This Kickstarter project, which I wrote about in August, intends to PROVE that God exists by showing that evolution is bogus. Back then it had $0 in contributions. Well, they’ve gone up a bit, and the project expires about 4 p.m. Chicago time. Here’s a precis of the goals:
In order to prove God exists we have to eliminate the idea that evolution is all-encompassing. I believe in evolution on a small scale. We see evolution from a maggot to a fly. However, to say that humans came from a single cell organism is a bit far fetched. I believe the populist has accepted the idea of evolution due to the lack of evidence of the contrary. Currently evolution is being taught in public schools as a fact, and new generations do not accept intelligent design.
I am graduating with my Maters degree in psychology and entering into my Doctorial program at Arizona State University. I plan to concentrate in Evolutionary Psychology and Child Psychology. I am currently working on my Doctorial thesis that will follow Charles Darwin’s journey to the Galapagos Islands. By following the steps and research of Darwin my researchers and I can detail the evidence and experiments that Darwin used for his Theory of Evolution. By following in Darwin’s footsteps, I hope to prove that evolution is confined into stages. Each stage will allow evolution to occur but is limited to a self-sustaining longitudinal circle. Publishing this theory with a documentary film and publications, we can eliminate the over all idea that evolution is all-encompassing. The above idea is step one of a multi step plan to change the view of evolution by proving that certain aspects could not have evolved without being created by an intelligent design. I am not out to promote a region or way of life. I just believe there has got to be a better answer than all in compassing evolution. Thank you for reading this.
Goal: Document and film the work of Charles Darwin to discover evidence of intelligent design. In order to prove intelligent design we must debunk the idea that evolution is all encompassing (from single cell to human).
I won’t highlight the misspellings and grammatical infelicities (the person can’t even spell his thesis). And I wonder how Christian Klingeler got into ASU’s doctoral program. Anyway, here’s the take from the $75,000 requested. Someone’s played a hilarious joke with the donation:
h/t: Ben Goren
The ironing is most delicious, indeed!
b&
I hesitate to speculate on how – or indeed, why – you taste your ironing. If this question remains unexamined, I think we’ll all be deeply grateful. It sounds scarier than the Canadian paper re-arranger.
Some depths should not be delved.
Ironing is an essential part of an healthy diet! At least 7 to 18 mg daily, depending on age and gender.
It’s part of why I’m so fond of cooking with ironic skillets.
b&
6.66 – interesting choice of numbers. Even without the obvious implications of the number it is $6.67 too much!
I think you’ll find several of the backers are readers of this website, who donated in order to be allowed to comment on the project on the site. They ‘fessed up in the comments when Jerry first wrote about this. 🙂
Yes, and I hope Klingeler thanks Prof Coyne for sending his only backers and, um, saving him from embarrassment!
This is a strange new use of the word “saving”.
He could claim that 100% of his backers were sent by a well known scientist.
That I’d like to see!
Thanks Heather. I missed it, I guess…
All in compassing?? I guess it’s how you hold the compass…
Evolution from maggot to fly???? Not quite ready for prime time, to say the least.
What’s worse is that he thinks it’s evolution when a maggot develops into a fly, but apparently not when a human egg develops into a human:
And he did it himself in nine months. (Apologies to J.B.S. Haldane)
Beat me to it. 🙂
To quote either John Wheeler (high-grade physicist) or one of several other contenders, “That’s not even wrong!”
To quote Marvin, “It gives me a headache to think down to that level.”
The idea is a bit far down fetched all right. =D
That reminds me of stars, a priori & for realz they seem far fetched. Stars come from a gravitational assembly of hydrogen and helium where hydrogen starts to fuse. ‘What!? A core at ~ 10^7 K and ~ 10^16 Pa!? You’re crazy!’ [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_core ]
Star development, organism development, the sock that mysteriously disappeared last wash… nature is filled with a priori low probability events.
The probability of at least one sock disappearing from a wash load containing multiple socks is close to unity.
I saw something fascinating coming out of Kepler-2 last night : a white dwarf with an asteroid-size orbiting object in a 4.5 hour orbit, which is being vaporized by the radiation from the star.
40% dimming at peak eclipse. That’s pretty wild! And it’s reality, not fantasy.
Mater’s degree??? Guess it don’t really mater. Feel like launching into Stabat Mater.
He means his mother has a degree.
Well, if genes will out, she has a degree of poor choice of sperm donor.
By which she stands
Mind under Mater.
Maybe he has the same degree as this fellow: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/21/MaterCars.jpg
No, silly, them’s mOTor cars😁
LOL
Weren’t we all a single cell at one point in the past?
Me thinks Ben had a hand in those numbers. 👹👺
Not me. The real culprit took credit the last time Jerry posted on it….
b&
Name names. Credit where it’s due. (If it was me, I must have been spectacularly drunk to not remember either the donation or the comment! But it’s definitely down to my sort of level.)
I’ll blame HarperMan. Isn’t that the tradition? Blame everything on the guy who just got fired? And it’s not like he’d notice an extra bit of blame what with everything else he fucked up….
b&
You must read the CBC commenters. I had to have a chuckle. You do realize, only another Canadian will get it.
In contrast, Zach Weinersmith asked for $15,000 and raised $165,000 in three days.
Thanks for introducing me to this Zach Weinersmith chap! Cool . . .
True, but it would be foolish to suggest that fundraising success has a linear relation to the quality or truth of a project. One need look no further than the success many US megachurches to realize that complete BS can raise lots of money.
An air-headed creationist stance gets exactly what it deserves, humiliatingly, publicly?
Ok, there must be a God.
God gave up on her kind long ago, she’s finding the atheists are on to something better.
“Ok, there must be a God.”
And karma, and perhaps even justice.
Where did the picture come from? It looks interesting, though scientifically suspect in its apparent ancestral reconstructions.
I knew I had seen it somewhere. It comes from a poster.
Ah, thanks. It’s an odd poster. Are those internal nodes supposed to be ur-adults, ur-embryos, or some combination thereof? And of course there are serious problems with the phylogeny: no Ecdysozoa, for example. Still, kind of cool.
He probably should have gone on the conservative church circuit rather than KickStart – might have gotten past the mark of the beast. Maybe start with the church that I recently passed in northern Indiana on State Road 4 near Middlebury. Sign out front proclaimed “Evolution is not a hope, it is a hoax.” Not even sure what that all means, but maybe the good folks there would kick in a few bucks.
Thanks for brightening today for me. I was grappling with a difficult freelance project. Then I read this, and thought to myself, “If this dumb guy can get into a doctoral program, surely I, being obviously smarter than him, can solve this small problem.”
This has got to be a spoof.
Evolution from a maggot to a fly? Are you sure this entire thing isn’t a joke?
“We see evolution from a maggot to a fly. However, to say that humans came from a single cell organism is a bit far fetched.”
Zygote. QED.
He’s working on his “doctorial” thesis? Surely his time would be better spent working on his doctoral thesis . . .
This must be a parody, how can a person like this really exist?
What is wrong with “doctorial?” Look it up.
What is funny is that he probably expected god to perform some kind of miracle, and get the $75,000 in the last minute. Sorry, no miracles.
I did look it up. And I’ve NEVER heard anyone use the word “doctorial”.
It is used, but it is still incorrect.
The extra syllable makes it sound “fancier.”
“The extra syllable makes it sound “fancier.””
Wouldn’t that be “fancorial”?
I think he meant to write ‘doctrinal’.
Might be both if he’s going to Liberty University or some other fundy school.
Perhaps he meant “doctored”, as in “faked”?
I think he may have just proved that Satan exists. Flunked the God proof, however.
“We see evolution from a maggot to a fly. However, to say that humans came from a single cell organism is a bit far fetched.”
This is hilarious. If evolution is merely the growth of a creature through it’s stages of life (maggot -> fly), then of course all humans started out as a single-cell, the zygote that forms when the sperm hits the egg!
My husband once said that to a lady who approached him and launched into a “Well, I just don’t see how evolution could possibly be true – how can a single cell end up more complex?”
So my husband replied, “Well, you look pretty complex to me, but we both know YOU started as a single cell – a fertilized egg.”
She took her commentary elsewhere.
Shoot…only $74,993.34 short. I’m sure he can borrow the rest. Maybe get a smaller boat with oars.
Well, maybe not oars plural. Unless tongue depressers qualify….
b&
Since he clearly doesn’t row with both oars in the water anyway, plural might not be required.
Very nice…
Can we take this project’s abject failure as the Lord speaking apophatically to say: “Evolution is True. There is no evidence for My existence”?
The more I read about those trying to prove God’s existence the sadder I become for the proponents. In the beginning — considering what Joseph Campbell called primitive religions, mainly the prehistoric — deities were transcendent meaning they are within belief, but beyond proof.
It’s sad that so many who believe God exists disbelieve he/she could have the power to create what science reveals.
I miss the olden days when you had to have a spelling degree before you got your Maters or Doctorial degrees.
Did you mean speling degree? 🙂
Oops. Of coarse! Speling. Your write.
“But I really, REALLY, want a free trip to the Galápagos Islands!!”
I think I could do the same “research” for half the price. Just one “researcher” and myself, in Hawaii. I hear they have birds there, islands, and access to Google, if needed…
Now, how to post to Kickstarter…
It’s a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t mater.
Has he read “Voyage of the Beagle?” Is he planning on going to the Galapagos, spending about 9 days ashore, shooting endangered Galapagos finches, picking up iguanas by the tail, riding (and eating) tortoises, and collecting baby tortoises to take home? While filming? Good luck with the Ecuadorian authorities.
Translation fo the nice eltter:
I want a buch of low-dul Christiains to fund my around the world trip to gatehr “information about how warong Darwin was.”
I have to give it to him. I would have tried it first if I would have thought of it.
Translation of the nice letter:
I want a bunch of low-dull Christians to fund my around the world trip to gather “information about how wrong Darwin was.”
Modest accommodations and an occasional stress relieving beverage should b included.
I have to give it to him. I would have tried it first if I would have thought of it.
if any of those programs accepts a person like that into them, they really are not doing their teaching job very well.
Ironically, dictionaries report that “incompass” is an obsolete and archaic form of “encompass” used about 300 years ago. John Dryden (1668–1701) did a translation of Virgil’s Aeneid which included the line
“Now, his lofty poop, he view’d below His camp INcompass’d”. So this fellow definitely is taking us back to the 17th century!!! 🙂
More seriously, the major challenge evolution raises for Christians is a literal interpretation of Genesis and the Garden of Eden story. Something like Spinoza’s pantheism or Thomas Paine’s deism might be loosely compatible with evolution, but true believers will have none of that. They want the God of the Torah/Bible and the Nicene Creed.
(Ken Miller’s book anti-creationist book “Finding Darwin’s God” is largely a different version of Niels Bohr’s riposte to Einstein “Stop telling God what to do”, and up to that point is pretty good, but his failure to engage the Christian concept of the Fall is the books Achilles heel IMO.)
Folks at Apple claim it was coincidence that the first Apple computer (the Apple I) sold at $666.66 Definitely not so here.
6 was always my favourite number
(and ‘sub’.)
Christ had delivered! Donations have closed and he delivered a miracle, bringing the total to $7.66. Truly a miraculous deity.
He’s not trying to promote a region? What region is he topographically referring to?
In order to prove the existence of God it is not at all necessary to show how wrong Darwin was. Those who think in this line, think erroneously.
Out of curiosity, how does one “prove” the assertion?