Charles Darwin's blog

April 29, 2008 2:18 PM

Charles Darwin's blog"Well there I was minding my own business in the Cafe of the Natural History Museum…"
posted by feelinglistless (13 comments total)

Dear Diary. April 29. Those assholes in Florida are at it again.
posted by gurple at 2:42 PM on April 29, 2008

As a wise man once said: "I don't know. I just don't know..."
posted by feelinglistless at 2:48 PM on April 29, 2008

Huh, I guess it's a fairly common name.
posted by Eideteker at 3:14 PM on April 29, 2008

yeah... sometimes I think "well...umm..." and sometimes I just don't know.
Either that or something else.
posted by drhydro at 3:22 PM on April 29, 2008

Maybe, Eidteker. On the other hand, check out Charles Darwin's profile:

What I do

Resurrected Victorian scientist and author. Now, I understand a ‘blogger’ (a criminal offence when last I was alive) and commentator on science in society...

Interests

Observing this new world of scientific manifestations, the reporting thereof in the poplar prints, with divers observations on the dunderheads who choose not to believe in the scientific method.

posted by grouse at 3:32 PM on April 29, 2008

Ha! What a well written blog. I particularly like this bit.

"I am used to bad reviews: I was much savaged in the press when I published The Origin of Species, but Expelled holds me responsible for a particularly vile chapter of genocide which occurred in the 1930s and 40s. I do not recall advocating genocide, indeed distinctly remember writing with anguish about the massacres of the Indians in South America during my voyage on HMS Beagle. Could it be that my critics have formed opinions about my work without actually reading it? Surely not."

Excellent.
posted by Effigy2000 at 4:29 PM on April 29, 2008

Oh, resurrected. That explains it.

Wait, no it doesn't.

Hey, let's pretend to be famous dead people! We can appropriate their good name to endorse current political causes! And there's not a thing they can do about it! Because they're dead!

Hooray, it's another blog about Expelled. A movie which purports to refute "Darwinism." Except "Darwinism" has little to do with the modern theory of evolution. And the makers of Expelled want you to embrace the term "Darwinism." Way to play right into their hands.

Let's give Darwin his well-earned rest and fight our own battles.
posted by Eideteker at 4:46 PM on April 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

Let's give Darwin his well-earned rest and fight our own battles.

If a nobody like Ben Stein flings shit to defile the good name and good ideas of someone who can't defend himself, then maybe it's worthwhile that we should take up that fight on Darwin's behalf.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:52 PM on April 29, 2008 [3 favorites]

No, it's irrelevant. They can say what they want about Darwin, but it doesn't change A) the truth about the man and B) science. If someone picks a fight with your grandfather, do you dress up like him? Or do you turn to the bully and say, "Hey, you got a problem with him, you take it up with me."?

But more importantly, you don't fight a man who says the moon is made of green cheese because it's a ridiculous thing not worth fighting over. It's impossible to manufacture a controversy without the corresponding outrage. Deny them that outrage. Deny them the attention they crave so desperately. If you play their game, with their rules, you have already lost.
posted by Eideteker at 7:24 PM on April 29, 2008 [2 favorites]

But more importantly, you don't fight a man who says the moon is made of green cheese because it's a ridiculous thing not worth fighting over.

If people who claim the moon is made of cheese are the same maroons who are on textbook committees, who teach history and science classes, and who are presidential screenwriters, etc. etc. etc. — and they most certainly they are — then what they have to say de facto and de jure sure as hell is worth fighting over, because these people are in positions of influence they do not deserve to be in, but nonetheless use to foment and promulgate their twisted ideals.

If you play their game, with their rules, you have already lost.

That sounds great on paper, but means utterly nothing meaningful in the real world. In the end you have to engage everyday people on kind of the communication that originates from the Creationists, even if that means taking it apart by whatever means necessary. Ridiculing rhetoric like "Darwinism" legitimizes it only enough to take it apart. If that means a satirical blog gets set up somewhere in the UK, then that's the least of the tactics needed to fight this war.

And make no mistake: This is a cultural war. This is a fight over ideas, and the ideas about the way we develop ideas, that are influential to the next generation of leaders in all fields, all walks of life, across the country and around the world. We have serious problems to deal with as a collective species, and this is just not the time or place for childish, monotheistic, irrational notions about reality.

And in any case, a satirical blog from Charles Darwin certainly doesn't legitimize Creationism in any way, shape or form. People with a high school education already connect Darwin with ideas about evolution, which is perfectly legitimate, historically speaking. If we rational people needed to invoke the history of Issac Newton to defend the notion of gravity, then I'd cheer that on, too, as not only necessary but Good for the species.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:22 PM on April 29, 2008 [6 favorites]

It isn't about Darwin. Let me quote a fellow MeFi (I copied/pasted the text, but forgot to favorite, so I can't find and credit the original author - apologies):

both sides are invested in other questions: can homosexuals kiss in public, or can we keep those faggots in their place? Can mixed-race couples marry and conduct themselves in public, or can we stop this mongrelizing? Can women make a career outside the home without social or legal reprisal, or can we make them be housewives like the lord intended? Should young single women be able to get contraceptives, or is that for little whores? People react strongly because this is yet another push from a group that has been on the wrong side of every social issue of significance for the past 100 years.

And I think we should call them out for that, not their shitty understanding of biology.

And if a sill fake weblog helps - I'm all for it. After all, "Fake Steve Jobs" is pretty popular as well...
posted by DreamerFi at 10:14 PM on April 29, 2008

Hmm. It's a nice idea, but they haven't put much effort into it stylistically: as if Darwin, whose writing style is readily available online, would come out sounding like some Estuary wide boy with "Anyway, one evening I looked up to see a certain Mr Stein gawping at me". Pardon the self-link, but a few years back I co-wrote a similar column, Difference of Opinion, that did the same with computing and Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace.
posted by raygirvan at 1:47 AM on April 30, 2008

Resurrection will be Charles Darwin's undoing.
posted by srboisvert at 8:05 AM on April 30, 2008