Greetings, mortals! Okay, so, I've gotten a few questions about this one: in the May 29, 2014, Current Biology, scientists published the results of a study led by Dr. Nathan W. Bailey purporting to show evidence of observable, convergent evolution in two separate populations of Hawaiian field crickets. Isn't that strong evidence for evolution?
No!
What the scientists claim to have observed is the development of flat wings for soundless flight in each population of crickets (one population on O'ahu, the other on Kaua'i). This change in wing structure helped them avoid a sound-attracted (and fatal) parasitic fly. The O'ahu crickets developed silent flight first. Then it was observed in the Kaua'i population. These researchers diligently checked for genetic markers of introgression of a genetic variation from the O'ahu crickets into the Kaua'i population -- in other words, they looked to see if an O'ahu cricket and a Kaua'i cricket had ridden what we in Heaven call the "wild nookie train." They not only found no evidence of transmission of the trait from the O'ahu crickets to the Kaua'i crickets, they found that the flat wings of the two populations were structurally very dissimilar. The researchers concluded from this, as you humans are wont to do, that natural selection had shaped the two populations in similar ways to compensate for the same environmental challenge -- the fatal parasite.
But, of course, that's not what happened. There is no such thing as evolution. You may observe what you think is evolution, but the evidence you see is just a sham. It's a test, created to see whether you have abandoned the same hubris that led you to rob yourselves of Eden by eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.
And you haven't. No wonder science continues to lead you further from the peace, warmth, and light of God's Love.
So, what actually happened to these crickets? It's obvious: their wings changed shape to help them avoid this fatal parasite, but not by means of evolution. These changes were wrought by the Hand of God. They further the miracle and beauty of His design. God simply chose to adjust the wing configurations on the O'ahu crickets and Kaua'i crickets a little differently because, well, don't you get bored doing the same thing over and over again? Of course you do. Just imagine if you were omniscient. Avoiding boredom would be job #1. Well, job #2, after the loving curation of all existence.
Now, because you're human, some of you may be asking, "If God wanted to save these crickets, why are only about half of each population created with flat wings that help them avoid the parasite?" The answer to that is simple: Stop questioning God.
Thank you all for reading! And please, I welcome your thoughts in the comments.
Friday, May 30, 2014
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
On Mary Anning
Greetings, mortals! I hope you've been well. As you may have seen, today's Google doodle is an homage to Mary Anning. God created Ms. Anning's soul and shepherded it to Earth 215 years, 9 months ago today.
Ms. Anning is, of course, best known as the protagonist of the tongue twister, "She sells seashells by the seashore." She is second best known for those of her achievements to which your scientists have assigned the greatest meaning, including her identification of the best-of-its-time icthyosaur skeleton, discovery of what you call the plesiosaurus, and location of the first pterosaur outside of Germany.
Ms. Anning's discoveries (many of which were initially passed off as the work of male scientists because of the sexism endemic to the contemporary scientific community), caused a tremendous shift in the thinking of the early 19th Century's scientists. It is no exaggeration to say that her work was not only instrumental in the acceptance and popularization of the concept of extinction -- misguided though that concept is -- but laid the foundation for modern paleontology and the exploration of what you incorrectly believe to be long-disappeared ecosystems.
Now, before I continue, I want to give credit where it's due. Ms. Anning was curious, tremendously dedicated to her work, resilient, and, among humans, brilliant. But all of her fame, and all of her work, is founded on a lie. Well, except for the tongue twister part. But the rest of it? All founded on a lie.
None of what Ms. Anning discovered was the remains of some fanciful creature that lived in what you call the Jurassic Period. They were skeletons that I, Decipiatur, put together and buried in the Earth to test Man's faith in God's Creation. The same is true of the "fossils" she collected and sold: None of them is the remnant of some ancient creature. They're just more false evidence of past life on Earth, fashioned by me as a test of your faith. Even the coprolites she analyzed are my work (some of the least glamorous, by the way. But when God commands you to create and then fossilize poop, what do you do? You create and then fossilize poop).
Unfortunately, Ms. Anning's admirable rigor and extraordinary ability to correctly identify which pieces of my various false skeletons went together led her, the scientific community, and eventually much of the world away from the Light of God. Her commitment to discovering my frauds made you believe that animals have existed and gone extinct, that there have been ecosystems on the planet for more than 5,700 years, and so on. Essentially, Ms. Anning and her contemporaries were both so thoroughly fooled by my work and such good proselytizers for what my frauds meant to them that they persuaded you to doubt not just whether God's Creation is perfect, but that the Earth was created by God at all. That's partly why she, like most scientists from the 1700s on, is (very regrettably) suffering eternal torment in Hell.
At this point, some of you may be asking, "Decipiatur, why would she burn in Hell because she was fooled by your work? You're a divine being, endowed by God with the power to create frauds that appear genuine to all known and knowable human faculties. Of course she was fooled! Isn't that cruel?" To which I answer, "I don't make the rules, God does, and how dare you question our Almighty Father!?"
I also answer that the point here is for you to listen to the truths God has revealed to you through the Bible, prophets (not the false ones, though, careful with that), your religious leaders (only the ones who are right, mind you) and this blog. You're then to believe those truths despite all of the contrary evidence you can perceive with your God-given senses. That's what faith is, after all.
Some of you may also be asking, "If these are mere tests of faith, why not make it possible for us to detect that they are the work of the divine?" Because you're smart and would figure that out. Then it would be evidence for the divine. That would, in turn, lead you to God through the use of reason rather than on faith, which is not how this works. Again, you're to believe the truth of God's Word in the face of all contrary evidence. Seriously, people, keep up with me here.
Anyway, thank you for reading about the work of the remarkable, Hell-damned Mary Anning. If you have thoughts or comments, I invite you to post them in the comments, below. Please refrain from the use of profanity, blasphemy, and heresy.
And heterodoxy -- just to be safe.
See you again soon!
Ms. Anning is, of course, best known as the protagonist of the tongue twister, "She sells seashells by the seashore." She is second best known for those of her achievements to which your scientists have assigned the greatest meaning, including her identification of the best-of-its-time icthyosaur skeleton, discovery of what you call the plesiosaurus, and location of the first pterosaur outside of Germany.
Ms. Anning's discoveries (many of which were initially passed off as the work of male scientists because of the sexism endemic to the contemporary scientific community), caused a tremendous shift in the thinking of the early 19th Century's scientists. It is no exaggeration to say that her work was not only instrumental in the acceptance and popularization of the concept of extinction -- misguided though that concept is -- but laid the foundation for modern paleontology and the exploration of what you incorrectly believe to be long-disappeared ecosystems.
Now, before I continue, I want to give credit where it's due. Ms. Anning was curious, tremendously dedicated to her work, resilient, and, among humans, brilliant. But all of her fame, and all of her work, is founded on a lie. Well, except for the tongue twister part. But the rest of it? All founded on a lie.
None of what Ms. Anning discovered was the remains of some fanciful creature that lived in what you call the Jurassic Period. They were skeletons that I, Decipiatur, put together and buried in the Earth to test Man's faith in God's Creation. The same is true of the "fossils" she collected and sold: None of them is the remnant of some ancient creature. They're just more false evidence of past life on Earth, fashioned by me as a test of your faith. Even the coprolites she analyzed are my work (some of the least glamorous, by the way. But when God commands you to create and then fossilize poop, what do you do? You create and then fossilize poop).
Unfortunately, Ms. Anning's admirable rigor and extraordinary ability to correctly identify which pieces of my various false skeletons went together led her, the scientific community, and eventually much of the world away from the Light of God. Her commitment to discovering my frauds made you believe that animals have existed and gone extinct, that there have been ecosystems on the planet for more than 5,700 years, and so on. Essentially, Ms. Anning and her contemporaries were both so thoroughly fooled by my work and such good proselytizers for what my frauds meant to them that they persuaded you to doubt not just whether God's Creation is perfect, but that the Earth was created by God at all. That's partly why she, like most scientists from the 1700s on, is (very regrettably) suffering eternal torment in Hell.
At this point, some of you may be asking, "Decipiatur, why would she burn in Hell because she was fooled by your work? You're a divine being, endowed by God with the power to create frauds that appear genuine to all known and knowable human faculties. Of course she was fooled! Isn't that cruel?" To which I answer, "I don't make the rules, God does, and how dare you question our Almighty Father!?"
I also answer that the point here is for you to listen to the truths God has revealed to you through the Bible, prophets (not the false ones, though, careful with that), your religious leaders (only the ones who are right, mind you) and this blog. You're then to believe those truths despite all of the contrary evidence you can perceive with your God-given senses. That's what faith is, after all.
Some of you may also be asking, "If these are mere tests of faith, why not make it possible for us to detect that they are the work of the divine?" Because you're smart and would figure that out. Then it would be evidence for the divine. That would, in turn, lead you to God through the use of reason rather than on faith, which is not how this works. Again, you're to believe the truth of God's Word in the face of all contrary evidence. Seriously, people, keep up with me here.
Anyway, thank you for reading about the work of the remarkable, Hell-damned Mary Anning. If you have thoughts or comments, I invite you to post them in the comments, below. Please refrain from the use of profanity, blasphemy, and heresy.
And heterodoxy -- just to be safe.
See you again soon!
Thursday, May 15, 2014
An Introduction
Greetings, mortals! I am Decipiatur, Angel of the Lord and servant to the Archangel Raphael. Since before you were formed from clay (or, for you lady readers, a rib), it has been my duty to test Man's faith in the Lord our God by concealing His work in the mundane phenomena you examine with your "science."
Five thousand, seven hundred years ago, when the Almighty spoke the Universe into being, it was I who strewed the cosmos with the gravitational ripples you recently observed with your Bicep-2 telescope. It was I who shaped those ripples so as to appear to have arisen from a massive explosion approximately 13.8 billion years ago. And, yes, as many have speculated, it was I who created geological strata and radioactive decay patterns suggesting the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, strewed the bowels of the Earth with the fossils of dinosaurs who never lived, and stole away the evidence of the great Flood. It was I who laced the cells of every living thing on earth with the nucleic acids that not only appear to your limited, mortal faculties to guide the functions of life, but suggest a common ancestry and evolution.
All of that is a fraud. In fact, you, like everything in this universe, exist and function by dint of God's Love alone. You were, like all living things, shaped not by the complex interaction of physics, chemistry, biology, scarcity, and happenstance, but by His hand alone.
Some of you are asking, "Decipiatur, why reveal yourself and your divine mission, and why on a blog?" It's simple. I'm revealing my divine mission because 5,700 years ago, God, who is, of course, omniscient, foresaw that you would ask exactly that question. He revealed to me that on this date, humanity's faith in its own analytic prowess would reach what he called a "tipping point" (a term he later gifted to Morton Grodzins (and I am compelled to note that God did not gift Professor Grodzins the term "white flight." That was Satan.)). He told me that unless I began to explain my work, thereby exposing the fact that all scientific observation is the pursuit of my righteous frauds, Man would be led into apostasy by his own hubris.
I will, of course, continue my work. Faith is valueless unless tested, after all! But that brings us to the second question, "Why on a blog?" Because God revealed to me that in this time, this Internet -- which is also not a triumph of your applied sciences, but a manifestation of God's Love -- would be such a cacophony of voices that only those endowed with the curiosity to allow their faith to be tested would find their way here. As it has always been (well, as it's been since 3,686 B.C., when the universe was created), only a select few will have the truth of God's Word revealed unto them so that they may carry the message of the Lord to the unfaithful many.
You, dear reader, are one of the few, brave and faithful. You will stand with me against the tide of false scientific discoveries. Together, we will hold back Man's false pride in his own abilities. We will lead humanity back away from the frauds of science and discovery -- my divinely-commanded fabrications -- and into the light of unquestioning Faith.
Five thousand, seven hundred years ago, when the Almighty spoke the Universe into being, it was I who strewed the cosmos with the gravitational ripples you recently observed with your Bicep-2 telescope. It was I who shaped those ripples so as to appear to have arisen from a massive explosion approximately 13.8 billion years ago. And, yes, as many have speculated, it was I who created geological strata and radioactive decay patterns suggesting the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, strewed the bowels of the Earth with the fossils of dinosaurs who never lived, and stole away the evidence of the great Flood. It was I who laced the cells of every living thing on earth with the nucleic acids that not only appear to your limited, mortal faculties to guide the functions of life, but suggest a common ancestry and evolution.
All of that is a fraud. In fact, you, like everything in this universe, exist and function by dint of God's Love alone. You were, like all living things, shaped not by the complex interaction of physics, chemistry, biology, scarcity, and happenstance, but by His hand alone.
Some of you are asking, "Decipiatur, why reveal yourself and your divine mission, and why on a blog?" It's simple. I'm revealing my divine mission because 5,700 years ago, God, who is, of course, omniscient, foresaw that you would ask exactly that question. He revealed to me that on this date, humanity's faith in its own analytic prowess would reach what he called a "tipping point" (a term he later gifted to Morton Grodzins (and I am compelled to note that God did not gift Professor Grodzins the term "white flight." That was Satan.)). He told me that unless I began to explain my work, thereby exposing the fact that all scientific observation is the pursuit of my righteous frauds, Man would be led into apostasy by his own hubris.
I will, of course, continue my work. Faith is valueless unless tested, after all! But that brings us to the second question, "Why on a blog?" Because God revealed to me that in this time, this Internet -- which is also not a triumph of your applied sciences, but a manifestation of God's Love -- would be such a cacophony of voices that only those endowed with the curiosity to allow their faith to be tested would find their way here. As it has always been (well, as it's been since 3,686 B.C., when the universe was created), only a select few will have the truth of God's Word revealed unto them so that they may carry the message of the Lord to the unfaithful many.
You, dear reader, are one of the few, brave and faithful. You will stand with me against the tide of false scientific discoveries. Together, we will hold back Man's false pride in his own abilities. We will lead humanity back away from the frauds of science and discovery -- my divinely-commanded fabrications -- and into the light of unquestioning Faith.
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