How many Darwinists does it take to screw in a light bulb?

_{Gil Dodgen

April 18, 2006

Intelligent Design}

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http://cartagodelenda.blogspot.com/2006/04/great-debate.html

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I've just added this to the post: SciAm Editorial: Two MIT researchers have announced the results of a breakthrough experiment, detailed in this month's cover story. To summarize briefly, they first turned on the overhead light in the kitchen. Then one of them donned mittens, got on a chair, and very slowly rotated the bulb in a counterclockwise direction, until it just turned off. The two then proceeded to jump up and down on the kitchen floor, in order to generate random displacement perturbations at the socket site. In an astonishingly short time, the bulb relit. This experimental result powerfully establishes that lightbulbs are capable of screwing themselves into sockets with no intelligent guidance, demolishing the "one Darwinist" explanation of the creationists, which should now join epicycles, phlogiston, vital elan, and the luminiferous ether in the museum of discredited hypotheses. It is perhaps not too much of an exaggeration to say that Darwinists themselves are becoming wholly superfluous to proper scientific explanation. This important result is something to keep in mind as the nation-wide battle over school district science standards continues to rage.Matteo_{April 19, 2006
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Judge Jones: It is clear that light bulbs are screwed in by Fundimentalists calling themselves 'creation scientists' or 'scientific creationism'. Therefore, any questions about who screwed up the light bulb are strictly forbidden under the separation of church and state.bFast_{April 19, 2006
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A few more coruscations: Fundementalist: This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine...Hide it under a bushel, NO!, I'm gonna let it shine...Shine all over the science class, I'm gonna let it shine...let is shine, let it shine, let it shine. The Highlander: One. Because there can be only one! S.J. Gould: Who knows. If we rewound the tape of evolution, lights we come about in a very different way. But we do know that light bulbs of limited life are a funny solution to the need for light and are therefore not the stuff of a wise creator. Alvin Plantinga: The idea of one has warrant without further justification, if the light bulb is functioning properly in its physical environment and is successfully aimed at truth. Lenny Flank: What difference does it make. I've never met a creationist yet who could tell a light bulb from a tulip bulb. They're all pig-ignorant liars with malice aforethought! They're only answer is "Goddidit". bwahahahaDonaldM_{April 19, 2006
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tb, Bright! ha! Better than my morning brew. DonaldM, lol Zen: There is no lightbulb and no socket Zen and the Art of LightBulb maintenance: I and the lightbulb are one being twisted into the socket on the way to enlightened nirvana. Beatles: I am the LightBulb, we are the lightbulb, goo goo K'chooo, coo, coo k'choo I'm flyyyyin... A recent Richard Dawkins Interview: Reporter: "Yes, Professor Dawkins, how many Darwinist do you say it takes to screw in a lightbulb?" Dawkins: "As Professor for Public Understanding of Science I proclaim to you in no uncertain terms, that its a simple answer... but uh, uh, arrrrrrggghhh those darn religionist thought of this question, right? If it was up to them, they would Break the Light Bulb! Warss! Death, Destruction! ID is just religion! We're dooooomed I tellya, dooooomed, science will never be the same....uhhh" Reporter: Ummm, Mr. Dawkins, pardon, uhhh.. Dawkins: and the Pope and Evangelicals ohhhh the dark, dark stories, and Mohammad, they're alllll the same! Death to science it will be, death! Did you see my dark, dreary story on the Buuh Buuh... Reporter: Ummm, Professor!!! Excuse me! Dawkins: uhhhmmmm hoommmm,,,, uh, yes? Reporter: I asked a simple question, could you stay on topic? Shouldn't you explain to the public how science helps instead of ranting against individuals free choice? Dawkins: Urrrrh... uh, yeah... I see what you mean, that is my title afterall, explaining science to the public. Well, yes, ok, question, question is, ahhh yes! The answer is None! We know the lightbulb evolved over time with all its parts thru mechanisms of random, or is that non-random, uh, yes, well, random mutation and natural selection to fit elegantly into a socket which itself had also evolved along a seperate pathway with circuits attached to the on/off switch that only recently has been discovered to respond to a highly efficient sound sequence of Clap On/Clap Off! Reporter: No! Dawkins: Ohhhh yes, yes... Clap On/Clap Off! And having recently discovered the missing link of an old rudimentary Switch we now have a full scale model of evolution! Of course Darwinian evolution predicted these pathways would converge in time for Granny to relax at bedtime with her favorite novel: From Apes to Atheist - a long romance over time. Reporter(Drooling): oh Thank you, thank you Professor for your exquisite illumination of Darwin's wonderful world and how we to can all be set free of perverse religious morals. And now, back to the main studio where anchor Charles O'Fallacy has a breaking news alert, that much like the fact of neo-Darwinism, Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon, never had plans to do so, nor does it want to wipe any nation off the earth. Charles - its all yours.... Anchor Charles O'Fallacy: Thank you Lucy... how fortunate we all are to have such Bright amongst us.... tune in next week for Pianca's Population Pickle.Michaels7_{April 19, 2006
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Richard Dawkins (once more): Are we talking Bright light bulbs?tb_{April 19, 2006
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Okay, a couple more additions: New Yorker: None of you @#!$%&*^ business! Buddhist: The light and the socket are one. Richard Dawkins (yet again!): Anyone who doubts that lightbulbs didn't evolve from sockets is either in the dark, stupid, insane 'dim'witted or wicked (but I'd rather not consider that!). Shakespeare: That which we call a light bulb by any other name would still give light. Dembski: One. To see this, you must first turn the light bulb on!DonaldM_{April 19, 2006
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Generic: It takes two. One who is selecting a bulb from a random infinite number of lightbulbs passing it on via random selection to the other. The other tossing it towards the socket hoping it would get a hold of the socket and by mere chance have the right flight pathway to screw itself into the socket to be lit. If the bulb will not succeed, it will be smashing to the ground, being discarded as not fit enough. Upon failure, this proceedure is repeated N-many times. Recently it was proclaimed that it would work if they would have say 3 Billion years of trying time. :)tb_{April 19, 2006
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Richard Dawkins: The light bulb appears designed to be screwed into the socket but this is an illusion. Random mutation & natural selection over millions of years caused the shapes to converge. Light bulbs and sockets aren't screwed together but they simply evolve in exactly the same place at the same time.DaveScot_{April 19, 2006
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I laughed hysterically reading this one: "Stephen J. Gould: None. The bulb jumped into the socket when no one was looking. Gradually" Very sharp indeed. :) My contributions: EvoWiki: None. It's an argument of ignorance. We accept that we couldn't identify a naturalistic pathway for it yet, but it deosn't mean there was a Darwinist behind this natural process. Science is a work in progress. Generic 4: None. Are you a creationist? Fred Hoyle: Well, claiming that no darwinist was behind it, is evidently nonsense of high order, but it should be a darwinist coming from deep space. Michael Behe: One. What is the selective advantage of having a light bulb screwed halfway. The bulb will not shine unless it is screwed completely. You see intermediate steps are not selectable and it is another example for IC. Richard Dawkins: None. Such arguments are a real threat to science, freedom, humanity, democracy, bureaucracy, you name it!Farshad_{April 19, 2006
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13. Eugenie Scott: None, but that doesn't preclude anybody from another faith believing that time and darwinian processes caused the lighbulb to become screwed in. In fact faith and evolutionary lightbulb processes are completely compatible. However it's just scientific fact that it occurred with only naturalistic mechanics. Furthermore in answer to questions about our 'outdated' K12 science textbooks showing students Haeckel's dimly lit, imaginary embryonic lightbulbs. We now know that fluorescent, incandescent, halogen, LED and OLED don't all evolve from the same stem-bulbs but it's the unifying theory behind this fallacy which is still relevant to today and portrays real science to our inquisitve young minds. We don't need some pseudo-scentific nonsense about 'Darwinists screwing in the bulbs'!! Richard Dawkins: None of course, you see it's the nature of the selfish genes in the lighbulb cells to gavitate towards the light fitting. Blindly the forces of nature worked together towards this Mt. Improbable. It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims to believe in the 'Darwinist who wasn't there', that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ rather not consider that)lucID_{April 19, 2006
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My gut has busted! My gut has busted!bFast_{April 18, 2006
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LOL.... haha, good list... a few non-random additions: Latest Darwinian Turn: The light bulb having gone through a "non-random" process was now able to produce a faster twist by itself with minimal error. John Davison: We know how it happened the first time! $#*#)@*$%@)_ Darwimpians! But it did not happen the second time! ;-) Sternberg at Smithsonian: I'm not allowed to question how the lightbulb is twisted into the socket now and they took the lightbulb, the switch, circuit and socket from my office. Note to Kansas: By completely unguided processes did the light bulb end up turned on in the socket Creationist: On the first day was light, the second day was the light seperated from the darkness of the room, third day was the bulb screwed in, fourth day was a light switch installed, 5th day it was named, and on the 6th day Eve told Adam to turn it on so she could look in the mirror. Theist Evolutionist: A day is as a thousand years, but we do agree Eve told Adam to turn the light on, with the exception that she told Adam to ask God for instructions having waited for so long while he fumbled without them. Biblical account: Abraham walked with the light, Isaac inherited the light, Jacob stole it and built a ladder to place the light in Yisrael, Moses wrote a "How To" instruction manual for climbing the ladder, Joshua cleared the way for one to climb the ladder to the light, the twelve tribes argued about 613 traditional ways to walk up the ladder for the light, Christ welcomed everyone into his mansion saying there are many rooms and many lightbulbs, sending forth 12 disciples to the world with goodnews of grace that he fulfilled all the instruction manuals steps of Moses, the prophets and Psalms, and even though all others failed, he'd lift them to the light to see how one screws in the bulb if they believed on him. And he would return one day as light eternal for those who repented of not following instructions and they would never have to screw in another light bulb. SciAm Editor: Thou shalt only read from one instruction manual! For we know it is a fact light bulbs scew themselves in! No one, not Presidents of Universities or Corporate CEO's have a right to question authority of SciAm! All Hail SciAm! Nevermind that Intel could eat the bugger in one chomp making SciAm extinct. Dembski: its encrypted within each probable turn.... Berlinski: I'm agnostic about the whole thing, but I love a spunky David who dares to sling rocks and break the mold with a new lightbulb and a new socket with no gloves for protection, and a heart for the light. Chutzpah! Colin: each turn was done with love Gandalf: the fact that grooves existed and the socket fit so finely is an exquisite recipe for teleological implications. Myself: Wild speculation, but a fisherman looking for his tackle box in the dark probably screwed it in after tossing a larger watt bulb back. :) lol....Michaels7_{April 18, 2006
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in an attempt at humor!!! :) IDist: The lightbulb emits light and was screwed in by an intelligence. The lightning bug's rear emits light and therefore it must have been screwed in by an intelligence.Fross_{April 18, 2006
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Now that is a classic! LOL Saxesaxe17_{April 18, 2006
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Donald M and Scott, I like your additions. An hour ago I did think about a Pianka power surge scenario and you expressed it well, Scott. Donald M, I especially like your Eugenie Scott quote. I think I'll add your comments to the post. I also came up with this addition: ---------- Update: Richard Dawkins has accused me of leaving out one of his best arguments, so I add it below: Richard Dawkins: To say that it took a Darwinist to do the screwing in of the lightbulb is to explain precisely nothing. The obvious question becomes: Who did the screwing to create the Darwinist screwer? And who did the screwing to create that screwer? There would have to be an infinite regress of screwers. And if you invoke some invisible, mystical Unscrewed Screwer (for which we have no credible evidence) to start the whole thing off, why not just say that the lightbulb screwed itself in and be done with it?Matteo_{April 18, 2006
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Pianka: If we could just produce a directed surge of destructive electricity which would burn out 90% of the worlds light bulbs thereby conserving energy in the long-run and... ...you... you errr... didn't get that on tape, did you?
Scott_{April 18, 2006
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I saw this elsewhere earlier and added a couple addendums and alternatives which I'll pass along here, just for grins. Eugenie Scott: No one doubts that the light bulb got screwed into the socket. The only debate is over the details. Richard Dawkins: Evolution is the study of light bulbs that look as if they've been screwed into their sockets for a purpose. For S.J. Gould's answer: it's called punctuated illumination. And then we have to be careful about non-overlapping illuminarium. Daniel Dennett: Perhaps we should keep fundamentalist light bulb inserters in cultural zoos so future generations can see how "in the dark" they really are!DonaldM_{April 18, 2006
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Darwinists screwing in light bulbs? That's just plain ridiculous! Only an IDiot would believe something as stupid as that! Everybody with a working brain knows that random, unintelligent forces are perfectly capable of screwing them in! Why you might as well believe that fairies and leprechauns are doing it! Unbelievable!!! :lol:crandaddy_{April 18, 2006
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great find. Now this is a forward worth sending...wickett_{April 18, 2006
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Oh comeon you guys, you see design everywhere! Why on earth should we assume that if a light bulb is found in a socket it is caused by some grand "intelligent design". This is rediculous! Ain't nothin' allowed to "just happen" any more?bFast_{April 18, 2006
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This is freaking hilarious. Love it.Atom_{April 18, 2006
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Thanks, Gil, this is good! It's also fun how the absurdity of some of the positions comes through when reduced to a simple example like screwing in a light bulb. EricEric Anderson_{April 18, 2006
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