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Amused Muse

Inspiring dissent and debate and the love of dissonance

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Location: Surreality, Have Fun Will Travel, Past Midnight before a Workday

Master's Degree holder, telecommuting from the hot tub, proud Darwinian Dawkobot, and pirate librarian belly-dancer bohemian secret agent scribe on a mission to rescue bloggers from the wholesome clutches of the pious backstabbing girl fridays of the world.



Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Million Dollar Maybe

First of all, take a moment to visit my new addition to the blogroll.

What is Intelligent Design?
Intelligent Design (ID) is a scientific theory that says evolution's naturalism is wrong: an Intelligent Designer is responsible for the origin of the universe and of life and its diversity.

Isn't the "Intelligent Designer" just another way of saying "God"?
Of course not. The Intelligent Designer could be advanced aliens or the Christian God. We don't say which.

If it could be either aliens or God, why does your logo show the Christian God?
We had to pick one or the other, and it just happened to be that
one. We definitely don't rule aliens out. We even have an alternate version of our logo in case that turns out to be the case:

Do you really believe it could be aliens?
No. [Geez, Richard Dawkins got in trouble for entertaining this idea even only hypothetically!]

Is Intelligent Design scientific?
Yes, didn't you see that we italicized scientific all over the place?

How do you recognize when something is designed?
Something is designed when it is really complex, has Irreducible Complexity, or looks like it's designed.

What is Irreducible Complexity?
Irreducible Complexity means that something requires all its parts in order to function, so therefore it couldn't have possibly evolved.

How do you recognize when something is Irreducibly Complex?
Something is Irreducibly Complex when proponents of Intelligent Design can't imagine how natural selection could have produced it.


Speaking of intelligent design - In what is surely a publicity stunt rather than a serious challenge, Bushnell and Field and Stream are offering $1,000,000 for a clear, precise photo of Bigfoot.

We’re not saying we believe in Sasquatch, but if anyone’s ever going to capture an image of one, we’re guessing it’ll be a hunter with a trail camera. That’s why Bushnell is offering a chance at $1,000,000 to the first person using one who snaps a verifiable photo of the beast.

But just in case no Bigfoots wander your way, the editors at Field & Stream magazine are giving away great Bushnell gear for the best trail cam shots in the following categories: Deer photos, non-deer photos, and funny photos. There are three winners every month, and three grand prizes at the end of the year, so enter your photos today!

BONUS CATEGORY: For all you jokers out there – we’re giving away an additional Bushnell Trail Scout Pro camera for your best attempt to cheat Bushnell out of their $1,000,000 prize. So go grab your gorilla suit and head to the nearest woodlot. Just don’t get mistaken for a bear.

And no blobsquatching! Go ahead and fake that hernia! (Now BF enthusiasts claim to spot a "hernia" on the right thigh as the creature walks - but I think it looks like a bunching up on the costume.)

Oh, and don't do as Roger Patterson did and steal a camera and film (or video, today) to capture that million-dollar baby!

Roger Patterson was a incorrigible con-man apparently obsessed with female Bigfeet and who had already self-published a book mentioning one just one year before he allegedly captured "Patty" at Bluff Creek, California (in the nick of time, apparently, to go on tour with the film and pay off some debts). In fact, after capturing an alleged Bigfoot on film he was promptly arrested for nonpayment of the camera and the film - just two of the many items/money he stole or bilked from other people. And why would Roger Patterson swear on his deathbed that the film is legitimate if that was a lie? Well, he was dying of cancer and he wanted his wife to get the proceeds from the film.

Look, I had a Bigfoot phase too, when I was around twelve - and the legend still fascinates me, as old ghost stories and tall tales fascinate me. But it's now been thirty years since the Bigfoot phenomena peaked, and forty years since Patterson staged that tired old chestnut, the Patterson-Gimlin film. (The time to investigate that tired old film was right after it was shot, and even the late Rene Dahinden, one of the "Four Horsemen of Sasquatchery," and the only Bigfoot hunter I have any respect for, admitted that the Bigfoot hunters "didn't do our jobs" to investigate Patterson's and Gimlin's claims. No, they didn't - but Patterson also kept the location a secret for a long time, and to this day know one knows where he had the film developed.)

It's high time that someone coughed up a real creature, or produced some fossil evidence on par with what we have for other creatures that migrated to America (including human beings), or quit talking about Bigfoot. We know about the evolution of the bear in the United States, but* there has never been one fossil of BF found anywhere. All we get is more "enhancements" and theories pulled out of people's asses, such as below:



*Apes don't have butts like the "creature" in the Patterson-Gimlin footage. (Notice also that the buttocks don't move.) The "creature" in this film is problematic for many reasons (try to get a close-up glimpse of the heels - FAKE!), but the major objection is, this is an "ape" top-half with a human bottom-half. How an anthropologist like Dr. Meldrum can not realize this is beyond me. (Even the Smithsonian's John Napier, who was willing to entertain the idea of Bigfoot's existence, called this film a fake.)

Of course, the contest also calls for a good fake! Hmmmm....but that won't win me the million dollars...

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