A Pantoum for PZ
This pantoum I wrote, which appeared in Poetry Renewal a while back, pretty much sums up radical Darwinists like PZ Myers and friends:
Partisan
Close your eyes, shut your ears,
hide your fears behind your lies.
You despise what shows behind the mirrors;
so go the years until you die.
Hide your fears behind your lies
when doubts arise through your veneer;
so go the years until you die.
Truth defies the things you hear.
When doubts arise through your veneer
you grow severe in your replies.
Truth defies the things you hear,
still you draw near to your alibis.
You grow severe in your replies;
you despise what shows behind the mirrors.
Still you draw near to your alibis;
close your eyes, shut your ears.
Partisan
Close your eyes, shut your ears,
hide your fears behind your lies.
You despise what shows behind the mirrors;
so go the years until you die.
Hide your fears behind your lies
when doubts arise through your veneer;
so go the years until you die.
Truth defies the things you hear.
When doubts arise through your veneer
you grow severe in your replies.
Truth defies the things you hear,
still you draw near to your alibis.
You grow severe in your replies;
you despise what shows behind the mirrors.
Still you draw near to your alibis;
close your eyes, shut your ears.
posted by Timothy Birdnow | 12:26 PM
19 Comments:
A well written pantoum, but I fear you speak from experience.
Sad, sad, sad. Mr. Birdnow has demonstrated himself to be unable to address a single criticism by PZ and instead whines. Pathetic.
I'm beginning to think that PZ was far kinder with Mr. Birdnow than he deserved.
For those of you who have had comments deleted-apparently you are unable to understand basic instructions; directly below this post I explain what you are to do if you want to comment on PZ and Darwin. I said I would not permit off-topic remarks on other posts, and I mean just that. Dale got through because he commented on the Pantoum. If you want to comment on Darwin go to the proper place.
As for you, Orac, I answered Mr. Myers criticisms-you just refuse to accept the truth. Your closed mind is hardly my affair.
By the way, I have hardly whined about personal attacks, although I would point out that launching personal attacks is the hallmark of those who can`t win arguments.
Mr. Birdnow,
It is truly sad that you simply delete my comments. How is it off topic to point out that your behaviour exactly matches your pantoum? When will you stop hiding your fears behind lies?
I've been fair, and I've pointed out that we cannot determine whether the lies in your article were because you were deceived or because you are deceitful. As I look over things, it still isn't clear at this point. The level of you defensiveness is pretty clear now, though.
Likely you'll delete this, but what the heck?
You haven't substantively answered PZ's criticisms. For example: "Mutations are rarely harmful?! According to your own theory, most mutations DIE!"
No, that's not what evolution says. And most mutations are indeed neutral, as they occur in either noncoding stretches of DNA or result in a change that does not impact the function of the protein a gene encodes.
I could go on with many more examples, but why bother? You're ignorant of biology, pile misunderstanding on top of misunderstanding, and proudly trumpet your ignorance. Boiled down to its essence, your response was basically that all the egregious errors you made in describing basic biology don't affect your critique. That's patently ridiculous.
Oh, and your poetry applies to you far better than to PZ or those who have correctly criticized you.
Tbird said: I would point out that launching personal attacks is the hallmark of those who can`t win arguments.
However, and somewhat ironically, Tbird also said:You are a nasty little man, sir
PZ Meyers is a girly man. Once you realize that everything about him makes sense, sort of like everything about evolution makes sense with intelligent design.
Kw,
I have been more than fair with you people; I needn`t have allowed any of you foot soldiers to come here in the first place. You have demanded the right to insult me, ridicule me, and make whatever claims you wished, and I have permitted this. This is my blog, not yours. I have the right to decide how it will function. I needn`t talk with you at all, but I have. To accuse me of hypocrisy and unfairness because I am not willing to allow you to take complete control of my blog is surreal.
Uh, yes Orac I have substantively addressed Myres. HE was the one who was splitting hairs (remember his comment about viruses, or his quoting from the dictionary about my use of the word facetious) and quibbling over details which never went to the central points. You obviously don`t bother to read and understand things-otherwise you would have addressed these points in the appropriate spot.
You may think whatever you like about my poetry. Still, who is it that is so disturbed by it?
Mr. Birdnow,
I think that you should consider who would be disturbed by a poem written by a holocaust denier that accused a Jew of lying.
That is the parallel to the situation you find yourself in. The people who have come here are people who feel an obligation to spend time and effort ensuring that people realise that your original article was simply false.
Some that deny the Holocaust honestly believe it never happened. The people that taught them that either knew that they were lying, or were taught by people that knew they were lying. Similarly, many people that deny evolution honestly believe that it happened otherwise. I tend not to say much to those that do this from purely religous motivations. Those that use gross distortions of science to justify it either know they are lying or are believing things that liars wrote. These people need to be chastised publicly at all available opportunities.
If you would take your chastisement, read it, and either study the subject well enough to talk about it, or stop talking about it, people would leave you alone. So long as you keep a giant falsehood posted on your blog without a retraction, people will continue to pester you.
By the way, your other blog won't allow me to post comments.
Timothy,
An insult from Myers is a distinction of honor in my book. I wouldn't sweat it too much, but the response of his minions was pretty funny, you can tell they probably skipped logic 101 to get high in college
-Davis
TB: quibbling over details which never went to the central points.
Well, your claim that brownian motion would prevent the formation of large molecules was central to paragraphs two and three of your essay, and yet brownian motion does not prevent the formation of large molecules. Since you have made much of the fact that you went out of your way to limit extraneous info, presumably you think that it is an important and central claim.
Entropy form the next large chunk of your claim, in which you claim essentially that refrigerators are impossible.
These two claims of physics form about a third of your piece yet both are absolutely wrong. You have not made any claim that shows that they are correct. These go to the center of a substantial portion of your essay.
Kb5zhh,
The points about brownian motion and entropy clearly went right over your head. OF COURSE molecules form. But to believe that an enormous molecule which depends so much on its complex structure and organization to encode information formed spontaneously is wishing on a falling star. I would love to play high stakes poker with you; I`d walk away with all of your money.
TB: The points about brownian motion and entropy clearly went right over your head. OF COURSE molecules form. But to believe that an enormous molecule which depends so much on its complex structure and organization to encode information formed spontaneously is wishing on a falling star.
Unfortunately, that's not what you argued in your article. You argued that brownian motion prevented the formation of DNA simply because it was large. But such motion does not prevent the formation of molecules, regardless of size.
Of course, now you are moving your goalposts. You are here trying to use the "tornado in a junkyard" argument. It too is a flawed argument.
KB, I assume the readers are bright enough to understand THAT point; OF COURSE molecules form! Motion, according to Einstein, is reletive the the observer; I fear you are the one doing the moving, not the goalposts.
I would love to play poker with you if you play THOSE kind of odds!
I have given all the leeway I intend to with these comments. This whole business has brought my site to a standstill, and I must maintain some semblance of order. Any more off-topic posts will be deleted. I`m sorry if you guys can`t get into Darwin`s Inquisition, but I have to maintain some kind of order.
Thanks Tim, I like the poem because the truth eventually does win. The foolishness of God is beyond the wisdom of men. Prayer does work because I am still around. My theory is that mankind is actually devolving and the Darwinists who have invaded are more proof that I am right. LOL Just another fool in the King's court and former honors student in biology/physiology. Excuse me while I go read my Bible instead of thumping it.
Neither general nor special relativity apply to the speeds of brownian motion. Why are you mentioning them?
He's mentioning them because, like many ignorant people, he doesn't know the difference between Newtonian and Einsteinian relativity. Expect more bluster to justify this.
Some people are just incapable of recognizing humor! Oh, Boy!
Since you're allowing off-topic responses and even responding to them yourself, I pose this question to you.
If creationists and Intelligent Design advocates don't think life could have happened by the action of so-called random chance, how do they think our bodies continue to function from one moment to the next? How do they think oxygen molecules find hemoglobin molecules to bind to, for example? Everything that goes on in a living body happens by random chance. If it happens that way now, why do they think it couldn't have happened that way from the start?
I don't mean this in a rhetorical or pejorative way. I mean, do these people actually have an idea how to answer what I'm asking, or is it just that they haven't really thought it through?
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