fall back to earth and became comets, but a few would have fell back down. These came from the "Fountains of the Deep".

Interestingly, Brown's wiki page has been modified as recently as yesterday. I've been noticing this on many science articles and creationist articles recently. It seems like the creo's are constantly trying to alter the articles to suit their POV, and others are trying to correct them.

Corkscrew- who says the water is hot?
And even if it was, I'm sure that the wood was very good pre-flood wood, none of this crappy light cheap wood you get these days.

Corkscrew- who says the water is hot?

And even if it was, I'm sure that the wood was very good pre-flood wood, none of this crappy light cheap wood you get these days.

"Corkscrew- who says the water is hot? "

"It would have been stuck next to boiling lava for a few hundred years. I'm sure it'd be at least lukewarm."

Nope. It was cold around the poles. Some of the stuff that was blown out fell back down as a mega hailstorm that filled up the surrounding areas with ice so quickly and buried the mammoths.

http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FrozenMammoths2.html

... it even has what many have called the "universal joint", the hook ...

Wow, their "human" "footprint" is really pathetic. I can't see any justification for the bottom side of the blue outline other than the wish that it is a human footprint.

Dinosaur footprint and human footprint? Now Way! That is the spittin' image of Mary, holding up a Baby Jesus! Hallelujah! As you can see, the Baby Jesus is holding up an extended index finger, so I think it's meant as a secret, sacred message to Pat Robertson.

It doesn't matter what temperature the water was when it started, it would be REALLY hot moments later.

Energy doesn't go away (basic conservation laws here). If the water shot up, it had to have energy applied to it in some way. It then fell back down, returned to low energy state. The energy that sent it up into the air has to go somewhere. It turns into heat.

Enough falling water to flood the earth would release enough heat energy to boil said flood waters, even if it only fell from a short height. Noah would be poached.

That's not even bringing up the radioactivity issues. Those "flood deposited layers" are sorted radiometrically. That means that the rate of radioactive decay was HUGE at the time of the flood. That's more heat, guys, added on top of the oceans already boiling.

Noah will not only be poached, but also fried. Then they all die of cancer. The end.

Of course, the ark being so big and made of wood, had no prayer of surviving the greatest storm in history, so, to be accurate, the Creation Science Museum should have a display of Noah and his family and animals, floating in boiling water, covered in pustules and bloated from radiation poisoning, surrounded by chunks of shattered ark, labeled "How we Survived The Flood".

But somehow, I suspect they won't.

Oh, Crap.

Fine. I'll just ask the Courtenay City Hall to fly the flag at half-mast today, mourning the death of sanity in my once-fine country.

One more thing Colin Mochrie has to apologize for, along with "When I'm With You" by Sherriff. Truly sorry.

Noah will not only be poached, but also fried. Then they all die of cancer. The end.

Yep, Noah's Ark, the largest zoo in history, run by a staff smaller than even tiny zoos today, without the help of modern technology, while the aforementioend staff was infected with all known diseases. WHY WON'T EVILUTIONISTS ACCEPT THIS AS GOOD SCIENCE?

I wonder which of Noah's kids (or wives thereof) got to have cool stuff like elephantiasis, African eye worm, fire worm, and ebola virus?

Comment #137547 Posted by steve s on October 6, 2006 12:34 AM (e) Mensa is composed of about 70% interesting, clever, knowledgeable people, and 30% psycho nutjobs. Guess which side is overrepresented at the monthly meetings?

Hey! I resemble that remark!

Even scarier is that the guy who runs the "museum" says that he's a member of Mensa.

Enough falling water to flood the earth would release enough heat energy to boil said flood waters, even if it only fell from a short height.

The North American continent goes surfing.

Brings a whole new meaning to "surfin' USA"...

Re "Hey, maybe that's why the dinosaurs didn't make it?"

Nah, that's cause back then the moon was whole lot closer to the Earth, and the larger dinosaurs didn't duck quick enough.

Nah, that's cause back then the moon was whole lot closer to the Earth, and the larger dinosaurs didn't duck quick enough.

--No one knows how genes make inanimate chemicals like hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen come to life. --The ability of DNA to replicate has never been explained. --We don't know how genes time their actions years or decades in advance. --Having mapped the sequence of genes, we don't know what the sequence means, only that it exists. --Having found out that mice share 90% of human genes and gorillas over 99%, we can't explain how the tremendous differences between species should come down to such a tiny fraction of the genetic code. --We can't explain why people with the same genes (identical twins) turn out to be different in so many ways as they grow up and age. --We don't know why over 90% of genes are inactive at any given time. --We don't know why evolution developed genes that cause cancer, and why such genes weren't weeded out after they appeared. --We don't know if genes cause or prevent aging. In the same vein, we don't know if they cause or prevent cellular death, since there is evidence that they do both. --We haven't unraveled the significance of the space on the DNA strand, even though the blank spots in our genetic code may be just as important, if not more, than the genetic material itself. --Genes respond to the outside world as well as to behavior and thoughts, but we don't know how or why except in the most general terms.

You lot make me laugh, its great.

As for Chopra, he allegedly was once a Dr, he's also a quack. Its nice to see some of the commentators get stuck in.

Even if Chopra was right about any of that--which, duh, he ain't--then that would just raise a whole lot of questions for biologists to get to work on.

Dr. Chopra, meet John Horgan, author of The End of Science.

Sounds like the two of you will have plenty to discuss. Now wander off and leave the nice scientists alone, hokey-dokey?

But surely T-Rex's fiery breath would have been able to burn a hole through the moon where necessary?

— Corkscrew

Wow. I went to the website, and it hurt my delicate little brain.

Apparently, flagellums are impossible because they go around like little motors and motors require wire and they require ball bearings and ball bearings require ball bearing factories and ball bearing factories can't be made of lava flows or something or other.

I think I finally understand the creationist problem though. Their minds simply do not understand the word like.

They are, as it were, metaphorically challenged.

Most of us hear a parable and look for the deeper meaning it contains. Tell us "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle" and most of us realize that that this refers to something very, very difficult. Creationists, on the other hand, imagine something mechanical, involving sewing supplies, extremely unfortunate dromedaries and perhaps some type of large industrial clamp.

Tell most of us "let he who is sinless cast the first stone" and most of us realize it means, "don't be a hypocrite". Creationists, on the other hand think that it's a recipe for handling heretics, old-style "OK, little Jimmy, you toss that pebble at Miss Hilton and her poodle and the rest of us can take it form there...".

So you tell a creationist "it spins like a motor" and he starts tearing apart his Hoover to prove you wrong by finding ball bearings.

Of course this doesn't answer the most important point of them all. Say, for the sake of argument, that there is a designer. The designer has just revealed that he understands the principals of rotary motion by designing a motor.

Yet nowhere else in the natural world does he use this, the single most important mechanical invention of all time --- otherwise known as the wheel.

(On the other hand, I must admit that this is the first time I've seen one of these animated, and in that regard, it really has helped me visualize how it works, so thanks, creation guys, it was like a lightbulb going off in my head (and by that I mean that there was no lightbulb actually involved --- just wanted to make that clear)).

Most of us hear a parable and look for the deeper meaning it contains. Tell us "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle" and most of us realize that that this refers to something very, very difficult. Creationists, on the other hand, imagine something mechanical, involving sewing supplies, extremely unfortunate dromedaries and perhaps some type of large industrial clamp.

http://www.ianjuby.org/tour12.html

"First, a T-rex, contrary to common belief, simply cannot handle meat - it would definitely rip its own teeth out trying to eat meat. Take a good look at a T-rex skull whenever you get the chance, you'll see why." ... "Lastly, under duress and possibly with a lack of plant matter during the onset of the flood, it [the T-rex] may have tried to eat meat out of sheer hunger and desperation."

Riiiight. All those long pointy teeth must have been really useful for eating plants. Sure.

Wow. I went to the website, and it hurt my delicate little brain.

— stevaroni

I think I finally understand the creationist problem though. Their minds simply do not understand the word like. They are, as it were, metaphorically challenged.

— stevaroni

Most of us hear a parable and look for the deeper meaning it contains. Tell us "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle" and most of us realize that that this refers to something very, very difficult. Creationists, on the other hand, imagine something mechanical, involving sewing supplies, extremely unfortunate dromedaries and perhaps some type of large industrial clamp.

— stevaroni

"First, a T-rex, contrary to common belief, simply cannot handle meat - it would definitely rip its own teeth out trying to eat meat. Take a good look at a T-rex skull whenever you get the chance, you'll see why." ... "Lastly, under duress and possibly with a lack of plant matter during the onset of the flood, it [the T-rex] may have tried to eat meat out of sheer hunger and desperation."

— Some guy Scott quoted

Take a good look at a T-rex skull whenever you get the chance, you'll see why

Wow. I went to the website, and it hurt my delicate little brain.

MS2 (by the way, you should copyright that, it sounds like someone might use it as a movie title someday) writes... Just for the record, that's one of those mistakes in THE Bible. The line was mistranslated. It was supposed to be "get a rope through the eye of a needle"

what kind of moronic idiot of a designer would give an animal steak knives for teeth and then say "Now, go eat bananas!" Well, God, I guess. He did it to pandas as well

If that doesn't convince you, just look at the tracks of humans found with dinosaur tracks at Paluxy.

Really? I was once told that in Biblical times the name "eye of the needle" referred to a small, single-file passage in the town wall next to the main gate. At night, or in times of danger, the main gate would be closed and people would have to use a long, narrow tunnel to enter and leave the town, the idea being that a few guards could easily use a variety of nasty pointy things to control the single-file passage, where invaders would be at a very distinct disadvantage. Hence, the original quote, something along the lines of "it is easier for a camel to pass though the eye of the needle, than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven", meant that it would have required extraordinary effort, but would nonetheless have been possible if the man had the will to work hard enough at it (and, of course, an unusually cooperative camel) . But, since I am neither a biblical, nor historical-town-wall, expert, I could be dramatically wrong here.

What kind of teeth do pandas have?

— stevaroni

IIRC, they're kinda-sorta descended from racoons, which are opportunistic omnivores,

but I thought pandas only eat bamboo. They look like they're a bit pointy up front for that kind of diet.

Tell most of us "let he who is sinless cast the first stone" and most of us realize it means, "don't be a hypocrite". Creationists, on the other hand think that it's a recipe for handling heretics, old-style "OK, little Jimmy, you toss that pebble at Miss Hilton and her poodle and the rest of us can take it form there...".

"First, a T-rex, contrary to common belief, simply cannot handle meat - it would definitely rip its own teeth out trying to eat meat. Take a good look at a T-rex skull whenever you get the chance, you'll see why." ... "Lastly, under duress and possibly with a lack of plant matter during the onset of the flood, it [the T-rex] may have tried to eat meat out of sheer hunger and desperation."

— Scott

It never ceases to amuse me that creobots accuse evolutionary biologists of inventing "just so stories", and then turn around and try to tell everyone that T-Rex was an herbivore.

isn't psychological projection fun?

Really? I was once told that in Biblical times the name "eye of the needle" referred to a small, single-file passage in the town wall next to the main gate.

— stevaroni

What kind of teeth do pandas have?

— stevaroni

Ah, so the question here is, what good is half a herbivore? ;)

Henry

Well, according to the package it provides around 50% of your Recommended Daily Allowance of meat. :-)

One of the "leading creationist" in Sweden (Mats Mollen) has been pushing the "vegetarian T-Rex" (snd all other Dino's) claims since many years, I have for him mentioned the dumbness in claiming that the teeth's were to fragile to use against meat, while in his second breath he is claiming that "filtering leaves from trees" (think chewing down on a twig, and then drawing ones head backwards, using the teeth's as a filter)
should be less damaging to the mouth....
That (combined with the finding of fossilized dinopoo (including LOTS of carnivore ditto) is naturally ignored by him..
(his specialty is "I will check that up until next time" if he is pressed to much by critics (then conveniently "forgetting" everything until next meeting somewhere else!)

A Canadian creation science (sic) museum? Oh no! Well, I guess something has to come out of Trinity Western or the like ...

normdoering: The terrifying thing is that Chopra is popular enough to be invited to lecture at one of my alma maters, though admittedly to the faculty of religious studies, I think. I hope some one was there to take apart his nonsense. Alas, most academics are too polite.

Been lurking here for a while, and I'm chiming in now because I just happened to post these links concerning the topic of the camel in the needle's eye on another forum a couple of weeks ago.

From the Straight Dope:

What's the meaning of Jesus' teaching about the camel going through the eye of a needle?

More on camels passing through the eyes of needles

I especially like the second link, where he points out how the more reasonable-sounding translations are actually evidence against them being correct.

normdoering: The terrifying thing is that Chopra is popular enough to be invited to lecture at one of my alma maters, though admittedly to the faculty of religious studies, I think. I hope some one was there to take apart his nonsense. Alas, most academics are too polite.

Swiss and Syrian archaeologists working in Syria's Palmyra desert claim to have uncovered the remains of a giant camel that lived 100,000 years ago and once stood "as big as a giraffe or an elephant"...

Late to this discussion, and off topic as well, but re the continent surfing...

I don't understand why Creationists seem to feel the need to come up with a "physics-lite" explanation of the flood. If you're okay with positing an omnipotent God, why would the flood waters have to come from anywhere or go anywhere? God wants a flood, there's a flood. God wants it dry, .

Is it important somehow to minimize God's involvement?

It is important (to creationists) to minimize God for several reasons:

1. The more overtly religious the "theory", the less likely they can convince a court it's science. In order to get creationism taught in schools, they desperately need a God-lite creationism. So far, they've been without.

2. Once you start the ball rolling, it just keeps going. I call it cascading miracle theory. You can explain any amount of preposterousness if you're willing to accept an infinite number of miracles to get it going.

How did Noah gather the animals? Miracle. How did he feed the animals? Miracle. How did the ark not get crushed by the flood? Miracle. How did the wood of the ark not decay while he was building it with bronze age tech? Miracle. How did the animals survive the post flood devastation? Miracle.

Eventually, you get so many miracles that even creationists start to realize they are desperately grasping at straws to avoid evidence. They have to pair down the number of miracles to a "rational" number, just to keep believing it makes any sense at all. And then you run into "If it takes that many miracles to keep the ark going, why not just miracle the animals to safety to begin with?" a question for which they have no answer at all.

How did Noah gather the animals? Miracle. How did he feed the animals? Miracle. How did the ark not get crushed by the flood? Miracle. How did the wood of the ark not decay while he was building it with bronze age tech? Miracle. How did the animals survive the post flood devastation? Miracle.

" "First, a T-rex, contrary to common belief, simply cannot handle meat ..." "

" I hope they really push that one; no preteen boy on Earth would buy creationism. "

Yep. Calvin thought the idea that T-Rex was a scavenger was so bogus that it invalidated that theory. Imagine what he'd make of the idea T-Rex was a vegetarian!

Re "the idea that T-Rex was a scavenger"

As I understand it, there isn't really a hard distinction between predator and scavenger; most meat eaters can go either way depending on circumstance.

Yet nowhere else in the natural world does he use this, the single most important mechanical invention of all time --- otherwise known as the wheel.

— stevaroni

a desert spider that speeds along by bending its legs around itself in a wheel, and there is a sea anemone that balls itself up and rolls around on the sea floor.

I saw lizards rolling themselves up into a wheel shape and rolling down hills on some nature show.

Don't birds wheel through the sky. ;)