Do you really want me to post comments like this?

January 27, 2014 • 9:17 am

A while back I informed the readers that I get a fair numbers of creationists (and incoherent religionists) trying to post here, and I often simply delete the comments, not allowing them to go up. A few people, as I recall, said, “Why not post them? It gives us a chance to argue about creationism/religion.”

Just to show you why I deep-six many of these, here’s one I got a few minutes ago; I’ve left all the (inevitable) errors in:

robin ward commented on Bill Nye talks about his upcoming debate with Ken Ham

Hubble has disproved evolution ,
EVIDENCE proves evolution is a joke ( SSHOW ME JUST one TRANSITIONAL FORM)
Darwins brother George, a professor of math AT cAMBRIDGE, disproved evolution

MY UNCLE , A BOTANIST DIS-PROVED EVOLUTION –not once did he plant an apple seed and have a pear tree emerge; along with John Chapman proving apples will always be apples

How much more ‘TIME’ do evolutionists need to explain their THEORY?
In school 65 years ago , the universe was estimated to be 50M years old .To-day it has “aged” to be 45 BILLION+ years? how old will it be in another 65 years?

Now do you really want me to post comments like that? There is, of course, no possibility of changing “robin’s” mind, so the only reason to post this would be to either show the lunacy of creationists, or have the commenters use this person as a chew toy.

166 thoughts on “Do you really want me to post comments like this?”

  2. This would not be fun. There is nothing to debate. There is nothing to *read* even. (ick!)

  4. Oy! Keep a spare delete key in reserve, in case the present one goes bad. (Altho, from time to time, like maybe once a fortnight or so, an example like this could be interesting to see.)

  7. Posts like those are just silly, and you are absolutely right-there is no point in posting them! However, if there a few posts which seem to you, to have the appearance of rationality and which might indeed sway anyone on the fence, then definitely post them and let others have at ’em. 🙂

  8. Would make a good Monty Python sketch.

    Two men in London pub, flat caps, whiney nasal English voices:

    “Well, stands to reason, dunnit. I mean, the missis does a lot of gardening. When she plants her dahlias, they stay dahlias, I mean they don’t evolve suddenly into laburnums. That Darwin, bit of a screw loose, if you ask me. Heyvolution, what a load of bollocks.”

    2. he’s a creationist and he’s ok
      he sleeps all night and he works all day…

      I cut down trees, I skip and jump, I like to press wild flowers.I put on women’s clothing And hang around in bars.

  9. I was of the opinion everything should be out there… But I see your point. It would just turn the comments section into an unpleasant mess with silly ‘arguments’ about already established facts. But a best of crazy comments with straight forward answers debunking the most common misconceptions might be good. It might also help young people who are being introduced to the topic…

  10. I wouldn’t want them to pollute the comments, however maybe you can got Dawkins to do a fireside reading of the best (i.e. worst).

  11. This is a tough one for me. On one hand, this level of ignorance leaves no room for any reasonable discussion. On the other hand, insulated locales like this tend to lull people into a false sense of what the average level of conversation looks like.

    1. Yeah but it is easy to pop into news stories to get a feel for some of the outrageousness out there. We don’t need to bring it to us. 🙂

      1. Yeah, but news stories are edited, so you don’t get this un-doctored level of ignorance. 😉 Oh well, what do I know.

        1. Oh, I was thinking about comments to the news stories. That’s where all the crazies are and they usually don’t get censored. It’s good practice to engage them there.

  12. It’s…. It’s a poe, right? I mean, no way someone comes up with this unless….. No. I know these people.

    Does this mean you (or a moderator) have to read every one of these as it hits the filter? I feel bad for you.

  16. “Sshow me just one transitional form”?

    Well, the original writer seems to be a transitional form between a completely incoherent life-form and a modern human.

  19. I sometimes respond to comments like these on Twitter. When people say evolution is a fraud, I’ll ask them this: “Look in a mirror. Assuming you’re not adopted, do you see a resemblance to your parents? Yes, you do. If evolution is a fraud, what other biological process accounts for this?” I never get a response.

  20. We absolutely could do without such comments, they could easily devolve into violent flame wars and a shit-storm of insults back and forth.

  21. We can only sympathize with you for having to deal with it, and express our appreciation for you saving us from having to wear our (high) rubber boots to keep out the Deepitys and their ilk.

    Maybe you could deputize some Deleters?

  23. No, don’t bother. (Although occasionally it is probably useful for us to see what clutters your inbox.)

  25. All it would do is derail the thread. Personally, I’ve had enough of debating these clowns, they don’t come up with anything new, just the same tired arguments.

    1. Same here for me. You just cant reason with them and no matter how much evidence you give and how logical you are with them, they still keep on arguing. In some cases perhaps call you names or at least in my experience which i find childish. My whole point its just not worth having a conversation with people like that, because you cant have a nice reasonable adult conversation with them.

  26. Wait a minute?! He’s right!! Of course, evolution is a lie, I see it now!!

    Good job Jerry let that one through or we would never have known.

    Right, I’m off to dedicate my life to Jesus.

  27. Change Robin’s mind? Look what good all Robin’s education has done for him (her?) so far.

    Seriously, don’t let them pollute your generally high quality comments – moderating this nonsense is a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

  28. I thought, once in a blue moon, perhaps why not? Just to be reminded again of the insane lucubrations of unlearned people.

    But event that is not even worth it — A quoi bon? (What’s the payoff?) Nothing to learn, of any kind. And this can be only a time-waster, cluttering the mind with nonsense.

    Deleting is the only reasonable action.
    And keeping your powder to fight the heavyweights who have some kind of readership or following.

    Deepak Chopra, Ken Ham, yes, they are good subjects. But dealing with the insane private thoughts of the rank-and-file, whose opinions matter to nobody, are interesting to nobody, and influence nobody, is a sheer waste of valuable brainpower.

    The quantity of private insanity that finds a public outlet thanks to the internet is like an immense collapsed reservoir of absurd ideas that are best left ignored.
    Only the mouthpieces, the known names, the established academics, and influential authors or thinkers are worth your attention and combative activism.

  29. Don’t publish. I could made better use of the last 10 seconds of my life; like taking a s***.

  30. I’m bored with such drivel (how do you stand it?). I am interested in understanding creationists, but such incoherent stuff tells me nothing about their arguments, such as they are, and do not come from anyone of stature within creationism so is not worth using as evidence against it.

    When a John Lennox starts talking about Creation Days, or Ken Ham talks about the canopy of waters in Genesis providing material for the flood, that is worth knowing about. That some eejit talks such piffle as this is, alas, not news, and IMO certainly not interesting.

  31. Comments like that are fun to laugh at, though disheartening when you think about it.

    Allowing those to go through into the comments would trash up the place, though.

    My druthers are to keep filtering them, but also post some of the better ones for us to laugh at / cry about.

  32. Apt juxtaposition with sloth defecation strategies. I agree with and much appreciate Dr. Coyne’s choice to bury them under the leaves. As Goethe wrote: “We believe ourselves capable of building palaces for people, but when we come to the point, we find we have our hands full merely disposing of their excrement. It is a loathsome task, nevertheless it must be done.”

  33. Obligatory comment that 65 years ago was 1949. Even a brief hunt on Wikipedia shows that in 1905, we had dated rocks to older than the commenter’s 50 million years and notes that estimates of the Earth’s age of tens of millions of years were all done prior to the discovery of radioactivity*. While I can believe the commenter had a poor education, one should know the facts before entering the discussion.

    (Yes, ‘In the early 20th century, Dr. Bertram Boltwood published work stating that radioisotope dating indicated rocks were hundreds of millions of years old’ is a fact. ‘In the early 21st century, Robin Ward wrote that because his apple seeds didn’t grow into pear trees, Darwin was wrong about evolution.’ is also a fact. Simply because one does not agree with the conclusions of the author(s) does not disprove that they wrote something.

    * Which I’m sure the commenter will take as a sign of the unreliability of science. How dare we change our mind when we discover something new that allows us to explain more of the cosmos more accurately. We should pretend that we have always reached the same conclusions, so that our children grow up thinking that we have access to universal truth.

  34. I don’t think you should post this stuff. If some one tries to post a creationist argument that seems at least mildly informed, and that posits arguments to which a rational reply is possible, that would be one thing. There is nothing to be done with this except to call the person names.

  35. Agreed. That’s an inane comment and not worth the electrons.

    As someone who has recently expressed interest in seeing some of these “counter” comments, I admit my error. I stand corrected.

    Dialog is futile.

  36. It’s too bad there isn’t a computer program that can quickly filter out these nonsense comments, so you don’t have to waste your time.

    Any programmers know if this is even possible at this point?

  39. OK, I already know a bacteria is still a bacteria, and a dog is still not a cat, and there are still monkeys.

    And, I already know there are not transitional fossils.

    And, I know evolution has been disproved.

    Yeah, right. Don’t need to read those same (uninformed) arguments over and over every day.

    I appreciate this blog the way it is…I actually learn stuff. (No need to wade through the creationist stuff…lots of other places for that stuff.)

  40. I would go for filtering them since they get rather tedious and get in the way of any interesting discussion.
    They can be amusing though, in small doses, so an occasional post highlighting some of the best would be fun. Especially if they are allowed to comment freely on that those posts.

  41. Does he offer an alternate hypothesis other than implying god did it just like it says in the bible? What these lunkheads fail to understand is that evolution being false does not imply that creationism is true. Suppose that tomorrow, the entire biological cabal got together and announced – “Sorry, we were wrong. We now know that we got this whole evolution thing wrong. We have definitive evidence against evolution.”

    That does not mean we accept the creationist drivel – just that we would need to find another explanation.

  42. Just to add my voice: I really like the level of comments here. There is no need to allow creationist drivel to dominate the threads.

    If people want to see creationists dismantled, there other websites for that all over internet.

  44. Maybe you shouldn’t filter out all the creationists, just the ones that are illiterate. There’s no point arguing with people who would be stumped by a coherent sentence.

  45. No, the comment you use for an example has too many warning signs of crankery. In addition to the pathetic arguments it jumps around all over and DISSPLAYS THE PROBLEMS WIHT ALLCAPS and to much EXCITEMINT!!!! Besides, the odds of this guy being anything other than a ‘Seagull’ (drops a stinky mess and flies away before the responses come back) are slim.

    Spare us, O Wise Ceiling Cat!

    But, being wise, you know that not all creationists are quite at this level of ineptitude. Smart people can believe some very dumb things. I do think that dealing with folks in that group can help us understand how and where the problems begin, so that we can learn to address them better online and/or in real life — if we so wish.

    Filters have many settings between ON and OFF. I trust your discretion.

  46. I would greatly appreciate if your blog site wouldn’t go that “dogpile” and “chew-toy” path like certain other atheist/bio blogs.

    It is unfortunate that censorship is common within some ideologies/belief systems that are demonstrably false and which cannot be challenged where they occur. Of course, evolution is not one of them. But I believe we should resist the urge in this case to give room for demonstrably false nonsense just because we don’t want to give the appearance evolution was a dogma.

    There are (and have been) plenty of opportunities for the Faithful to make their case, and they should have that avenue in principle. But it is the question only you can answer whether your blog site is one of these places.

    I’d say if someone has actually understood the theory they critize and reject and come with specialist questions, where answering (and discussing them) might be worthwhile, interesting or otherwise, then creationist commentary might be useful. Otherwise I believe we can do without.

    Obviously, it’s just my humble opinion as a reader.

  47. robin ward wrote:

    SSHOW ME JUST one TRANSITIONAL FORM

    I assume your parents weren’t robins. Therefore, the theory of evolution wins! The christian gods are losers.

  48. I am glad that “vetting” takes place in the comments section. I am sure Prof Ceiling Cat would not have a problem with an intelligent comment disagreeing with one of His (lolz) posts. The problem is lack of intelligent and interesting disagreement.

  49. I also agree with not posting such comments. I see enough of these on other sites and they often drag the level of discussion way down.

    I enjoy this site and have learned a great deal. I like the variety of posts and just love the discussions which are so enlightening and entertaining. For my two cents worth, Jerry, you are right to keep these posts off, though I really don’t know how you wade through this stuff and stay sane!

  50. Unless they are truly nutty and funny I would
    say skp them Maybe gather a bunch over some time and show them every few months or so.
    The scientific stuff is very much appreciated and the trashing of sophisticated theologians is always interesting.

  51. Maybe you should make an arrangement with the guys over at antievolution.org / After the Bar Closes. They’ve been gnawing on the same toy for months. They might enjoy a new flavor or two.

      1. I concur. Creationist wing nut of the month. And wing nut of the year gets an autographed WEIT. Their children may read it if they don’t toss it. Who knows what serendipity lurks.

      2. I concur. Creationist wing nut of the month. And wing nut of the year gets an autographed WEIT. Their children may read it if they don’t toss it. Who knows what serendipity lurks.

  55. No. I don’t want to see the comments filled up with the garbled ramblings of religious non-science.

    This is a nice place and you keep it well maintained. A place for civil discussion. Dissent is allowed, but civility, and intelligibility, are required. It is a nice contrast with other websites which shall go nameless.

    1. I concur that the answer is “No.” One can find idiots commenting on a lot of websites. I am grateful that Jerry takes the time to read responses from his readers and cull the ones that really add nothing but stupidity to the conversation. The example he posted would have done nothing but completely derail the thread while others argued with a person who’s brain is not amenable to logical argument.

    1. No. This guy should have been brought up in an environment where his teachers did not lie to him, where his pastors did not lie to him, where his family and friends did not lie to him. Being told lies often enough, he grew up believing them.

    2. Which sort of penguin? I can’t think of a species that’s (approximately) an oblate spheroid.

  59. Jerry, my preference would be for you to continue to not habitually post such stuff from religionists, yet to still occasionally post particularly egregious examples (excerpted or total) as you just did for both the mirth we can wring from them and to keep us reminded that the more extreme anti-science, anti-reason and pro-willful ignorance fundamentalists are still out there, and of what they are like.

    2. I am a little bit concerned about posting ONLY the most egregious examples. That would tend to create — or reinforce the already existing impression that ALL creationists have extreme views contrary to the reality as pro-evolution-thinking people understand it.

      Yes, I DO understand that almost by definition, creation-thinking people are taking a view that diverges from what appears to be the reality. Even so, I’m inclined to think that it would be best to post ALL of them or none at all.

      After all, we evolutionists are human, too — some of us EXCEPTIONALLY so!

      2. I agree that posting only the worst is a disservice to our own impression of reality. I wouldn’t want to see all of them either, though. Yuck. Maybe a random sample one day a month or something.

  60. No, please don’t publish this kind of stuff. This is my favorite website largely because of the commentary. It is comparatively free from the rudeness, petty bickering, and drive-by thread derails that typically bog down internet discussion.

    Comments like this will never play a constructive role in any discussion. All they are good for is something to point and laugh at. And while that can be fun sometimes, I’m afraid it will drag the level of discussion down to snarky comebacks and mean-spiritedness.

    1. Yes, I agree with this. Most comment sections are terrible, and even the good people cannot help themselves and you get 20 replies to every trollish provocation. Give me strong moderation!

  61. I wonder why so many creationist commenters cannot type or write: Is it because of RAGE, mental instability, or lack of education? Regardless, creationist comments are so poorly written and thought-out that it is depressing to think about the minds that wrote them.

    Thanks be to Ceiling Cat for protecting us from having to gaze into the abyss of human ignorance.

  62. I would think the job of filtering this stuff is pretty daunting, depending on how many you typically get. Even though you can probably hit “delete” after reading the first few words, if there are a substantial number, it must take a lot of time that could be spent writing one of your (or ceiling cat’s) contributions. And I thank you for it.

    So please continue to delete away! Perhaps a once a year posting of the 10 most ignorant attacks on evolution would be amusing.

  63. Not only is there is no shortage of written jackass ignorance available elsewhere, the supply seems to be unlimited. I admit that from time to time I view reader’s comments accompanying hot-button articles on other sites, and it’s a little like slowing for a look-see when passing nasty wreckage from a car crash: I’m often appalled by what I see, and reluctant to examine too deeply why I was so damned curious to begin with. Not that I plan to completely avoid reading them in the future, no, but I am happy they are not included on this site.

    1. One of the major science blogs I regularly visit is like that. It has very highly educated and super smart people posting thoughtful comments, then ‘splat’ a creationist troll or some other idiot enters and craps all over everybody. Screaming and swearing ensues. The moderator? Nowhere to be found.

  64. So long as it’s once in a while (say once a month) and so long as there’s a point to be made in posting it, rather than ‘hey look at the stupid creationist’, then yes – I would like to see posts like this.

    Once approach could be to ask readers to critique a specific aspect of the post.

    For example George Darwin was Charles’ son – not his brother.

    Mike.

      1. How many howlers like this does Dr. Coyne get, though? Is this example a rare one, or is it one of several such crazy comments during a week of posting, or something along those lines?

    1. There is, of course, no possibility of changing “robin’s” mind…

      A minor quibble, but I think the quotes should’ve been put around the word “mind”.

      1. No I think Jerry was right in putting it around the name as he may not be sure it’s his real name so that the quotes have the effect of saying “so called Robin”.

  68. \/ \_

    Fascinating.

    Hubble has disproved evolution , … In school 65 years ago , the universe was estimated to be 50M years old .To-day it has “aged” to be 45 BILLION+ years? how old will it be in another 65 years?

    I think ward is referring to Hubble the astronomer, that was instrumental in testing deep astronomical time consistent with deep geological time:

    “Our estimate of the age and size of the Universe has changed during the past century. …

    Here we describe these estimates.

    1919
    Age: Infinite
    Size: 300,000 Light Years

    In the early 20th century, astronomers thought that the Universe was infinitely old and unchanging. Meanwhile geologists were determining the age of the earth to be about 1.6 billion years old using early applications of radioactive decay.

    929
    Age: 2 Billion Years
    Size: 280 Million Light Years

    In 1924, Edwin Hubble determined the distance to the Andromeda Nebula to be 900,000 light years. By 1929, he had measured the distances to 24 additional spiral nebulae in his study to determine distances to the galaxies for which Slipher had previously determined redshifts. The farthest was 140 million light years away, making the universe 280 million light years across.

    One result from Hubble’s discovery of the relationship between the recessional velocity and distance to distant galaxies is that the constant which defines that relationship is also related to the age of the universe. If the universe has been expanding, and Hubble’s constant gives the expansion rate, then its inverse gives the amount of time that the expansion has been going on. Hubble’s initial value of this constant gives an age of the universe of 2 billion years. Interestingly, at this same time geologists had determined the age of the Earth to be 3 billion years.

    1955
    Age: 6 Billion Years
    Size: 4 Billion Light Years

    As a result of the recalibration of the Cepheid distance scale and of the new results from the 200-inch telescope at Mt. Palomar, the size of the Universe increased to 4 billion light years by the mid-1950’s.

    In 1952, Walter Baade redetermined the value of Hubble’s constant to be much lower than what Hubble had estimated. As a result, the Universe was found to be about 6 billion years old.”

    Now only the interesting paragraph titles:

    1965
    Age: 10-25 Billion Years
    Size: 25 Billion Light Years

    1993
    Age: 12-20 Billion Years
    Size: 30 Billion Light Years

    2006
    Age: 13.7 Billion Years
    Size: 94 Billion Light Years

    The last from standard cosmology so now 13.8 Ga.

    [ http://cosmictimes.gsfc.nasa.gov/teachers/guide/age_size.html ]

    So astronomical deep time has been sufficient to embed geological deep time and so biology most of the time modern biology has existed, and geological time definitely sufficed.

    But there was a slight tension between Hubble’s _first published estimate of his function and an assumption of linear expansion (his “constant”_. Both has been shown to be erroneous, the first almost instantaneously (of course, needing just a recalibration of the then imprecise astronomical distance ladder).

    Note also how ward clings to pre-standard cosmological notions of constant expansion rate, denying all of modern cosmology and especially dark energy.

    This is ignorant and bloviated* AiG stuff, I’m sure.

    * From experimental tensions, which in science offer but don’t guarantee promising resolutions. Or really anything which anti-scientists can say from a position of ignorance is ‘erroneous’.

    1. Oh, I forgot, do I really want to see this? Well, a few/year perhaps.

      But they Gish Gallop in fractal error style, so maybe we can pick only one thing to criticize just for the fun and educational aspect of it?

      I was aware of the astro-geo time scale tension, but I couldn’t place it. I have been more aware of the within astro time scale tension.

      Stars were known to be older than estimates of the universe age before the standard cosmology resolved that, perhaps during the very period Ward tries to impute infallible, unchanging astronomy. With a factor 2 [!] right before WMAP’s observations killed that question.

      Just another matter AiG can’t mention…

    2. 1919, Infinite universe age. I was going to point that out too.

      Well summarized. And seeing a couple of these comments per year is worthwhile. Gives us a chance to ask (rhetorically) the benighted: “What is your God? You people never explain that to us.”

    4. That was an enjoyable summary! This is an example of how much better and bigger our world of science is from the blinkered YEC view of things. 10,000years <<<< 13.8 billion years!

  69. Wow…I take just a few minutes to sling a few lines of code, and suddenly there’s a new post with four score responses. A whole lotta somebodies clearly drank some coffee this morning, and I’m obviously not one of them….

    b&

    1. COFFEE!? BEEN THERE, DONE THAT,

      How much more ‘COFFEE’ do commenters need to explain their TARDINESS?

      [Ob =D]

  70. I would vote for NOT deleting Creationists comments, regardless of how poorly (if at all) the commenter demonstrates an understanding of science and evolutionary biology – and from Robin’s comments I would say he/she obviously understands neither. So long as the comments are civil, I see no reason in deleting them. My reasoning for this is that some Creationists websites censor and delete the well reasoned and well written comments from evolutionists. It suggests a lack of integrity, and lack of trust in their own beliefs/religion.

  71. Deleted them, I say. I do enjoy reading them (at a base level) but as other commenters have noted, there’s seldom anything novel. Other websites do a fine job of exposing their arguments to light.

  72. On second thought, I can see your reasoning for deleting poor comments – you would end up spending all your time moderating the endless replies!

  73. We are already adequately served by other sites showing the lunacy of creationists or letting the commenters use such people as chew toys.

  74. If any of them have something coherent to say it might be interesting to let them through. But 99.9% aren’t in that category.

  75. That level of argument is like saying: “You can’t take the train to New York since, as anyone can see, the rails meet in the distance.”

    Forward those to Bill Nye, he can get Ham’s opinion.

  76. I agree with those who suggest the occasional creationist e-mail be exhibited for our amusement. Would not want to see them on a routine basis. I like abeastwood’s suggestion at #12 for a top ten each year.

  77. I’d like the compromise I think I’ve seen a few others suggest. Filter out these unproductive comments from most entries to avoid derailing the discussion, but post them from time to time in dedicated threads to allow discussion. People like Robin may not be particularly open to changing their minds, but bystanders and lurkers will benefit from it, especially given the caliber of commenters here. And you never know with the creationists, either. Of course, they’re not going to change their minds overnight, but discussion might plant the first seeds of doubt in their minds.

  78. Please don’t post this kind drivel. As funny as some of these reply’s must be, what good does it do? On second thought, why not get a good laugh every now and again from one of these “cray-cray” creationist e-mails?

  79. Only post the funniest, zaniest, juiciest comments/emails. I love reading incoherent creationist rants (random capitalization and out of control punctuation marks are a huge plus) but the ones that parade around as logical and scientific are just boring. I got a good laugh out of this one. I’d just hate to see them clutter up the comments, yours are much more readable than those at some other websites.

  80. Because I come here mostly interested in reading biology stuff, please delete most of the creationist comments. There are plenty of other places they can be found.

  84. As a good citizen I cast my ballot with an emphatic no, no matter that I skip these anyhow.

    This site is special (to me) and offers rich, thoughtful posts on evolutionary biology, analyses of scientific papers I’d otherwise not see and also would probably not understand without someone doing the hard work (as well as having the background), the ongoing dialogue with Hili (my daughter as well as me love Hili and have come not to mind Fitness, too, whose name we’ve always liked), pictures and comments on great food/food places, including us on your trips to see things and learn about things that make us feel we are along)…well, I could continue.

    Let others provide this (dis)service although I do think you choose them very carefully, perhaps to illustrate a point or make a point.

    Stay warm as we are trying to do here, today, in a numbing and brittle, Saint Paul.

  85. Comments from creationists are not challenging. They are disappointing. There is hope that their darkness will be so meaningless it will actually shed light on something never thought of before. But this is never the case and it is disheartening to think that I, and most other commenters on WEIT, can think of better arguments for a god than most religious people have ever done.

    To begin, I can of numerous highly implausible, though possible, gods, but none them require that I exclude evolution as a fact. Good grief.

    2. If there were a truly evil god, evolution would surely be their choice method of creating conscious beings. (Presumably evil gods enjoy the sight of suffering and presumably consciousness of suffering is better than mere sensation of pain.)

  86. My favorite comments (often elevated to a new posting) are those from former creationists who have been turned to the dark side –er, to the light of science and reasoning. Can’t get enough of those.

          1. Just when, after learning of aquatic sloths, I thought my mind had been irreparably blown for the day…

            …along comes bebop bagpipe Christmas carols.

            And the really scary thing is…he’s got a better tone than most sax players….

            b&

          2. “The King of Jazz Bagpipes”

            It’s remarkable that he’s managed to hold on to the title for so long, what with all the hungry and ferocious competition.

          5. I love this snippet from his wiki:

            On several occasions, when a neighbor called the police to complain about Harley’s practicing in his apartment, he would quickly put away his bagpipes and feign ignorance, asking the officers, “Do I look like I’m Irish or Scottish to you?”

          7. Thus reminds me of a comment made by the director of a choir I accompanied while we were on tour in Ireland. He said he was surprised by the number of African-Americans there are in Ireland.

            :/

        4. Is there such a thing as a good piper?

          Yes.
          Remember that they’re considered as weapons in the army. Their intention is to harass, distress and upset people on the field of battle.
          On the street corner, on the other hand …

          2. For the Scottish army, no! We have to add “music”.
            Wasn’t the nutcase helicopter general in “Apocalypse Now” – the one with the Wagner and the smell of napalm in the morning – of Scottish descent? Same logic. And there are apocryphal tales of police doing nasty things to hostage situations involving loudspeakers and heavy metal? I think that there’s even a Biblical precedent, not that that is an argument worthy of consideration.

  88. Is it possible to have another link on the left side, perhaps called “Sophisticated Theologian?”? Which lists these comments possibly with comments disabled. While I applaud your removing of these comments which are distracting from your articles, it would be nice to have a history of the types of responses websites such as yours generates.

  89. This reader appreciates the moderation of blog comments and deleting those that are insincere, like the one in the post. WEIT may occasionally receive comments from the religious that demonstrate a degree of due diligence, an interest in learning, and a possibility of a change in mind. In these cases, Professor Ceiling Cat and his readers are well placed to expand the faithful inquisitor’s consciousness, which is implied in the good Professor’s post.

  90. The only reason I can see to post religulous remarks like Robin Ward’s would be to build up a corpus of instances that might be of use to psychologists trying to understand the nature of religious delusion. Not sure it would have to be visible to all of us all the time, though.

  91. Another “No” vote here. Nothing to be gained by letting creationists hijack random threads with their nonsense.

  92. The occasional pearler* is acceptable, but I certainly don’t need yet more evidence of the world’s stupidity in my favourite not-a-blog.

    *I notice that “pearler” is unknown to the spell-checker and I realise it is an Australian colloquialism, it means something that is particularly good.

  93. Please continue the careful moderation, except for the occasional howler. (No offense, Marella.)

  94. No, please don’t keep comments that are obviously insane ramblings. This is one of the few places on the internet where one can have reasonable discourse.

    I have absolutely no problem with seeing dissenting views in this forum, provided they are stated in a reasonable manner and without strings of all capitals. All caps is usually an immediate sign of an irrational thinker.

  95. If it is not too much to ask, please continue the moderation.

    It is my daily feed of rational thinking, occasional humour with a dollop of esoterics. I am amazed that someone can write so much and keep us informed, educated and entertained. The comment section is populated by so many excellent contributors. And a bonus of a clean house, no poop on the carpet!

  96. Emphatically, NO.

    I rarely read posts of this type. We all know how credulous and divorced from reason these people are. What point is there in rehashing this tripe over and over?

  97. I don’t mind seeing one of these once in a while, even one as ignorant and incoherent as this gem, but I’d certainly not want to face this on a daily basis.

    I’ve got to say though, that Torbjörn’s comment was a fine example of what can be done to turn even the worst creationist parrot chatter into something interesting. Would Torbjörn have written what he did if you’d not let Robin’s comment through? I’ll bet many of us benefited. If there’s a board that has what it takes to turn tripe into a diamond, this is it.

  98. In general, these shouldn’t be posted; creationists already have plenty of places to express themselves and there’s no way to tell the difference between sincere ignorance/curiosity and plain trolling. On the other hand, I think it’s OK to publish these every now and then, just as a reminder of what we’re up against.

  99. That comment is a worthless, ignorant rant. I’m sorry, Jerry, that you have to take the trouble to censor them, but I appreciate it.

  100. My first thought was to write that comments such as that by Robin Ward should be allowed. But on second thought, it provides no rational argument is support of her anti-science rant. If and when a “creationist” should post a rational argument, please do post it. I do not think that is going to happen, however.

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