Untitled Document

Burn The Strawman

[Theme song to the tune of "Stop the pigeon" fades, lights come up]

[announcer] Tonight's episode : The Strawman Of Evolution

[announcer] And here's your host, AAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadrian!

<Adrian, for it is he, bursts through a paper door in his spangly suit>

Adrian: Ladies, Gentlemen and Ancestral Hominids. Welcome to Burn The Strawman, the successful spin-off series from Smack The Nominalist. Your regular hosts, Hume and Kira, are unable to be with us tonight, and I have the honour of wearing the Spangly Suit Of Reason. Note my shiny shoes and red bowtie, also. With me is my beautiful assistant, Kali!

Adrian: Er.. My talented co-presenter, Kali!

Kali: Hi! And Grrraaarl!

Adrian: As you can see, we have our Strawman set up, ripe for burning.

Adrian: And our guest speaker tonight, is the anonymous author of "40 Reasons That Evolution Didn't Occur". The rules of the show are quite simple. We will allow our esteemed guest here to explain his point of view, and for each demonstrable lie, misrepresentation or bout of sheer idiocy, another sackload of dry straw will be stuffed into the strawman.

Audience: Gunge him! No, that's the other show! Where are we? Woooo! Eek ook!

Anon: In this particular article we will be exploring 40 reasons that I have documented that prove Evolution didn't occur.

Adrian: I don't think we have time for all forty, this is only a half-hour show (not including those important messages from our sponsors). But let's see how it goes.

Anon: There is no "macro-evolution" or "vertical evolution" (one species changing into another species) occurring today. It didn't occur yesterday, ten years ago, 65 million years ago or 3.5 billion years ago for that matter.

Audience: No! Surely not? Is he serious? Agg Agg Agg!

Adrian: I beg your pardon? Macro-evolution is merely micro-evolution over a greater period of time. There is no difference in the mechanism at all, and if you want examples of speciation [pulls out fifty pages of fanfold computer printout, which spills across stage] I have one or two here.

Audience: Off with his head! <hominids invent speech> : I say old chap, I can bally well talk! Pass the bananas.

Anon: There is nothing scientific about evolution but a lot of high school and college textbooks attempt to indoctrinate young people into believing they are just the product of a "chance" occurrence and came from apes.

Adrian: Four falsehoods in one sentence! You've been practising this, haven't you? Firstly, evolution is at least as scientific as the theory that the Earth orbits the sun (and maybe actually easier to demonstrate). Secondly, education in an established science, with all the skeptical enquiry that encourages is hardly indoctrination. Where do you take your children of a Sunday morning, I wonder? Thirdly, evolution is not about "chance", but the positive feedback loop of natural selection, and fourthly we evolved alongside apes from a common ancestor. Some of whom are in the third row, by the way, so I'd be careful what you say.

Audience: Four! It's a record! Defenestrate him! <hominids invent fire> Aieee!!! <hominids quickly invent bandages>

Kali: May I rip his lungs out? May I? Please.

Adrian: Ho ho ho, there's plenty of time for that, young lady. Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow!

Adrian: <borrows bandages from hominids> Where were we? Ah, yes, your next statement, my friend.

Anon: The theory (I use the term theory loosely) of Evolution is presented as a fact in most textbooks but when one examines it in-depth and from a scientific perspective you will find out that Evolution is a religion and a false rapidly.

Adrian: Are you quite mad, sir? I know of no theory that is presented as fact - the statement doesn't even make sense. A theory in science, and I do not use the term loosely because I know what it means, attempts to explain the facts. It's astonishing that you come on public television and demonstrate one of the most common misconceptions about evolution and think it will somehow support your case! I've a good mind to call in our nominalist-smacking team right now! I won't even comment on the "evolution is a religion" nonsense.

Audience: Booooo! Get off! Bring on a real contestant! <hominids develop a stable agrarian society near the exits, harvesting a bountiful crop of wheat during the commercial break>

Anon: Eventually this ball of matter and energy exploded and hurled out particles the size of our Milky Way galaxy and all of the planets, etc. This is supposedly the origin of the universe.

Adrian: In fairyland, maybe. Particles the size of galaxies? The galaxies formed billions of years after the universe cooled and gases drew together due to gravity, they did were certainly not "hurled out" of the Big Bang itself as particles. You are becoming incoherent.

Audience: He's mad! Lobotomise him! <hominids plan mass diaspora across continents> Agh Ook Eek!

Anon: That is why Evolution is a religion, I think it is a dumb religion. Nobody was there for this "Big Bang" but somehow it happened. Here is my point.

Adrian: Nobody *needed* to be there for it to happen. Your logic is truly bizarre. And yes, I can see your point - a hat would cover it nicely, however. But wait, we are still in the introduction of your document. You haven't even started on your actual reasons yet. Let's move on to that while we still have time.

Anon: It is a widely known scientific fact that the sun is in fact burning away to its core and if given enough time it will eventually burn out. Even if the sun only burned away at the rate of one mile per year it would have been so large at its inception (it is alledged that the sun, earth and the planets are 4.57 billion years old) that it would have vaporized the earth. In layman's terms the sun would have been so large 4.57 billion years ago it would have fried the earth. Another problem for the evolutionary nebular hypothesis.

Adrian: What?!? Apart from the fact that this has *nothing* to do with biological evolution anyway (keep stuffing that straw, guys), it also relies on the hopelessly false assumption that the sun always burns at the same rate. Well, if we discount your faulty maths to do with the radius versus the volume of a sphere, that is. I'm not even sure if we have enough straw backstage to deal with all your errors.

Audience: Use the straw from inside his head! Is this standup comedy? <hominids make intricate cave-paintings on backs of seats>

Anon: Evolutionists believe that a "living cell" came out of this soup that was rich in many various compounds. This is called "spontenous generation." A "living cell" came out of NON-LIVING material. That is completely ridiculous and has never been observed. We used to think that rats came from grain if it was allowed to sit long enough. That sounds crazy today but they used to believe it. The fact is, "spontaneous generation" was disproven over a century ago by Louis Pasteur, the man who invented the process of pasturization. Some evolutionists still argue that he only tested modern organisms and it is still possible. The problem is, not one scientist anywhere in the world with all our great technology has ever been able to synthesize a "living cell" out of non-living chemicals or material. They have never seen it done and it has never been done but they believe it happened.

Adrian: More distortion. No biologist considers "spontaneous generation" to be even slightly related to evolution, let alone happen at all, and you appear to be simply misrepresenting science and history to suit your own agenda. Have you no integrity at all?

Audience: Take him out and string him up! Boooo! <hominids mischievously begin to de-evolve into lungfish, until a harsh glare from Kali sorts them out>

Anon: There are thousands of marine fossils on crests of mountain ranges in Austrailia and Mt. Ararat in Turkey among other places. How did those fish get up on top of a mountain? The answer is in Genesis 7:11-24.

Adrian: I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Firstly, "plate tectonics" solves this supposed riddle, and secondly, I think you will find that "marine fossil" does not mean "fish", thirdly, where is "Austrailia"?!?. Coral, invertebrates, shellfish and a multitude of other organisms make up rocks such as limestone. The answer is not in Genesis, it's in any Introduction To Geology book.

Audience: Whack him with a big dead fish! Ook Ook Eek Oook!

Anon: The theory of evolution is based on increasing complexity and the adding of enormous amounts of genetic information that would eventually turn a "single-cell" organism into pre-cambrian and cambrian trilobites which "evolved" into marine invertebrates to vertebrate fish to amphibia to reptiles to birds and mammals and eventually to man.

Adrian: I suspect that would be news to any evolutionary biologist! The theory of evolution is not to do with increasing complexity, but increased ability to survive in the current environment. Many bacteria have been happily evolving for *billions* of years, and yet remain single-celled. Many organisms are called "living fossils" because they have remained stable and essentially unchanged for hundreds of millions of years. Crocodiles and Sharks, if you want a "snappy" answer! And as for humans evolving from trilobites! You misrepresent evolution as being a "ladder", with slime at the bottom and humans at the top. This is untrue, but it's easy to see why it suits your agenda to suggest it is. We've barely touched on your "40 reasons", and have so far found far more fallacies and outright lies. Audience? What shall we do? Has he persuaded you that evolution is false and a religion?

Audience: BURN THE STRAWMAN!!! BURN THE STRAWMAN!!! PASS THE BANANAS!