Via TPM we have Jack Kingston, Republican congressman from Georgia, flaunting his ignorance on the Bill Maher show. Only in America (or some Islamic countries) would a public figure be willing to admit this kind of stuff on television.
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“I believe that I came from God, not from a monkey.”
“I don’t believe a creature crawled out of the sea and became a human being one day.”
“Where’s the missing link? . . .I just want to know what it is.”
“Where’s the missing link?”
ooh, ooh… I know this one.
Athens, Georgia. The missing link was how you missed getting a decent education despite growing up in the acclaimed college town of Athens GA.
Oh snap!
I live in GA and have a lot of friends that went to UGA in Athens. Anyone that went there will tell you there’s a HUGE difference between people that go there for college and the rednecks that actually live in that shit hole.
You know those kids who didn’t pay attention in school?
They pretty much run the world now.
I think your explanation more than adequately describes most of the insanity we are experiencing in this country. Ignorance combined w/ blind faith. It’s deadly – for the ignoramus as well as the rest of us.
~Rev. El
In a just society, this man would still be in high school.
Ya know, every time someone pulls this crap out, I’d like it to see it challenged by asking which “link”, specifically, they’d like to see.
It isn’t just the USA or Islamic countries; if you want to see some FAIL check out this hour long show on BBC:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2wMGU8-2bE]
This is the first 10 minutes; watch them on youtube to get all 6.
I like this so far. I’m on the second part and Nurse uses a great analogy comparing science to gardens. The garden is like a whole body of evidence–if one focuses on a single tree (hypothesis) while ignoring the other plants (evidence) one misses the big picture of science.
Jack, look in the mirror. What do you see? A big monkey in a suit. You even have the brains of a monkey.
Hardly! (re. last remark)
As a frenchman, I believe ignorance is more spread than you would expect in Europe, even though I’ve come across several times where you would take us as an example of ‘least ignorant’ on the science corner.
The difference may be that we see America as “retarded” (don’t get we wrong, I just can’t find a better term)in education mostly because of strong religious background, whereas theories such as intelligent design and creationnism seem to grow of importance here because of the decay of our education system.
To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a right-winged politician with such uneducated point of view, and more worrying, I don’t think he would be denied right away. At least on the video you’ve posted, there is some strong opposition, which I think isn’t common even for a “western” country.
It rather depends if you want monophyletic monkeys or not doesn’t it.
If you don’t care too much about that issue there’s no call for insulting your fellow simians with similes like that one.
It’s too bad we didn’t have a modern-day Thomas Huxley on the panel to murmur, “The Lord hath delivered him into my hands …” before pouching in for the easy kill.
Nowadays Huxley would just be considered another Gnu Dick, though.
Yeah, sticking him in the same room as Richard Dawkins would be pretty funny.
“I believe in adaptation, I just don’t believe in evolution.”
I am not all that surprised because it is understand that the definition of evolution incorporates the word “adaptation.”
I, personally believe in cars but not automobiles. I mean, come on! A vehicle that is self-powered? What will these atheist fools try to push on us next?
The Republican Party platform in many states includes a denial of evolution, and call for the teaching of “both sides” so that kids can make up their own minds.
They don’t like science. They don’t like scientists. They like technology, but they don’t like that people can figure out how magnets work.
Because they are a fucking miracle, Homey. And those scientists are lying to us!
I might even go one step further and say they like to use technology, but they dislike technology itself. All that “noble savage” bullshit. Or the “unweaving the rainbow/figuring things out in order to improve our quality of life = hubris/terrified of change: must defend status quo at all costs” bullshit. Yet another example of the cognitive dissonance rampant on the right.
I hope that wasn’t too confusing.
Nope, no too confusing, I think I got it.
And this is why I disagree with Eugenie Scott when she said that antievolutionists aren’t antiscience last fall (the video just appeared on the NCSE’s YouTube channel).
A friend at work asked me where the missing link was. The next day I got to the chapter in Dawkins book called “missing link? What missing link”. Heh.
If evolution really happened, then why are there still Jack Kingston-s?
I saw the Bill Maher show with this Congressman. He didn’t even have the decency to be embarrassed. What is missing in a life that must cling so vociferously to fairy tales as opposed to reality?
Watching things like this with my husband are *so* embarrassing. I hate trying to explain to him (he’s Japanese) why it is that members of Congress have no grasp of basic concepts in biology… although I have to say watching the movie Pearl Harbor together was worse (I *told* him not to watch it…).
Why ? (other than the fact that it’s a terrible film)
Exactly why I told him not to watch it–*terrible* film, and nothing really to do with history (which is what he thought it was going to be about-NOT).
The missing link between ape and human is the Republican.
We have no idea what the man actually believes, he’s a politician after all, so he has to say what will get him elected.
We’ve been making a big mistake by calling these people stupid or clueless etc. We underestimate the low cunning that they have so we’re constantly being outrun by them politically.
I have to disagree. Many people thought the antisemitic bile in “Mein Kampf” was just pandering to the masses. Well, no one could really be THAT dumb, right?
Big surprise.
I’m pretty sure there are definitely both kinds–those who really buy the dogma, and those whose opinions change with the opinion polls of their bases.
Frankly, I’m surprised. He already believes in talking animals, wizards with magic wands, and immortality through the consumption of reanimated zombie flesh and blood, so what’s one more faery tale to him?
And I’m sorry I don’t have time to watch the full episode…but, out of idle curiosity, why was he referring to a Hans Christian Andersen story, and why was he so eager to show that he doesn’t believe in mermaids any more? Are mermaids the new crockoducks? Did I miss something?
Cheers,
b&
The problem, of course, is that the absolute pinnacle of the Congressperson’s education on the subject was one of those evolution cartoons, which showed a fish crawling out of the water and turning into a human. Creatures morphing into creature in the span of a few seconds, until fish becomes man.
Of course he doesn’t believe it. Neither do I, when presented like THAT. The scale is all wrong.
No way. That would require some skepticism and there’s no evidence of that here. Don’t blame bad cartoons, this guy has been educated by creationists.
He probably takes this
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faRlFsYmkeY&w=480&h=390]
literally. (“…one day.”)
But why do they get so fixated on monkeys? Wait till he hears that his great-great- … -grandmother was a lizard, and her great-great- -grandmother was a fish!
“Where’s the missing link? . . .I just want to know what it is.”
I could name several latin things you could look up, but instead, I’m going to say this:
If you want to refute basic aspects of evolutionary biology, it might behoove you to take an actual course /in/ evolutionary biology, that you may know what you’re attempting to refute.
It’s telling, I find, that few who have completed such a course with high marks (showing understanding, if not agreement) have then continued to criticize the foundations of the subject.
It is amazing how theists can exercise reason and logical in almost any field except religion. There, only blind faith will do.
Except that, as a member of the “GOP”, he’s exercising unreason right across the board. He’s definitely not confining his crazy to religion.
That goes without saying.
FYI: The female speaking is Kim Campbell, the former Conservative Prime Minister of Canada
To clarify, though, Campbell was PM for the Progressive Conservatives, before that party merged with the neo-conservative Western loons of the Reform Party and removed “Progressive” from their name. Their current members are far more conservative and religiously idiotic than the party was in Kim’s day.
It wasn’t a merge, it was a take over. 🙁
Very true. It is a good example of how the “conservative” movement has changed significantly over the last 30 years. With the underlying Christian movement,which was always there, taking over.
Kim Campbell was the sacrificial lamb put forward by the PC’s after Brain Mulrooney’s reign. She was prime minister for about 132 days.
An example of how different the old PC’s are to todays conservatives is with Health care.
Health car in Canada began in Saskatchewan under Tommy Douglas, but it was Diefenbaker, a PC prime minister, who introduced the first national programme.
Look up Stockwell Day and Rob Anders.
Day is just crazy, and Anders is simply odious.
Wow. You know we’re in trouble when the person on the panel who makes the most sense, is the most rational and the most scientifically literate, is a former Conservative politician. (I saw the complete panel discussion, not just this clip).
It could be because she is the only Canadian, too.
Not that I am a self-hating American, not at all.
I posted a complaint for Bill Maher on his Facebook page. I wish when he has some ignorant conservative Republican on and asks the guest questions about evolution, that they have an actual evolutionary biologist at the table to blow all those lame canards out of the water. Bill and his other guests were reduced to “I believe in evolution” and “Fossils exist” rather than more specific facts that would really shine the light on the congressman’s lack of authority on the subject.
Yeah, it sure would have been nice if an expert had been on the panel. I’ve learned first-hand how tough it can be for non-scientists (even ones, like me, who know the ABC’s of evolution reasonably well) to properly refute anti-evolutionists. Although, it’s hard to forgive Maher, since he knew he would be bringing up the topic.
I was somewhat surprised that the comedian D.L. Hughley, who was also on the panel, is also an evolution denier. The guy is damn funny, and appears to be insightful about other things, so it was a shame to see him (in so many words) say that he doesn’t accept common descent. Meanwhile, the other panelist—a writer for freakin’ National Review—said proudly, when the congressman asked him for help, “I believe in evolution.”
Yeah, we shouldn’t let Hughley off the hook just because he’s not (I believe) a Republican.
I got the impression that Hughley is one of those who thinks that evolution = atheism, and he believes in God so therefore (he thinks) can’t accept evolution.
Yeah, that seemed to be his calculation.
He did say something like, “You make me glad for my GED”, though.
That’s the thing about missing links, though! Every time we find one, somehow two more spring up!
Except that when you see a tree in the woods, complete with healthy branches and the ground littered with dead branches, you don’t go complaining about the missing pieces of wood before agreeing that, yes, it’s a tree and it can shoot branches!
There are no “missing links” that completely break our ability to see the natural nesting of species and/or traits.
The other sense of “link” is in a chain of lineage as opposed to nestings, and that is even more absurd. If you don’t know all your ancestors, does that mean you aren’t human (an individual of a population)!? Insane!
Bill Maher also needs to point out that the deniers aren’t arguing from a scientific position; they’re arguing from an emotional and philosophical one. Saying something like “Just because you are offended by the ramifications of a scientific theory doesn’t render that theory untrue!” would be a great start, and would force the deniers to support an argument from their own ignorance.
They don’t care about the truth, they believe what they think will lead to an ordered society. It’s not about reality, it’s about keeping a lid on things. “If you teach kids they’re monkeys they’ll behave like monkeys” they say. It’s not about reality it’s about fear and control.
Which reminds of a nice quote I heard from Dawkins some years ago:
“The palatability of a proposition has no bearing on its truth.”
Poo, I’m from Georgia >_>
One more thing. Why, oh, why, doesn’t someone ever reply to “I came from God” with “I came from human parents.”
I know how babies are made. Creationists have this delusion of being made like Jesus was, unsullied by a penis sending sperm towards an egg.
This is the great appeal of accommodationism. You can then have it both ways, from God via the apes. And evolution doesn’t disprove God/dess/es – only make him/her/it/them redundant. (Though wasn’t it Sagan who argued that the indeterminacy of evolution meant there was no guarantee that we would ever emerge, which makes the role of God[/dess/es] moot?)
Right. How would we rewind the tape of life with certainty?
I also find a “guided evolution” to imply an absolutely abhorrent god. He created a deadly, painful game of survivor knowing full well who the winner would be.
I wonder if these accommodationists ever think about the malthusian aspect of natural selection, the nature “red in tooth and claw,” that death and starvation due to overpopulation and the downright nasty realization that life is essentially food for other life.
If there is a god to guide evolution I want no part of such a monster.
He said monkey and not ape. Right at that moment you know he isn’t worth talking to.
I’m impressed by the congressmans ability to make a complete strawman arguement in one sentence.
The missing link is between Jack Kingston’s neurons…