by Greg Mayer
A number of readers have wondered what Georgia congressman Paul Broun has against embryology; it was number two in his hit list of hellish lies (evolution and the big bang being one and three, respectively). The answer, of course, is that Broun must be a proponent of scientific storkism, another major scientific theory that is being suppressed by the academic elite. Tom Tomorrow blew the lid off the story several years ago.
Perhaps he connects it with abortion.
Perhaps he doesn’t know his arse from his elbow?
Perhaps his elbow is his arse?
I think he has his elbow up his arse and is having trouble finding either. And walking.
I’m willing to bet this is a reference to Ernst Haeckel and his embryo drawings. Creationists love to trot out Haeckel.
I’m guessing he failed a class in undergrad and is still bitter. Assuming, of course, he isn’t actually just an anti-intellectual control freak ignoramus.
Posted on picture page by joandenoo, and transferred to the comments here by GCM:
I met a friend who had been a Biology teacher in High School for 30 years. He was glowing because he had read a small Jehovah’s Witnesses book on Evolution and now he knew that he had been wrong for so many years!!.
JWs talk evolution? I have never gotten down to read Watch tower or whatever they call those publications of theirs. So the teacher now thinks evolution is false or what is the new revelation?
Probably this booklet, or something like it:
http://evolutionwiki.org/wiki/Is_There_a_Creator_Who_Cares_About_You%3F
Well, the people who wrote that article had enough times in their hands working overtime to discredit science and show their ignorance about everything science!
They should keep to religion where they can fool a few people but again as Bob Marley noted ‘you can fool some people some time but you can’t fool all the people all the time.’
More of the same, and just as good:
Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New ‘Intelligent Falling’ Theory at http://www.theonion.com/articles/evangelical-scientists-refute-gravity-with-new-int,1778/
The Scientific Case Against Craterism at http://sensuouscurmudgeon.wordpress.com/2009/05/10/the-scientific-case-against-craterism/
While I was ready to write this off as another “hick congressman” story, what *really* blew me away was to find out this joker sits on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Along with Todd “legitimate rape doesn’t lead to pregnancy” Aiken, no less! I kid you not:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Committee_on_Science_and_Technology#112th_Congress
*That* should be a national scandal.
Tom Tomorrow seems to get it right more often than he gets it wrong.
I’m glad to see Storkism getting the notice it deserves, since it’s the subject of my one and only mention in wikipedia:
http://www.nmsr.org/stork.htm
Don’t you think that Paul Broun uses the word comprehensive term for scientific and medical research on embryonic stem cells? Maybe even as a tag for a broader range of things, everything related to human reproduction and embryo’s (for example prenatal diagnosis)? I thing it is a mistake to underestimate people like Paul Broun: he probably knows very well what he is doing and he has a clear idea of what he wants to achieve. He is, I think, tuning in on the wavelength of his audience: uneducated Christian citizens.
Sorry! Typo in the first sentence.
Here is the right text:
Don’t you think that Paul Broun uses the word embryology as a tag for scientific and medical research on embryonic stem cells?
Well said, Ludo. It’s a great mistake to underestimate our opponents. You don’t get to be a congressman without going through brutal competition, even if it’s only within your own party. And we have to fight our battles in the world as it is, not the world as we would have it be.
It may be that whats-his-face simply doesn’t understand the distinction between “embryonic” and “embryology”.
This kind of confusion has led, for example, to the word “chemical” having pejorative connotation these days. And “pesticide” becoming equated with “poison”, as though the flea powder one puts even on cats (carbaryl) being thought of as a deadly substance.
This tendency to false, alarmist interpretations of innocent words has a silver side, however: the Botanical Garden at the University of BC includes an “economic plant” garden, in which the berry bushes reside. It was a long-standing problem that visitors would eat the berries when ripe leaving none to be peered at by later visitors. Solution? Put up signs “This area sprayed. Do not eat berries.” Sprayed with water, that is.
Morons on the march.
And the Nobel Prize announced today (Monday) seems to this physicist like embryology!
It could be Braun’s worried about embryonic stem cell research, but maybe he’s flipped about the whole “”ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” thing where the earlier something developed in evolution, the earlier it appears in embryos (most of the time)
Rather disturbing that Braun is an MD with a Bachelor’s in Chemistry.
Braun’s website as of time of this posting has no mention of this at all.
Bill Nye has weighed in at the Huffington Post here
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/07/bill-nye-paul-broun-science-space-technology_n_1947125.html
nice try. but EVERYONE knows it was not storks, it was pterodactyls. get it right.
I doubt politicians like Broun really believe what they preach. But whether they do or not is probably irrelevant to them. What they seek is power, and those in power have mostly preferred to keep their subjects as blind and ignorant as possible.
But Broun and his ilk may actually believe that ignorance creates a more obedient and submissive citizens, and consider these qualities essential to a decent and orderly society. Some facts and truths are regarded as harmful and must be suppressed at all costs. Denial and lying is acceptable, because it is perceived as serving a greater good.
Through the eyes of this sad, fearful world view, people must seem essentially evil and untrustworthy.
thanks for this now i know about the flying spaghetti monster, too
Sex ed: Teach the Controversy!
Reblogged this on christianagnostic and commented:
I couldn’t pass up on sharing this funny and insightful post on ID….