Just for fun, here’s a specimen of one kind of comment I get regularly. You don’t often see them, as I just put them in the bin, but from time to time I’d like readers to come face to face with someone like this. Here goes:
Fantazunique Brown commented on Creationism 2.ppg:
EVILution is as much a religion as Creation is. It cannot be conclusively proven as a fact, so therefore it is as much conjecture as is Creationism. I think both should be taught equally alongside one another and the student should be allowed to intelligently make up his or her own mind on the subject having both sides represented intelligently and logically! Otherwise what you have is censorship and that is supposed to be illegal! Oh, and before you get upset at my changing evolution to EVILution let me explain why I do! It is evil to lie! And EVILution is one of the biggest lies in this modern age because too many of you EVILutionists claim that EVILution is the only theory backed by scientific fact when in fact your theory is just that, a theory!
the·o·ry
/?THē?rē/Noun
1.A supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, esp. one based on general principles independent of the thing to be…: “Darwin’s theory of evolution”
2.A set of principles on which the practice of an activity is based: “a theory of education”; “music theory”.According to the dictionary EVILution is just a supposition. Thank you for your time and God bless!
I love the “God bless!”
Do you suppose that if Fantazunique Brown read my book, he/she would show that evolution is a fact, even if not “conclusively proven” as a fact (because, of course, science isn’t in the business of conclusively proving anything)?
I’m sure Fantazunique Brown never would actually read your book. Perhaps skim some sorry apologetic attempt at a refutation of it, but that’s it.
b&
I’ve been down that road with a True Believer™ guy I know from 45 years ago in high school. I managed to pin him into getting the book. He read part of the first chapter. I haven’t heard from him in a couple years now. I’m sure he didn’t finish.
That’s the best I’d hope for from our friend Fantazunique Brown.
And god bless! 😉
Yes!!! Omitting the “god bless”
I don’t even understand the meaning of the phrase “God bless!” The phrase “God bless you” expresses a coherent sentiment, but “God bless” all by itself is just gibberish.
As far as I can tell it means “I am a pious git and I want God to bless many people, especially my friends and family, but I don’t really like you all that much and I can’t bring myself to ask Him to bless you in particular, so I’m just taking this opportunity to remind Him of my piety.”
Or maybe it just means “I’m too lazy to say the word ‘you’.”
The latter I suspect, religious people are notoriously lazy. “Good-bye” is a contraction of “god be with you” so they’ve been shortening their pious wishes into nonsense for a many centuries. Of course they’re nonsense to begin with so I guess it doesn’t make any difference.
I don’t know how they managed to convince themselves that the “run for the hills” explanation for the fossil record is on equal footing with the geologic column.
I’m always amused by those who refer to “the dictionary,” as if there were only one.
I expect they know full well there’s more than one; else how do you explain they picked one that doesn’t include the standard scientific usage included in most modern dictionaries?
And they avoid actually naming the dictionary that they are using, so that they can avoid someone’s following up and noticing that they are selecting an irrelevant definition rather than the one intended when it refers to evolution.
I think if they want a forced choice in education it should come with consequences. Those that deny evolution get no antibiotics because according to their choice antibiotics shouldn’t exist.
Driven to the edge of self-restraint, in a discussion about homeopathy a couple of years back, I actually proposed a real life test, consisting of purposefully infecting 2 groups of 5 individuals each, with yersina pestis, and document the outcome.
One group who sign up for science and evidence based medicine, would have access to state of the art medical attention, pre trial vaccinations, intravenous antibiotics and the full shabang. The other group, consisting of 5 representative for homeopathy, would only be allowed their homeopathic preparations.
I rapidly had 5 volunteers for the science group, but none for the homeopathy group, they just said I was stupid…
It is so frustrating, but that is the critical point I believe; there are often, for all practical purposes, never any real consequences for the purveyors.
On the other hand, religious parents decision to forsake modern medicine already affect so many children. I remember reading Paul Offit’s book, “Deadly Choiches”, and his examples gave me a sleepless night of bottomless sadness, frustration and red hot burning anger.
To be honest: not a cat’s chance in hell (sorry to the moggy involved!). People like that would just ignore all the evidence, all the science and all the education that you give them and just continue in their narrow minded little ways.
This raises the question, why are the religious types so fearful of questioning their beliefs? Perhaps one thing that the anti’s don’t realize is the extent to which evolution, as an explanation of many natural phenomena, appears in everyday life. Example abound in the field of medicine, of course, but purebreds of any domestic animal also count. Is it feasible to compile a list of ways which evolutionary thought has improved the daily life of billions?
Why are they “fearful of questioning their beliefs.”??
Well, if evolution is true, then religion is false. The main reason Xtianity gained such unstoppable popularity among slaves and society’s bottom-dwellers is that it promised
(drumroll here)
ETERNAL LIFE IN PARADISE!!!
….for those that believed. Oh, and rich people, don’t apply. You cannot get into heaven if you are rich!
I have found invariably it is this promise of living forever, surrounded by loved ones who have already died, as the reason for desperately attacking evolution as well as any other force for destruction of the “eternal life” promise.
First evidence?? Check the best-seller lists.
“Proof of Heaven” titles are perennial best sellers.
Which is just further evidence that most people never really give it any thought at all. They want to see gramma and pops again but most of them don’t actually want to live forever. If you actually contemplate what that would mean it’s appalling. Especially since you’re dead and all the fun things in life have to do with actually being, you know, alive!
http://www.ted.com/conversations/14514/why_do_so_few_people_want_to_l.html
(I do hope that link doesn’t misbehave)
Am I the only one who is not interested in seeing my grandmother in heaven? All she would do is complain that they let black people use the same pearly gates as the white people.
Would she call them black people, or would she be like my grandma and be complaining about the colored people?
I rather suspect it’d be more like a scene out of Blazing Saddles, with the church bells ringing out every time she tried to warn everybody that the new sheriff is a nigger, dagnabbit.
At least, that’s what it’d be like if I was the one running the show….
b&
> why are the religious types so fearful of questioning their beliefs?
1. Peer pressure. massive peer pressure. Like an army of conscripts, they are threatening each other into conformity.
2. Tribalism. If the religious cohesion of your tribe dissolves, some other more religiously cohesive tribe (like Islam) will eat you for breakfast.
2. Emotional attachment to baby jesus with whom you spent your whole life, especially the childhood. It is not easy to let go.
3. Pride. It is equally not easy for the psyche to admit that you have been duped your whole life. It is easier to keep lying than to admit that you’re a sucker.
4. Death is damn scary, especially if it is not you that is dying, but one of your loving ones. Lying is a way for the mind to cope.
5. You get to control female sexuality for your (male) benefits.
Keep in mind that religion does not only oppose evolution, it is _a product_ of evolution. The evolutionary benefit has to be significant enough to justify why a majority of humans is religious, even if you remove the effects of ignorance and superstition, which are imho negligible. Religion is much more a social phenomenon based on group dynamics and power structures than it is based on the stupidity of the individual.
Please disabuse yourself of the idea that it is ‘peer pressure’ that forces conscripts to conform. Conscript soldiers are kept in line by a constant stream of legal threats and coercion by superiors typically in the form of loss of privileges. This is how the powers-that-be operated the conscript army during my experience as a conscript soldier.
I wasnt just thinking of conscription for basic training, but of full style conscript-based wars, like the Wehrmacht Vs Red Army, where you had millions upon millions of conscripted people fighting, killing and dying, who didnt want to be there in the first place.
Those millions of conscipts werent kept in line just by their superiors, they were very cleverly pitted against _each other_, with the constructs of “coward” and “traitor”, so even in face of certain death they prevented each other from deserting.
Well, yes. In any rational world, they’d all say ‘sod this’, shoot their officers, and go home. Instead they keep fighting till they all get killed. It’s a cunningly designed and evil bit of social manipulation that keeps such armies in existence. Very similar to religion, in many ways.
The other powerful one is fear of Hell. They currently believe in God and Hell and that the surest way to go to Hell is to deny the existence of God. So they are terrified that someone will convince them that God doesn’t actually exist. That is, their current self is terrified that they will be convinced “falsely” that God doesn’t exist, and they will then go to Hell. Literally, reading Jerry’s book would be to flirt with going to Hell. It’s a particularly effective meme, the idea that if you change your mind and believe something different you’re doomed to go to Hell forever. That meme fights off all other memes with vigor. In fact, any sense you make in arguing evolution just heightens the fear. It proves to that believing part of their mind that it’s a real threat, not a mere hypothetical thereat. They don’t feel threatened by lots of other competing views in the world, Thor, or even Islam, precisely because those views aren’t very compelling (no more compelling than their current religion, at least). Once properly inserted, this idea more or less freezes a person in whatever doctrine they have embraced.
Incidentally, I think many phobias have a similar element, a built-in fear that if you *don’t* obsess over the thing you are phobic of, it’ll get you for sure. This makes a phobics mind very resistant to any attempt to weaken the phobia of X, because as soon as you try to weaken it, the phobic part of their mind rebells because losing the phobia of X is seen as the path to ensuring that X gets you. It’s a positive feedback loop.
Indeed, and religion has the added defense that Satan is out to get you to stop believing, even a phobia doesn’t have a character like that on its side. Any suggestion that they may be wrong is written off as the work of Satan, literally.
I post the compressed version of your “Why Evolution is True” lecture every time I get comments like that on my FB page. They usually aren’t even willing to watch a 20 minute video; I can’t imagine they would actually read a book – especially when it’s EEEEEEvilLLLL.
…and you don’t get unfriended? I got unfriended once for suggesting that Ben Stein was bonkers.
Did you see All the President’s Men Revisted when it was on the Discovery Channel a few months ago?
At the very end it had all the journalists and politicians and other people who it had interviewed talking about how shocked they were by the way Nixon had behaved… except for Ben Stein, who was busy sobbing about how Nixon was such a great man.
Haha, well it’s on my FB page, not my personal wall – so I imagine the creationists who come on there to argue haven’t *liked* my page in the first place. So definitely no loss. https://www.facebook.com/DenyingEvolution?fref=ts
At least she didn’t offer to pray for you.
There may be hope for Fantazunique, she is not a stranger to the dictionary and is willing to start with a premise (albeit a false one) and attempt to follow a logical progression to a conclusion.
This person didn’t even understand the dictionary definition he/she quoted.
I doubt there would be any understanding by reading your book.
Answer to your question: “probably not”.
People are happy to use facts and reason, so long as it confirms what they “already know” or debunks what opposes their beliefs.
Do they use science to test their currently held beliefs? Not so much….in fact, most of the time, not at all.
Is Fantazunique “its” real name?!!?
I don’t know and I don’t care.
But that’s the name I’m going to use when I hit it big in my next career as a porn star.
Meow! I don’t suppose you have any…ah…sneak previews you’d care to share…?
b&
The Fantazunique Brown facebook page suggests a real name of Rhonda R. Brown ~ going by the addressee name on a letter from Argosy University proudly displayed in the “Photos” section. Assuming it’s the same “Fantazunique” & assuming “Rhonda” isn’t a relative of course.
The below is my opinion:- Argosy is a mainly online “joke” university being investigated for various sharp enrolment practices. They offer mostly online psychology courses & are linked to the Education Management Corporation which is a for-profit post-secondary educational money mill. Some reviews by various former students are fairly damning.
Wow, She’s white, I seriously wasn’t expecting that with that name conmbo’!
It would have been even more clever if she’d called it Evillietion. Because “it’s evil to lie!”
For your rhetorical ingenuity, you deserve a Discovery Institute fellowship.
I think everyone that uses the “just a theory” excuse should:
* Go to Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Fukushima and explain how atomic theory is just a theory.
* Lick a live main on the concept that electricity is just a theory
* Jump off a cliff because gravity is just a theory
* Get injected with HIV because germ theory is just a theory
Tell them “it is just a theory” that the hamburger needs to be cooked on both sides before sending them out on their career path.
Thanks, but most of us would prefer that any acts of stupidity on their part be limited to injuring themselves.
Everyone should read your book!
I find it interesting that Fantazunique missed the other definitions in that dictionary. Cherry-picked.
They should look up “or” while they are there.
And “suppose.”
Yep, she did:
Theory
1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
2. The branch of a science or art consisting of its explanatory statements, accepted principles, and methods of analysis, as opposed to practice: a fine musician who had never studied theory.
3. A set of theorems that constitute a systematic view of a branch of mathematics.
4. Abstract reasoning; speculation: a decision based on experience rather than theory.
5. A belief or principle that guides action or assists comprehension or judgment: staked out the house on the theory that criminals usually return to the scene of the crime.
6. An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.
The wikipedia definition is similar to #1. What hope can we have when people are so lazy they wont even bother reading a wikipedia entry.
It’s funny to think how this confusion on the meanings of “theory” is a quirk of the English language. It’s probably the most popular method of attacking evolution.
If you google her exact text there are a couple of sources that pop up that don’t include any 3rd (or 4th, etc.) definition. One of those sources appears to be a creationist slide show.
So, my guess is this was not a first-hand cherry pick. Rather, I’d give it about a 70% chance that she pulled the definition from some creationist source.
Second hand cherries! yuck.
I wonder if in Fantazunique’s Sunday school they teach both sides equally intelligently: the arguments for God’s existence and the arguments against?
Why this never occurred to me before I don’t know, but after reading Stephen P’s comment I’m thinking it would be great fun to respond to each and every demand to ‘teach the controversy’ in public school biology classrooms with a demand to teach evolution alongside Genesis in Sunday school and summer bible school.
Hitch made exactly this suggestion in one of his talks — I can’t remember which. I do remember that he was not optimistic about its chances.
I’m pretty sure the response would be that Sunday School isn’t funded with taxpayer dollars. Of course, for that argument to hold water, the church that is funding it would have to renounce its income tax exemption.
Or – Mohammed or Jesus? Prophet vs. Saviour — who’s the best supernatural god guy?
Diana, that is a silly question, everyone knows Thor is superior.
😉
Ha ha, I’m partial to Diana, myself! 🙂
Wow. Do you sometimes think you’re just being punked? I will have to take a closer look at this amusing post soon.
Poe’s Law makes it very difficult to distinguish such distinctions.
I’ve come to the point where I really don’t think it matters. Either the person is really bad at expressing sarcasm or really believes the content. And either is deserving of ridicule.
b&
Ah yes, I forgot about Poe’s Law.
True, but if you are in education it makes a difference in what to teach.
Eh, I think most successful Poe-ings just demonstrate the ultimate implausibility of whatever’s being Poe-ed. (And I’m always amazed at the number of self-declared critical thinkers who fall for some of them.)
I tend to err in the other direction; I was seriously wondering if the definition of metaphysics proffered in another thread was satire.
A brief visit to her Facebook page confirms her genuine and regrettable deficits. It’s quite likely that she lacks the cognitive foundation to comprehend WEIT, even if she has the patience to read more than 50 or 60 pages.
Ugh, at first I thought she wasn’t so bad but then I saw she was writing a paper comparing the Holocaust to abortion & today Dr. Henry Morgentaler died so I found that particularly annoying:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2013/05/29/obit-morgentaler.html
Fantazunique Brown meet Kirk Cameron. And they lived happily ever after spending much of their time blessing stuff…
Wow,equally frustrating and sad, people still remaining in the dark ages.
Fantazunique,
Evolution runs in your family.
Cheers!
I don’t think so. You saw how selectively he chose the definition of theory to suit his needs, WEIT is far too advanced for this special mind. First he needs to go over the very basics of science, what it is, how it works and how it leads to understanding. His message shows no evidence of curiosity, he thinks he already has the answers.
I like his idea of teaching creationism equally alongside evolution. You could explain the mechanisms for evolution, show a few examples in nature. Then the creationist could teach how a god created life, show the mechanisms and a few examples of it in action. Is that asking too much of them?
Yes.
Religion claims that there absolutely is a god, based only on faith (i.e., no evidence). Is religion therefore also an evil lie, because it’s only a faith? Is Fantazunique, by his/her own logic an Eviligionist?
Of course, but try explaining that to FB on FB…
Whether F Brown reads your book or not will most likely not make much of a difference. The religious bias clouding F Brown’s mind will handicap any comprehension of what is demonstrable fact and what is baseless conjecture.
I base my ‘accusation’ of religious based incomprehension on F Brown’s writing in the email itself.
Notice how F Brown takes great care to set “EVILution” and creationism on equal footing. And then, without the slightest comprehension of the prior equating exercise, F Brown continues to explain the use of “EVILution”, instead of evolution, by stating that evolution is a lie and therefore evil.
Oblivious of the self satisfied argument made just a few sentences earlier equating “EVILution’ and creationism. Thus by very direct implication, creation is just as much of a lie, and therefore equally evil.
Another perfect case of shooting in the foot with a pious smile.
Keep it up F Brown. You’re making our case for us. Intelligent students will indeed make their own minds up.
I think the answer is right their already in Fantazunique’s comment. She copied a dictionary definition of theory and then continued to use the “EVILution is only a theory” argument as if the definition she quoted supported it. This clearly demonstrates that she/he is not capable of understanding explanations of a technical nature even when they are formulated for a general audience. This may be due to lack of education or a strongly biased commitment to christianity maintained by peer pressure, indoctrination, fear, or similar.
This seems to strongly indicate that even if Fantazunique did actually read your book she/he would not understand it, and or would not be capable of accepting the ramifications of accepting it. But who knows. Maybe a seed would be planted.
Why is it that all of these “comments” look like they’ve been written by a 6th grader trying to get an A+++++ so they’ll get a Red Ryder BB Gun for Christmas?
You’ll shoot your eye out, Fantazunique.
Hey, I always “teach the controversy”. I use this video to do it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLyVl0zkZVk
Highly recommended. I have never shown it without jaws dropping. Students really do not want to be these characters
What a collection of intentionally ignorant things to teach children. I’m curious how they explain the disappearance of the dinosaurs.
Oh you silly science person… of course, they were all drowned in the great flood! 😉
Fatal saddle sores?
Mouth cancer due to overuse of bridles?
Dino steak was jut too tasty?
The possibilities are endless. 🙂
What utter b*astards these adults are.
I lost valuable brain cells watching that….
People making these types of comments should be referred to this video where they substitute “evolution” with “gravity”: http://youtu.be/CGqx-IXckK4
I’d ban them from vaccines based on their beliefs and just ask them to pray for a cure but they probably already think vaccines are evil like “evil”oution so it will just make everything worse for all of us.
Yeah, don’t do that. We already have too many dead babies.
One of my classmates in my Useful Genetics course complained about the teacher mentioning evolution …in a genetics course!
She was more creative than Jerry’s Fantazunique but definitely a variation on the same theme :
“I took this class because I wanted to learn about useful genetics and how it works. I would prefer not to hear so MUCH about evolutionary theory. Whether or not I believe in evolution or creation is not at question here. What I question is whether any statement is fact or a theory. It’s offensive to me that we cannot simply be shown the information and be allowed to reach our own conclusions. Newton’s Third Law argues against evolution, and the evidence for that theory does not contraindicate all other possibilities. In fact, the evolutionary theory requires as much of a leap of faith as any other explanation. (e.g., one lecture states “DNA and genes are not invented from scratch. They come from preexisting DNA and genes.” Yet, isn’t doesn’t evolutionary theory require that it come from nothing?) The things that I have learned about how DNA and genetics work, the less sense evolution makes. Therefore, when references are made to something seen as evidence, tell me what the evidence is – and even tell me what you believe its significance to be. But allow me to draw my own conclusion rather than telling me what I ought to think. Whenever I hear “this is what we think happened” or “we infer from this”, whatever follows is not important to me. I am much less concerned with what was than I am with how things function today. ”
Just priceless. In subsequent comments she included the second law of thermodynamics as evidence that evolution is not true.
The instructor should just smack his/her head and say, “Why didn’t I ever see this?! You’re brilliant! I’ve wasted my life!” 😀
I lost all focus after “Newton’s Third Law argues against evolution…” How, why, what’s going on?
Yeah she lost me there too!
Maybe she meant the 2nd law of thermo? (Not that that one really applies either…)
I’ve always thought that it does apply, just not favorably to their position. It just shows their ignorance, willful, gullible or lazy, that they think it “argues against evolution.” It demonstrates that they don’t understand evolution or the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Sort of like slapstick comedy. I am not sure Monty Python could come up with anything better.
In college, the final blow to my childhood faith came when I went to an apologetics class at church and heard an engineering professor use the 2nd law argument. Now, I was a sophomore engineering major and had taken thermodynamics and I knew this was total BS, and I knew that he had to know it was total BS also. It was such a clarifying moment to realize that he would just lie about it like that.
Dang! I did indeed forget lying. Don’t know how since lying, often to themselves no doubt, is very common when religious believers attempt to justify their beliefs.
I’ve often wondered about the lying. Lots of evangelicals who have come to their senses in later life talk about how deluded they were. They talk about how they justified nonsense to themselves. They sometimes talk about how they felt they were following a somehow ‘higher’ truth.
But the latter is as close as they seem to come to admitting they flat out lied. There are lots of cases – like, perhaps, this one – where the religious seem to be deliberately lying to others (as opposed to themselves and others) but I’ve never seen a recovered religious person say they used to lie.
Perhaps those who recover weren’t intentional liars. Perhaps that’s *why* they recovered. Perhaps they’re still justifying. I don’t know, I just find it strange that such people admit doing lots of bad things, but lying outright doesn’t seem to be one of them.
Interesting observation.
Spreading clearly false information is common, but perhaps most don’t realize (because they willfully don’t try to find out) that it’s false. So maybe they don’t feel guilty of actually lying, just of being lazy. Of course, sometimes it’s obvious they must know the falsehood and have chosen to spread the lie anyway, but maybe such cases are rare, and maybe those who are in that category rarely leave the faith they are willing to lie for? I don’t know.
I think observing the lying, or being maximally charitable, the gross disregard for the truth, did more to undermine my religion than anything. My particular sect emphasized Bible scholarship so ardently and made such a big deal out of the importance of getting everything right that they really elevated being “correct” to almost the highest value. Ironically this value system soaked into me a little too good and it backfired on the religion.
Since “for every action there is an equal an opposite reaction”, that means that the viewpoints of creation science and evilution are equal and opposite aspects of some underlying, ineffable truth — as ineffable as the mysterious workings of the mind of God, who is (when you think about it), the only POSSIBLE thing in existence that knows how anything really works.
You’re welcome.
This was a student in a wrong class. I think they meant to enroll in theology 101
Yeah Suri, I spent waaaay too much time on that thread. She came around a little in the end, because after all she was learning about genetics and genetic variation.
Of course she can’t make the leap to “macro-evolution”.
It’s a great class by the way.
Hi Lynn,
Yes I remember you.
Your comments were of the best ones in the thread…you also got many up votes..always a good sign.
Glad to see you here…and yes the course is great.
Didn’t expect to find any classmates here 🙂
Thanks Suri. Yours are appreciated too (lots of up-votes). You are wanted on the G+ group too! (Gretel sent you a note in the greetings thread.)
I think there are a few of us here. But more in Noor’s class.
See you in the discussions!
Didn’t see the note, how do I do that?
Oh and you may reach this wider audience with WEIT but only if you issue it in pop up book form. 😀
Simple answer: No!
Reason: The use of EVILution reveals a mindset.
Still, of the three categories of evolutionaries–acceptors/deniers/undecideds–diatribe such as this is of value only to deniers and may be beneficial in nudging some undecideds to explore evolution more thoroughly.
Evolution: it’s a lifestyle 🙂
If it’s a lifestyle, does it come with special undies you have to wear?
Yes, this is a silly, rather pointless joke, but who could resist, given the opportunity?
Ha ha. I think Archaeopteryx undies in honour of this: http://phys.org/news/2013-05-bird-ancestor-reclaims-tree-life.html because I think of Archaeopteryx as the Pluto of proto birds (most of that last part was purely for alliteration) 😛
True. Never underestimate the value of seeing ignorance on display. Long before I had absorbed the evidence and arguments for evolution I had picked up on the characteristics of their supporters:
The scientist advocates of evolution are calm, thoughtful, erudite, and I see no obvious signs of distortion or lying.
The deniers of evolution are hysterical, frequently ignorant, and constantly misunderstanding, distorting, or outright lying about well known facts.
I knew who was probably right in that “debate” without even having to wade into the actual evidence. I also knew which group of people I’d rather personally be like.
My response is: Sure, we can teach the controversy, but I get to choose the creation myth. The Hindus have some far out stories that are much more entertaining than the Judeo-Christian mythology.
But then, that would require creationists to realize that there are other creation stories out there, and even, banish the thought, other religions. But then we already have a class that teach these stories to our children, we call it Mythology. Of course, those who do realize this stop being creationists, which is why it’s really hard to find a reasonable creationist.
When it comes to creation myths there are many that are more interesting than the christian myth. I’ve always found the Norse myths very interesting.
For example, a son and daughter are born from the perspiration from the armpit of the giant Ymir. And later, after he was very messily killed, the victors created Midgard (the earth) from the flesh of Ymir’s corpse.
Now that is much more entertaining than Genesis.
And yet, they are EQUALLY TRUE!
Let us hope he does someday but am not betting on it. If he goes cherry picking even dictionary definitions, I don’t know how much he would cherry pick from your book.
I think it is a futile endeavor to attempt to reason with such people. They must come to the truth on their own – if they ever do.
And god is dog spelt backwards. And evil is live spelt backwards. And assume makes an ass of u and me. Spooky.
And cat is “tac” or swedish for “thanks” [cat – sw: katt, thanks – sw: tack).
Owing a cat something, or having a cat owe you? Spooooky.
My cat just stepped on my keyboard and somehow instantly erased a comment I was working on. She owes me now.
Cats owe their masters nothing. Us slaves owe our cats everything.
Pretty simple, actually….
b&
Mine demanded that I get up at 04:30 to see what she wanted then immediately went back to sleep.
What she wanted was for me to get up to see what she wanted.
Oh, that’s SOP. What she really wants is for you to stop being a lazy bum sleeping all through the night and start doing some productive slave stuff while she goes and has her early-morning nap.
b&
No, she really does just seem to want me to get up to see what she wants to do, which is to go immediately back to sleep after I have noted that’s what she wants to do.
And “creation” is an anagram of “o, a cretin!”
+1 internets to you!
To shamelessly plaigerize your “creationist” can be similarly expanded to “O, ’tis a cretin.”
And “creationism” is an anagram of “romanticise”, which seems appropriate!
If only we could get people like Fantazunique to stop participating in the evolutionary process, but I’m afraid it’s no use – they seem to have lots of children.
Don’t despair. Leo Behe came to understand that his father was mainly interested in examining his navel from the inside.
If this commenter read WEIT the book, they would just laugh at your evil attempts to push evilution down others’ throats. Now if your book was ‘balanced’ and presented Intelligent Design along with your cream puff of a theory, then, yes, the commenter would read your book, and at the end be none the wiser because they would be satisfied that they made an effort to hear the other side, even though they never had any other intention than to reject the scientific theory and fact of evolution.
However, your book can reach the reachable and yes they exist. And if religious belief was not given such a privileged pass, and was vigorously challenged more often, it would lessen because it would not be as fun to profess such ridiculous beliefs if your peers look at you funny, and more would be reachable, but I doubt this commenter would be even in that case because of the mind-blowing, glee smugness shown.
Of course evolution is “conclusively proven”, under any definition of “conclusive” and “proof” that is applicable outside of mathematics. If evolution isn’t a conclusively proven fact, then neither is the existence of London, or wheelbarrows, or anything else.
I don’t know about London, but Washington D.C. is definitely in the realm of fantasy.
Neither one of you existed until just a moment ago. Just the same as the entire middle of the country doesn’t exist in between Portland, OR and NYC, NY since I didn’t have a window seat.
I don’t know. I’ve been to London, and there weren’t any wheelbarrows there — at least, none that I saw….
b&
They’ve all been driven off the streets by the Congestion Charge.
Congestion Charge? What’s that? An angry mob of people with head colds armed with pitchforks rushing forward and stabbing all wheelbarrows they stumble across?
b&
Chuckle! Lovely image of Olde Englande. The peasants are revolting (they always were). Presumably Luddites – “we don’t want your new-fangled wheelbarrows here!”
I doubt that it would help if this person read your book. When I first came out as an atheist I had a family member make a hard pitch for me to take an “open-minded look at the case for God”. She sent some books for me to read. I dutifully plowed through Lee Stoebel’s “The Case for a Creator” (very painful) and Frank Tipler’s “The Physics of Christianity” (actually has some humorous value). I sent her a copy of “The God Delusion”. At the next family gathering we had a discussion. After a long time talking about the two books she had sent me I finally asked what she thought of the book I had sent her. She said that she hadn’t read it. Her reason was that she didn’t even want to take a chance on the possibility that it would change her mind.
So much for open-minded discussions with the faithful.
Wow. What a ridiculous, lazy, and disrespectful double standard.
It might be lazy, but I’d put my money on fear. See, if she reads his book and believes it, she goes to Hell. That’s what she thinks now and, believing that, she’d be foolish to take such a risk. It was even a little outrageous for Darth Dog to expect her to take such a risk, akin to giving her a revolver with one bullet in it an asking her to take a spin.
Keyboard please. I prefer the curved ones. Might need a new shirt too.
😉
It’s a serious problem, though. It’s why you’ll pretty much never get a sufficiently religious person to read a religion critical book. It’s not about literacy, or ability, or curiosity, or even open mindedness, per se. It’s about risk. They just won’t do it, any more than they’ll play Russian Roulette for a $50 prize. From their current perspective, it just isn’t a reasonable gamble.
It’s a real chicken-and-egg problem for reaching believers. From within their current world view, f***ed as it is, they are acting perfectly rational. If their religion is true, as they believe, it’d be the hight of foolishness to flirt with even a slim chance losing that religion. So you can’t approach them and ask them to do something so obviously (from their view) foolish. You have to find some way to penetrate their fog without asking them to take what, to them, seems like crazy risks.
Never been to America. Never seen America. So, America is only a theory.
I’ve been to America lots of times. Unfortunately, I’m just a theory, so you don’t want to go believing me.
“Do you suppose …”
No. In my view evolution isn’t a fact. Neither is gravitation. That’s because my philosophy of science is continental European.
The usual confused commentary of creationists, wrongly placed and all.
And when “backed by scientific fact” a well tested theory.
He/she just passed through the very thing! And, apparently, never considered how “evil” it would be to claim against fact that there are no such facts and that science is equal to creationism in support.
Hi in your book does it explain how races evolved? I might read it if it does. can you give me some good youtube videos or books or explanations on this.I watched youtube and they said that oriental people were not in direct sunlight for 100’s of years and that was why their eyes are the way they are.Seems far fetched,if we started out in Africa how did we become white. I’m new to this evolution study but loving it thanks.
Descent with modification: look it up. And stop watching creationist you tube channels, they’re bad for you.
What evolution books have you already read Rosie?
I’ve read that epicanthic folds are caused by climatic factors and it may have originated more than once during human evolution, but I’d love to hear from anyone who knows more
Read this Wiki on Human Adaptation to sunlight
a) Careful with that “oriental” people thing. There are still Oriental rugs, but the “Oriental” people you refer to are “Asians” in today’s vernacular (despite the ambiguity in the word).
b) Google what a “just-so” story is, and reflect a bit on how easily they are concocted by the ignorant in their weak attempts to explain absolutely anything, including the existence of epicanthic folds in the eyeballs.
c) here’s another just-so story… Epicanthic folds in the eyes were a trait selected for in the eyes of northern, ice-dwelling people who were too MUCH in reflected sunlight (off snow and ice). Ever check out the snow goggles used by existing people up north? I just pulled that “explanation” out of my butt right now. If you don’t see mentions of specific bits of evidence to back up such assertions, and you can easily make counter assertions with a similar lack of evidence, then it is a good sign that nobody knows what the hell they are talking about.
d) 100s of years? Good for you to be interested in the subject — but you might want to develop your BS filters with some biology texts, and some solid popularizations of evolutionary biology, including “Why Evolution Is True” and “Climbing Mount Improbable” and “The Second Creation” before trying to figure out the merits of Youtube videos.
Is there a problem with using the term “Oriental” in the US to describe people with epicanthic folds? Here in the UK the term is in common use, and makes a useful distinction from “Asian”, which for want of a better definition is used to describe people from the Indian sub-continent and those of similar appearance. You seem to be aware of the ambiguity, so why create it? Is this some form of political correctness? If so, why? I’m genuinely puzzled by this.
Given enough time in a society with a given prejudice, any term describing a minority will soak up bigoted associations. ‘Oriental’ has in the U.S., to enough degree at least that some caution is not a bad idea.
In addition, one could argue that it suggests that there’s some proper center, and people from somewhere east of it are the “Oriental” outlier. Maybe some people actually do think that way, or have – I’m going to stay uncommitted on that one for now.
Anyway, ‘East Asian’ should do the trick well enough
There is a pretty extensive history of extreme prejudice against Asians in the USA. Much of it was originally codified with terms like “Orientals”. The first immigration moratoriums and laws designed to prevent Asians from gathering in public were some of the only legislation put on the books that was geared towards one ethnic group. Moratoriums on Chinese immigration stayed in place from the 1880s until as late as 1943 — which is kind of ironic, in that the next year the Supreme Court would uphold FDR’s orders that Japanese Americans be excluded from (West) coastal areas unless they were in internment camps. The Census Bureau went along with that one, also providing confidential neighborhood data on Japanese Americans.
It helps to learn the do’s and don’ts in this regard… Calling Asians “Orientals” brings up connotations similar to those if you took a trip to new Delhi, dressed up in turn-of-the-century British military regalia, and started spouting off about there being wogs everywhere you looked. Wouldn’t go over well.
There are lots of similar language proscriptions… calling someone a “Native Hawaiian” in Hawaii could get you beat up. They are “Locals”. American Indians are now “Native Americans”, unless you are north of the border where I’ve heard “Abos” as a shortened version of “Aboriginals” get used in scientific presentations. Not sure how that one would go over in Australia.
Odd, the polarized attitudes towards “native”.
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Actually, quite a few Indians prefer that name. The following isn’t very recent, just the first thing I found quickly via Google:
Interesting. Thanks for that. My earliest memories are of Tuba City AZ, on the res around 1967-8. There weren’t American Indians or Native Americans there, only Navajo and some nearby Hopi. But when we relocated to Anchorage AK, the standard vernacular was “Alaskan Native”. (I think it still is). “Eskimo” tended to be a pejorative (even more so in Canada) – but a common thread is that many of the tribal names translate to something like “The People” (in one’s own language, of course). The names of other tribes in one’s own language tend to mean things like “those other guys”.
“Hawaiian Native” was fighting words (among the brash youth) when I was there around 1976. In a more recent trip out there, I asked an educator if the racism in the schools was still as highly charged as ever. She said most definitely. A river of shit runs through it.
Well you have a lot more personal experience than I do! Yes, from what I understand, tribal names are always preferred. But that can get pretty confusing for the rest of us, esp. out here in the eastern US. And I’d heard about “the people,” but not about the “other guys”–makes sense. 😀
Yes, I thought I’d read that Eskimo was actually a pejorative word. I’ve heard Alaskans described as Aleuts and esp. Inuits…
Glad for the heads-up on Hawaiians. Now if I ever get the opportunity to visit, at least I won’t put my foot in it!
🙂 The very interesting thing I find about many indigenous languages and concepts is that there is a very practical aspect to them. Nearly 10 years ago, i was involved in a linguistic project having to do with color concepts among Tzotzil Mayans in Chiapas.
Because the colors they were seeing and using (in their threads) were their lifeblood (one of the very few ways they could keep from starving), and because those colors were not “traditional” i.e. they had literally never seen any of them before — we had a chance to witness the creation of words, which follow very well-established routes (no matter what culture we’re talking about).
“Beige”, a popular color for sofa covers and pillow cases and the like among their customers was a complete unknown, having virtually no natural counterpart that anyone could point to. They did find an exception though. They started calling it “sick baby’s shit”, which not only was something they were VERY familiar with, but also conveyed their sense of distaste of the fact that white people kept picking colors that had no “meaning” (like the block reds, yellows, greens, blue, white, black that signified cardinal directions, colors of maize, family insignia and much more). Forced to work with beige threads, when you wanted someone to pick the right thread from across the room, they’d say things like “pass the baby shit” in Tzotzil. Very practical, and eventually to save even more time those words will change to something like the equivalent of b’poop. And future generations won’t know where b’poop came from, much like many of our word origins are lost to antiquity.
Another really good one… the place is absolutely infested with mongrel dogs, and to do anything about the sad situation would be akin to depriving the animals of their life force. I used to wonder at how the piles of excrement that were everywhere moved around from day to day. None of it ever stayed in the same place.
The Tzotzil word for “dog” translates directly to “it eats shit”. Again, VERY practical.
Love it! Thank you, that was very interesting–contemporary etymology. You live a fascinating life.
Thanks, Jeff & Anonypuss, for your explanations – I was totally unaware of these connotations. The problem of ambiguity is probably less in the US, where I understand that “Orientals” significantly outnumber “Asians”, whereas the opposite is true in the UK.
Tt’s pretty well-established that our remote African ancestors were black because melanin protects against ultraviolet, but that after we left Africa, we needed paler skin to allow the much weaker sunlight further north to convert cholesterol to Vitamin D.
Remember that “races” are very much a social construct, and the underlying reality involves quite fine tunings of a whole range of factors – skin colour, hair colour, hair straightness, eye colour, height, fat distribution, bone-structure and more (lactose in/tolerance, blood type), and the fact that some of them change together may be quite coincidental. Look up “genetic drift”.
There’s a very subtle mistake in your exposition. No one “needed” paler skin. “Need” is not the converse of “benefits from”.
Rather, as in an population, there was variation in the first humans to colonize higher latitudes, including variation in skin color. Those with less melanin absorbed more sunlight, were healthier in consequence, and thus had a reproductive advantage over those with darker skin.
Don’t forget that vitamin D deficiency is the cause of rickets. The advantage of having a paler skin may have been greater than you might think.
It’s pretty difficult to show why particular traits arose, so I wouldn’t hold my breath that we’ll have convincing evidence for epicanthic folds. It’s always great when we do get convincing evidence for the forces behind the evolution of a trait, but the science of evolution does not depend on explaining the origins of all the features we see. “I don’t know” is an acceptable answer.
Not every feature is a product of natural selection. Over time every variation either tends to become fixed in a population or is driven to extinction. It’s just math, not even selection. So a lot of traits that are fixed in populations could just the product of chance and this mathematical fact. One the alleles in that population happened to produce this neutral feature (of no value or detriment) and it became fixed in that population (population here means a group that breeds a lot within itself… historically people were separated by geographic barriers and formed semi-isolated breeding populations for periods of time). This kind of drift is always the null hypothesis. It takes a lot more work to show that a particular trait was the product of selection.
Googling “genetic drift” will tell you more about this phenomena.
And to think there are people suggesting that Koko the gorilla cannot really communicate, but merely mimics phrases without cognition.
Here is an excellent example that suggests such behaviour is very human.
There are loads of videos on Youtube showing the evidence for the evolution of life on earth as well as the evidence for the evolution of the universe. It would be an interesting experiment to play these videos and an audio version of WEIT & Ancestors tale etc in prisons 24/7, with no choice of other viewing and the rule is that no one can get out of prison until they pass an exam listing the evidence for evolution. Well actually i would maybe allow them to see some videos on the history of religion as part of a series on the evolution of culture.
Luke 6v27 says,”love your enemy “, but maybe that should be ” know your enemy “. There should be a rule,” before you shoot, read their book, you might be able to help them by pointing out the errors.” They might notice there are more similarities than differences, but that all religious text mostly look like primitive guesses compared to the encyclopedia of the evolution of science. They might also notice the evolution of law codes, the evolution of the concept of hell & heaven, the evolution of stories about their prophets.
If people think it looks nearly magical that one species could become another well at least it is a billion little magical steps rather than one vast magical leap over the moon and everything came into life instantaneously as we see it today.
Imagine if there had been a real god observing the process of evolution. I would imagine such a god would have made sure that enough increments were fossilized and made visible on rock faces & coal measures etc that humans could marvel at the wondrous process. We could have had museums full of complete fossils and if we needed more why just nip out and dig up yet more. Why make all earlier species only to be forgotten ? Why wouldn’t a god who had delighted in his grand experiment say, ” Look the diversity and ingenuity of it is superb and the other wonderful thing is that there is nothing to fear in death, you just go back to how you were before you were born. Cosy nothingness ” Isn’t it amazing that you have sprung from a code that has been in development for 3 billion years and largely in existence for 100 million years ? P.s sorry about all the suffering, didn’t actually realize that Homo Sapiens would develop a brain capable of such awareness of itself.
I fail to see the value in equating learning about evolution with punishment. And are criminals really much of a concern when it comes to changing popular opinion?
Hi Diane G.
You make a good point that it wouldn’t be good to associate learning about evolution with punishment. On the other hand prison could be viewed as a place to retrain people. So if you could at least give the prison turnover good information then that might be a start to improving society? It might help them to think through problems better which could help prevent re-offending ? It could foster an interest in a subject they hadn’t paid much attention to ?
It would give them a grounding in reality.
I just thought it would make use of a captive audience.
I hate your suggestion ~ it’s tone deaf… as if you have no knowledge of the prison environment. It would dampen the spark of educational ambition in that portion of prisoners who wish to make a go of their lives
** UK Prisoners have an average reading age of 11
** Critical thinking skills are rare
** In US prisons [& a similar story in the UK] an unusually high number of convicts convert to Islam
Remedial education & social development programs are being reduced in prisons in the UK. Evolution education is way down the list of priorities ~ it’s simply out of reach amongst prisoners who were brought up in households where the only books are the Bible/Qur’an & the local telephone directory
Hi Michael,
Well of course my suggestion is quite fanciful & probably stated in an over the top way. Maybe I mean that a tailored program of information would help people in prison more than allowing the same old diet of junk tv they had back home. Probably there are well educated
people in prison too who just had an accident.
Trade skills might be of more immediate use anyway.
So what are your plans to raise peoples knowledge of the evidence for evolution ?
Quote:-
You can’t justifiably write “of course” there since I don’t know you & my first assumption is to take comments at face value unless they helpfully supply a *snark* indication at the end. You can cut “probably” too.
I do suggest that plain, direct writing would make your future comms more efficient. It would save you having to back pedal later.
I don’t have personal plans to raise peoples knowledge ~ I’m not an educator & I’m insufficiently schooled in teaching evolution. But, I do know that your initial comment was facile even if it is now claimed by you to be hyperbole, snark, witticism or some such.
I figured you were working the captive audience idea. 😀 And it is true that incarceration is most successful when it attempts to retrain rather than simply punish.
OTOH, nothing makes kids hate vegetables more than forcing them to eat them. And at least in the US, most prisoners are canny enough to know that finding Jesus never hurts their parole chances.
You did remind me though of a letter I read in some humanist mag from a person who regularly donates freethought (humanist, atheist) books & mags to prisons; s/he figured one item might just end up in the hands of one con who only needed to be exposed to the possibility of critical thinking…I thought that was an excellent idea. Counteracts the deluge of religious material, at least.
Scandalously, there isn’t an audible version of WEIT (at least on the UK site). Come on, Jerry, make an effort 🙂
You could do the narration yourself, like Richard and Greta do. That would be fairly awesome.
Maybe churches & mosques should be required to teach basic level of evolutionary theory in order to get tax breaks ?
I wonder if the media could add more wee mentions about the evidence for evolution through out the day ?
Maybe as more people get access to youtube and wikipedia they will self help more ?
Maybe there should be a test of peoples knowledge of the evidence for evolution before they can immigrate into the country ? It would probably be possible to define a level of knowledge about evolution above which the writings of books over 1300 years old will be seen as largely mumbo jumbo.
Religious fundamentalism is symptomatic of a n information deficit. If people are presented with all the pieces of the jigsaw then the picture they build is likely to be more moderate than if they only have a slither.
How much about evolution were people taught in school 50 years ago ? There might be many people over age 50 who have never paid it much attention ?
I like the idea in C.S. Lewis book, ” The voyage of the Dawn Treader ” where the children fall into the picture of a ship at sea “. I think people construct story pictures about their world then fall into them. A clear understanding of the sheer quantity of evidence for evolution and the real history of the world should go a long way to preventing children from falling into the pictures painted by ministers or imams etc. If the bible and koran had dates put on the events the absurdities would become more apparent.
A slither of information? That must be the serpent’s fault.
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“Maybe as more people get access to youtube and wikipedia they will self help more ?”
I think the jury is out on that one. I remember when the internet first fired up it seemed like it might be the end to a whole lot of ignorance and misunderstanding. Now, I thought, everyone can connect with the best information, interact with the best minds. I can chat with people in China, no need to merely speculate about what they might be thinking.
I’ve been rather dismayed to see the reality. The barriers to communication and understanding are mostly chosen, not imposed. Lifting the imposed barriers just allows many people to connect even more efficiently with people who are even more identical to themselves so they can reinforce their existing views with greater efficiency.
Clearly some people do stumble across new information, new ideas, and new insights on the web. I wonder if there has been a net improvement or not, though?
Agree. And the ‘net has only increased the proliferation of urban legends and conspiracy theorists.
I agree with your point about the Echo Chamber effect of faster more intricate intercommunications ~ human-caused climate change denialists, 9/11 truthers, anti-vaxxers & the multitude of racists all of whom can now easily find kindred spirits to validate & entrench their positions
But, on balance I think I see a net improvement ~ the tyrant job description has become much less attractive with the advent of smart phones & world wide internet news
I guess I’m optimistic that the net has been positive. I guess the total amount of communication of all sorts has exploded, so we see more of everything, including more crap. My dismay may just be the selection bias of getting to see all of this previously hidden crap out in full view.
There most definitely has.
The major news outlets generally have discussion fora, and atheists are contributing to them in force.
It won’t reach the super-insulated types, but it’ll definitely reach the overwhelming majority.
It’s also dramatically shifted the Overton Window.
b&
A prime example of why I am now an Apatheist.
“It cannot be conclusively proven as a fact, so therefore it is as much conjecture as is Creationism.”
Gah, I hate this logical fallacy! “It cannot be conclusively proven that smoking causes lung cancer, so therefore it is as much conjecture as saying smoking is good for the lungs.” “It cannot be conclusively proven that the earth orbits the sun, so it is as much conjecture as is geocentrism.”
“All probabilities are 50%. Either a thing happens or it doesn’t”.
Jumping to the end without reading any comments yet, I did search for embarrassed, tho, and came up empty. So:
Do you ever get mail from anyone saying that they once wrote you like this, or wrote stuff like that in general, and are now embarrassed by their earlier ignorance?
A waste of page space. Thankfully good paper (and more trees) weren’t consumed with that garbage.
No hope. Only ECT could help.
Sorry. There are some people who can write (some!) but not read.
On the evolution of religious texts by mutations of their code and the natural selection of them according to their ability to lure and frighten Homo Sapiens.
Parody on John 1v1 : In the beginning was the precursor to RNA code. Through evolution all things were made; without evolution nothing was formed that has been formed. Evolution produced
human intelligence. The theory of evolution is a cornerstone idea for humans that gives great solution finding powers. It shows that although the problem might look like an unscalable cliff it might be broken down into micro steps under careful examination.
The evidence for evolution was always around us but many did not recognise it, having been blinkered & lured into exile by the parasitic priests. These priests inhabit shells like hermit crabs which mimic reality. The texture of their shell has enough points corresponding with reality to fool the unwary prey. They are lured by nectar bribes of promises of a happy ever after with their loved ones, which appeals to their lust, and their investigation of their doubts is paralysed by spine chilling threats, which act on their fear.
Religious myth can be seen as a chapter in the big book of evolution of culture
The evolution of the Bible: The conglomeration of primitive guesses which form the bible are at war with each other. They are a symbiosis of ideas so much in conflict with each other that it is something of a miracle that they can coexist. Shall we compare them to the flagella motor or use the analogy of Cymbomonas digesting a cyanobacteria which later became a chloroplast ? Unfortunately their effect is more of the Vibrio cholerae variety , symptoms of delirium are often evident.
After modern humans had been around for 200,000 years they developed writing and the Jewish scribes recorded a couple of their best guesses as to how life originated. [ Unbeknownst to them some Greeks had better guesses.] Probably Jewish folk weren’t too uptight about their guesses but then at the council of Nicaea a Christian priest had a crafty idea of putting the book of Revelation with it’s curse against changing it’s text [ Rev 22v19 ] at the end of the Bible. Writing mutations on religious text was maybe as common then as ID currently is to evolution. The organelles of heaven and hades ,acquired from Greek mythology, were added to this mix to act as magnetic poles to send the thinking into a spinning vortex where anything possible can appear real. A comparison can be made to the effect of standing on a cliff edge with binoculars blinding out wider reference points and staring at small field of view eg a loon on the lake, dizziness is experienced. Possible result : falling in and drowning
Fortunately the anti-biotic effect of WEIT and other works containing a high % of reality can cure the patient from their malady. At any rate. removal of two short planks from eye is sure to improve focus allowing patient to notice that Genesis forgets to make god create volcanoes or mountains, though some sinking sand is mentioned in Gen 1v6-9, possible allusions to volcano in Gen 19v24. Yet Gen 7v19 mentions high mountains so that bible literalists can’t claim the mountains formed during or after the Gilgamesh / Noah flood myth imagined to have occurred 2300 BCE.