Mermaids do NOT exist.

[DoomUK]

Source.

[schwerpunk]

Maybe they're really good at hiding. Or maybe they're quantum mermaids.

Sort-of source.

[Clonehunter]

I'm more disappointed by the CDC's note in that article about Zombies not being real.

[Technician]

Oh? You wanna here something even more pathetic?

Louisiana school curriculum: Loch Ness monster proves creationism

Baton Rouge - Christian private schools in Louisiana will soon start a curriculum that teaches that the Loch Ness monster is evidence that evolution is wrong. Schools following the curriculum will be receiving state voucher money transferred from public school funding.

According to IO9.com, from 2012-2013, thousands of Louisiana schoolchildren, will receive state-funded vouchers to attend private schools with evangelical Christian religious affiliations.
According to The Herald, the private schools will be implementing the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) program, a Christian "fundamentalist" curriculum, part of which will be promoting belief in creationism against the scientific theory of evolution.

Io9.com reports that the ACE Curriculum Program claims to "see life from God's point of view," but "unbeknownst to most theologians, scientists, and amateur monster hunters, the Lord's viewpoint apparently incorporates Scotland's favorite cryptid."

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/327378#ixzz1zhH6DTpr

[schwerpunk]

Also coming to history class:
"If the Holocaust actually happened, then whycome there are so many Jews?" Extra credit awarded for spittoon accuracy while drawling out racist or anti-Semitic pro-Aryan screeds.

[Nomad]

Technician said:

Oh? You wanna here something even more pathetic?

I heard about that the other day. Ridiculous. Even if Nessie DID exist (which it doesn't), it in no way disproves evolution from its existence. There are many animals today that were around long, long ago. There's evidence of crocodiles having been around for 200 million years, and that's hardly the only species that's been around a while.

[Technician]

Nomad said:

There's evidence of crocodiles having been around for 200 million years, and that's hardly the only species that's been around a while.

200 million years? Well why aren't crocodiles sheep by now? Why haven't they changed?

Technician said:

Oh? You wanna here something even more pathetic?

*Hear

[printz]

The real question, what the hell was a show about mermaids doing on Animal Planet? It's equating merfolk with simple beasts!

[Aliotroph?]

Nomad said:

I heard about that the other day. Ridiculous. Even if Nessie DID exist (which it doesn't), it in no way disproves evolution from its existence. There are many animals today that were around long, long ago. There's evidence of crocodiles having been around for 200 million years, and that's hardly the only species that's been around a while.

The ridiculous part is public money is permitted to go to vouchers for kids to attend religious schools.

[schwerpunk]

I don't necessarily have a problem with religious schools as long as they're desegregated (along religious lines, not race - thankfully we've come that far already) and forced to teach solid, verifiable science. With a science curriculum that is regularly updated to encompass new and emerging discoveries.
Really, a decent, honest education should be a human right. Anything less is intellectually hobbling your child.

It seems in many of these cases of science classes-gone-wonky the administration is taking the view that they're teaching 'the way the world is,' and not what is more in keeping with the spirit of the scientific method: 'The way the world appears to be, but let's check just to make sure.'

[45th Parrallel]

THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

[Technician]

sgt dopey said:

THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

Fuck the kids, think of the future.

[hex11]

There are no more mermaids because the nazi scientists killed them all in their experiments to create amphibian uber-soldiers!

[Nomad]

Technician said:

200 million years? Well why aren't crocodiles sheep by now? Why haven't they changed?

[Aliotroph?]

If you're going to reply with an image on a forum that doesn't let you embed it then at least use one that shows something the text can't.

[schwerpunk]

I have noticed a pleasant lack of memes and meme images on this website, actually.

Also, I'm pretty sure that Technician was just being sarcastic.

[Nomad]

Aliotroph? said:

If you're going to reply with an image on a forum that doesn't let you embed it then at least use one that shows something the text can't.

You must have your settings not show embedded images. I do not think that is the default setting.

[Jimmy²]

Maybe not quite as dumb as the Nessie-proving-God thing, but still:

[schwerpunk]

I'm really enjoying the irony of a naked ape holding a banana, while trying to convince me that he's not an ape.

[Aliotroph?]

Nomad said:

You must have your settings not show embedded images. I do not think that is the default setting.

You were right. How'd that get toggled? I would never intentionally turn off something like that.

[Blastfrog]

Blegh. Dailymail.

[Jimmy²]

Aaaand now I'm deleting that last video from my viewing history because I'm getting 2-hour-long anti-evolution rants from Creationist nutjobs appearing in my "Recommended" column.

[Snakes]

Jimmy91 said:

Maybe not quite as dumb as the Nessie-proving-God thing, but still:

To this day, I want hear this guy explain the divine shape of the pineapple.

[Maes]

[DoomUK]

God sucks at doing miracles these days.

[schwerpunk]

Snakes said:

To this day, I want hear this guy explain the divine shape of the pineapple.

Obviously it used to come with spoon for a stem, and a zipper along the outside, but The Fall tainted it with sin, and so we're left with something that looks like a weird cudgel.

P.S. this isn't far off from some of the explanations for parasites, etc. that I've seen online.

[Quasar]

One time when I was a kid my dad told me that Satan put dinosaur bones in the ground as a mockery of creation and to fool men into disbelieving the Bible.

9_9

[Nomad]

Yeah, I once overheard my mother ranting about how god made the Grand Canyon instantly and it wasn't the result of thousands of years of erosion. Was the first time I REALLY realized she didn't know shit about anything.

[schwerpunk]

There's really no arguing with 'logic' like that, where you're told that all views that disagree with your parents' are tricks by Satan.

It's also a perversely resilient idea, when implanted in the soft mind of a child.

My parents both believe in evolution, but that didn't stop my mother from calling it 'just a theory' and asking that, if it were a fact, then 'how come there are still monkeys?'
I had to spend a good hour with a pen and table napkins explaining common ancestors and DNA.

[Maes]

schwerpunk said:

It's also a perversely resilient idea, when implanted in the soft mind of a child.

When I was 3 yo, I saw my father tossing some used mosquito repellent tablets in the garden. I asked him what happened to the tablets out there, and he told me that little birds ate them. There was a time when I believed him, but as I got older I stopped. But for several years, this mental image of flocks of angry and hungry sparrows fighting over used mosquito repellent tablets haunted me.