[0:12] Actually, no. But whatever. Apparently motivated by this petition, the Australian shops “Target and Kmart have decided to stop selling the game, GTA5. Target and Kmart stores pulled the game after a petition launched by three female survivors of violence gained more than 40,000 signatures. Target said the decision “was in line with the majority view of customers” (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30328314)
[0:39] Yeah. Let’s ignore the fact that there is no more evidence that videogames with a sexual element to them cause real-world sexual violence, than games with violence in them cause violence in the real world. After all, as many will tell you, it’s actually quite easy to tell the difference between the fantasy of a computer game, and reality:
[1:00] Total Annihilation: “What began as conflict over the transfer of consciousness from flesh to machines escalated into a war which has decimated a million worlds”
[1:09] Thunderf00t: And, just because someone has experienced sexual violence in their life—which I’m sure is a traumatic enough experience—that doesn’t give them a blank card to veto any media that anyone else might want to watch.
[1:24] I mean, look, there are plenty of war survivors out there—which is also very traumatic. But oddly enough, Target didn’t seem to have a problem with selling war games where you can kill thousands of- men- in brutal and gruesome ways. WHY the selective outrage?
[1:54] And what do you know, it’s already got more signatures than the petition to ban GTA5. And with good reason. ANYthing in GTA5 is vanilla compared to the Bible. A book that not only advocates burning witches—it commands it and in real life. A book that advocates killing all men, women, and children, but keeping the virgins for yourself:
[2:21] “And Moses said to them, ‘Why have they saved all the women alive? . . . Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women and children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep for yourselves.’”
[2:41] Thunderf00t: DAMN the selective outrage of you social justice warriors just has to be seen to be believed.
Many thanks to Linda for supplying this transcript!
[0:00] Ray Comfort: “Behold the atheists’ nightmare.”
[0:07] Steve Sanchez [?]: “Now, your nickname is “The Banana Man”.”
Comfort: “Yeah . . . Evolution comes from the imaginations of man. It’s very nebulous. It’s as big or as small as the imaginations of man, and you can see it by the language they use, the language of speculation: “we believe”, “perhaps”, “maybe”, “could’ve”.”
[0:21] Thunderf00t: Well, you see, this is where you and I fundamentally differ, Ray. My understanding of reality is contingent on reality; whereas yours is not.
[0:31] Yup. Given the right observations, I will correct my views to make them congruent with reality. And if that involves jettisoning the theories of Newton, Einstein, and Darwin, then so be it. Now let’s compare this to Ray.
[0:45] Ray’s understanding of reality is not contingent on reality because he already deems himself to have divine insight.
[0:53] clip, “The Thunderf00t – Ray Comfort discussion”: “I’m gonna stop you there because I know what was in the beginning. You don’t know. I know what was in the beginning. In the beginning, ‘God created the Heavens and the Earth’. You don’t know, I do.”
[1:03] Thunderf00t: That’s right—there is NO evidence that could be presented to Ray to make him change his mind because HE KNOWS. The irony is of course is that Ray, who is so proud of his absolute knowledge of the origin of the universe, has a less than impressive track record when it comes to the origin of—oh, I dunno, let’s pick a subject at random. Let’s say the origin of BANANAS.
[1:28] Comfort: “pointed at the top for ease of entry. It’s just the right shape for the human mouth. It’s chewy, easy to digest. It’s even curved toward the face to make the whole process so much easier. Seriously, Kirk, the whole of creation testifies the genius of God’s creative hand.”
[1:43] Thunderf00t: (Heh) Yeah. Ray initially used his absolute knowledge to say that ‘bananas speak to the glory of God’s creation’. Then Ray released a video saying that he was ‘misquoted’ and that he accepted that bananas were selectively bred by man.
[1:59] clip: ““Banana Man” is a reference to an illustration presented by Comfort, in which he compared the complex design elements of a Coke can to the complex design elements of a banana in order to demonstrate that thoughtful design by a designer is required for both examples. However, atheists removed the Coke can from the video version and sent it across the internet saying that ‘Comfort believed that the banana was conclusive proof of God’s existence’, missing the point of the illustration completely.”
“They also said that the banana had been modified over time by man to fit in the palm of the hand, and not by God.”
“Comfort apologized for his mistake about the banana saying, “My apologies for not explaining myself more clearly. I was not aware that the common banana had been so modified through hybridization.”
[2:46] Thunderf00t: And then in his latest interview he says that there is ‘no evidence that bananas were genetically engineered’:
[2:52] Comfort: “Especially the guy that made that banana video and using a modern, weird shaped banana and saying it was genetically altered when there was NO—absolutely no credibility to his claims at all. It’s bogus.”
[3:05] Comfort: “I know what was in the beginning. ‘In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth’. You don’t know. I do.”
[3:10] Thunderf00t: There’s a famous quote from a famous scientist that adequately sums you up here Ray: “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence, than it does knowledge” (Darwin). Yep. That’s right, Banana Man, your bitch ass just got served by Darwin.
[3:24] I guess these are the differences that make me a scientist devoted to building a better understanding of reality, whereas Ray is verbatim, repeating a script that he prepared some three years ago.
[3:35] Comfort: “You can see it by the language they use, the language of speculation: “we believe”, “perhaps”, “maybe”, “could’ve”.”
““We believe”, “perhaps”, “maybe”, “could’ve””
[3:44] Thunderf00t: And even back then his ace-in-the-hole was asking a bunch of, well, with all due respect, greasy high school students on what their understanding of evolution was, and then crowing when they couldn’t give a cogent explanation of something they didn’t understand. Braavo Ray, bravo. Truly showing the caliber of your creationist arguments thereby quote mining teenagers. I mean, I’m surprised you didn’t ask these, uh, experts about long division as well. Then you could’ve disproved mathematics at the same time.
[4:16] Now, Ray recently staged a cheap publicity stunt where he put a creationist’s introduction into the seminal work of Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species.
[4:27] Sanchez: “How many Origin of Species books did we get onto the university campuses last Wednesday?”
Comfort: “170,000.”
Sanchez: “170,000. And how many campuses?”
Comfort: “100 top campuses across the U.S. That was the main point of the whole thing. I don’t wanna turn people AGAINST evolution. I want them to doubt evolution enough to reexamine or examine the claims of the gospel.”
[4:49] Thunderf00t: What are you on, Ray? Evolution at its simplest is that in iterative self-replicating systems more successful patterns, by definition, propagate better than less successful ones.
[5:02] But how on earth in your mind do you get from expecting people to question what is true by definition, to examining the claims of some 2,000 year old stories about goat herders and magic men in the Mediterranean? Stand back, Banana Man is about to try logic:
[5:21] Comfort: “Richard Dawkins says I’m an ignorant fool, so what I’ve written must have been ignorant foolishness. So why was he telling them to ‘rip it out’? He should be saying, ‘READ the ignorant foolishness of Ray Comfort and see what an ignorant fool he is and, well, strengthen your faith in evolution.’”
[5:36] Thunderf00t: Uuuh, no, Ray. Reading junk constitutes a waste of time. Yes, it’s true that by reading your introduction you can come to this stunning conclusion that a man who thinks he knows—with absolute certainty—the origin of the universe (something that has eluded the minds of the smartest people on the planet) that doesn’t know where bananas come from, is, mmm, intellectually challenged.
[6:01] But DAMN, that bastardization of logic makes me cringe.
[6:04] Comfort: “‘READ the ignorant foolishness of Ray Comfort and see what an ignorant fool he is and, well, strengthen your faith in evolution’.”
[6:11] Thunderf00t: No. Determining that Ray is a moron does not impact on the veracity of evolution any more than it impinges on the credibility of atomic theory. And Ray, faith is belief in something without evidence. Evolution stands on its ability to describe the facts. You know, the evidence that we have in reality.
[6:32] Comfort: “-strengthen your faith in evolution’. But he’s afraid of the gospel that it contains.”
[6:37] Thunderf00t: Hmm. That’s an interesting conjecture, Ray. But where are my manners? Let me let Banana Man field the answer to that one:
[6:44] Comfort: “-blog to hundreds of atheists each day who are waiting for anything that comes out of my mouth so they can rip it to shreds. But they hang around me like—someone says, ‘why do you call those atheists centralists?’ Because atheists hang around me like bugs hang around a campfire. I can’t get rid of them! I slap ‘em and say, ‘go away’. ‘No, we’re staying here’. It’s like a train wreck. ‘We wanna see what’s gonna happen next.’”
[7:03] Thunderf00t: Yep, that’s right, Ray. This is the reason why people hang around you; because you’re a clown. It’s not because they fear anything you have to say. They hang around you for the LOLs.
[7:14] Dawkins suggests that you rip the introduction out because Dawkins ISN’T in it for the LOLs. He’s an educator. And your introduction is comparable to putting an introduction in a book about leprosy, saying that it’s nothing to do with bacteria and that god describes how to cure leprosy in the Bible by killing a bird, and then dipping another bird in the blood of the first, and then letting it go. And then getting all surprised when healthcare professionals of one sort or another kinda get pissy at you.
[7:43] Comfort: “I wanna thank that lady that put the “Origin of Stupidity” video on. They got over well over a million views advertising the book.”
[7:52] Thunderf00t: By ‘that lady’ I assume you’re referring to the fiery sex-bomb goddess of ZOMGitscriss. Yeah, I’d like to thank her too. Nice one, Crissy.
[8:04] Comfort: “I really appreciate it ‘cos that was free publicity, and they’d done a great job.”
Sanchez: “So in an essence, the atheists have catapulted Way of the Master—your ministry about Evangelism, Jesus Christ, God—to the next level, haven’t they?”
[8:18] Thunderf00t: Yeah, right. I love the desperate attempt to put a positive spin on it. But face it. It was free advertising for, as you put it, ‘a train wreck’.
[8:27] I guess another fundamental difference between us Ray, is, I would not be happy for free publicity as ‘Banana Man’ or, Mr. Moron-performs-another-unintentionally-funny-intellectual-train-wreck. However, you have stepped up to the plate, and in this role both of us seem to be happy.
[8:45] Regrettably, we lost PCS. But I’m perfectly happy for Banana Man to succeed him in all of his offices.
[8:52] clip: “But in their efforts to make him look foolish, atheists gave Ray Comfort an international platform for his message.”
[8:58] Comfort: “Behold³ the atheists’ nightmare.”
[9:02] Thunderf00t: Yeah, that’s almost right. Ray is famous for being an idiot. But even if this did somehow transfer as publicity for the Bible, ANYONE in product promotion or brand image would projectile vomit exorcist-style at the idea of having this sort of promotion. You know, it would be kind of like having a lead paint manufacturer endorsing a line of toys for children.
[9:27] Ray is aware of his train wreck persona too. And you have to look no further than his attempts to rewrite history to realize this, firstly claiming that his banana argument was ‘valid but misquoted’:
[9:40] clip: “However, atheists removed the Coke can from the video version.”
[9:44] Thunderf00t: And then, of course, acknowledging that bananas were selectively bred.
[9:47] clip: “Comfort apologized for his mistake about the banana saying, “I was not aware that the common banana had been so modified through hybridization.”
[9:55] Thunderf00t: But not wanting to disappoint his loyal fans, train wrecked Tim then gives us this gem:
[10:01] clip: “However, the truth remains that God gave man the knowledge and ability to modify it so that it perfectly fit into his hand. He did the same with big dogs, so they can fit into his car.”
[10:13] Thunderf00t: Yeah, sure, Ray. 30,000 or so years ago when man first started selectively breeding the domestic dog (Wikipedia, ”Origin of the domestic dog”) he thought, ‘you know, we should breed a small dog such that in 30,000 years’ time when we invent the car, our dogs would fit in them.
[10:27] Anyway, sometime later Banana Man gives up trying to justify his ‘bananas prove God’ argument as ‘valid but misquoted’, and happily performs the routine as ‘legitimate humor’:
[10:40] Comfort: “The banana and the hand are perfectly made, one for the other. You’ll find the maker of the banana, Almighty God has made it with a non-slip surface. And as out would indicate inward contents: green, too early. Yellow, just ripe.”
[10:56] Thunderf00t: Yeah, this is the champion of creationism performing his argument for god as ‘legitimate humor’. Way to fill PCS’s shoes, Ray. I mean, to make a “Why do People Laugh at Creationists?” video you need someone of the caliber of PCS. But to make a ‘Why do Creationists Laugh at Creationists?’ video, that requires a Banana Man:
[11:20] Comfort: “Notice the pointed top for ease of entry, just the right shape for the human mouth. Chewy, palatable, good for you, and the Maker has even curved it toward the face to make the whole process so much easier. That’s if you get it the right way around.”
[11:43] Thunderf00t: Way to represent, Banana Man. Way to represent.
Many thanks to Linda for supplying this transcript!
[0:00] Thunderf00t: You know what’s fantastic about the new Feminist Frequency video—I mean really, REALLY fantastic—is it dispels in an instant the entire Anita Sarkeesian victimhood narrative—you know, the one where she’s only being targeted for being A WOMAN:
[0:19] Anita Sarkeesian: “-it’s actually men going after women in really hostile, aggressive ways. THAT’s what GamerGate is about. It’s about, like, terrorizing women for being involved in this industry.”
[0:30] Sarkeesian: “-you know, we have this larger culture in gaming. We’re a subset of—mostly male gamers have been viciously going after women and attacking them.”
[0:41] Sarkeesian: “-again, what I’ve described to you today is not unique to me in my experience. Every day, many women voicing their opinions online deal with a similar flood of slander and defamation designed to undermine their careers, their credibility, their resolve, and their confidence.”
[0:55] Thunderf00t: Remember, the reason she turns off comments is because of the harassment she receives as a woman:
[1:01] Anna Akana: “As unsettling as all of this is, the thing that disturbs me the most is the kind of personal backlash that Anita and her channel have faced. She’s had to turn off her comments and hide her like/dislike ratio. This is not okay. Please watch this video, and share.”
[1:15] Thunderf00t: But of course, if a man were to make exactly the same video, he would get no, um, harassment, right? Because only women get, uh, harassment, because they’re women, and it’s nothing to do with the outrageous dishonesty or the utterly stupid things that they say:
[1:33] Feminist Frequency: “We must remember that games don’t just entertain. Intentional or not, they always express a set of values and present us with concepts of normalcy.”
[1:51] Thunderf00t: Yeah, of course. If a man said something completely stupid, everyone would instantly take it “seriously” because he’s got a penis:
[2:00] Rick Perry: “I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian. But you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know that there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military, but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas, or pray in school.”
[2:13] Thunderf00t: Which is exactly what FullMcIntosh says at the end:
[2:19] Jonathan McIntosh: “Because it was created by a straight, white man, this checklist will likely be taken more seriously than if it had been written by virtually any female gamer.”
[2:27] Thunderf00t: No, if a moronic man says something stupid, it’s taken no more seriously than if a moronic woman says something completely stupid. DEAL WITH IT. Cute thing is though, apparently Jonathan here so strongly believed that he would get no harassment for being a man and saying stupid shit, that he also took the precaution of disabling comments and ratings. After all, someone’s got to keep the world safe from the horror of free expression.
[2:56] Oh, and, by the way fellas, if you’re gonna herd people up to read stuff off an Autocue, at least move them far enough away from the Autocue that you can’t see that they’re READING IT OFF AN AUTOCUE. ‘Cos that kind of dispels the whole idea that these are, ‘honest people who really believe what they’re saying’.
[3:13] Then the fact that they all look like they’ve been selected and dressed by a PR company to represent a ‘white demographic’ of Joe everyman—I’m sure is pure coincidence. That said, I did recognize this guy who writes songs about feminism.
[3:29] Now firstly, I gotta give the guy credit. He does leave his ratings and his comments open, which does show a degree of maturity and honesty. And just like FullMcIntosh said, the message becomes instantly credible when it’s delivered by a guy. Right? . . . Oh.
[3:47] Nope, apparently a dumb message typically gets a bad rating no matter what your chromosomes are. You know, it’s almost like the flak that Anita Sarkeesian gets is nothing to do with the fact that she’s a woman, and it is in reality due to the fact that her premise that “videogames cause sexism” is about as bogus as Jack Thompson’s premise that “videogames cause violence”:
[4:15] clip: “-game industry lobbyists are quick to point out a total of nine federal courts have rejected so-called “studies” that videogames cause aggression.”
[4:23] Thunderf00t: which it turns out FullMcIntosh also believes: “Scientific consensus is that playing violent videogames increases aggression and aggressive behaviors. Amazing so many people are in denial” (radicalbytes).
[4:35] Yeah, right. Sure, people will just instantly take you seriously if only you’ve got a penis:
[4:42] McIntosh: “-because it was created by a straight, white man, this checklist will likely be taken more seriously than if it had been written by virtually any female gamer.”
[4:50] Thunderf00t: You muppets. But hey, I guess it’s a hard life spending a $160,000 on a project that raised 25 times more money than it needed:
[5:01] Sarkeesian: “I actually raised 25 times [applause] what I initially asked for.”
[5:09] Thunderf00t: Which is already years past its due date, and you haven’t even made half of the videos that you said you would.
[5:17] Akana: “This is not okay. Please watch this video, and share.”
Many thanks to Linda for supplying this transcript!
[0:00] Eric Hovind: “Now understand, evolution is NOT a science. It is a world view, just like Christianity is a world view. So how is somebody that looks at the world through the lens of evolution going to view life? How are they gonna answer the basic questions of life?”
“Who am I?”
Hovind: “Evolution tells us we’re just an accident, the result of random chance.”
[0:25] Thunderf00t: (Haha) The product of random chance, you say? Heh, yeah, sure the same way it’s random chance that day follows night.
[0:34] Well, for certain, both I and you are unique. But what is it that makes you unique? Is it your property, your technology, your spouse, or your siblings, your children? Or is it something more intrinsic like your DNA?
[0:50] Well it turns out your genome will fit, uncompressed, on about a gigabyte. But that’s not the part of the genome that’s unique to you. Virtually all of this is identical to that of your neighbors. The bit of the genome that’s unique to you is only about 10 megabytes. That means that your typical iPod with maybe 30GB of memory can store the genetic uniqueness of about 3,000 people on something that will fit in the palm of your hand.
[1:17] Now let’s follow that thought for a moment and say that the potency of a system is related, in a loose way, to the information within that system. Well, to be honest, the genome is basically only the instructions, if you like, for the ‘make-human’ process. And part of that make-human process includes the brain.
[1:36] Now, it’s kind of fuzzy to work out how much memory the brain has. But it’s typically estimated on the order of terabytes. Now the design of an informational storage device that can hold more information than that design itself is, not exactly an earth-shattering concept.
[1:51] For instance, the blueprints and design specs for the make-hard drive function are probably only on the order of a few gigabytes or so, and that’s massively smaller than the storage that these devices have.
[2:04] So is it your brain that makes you special? Well, it’s certainly a big part of it. But as individuals, humans are unimpressive creatures. They really only come into their own when they start to work in groups.
[2:18] For instance, one man versus a tiger is: one well-fed tiger, 100% probability. 10 coordinated people versus one tiger, is one nice tiger skin rug, 100% probability.
[2:33] This change in group behavior is doubtless due to tiny changes in the genome that promotes communal behavior. But this has a very large effect on the survivability of the individuals.
[2:44] For instance, 10 specialists, you know—the farmer, the farrier, the blacksmiths—that sort of thing, will carry significantly more knowledge than 10 individuals who do not work as a coordinated group. That is, they have better informational potential as 10 people all trying to remember specialized information than 10 people all trying to learn 10 times as much as will fit into their soft, squidgy human brains. You know, it’s that you do better with 10 specialists than you do with 10 jack of all trades, master of none types.
[3:19] But there’s more to it than working in teams. People die. And when they do, their knowledge is lost, via what’s taught to the next generation. However, when one of those individual’s immense stored media—you know: writing, disk drives, the internet, that sort of thing—everything changes. Knowledge from that point on is essentially accumulative AND exponential in nature. Knowledge enables large groups to coordinate and work together, and it enables machines that can do the work of thousands of men. It enables health care, clean water, understanding disease, and so on. So you see from these miniscule tweaks in the DNA, massive effects can ensue.
[4:02] Those relatively modest changes that promote group formation can greatly increase the potency of a community. After this genetic selection plays a diminished role, its selection criteria that determines who dies and who doesn’t is essentially down to the stored knowledge of societies. Communities that can treat small pox will survive better than those that cannot. Communities that can treat water survive better than those that cannot. Societies with WWII era weaponry simply cannot challenge modern military equipment on the battle field.
[4:35] But it’s the pace that this knowledge can be gathered at that’s the real knee-weakening factor. I mean, merely over the last few decades I’ve seen vast changes in our civilization. When I was young, there was no such thing as a personal computer. And now, just over one generation further on, it’s difficult to find ANY aspect of our lives that does not benefit from this technology.
[4:59] Our genetics are now essentially in a state of stasis when one considers the growth of the knowledge of mankind. Looked at in such terms, the potency of mankind is a product of several factors which contain elements that could be described both as genetic and group survival terms.
[5:17] However, one thing is overwhelmingly clear. And that’s for mankind, knowledge is the principle factor. Knowledge is the enabler of both society’s and the species. Knowledge is now the prime factor in deciding the survivability of individuals. Knowledge is the future, and intentionally, intellectually corrosive muppets like this:
[5:40] Kent Hovind: “I believe the Bible is the infallible, inspired, inerrant word of the living God. I believe it from cover to cover. Amen. And I believe the evolution theory that’s being taught in our schools is one of the dumbest and most dangerous religions in the history of humanity.”
[6:00] Thunderf00t: -just cannot be ignored.
[6:03] Presented with such arguments, it’s baffling that so many politicians do not have education; that’s the propagation of knowledge. And research, that’s the acquisition of new knowledge. And countering the disinformation sewn by pseudoscientists, that’s the top items on their agenda.
[6:22] Now let’s compare this previously presented perspective to that of a creationist:
[6:27] clip: “Who am I?”
Hovind: “Evolution tells us we’re just an accident, the result of random chance. But the Bible says we’re fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of our Creator.”
[6:40] Thunderf00t: (chuckles) Well, fundamentally, no. We are a hierarchical, social, species. Something an individual god can never be. It’s tautological that a single individual cannot form a hierarchical social structure.
[6:56] clip: “Why am I here?”
Hovind: “Evolution leaves us without an answer. There IS NO purpose to life.”
[7:03] Thunderf00t: Well, again—no. You HAVE a purpose AND a vested interest; and the benefit of the society that raised your living standards and life expectancy beyond any ramblings from any Bronze Age myth book.
[7:18] I mean, really it’s a direct challenge. Present anything in the Bible or similar that conveys what we are and how our species functions better than I have shown in this video. But again, it shows this harsh contrast.
[7:34] I could concisely and comprehensively convey complex concepts, clear of the confusion of convolutional clouding. But the Bible bombastically and bitterly bombs, as belied by its bleakly bad bungling. [Extra points for alliteration!]
[7:50] clip: “Where am I going when I die?”
Hovind: “Well, if evolution is true, don’t worry about it. You got nothing to lose. But if creation is true, you have everything to lose by not considering this fundamental question of life.”
[8:03] Thunderf00t: Well all this seems a pretty shallow and manipulative play on the sense of self-preservation that we must necessarily have. Well, at least why it’s those who don’t have one are unlikely to have lived long enough to watch this video.
[8:16] However, everyone watching this video does have a brain, and now that brain has been introduced to an overview of mankind and your position in it.
[8:26] Immortality is an elusive concept for volatile genes, organisms, organs, and ideas. Self-preservation is merely the introspective fear of the termination of an organ. But for those who perceive they’re part of an individual in the grand scheme of things, they gain an enhanced potential to shape the thoughts and behaviors of things long after their brain ceases to function.
[8:51] In this sense, for the lesser, as for the greater, the footprints of the individual in the sands of time will echo into the future. But ultimately, for reasons that should be explicitly clear in this video, Bronze Age religion is an inhibiting influence on the progression of mankind.
[9:08] Thankfully, in the open and free global forum of ideas this intellectually erosive concept is progressively more unviable, and I believe we serve the coming man, society and ourselves, in challenging it by decree of open contest.
MANY thanks to Linda for supplying the transcript for these videos!
[0:00] news clips: “Well it’s a simple idea with big potential, turning polluted air into actual products that most of us will use every day.”
“Absolutely! Here in a Southern California plastics factory you are NOT gonna imagine WHERE this comes from. Just wait until you see this story.”
“We connect to a Newlight through our technology innovation funnel at Dell . . . who’s doing, of all things, making plastic out of carbon in the air. It almost seemed like it was too good to be true.”
[0:26] Thunderf00t: WOW. So the solution to global warming is here:
[0:31] clip from “Plastic made from air may help solve carbon emissions crisis” (CBS): “This building in Costa Mesa, California, looks unremarkable. And what’s happening inside sounds unreal.”
“So that’s plastic? That was literally made out of thin air?”
“We would be breathing this right now.”
[0:46] Thunderf00t: A way of turning carbon in the air into plastic. And the GREAT thing is, it’s gonna be CHEAPER than regular plastic. And it’s been featured on USA Today, The Guardian, The Weather Channel, CBS, and of course, Fox News, and the computer company, Dell, is promoting this AMAZING new technology, hard—so it can’t be complete bullshit. Right? I mean surely, someone must have fact-checked this. Right?
[1:16] So, firstly they claim that they’re gonna be making this plastic out of exhaust gases:
[1:21] clip from The Weather Channel: “-supposed to be a big game-changer for climate change, and Dave, you were telling us earlier about how they take the carbon out of the atmosphere and turn into plastic. How exactly do they do that, and Stephen our producer said, ‘well, why don’t they just hook up kind of a vacuum to, you know—smokestacks—and just get it right like that?’
[1:38] Thunderf00t: Well, that’s great. So now we know what we’re talking about: carbon dioxide.
[1:43] clip from The Weather Channel: “Yeah, that would be the way to do that. And they ARE doing that. In the future they hope to get it from a concentrated source. Right now they’re taking it from the air and they’re taking it from concentrated sources. But everything you see here—the cups, the bag, the plates—even, in fact, the chair that I’m sitting on right now, it’s all made from this plastic that comes from the air, and it’s one man’s dream.”
[2:07] Thunderf00t: And here’s their CEO saying that, just like trees take carbon dioxide out of the air:
[2:13] clips from Weather Channel, Dell: “pull Southern California’s polluted air from the roof and make something with all that carbon coming from cars, power plants, and farms.”
“Plants do this every single day. The way a tree grows is by pulling carbon out of the air.”
“Every single thing that you see that’s green—that’s ALL produced by pulling carbon out of the air. So we do precisely the same thing. It’s all around us. We just found a way to pull it out of an airstream and then turn it into a plastic molecule, and that plastic molecule we can then turn into shapes and things like that.”
“The environmental impact has the potential impact to be massive.”
[2:47] Thunderf00t: Yeah, that’s mostly right. Trees take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere AND water and a load of energy from the sun, and turn that into sugar—which is then polymerized to make things like cellulose, which is essentially wood.
[3:03] Now, plants GET that energy from the SUN. They are solar powered. Where’s he gonna get his energy from? Solar Roadways [LOL] , thorium-powered cars? Because the one place he can’t get it from is burning fossil fuels, ‘cos that would dump about as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as he’s going to be sequestering.
[3:24] As of rough chemical compositions, most plastics are basically petroleum-based polymers. And their chemical composition is basically that of oil; which is approximately this:
[3:37] Sugars and their polymers, which is cellulose, make up things like wood. And can, at a simple chemical composition-level be looked at as partially combusted hydrocarbon. That is, IF you could simply transform these petroleum-based polymers into wood, it would release a load of energy. And then of course you can simply finish off that oxidation in a very simple manner just by burning wood, which everyone knows releases a load of heat. I mean, it’s basically turning wood, into carbon dioxide, water, and a load of energy; effectively reversing what photosynthesis did in the first place.
[4:16] But energy is conserved here. There are no free lunches. If you wanna turn that carbon dioxide back into wood, you gotta put a load of energy in from somewhere and it will cost you AT LEAST as much energy as you got out from burning it in the first place.
[4:34] And the same thing is true if you’re trying to turn carbon dioxide into hydrocarbon-based plastics. WHERE is this energy going to come from?
[4:46] Secondly of course, this would just be a drop in the ocean. I mean from my last video you’ll recall that humans breathe out about 1 kilogram of carbon dioxide per day. That’s just your carbon footprint for being alive. And then you have all these people from CBS just gasping with awe at how someone has maybe sequestered 50 or so grams of carbon in a cellphone cover:
[5:13] clip from CBS “Plastic made from air may help solve carbon emissions crisis”: “So I know this sounds more like magic than science, so I wanted to make sure you guys could actually touch and feel this . . .”
[5:35] I mean, seriously, that’s only about 1/20th of their personal daily metabolic carbon footprint and they’re impressed by it!
[5:43] news clips: “Newlight is selling its plastic to companies such as furniture maker KI, which uses it to create chairs. There are also air carbon cellphone cases, soap dishes, and even plastic bags.”
“a big game-changer for climate change, and Dave, you were telling us earlier about how they take the carbon out of the atmosphere and turn into plastic.”
“At a recent Fortune Magazine event, Michael Dell announced he will use Newlight’s air carbon bags to wrap his Dell computers.”
[6:17] Thunderf00t: And just a personal metabolic carbon footprint is peanuts compared to the total carbon footprint. I mean, like I was saying, this is a drop in the ocean AT BEST. I mean let’s keep this in perspective:
[6:32] clip from Weather Channel: “2011, the U.S. alone generated almost 14 MILLION TONS of plastic. Only about 8 percent was EVER recycled.”
[6:39] Thunderf00t: 14 million tons might sound like a lot. Until you realize that the U.S. carbon footprint is about 5,000 MILLION TONS, which was achieved by burning about 2,000 million tons of oil. Yeah, ALL of the plastics that you consume are give-or-take only take about 1 percent of your ENTIRE carbon footprint. If we were talking about carbon dioxide, he’s simply talking crap.
[7:12] Buuut it turns out that all that speak about basically doing what trees do—not entirely honest. Turns out that this process is actually gonna run on methane. That’s right—it’s basically turning hydrocarbon into plastic—which sounds exactly like what the oil industry is currently doing.
[7:32] So, what’s the difference? Well, they claim that they’re gonna get the methane OUT of the air:
[7:38] clip from Dell: “We connect to a Newlight through our technology innovation funnel at Dell . . . who’s doing, of all things, making plastic out of carbon in the air. It almost seemed like it was too good to be true.”
[7:48] Thunderf00t: And I simply call BULLSHIT on that. Well you’ve gotta understand that there really isn’t much methane in air—and for good reason—it gets oxidized away in our atmosphere really quite quickly with a half-life of about 10 years.
[8:01] Now, while it’s true methane IS a very big greenhouse gas, it’s also true that its concentration in air is very low—only about 1 part per million. There is just bugger-all methane in the air.
[8:16] So, I mean, just some ballpark numbers, the cubic meter of air is what this girl is essentially sitting in, weighs about 1 kilogram. So if you wanted to make about 1 kilogram of plastic, you would need to harvest the methane of 1 MILLION cubic meters of air with 100 percent efficiency. I mean, look, this is the tube they claim they’re sucking all our air through to make this plastic:
[8:41] clip from Weather Channel: “pull Southern California’s polluted air from the roof and make something with all that carbon.”
“This plastic comes from the air.”
“And this is it right here, more than 50 percent of THIS plastic right here came from the air on top of this building.”
[9:01] Thunderf00t: So let’s do a real simple back-of-the-envelope calculation. For a TRIVIAL task of say, producing 1 kilogram of plastic per hour—that means they’ve gotta suck 1 MILLION cubic meters of air through that tube. That tube, if you’re generous, is about 0.1 meters by 0.1 meters. So if they’re gonna achieve the paltry task of making 1 kilogram of plastic per hour, iiit turns out they’d have to be sucking air through that tube at about 100 TIMES the speed of sound. And that’s just the flow problem. Unless they’ve got some magic method for extracting the methane out of the air, it’s simply pointless.
[9:41] Now, 100 times the speed of sound—about a 100 times the speed of a bullet—might not sound impossible to some people. So let me put this into more human dimensions. So, we basically need about 1 million cubic meters of air to create a single kilogram of plastic. Well, by happy coincidence, the volume of the Empire State Building is also about 1 million cubic meters. So the bare minimum you would have to do is pump a volume of air the size of the Empire State Building—ignoring all the stuff about extracting the methane and turning it into plastic.
[10:20] But just for the moment, let’s just take a look at the costs of pumping that sort of volume of air. It’s actually going to take a sort of industrial pump that can pump about 2 cubic meters per second, and it runs on about 2 kilowatts. So this pump would take about one week to pump that million cubic meters of air. And just the grid electricity to pump that volume of air would generate about 200 kilograms of carbon dioxide—the equivalent of burning about a 100 kilograms of oil to generate 1 KILOGRAM of plastic.
[10:58] And just to put that into some perspective, the petrochemical industry basically works by taking about 1 kilogram of oil and turning it into about 1 kilogram of plastic.
[11:08] clip from “Dell AirCarbon Plastic – Made from Air, Not Oil”: “Gone from doing less harm, to do no harm, to ‘let’s make it better than we left it’.”
“Newlight’s technology is such a great partner for that, but they’re making it better.”
[11:22] Thunderf00t: This really is the problem that you face, that you have essentially 1,000 tons of air, and you’re trying to extract from that 1 kilogram of methane, which can maybe be converted into about a kilogram of plastic.
[11:36] Look, this is the thing—you can get methane from the petrochemical industry fairly cheaply. But these ‘air carbon’ people claim that their process is cheaper than the petrochemical industry:
[11:47] clip from The Weather Channel: “although Mark truly believes he has found a way to make air plastic cost less than oil plastic.”
[11:55] Thunderf00t: In which case, the obvious question, if your air methane is cheaper than petrochemical industry methane, why not just sell it as ‘fuel’? You know, just for burning. It would be incredibly bio-friendly, as methane’s about 30 times as bad a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide.
[12:15] I mean there’s just something about this that REALLY stinks. That is, I simply don’t believe that there would EVER be a cost-effective way of extracting methane from the atmosphere like this.
[12:27] Now if you were doing this with BIO sources of methane—weeell, now that’s a little different. But that’s MUCH more what the petrochemical industry is essentially doing at the moment. And calling it “air carbon”, you know, pulled out of the air:
[12:40] clip from The Weather Channel: “Right. So this is actually air carbon.”
“Air carbon is the product name they use for this white powder.”
“How does this become plastic though?”
“Heat it up, and air carbon becomes a plastic called, PHA.”
CBS clip: “So that’s plastic that was literally made out of thin air?”
“We would be breathing this right now.”
[12:58] Thunderf00t: -seems to be ENTIRELY misleading.
[13:01] So, in summary, if they’re talking about making plastic from the carbon dioxide in the air, then they’re simply talking crap, as it could NEVER be cost-effective unless you can find a cheaper source of energy than fossil fuels. If he’s talking about methane in the air, then he’s MORE full of crap than the Empire State Building is full of air. And if he’s talking about bio methane created on a farm IN A BIOLOGICAL REACTOR—you know, to generate the methane in the first place—he’s talking about bio methane generated on a farm and he’s not talking about pulling it out of the air. And all those claims about ‘carbon out of the air’—not really true.
[13:47] clip from Dell: “Almost all plastics today come from fossil fuels. So, the difference with air carbon is, air carbon is made from air and carbon that we would otherwise be breathing right now.”
[13:56] Thunderf00t: Look, there’s ONE polymer that is the UNDISPUTED claim to call itself ‘air carbon’. It’s the most abundant biomolecule on Earth: cellulose, created by plants and the key structural component of trees—you know, wood. You wanna use ‘air carbon’ to wrap your computers, use paper. THEN at least the carbon GENUINELY came from the atmosphere and not some fraudulent claims about being able to make plastic cost-effective out of thin air. But I still just wail with despair at just how much scientific illiteracy there is throughout the mainstream media.
[14:38] clip from CBS: “So I know this sounds more like magic than science, so I wanted to make sure you guys could actually touch and feel this.”
[14:45] Thunderf00t: And just how a large company like Dell can promote this pseudo-science without even a cursory look as to if those claims are even remotely possible.
[14:57] clip from Dell: “We connect to a Newlight through our technology innovation funnel at Dell . . . who’s doing, of all things, making plastic out of carbon in the air. It almost seemed like it was too good to be true.”
Many thanks to Linda for supplying this transcript!
[0:00] Thunderf00t: You know, Anita Sarkeesian has recently found herself in some goood company. According to her, just like Jack Thompson and Glenn Beck, games are actually a direct and significant influence on people’s behavior.
[0:14] So Glenn Beck was convinced that just merely pushing the buttons on the gaming control in the game Watch Dogs was actually teaching people how to hack mobile phones and computers!
[0:24] clip from “Glenn Beck: Violent Video Games”: “Watch Dogs allow the players to hack into cell phones, ATMs, drawbridges, even helicopters, to wholly envelop the lives of others . . . the idea here is they’re teaching you to hack, and then become the ultimate voyeur in other people’s lives—including their bedrooms—by hacking into their phones, and everything—everything that we talked about.”
[0:51] Thunderf00t: And Jack Thompson was declared by Machinima to be the number one enemy of gaming for his long history of claiming that video games actually teach people how to become school shooters.
[1:03] clips from “Jack Thompson on Nightline”, “Top 10 Enemies of Gaming”, “Women as Background Decoration: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games”,: “Though the 130 million dollar suit was dismissed, Thompson is still convinced that these images inspired three murders.”
[1:10] “NUUMBER OOONE! Jack Thompson! Disbarred attorney Jack Thompson has long been an advocate against obscenity in pop culture . . . But this Jack Thompson fella, he sees obscenity as something different than you or I. Basically ANYTHING that offends his own delicate personal sensibilities. Over the years he’s sued or threated 2 Live Crew, N.W.A, MTV, Madonna, and recently he’s turned his attentions towards the video games.”
[1:36] “To him, this is not entertainment. It is a murder simulator.
[1:41] “Once a person is reduced to the status of objecthood, violence against that object becomes intrinsically permitted.”
[1:47] “You’re kicking, punching”
[1:49] “Violability occurs when, as Nussbaum points out, the objectifier treats the object as lacking in boundary-integrity, as something that it is permissible to break up, smash, break into.”
[2:01] “Ultimately shooting, cutting the heads off of people with machetes of people you don’t even know and don’t have a motive to be violent against.”
[2:07] “Since these women are just objects, there’s no need or reason for players to have any emotional engagement with them. Meaningful relationships or interactions are not even possible.”
[2:16] Thunderf00t: Indeed, not only did Machinima declare him the “number one enemy of gaming,” they claim that he was the ultimate end-game villain:
[2:24] clip from “Top 10 Enemies of Gaming”: “He is the ultimate level-boss to the gaming industry. Using videogames as scapegoat for tragic school-shootings, he said: “In every school shooting, we find that kids who pull the trigger are video gamers.
“He even suggested that the PS2 controller’s vibrations help condition gamers’ minds to enjoy killing.”
[2:42] Thunderf00t: Now Anita Sarkeesian must have watched all of this with a deep sense of envy, because she has declared herself to be the ultimate villainess—ah, sorry—correction, she claims that gamers have declared her to be the ultimate villainess.
[2:59] clip from TEDx Talks, “Anita Sarkeesian at TEDxWomen 2012”: “So, in their minds, they concocted this grand fiction in which they’re the heroic players of a massively multiplayer online game, working together to take down an enemy; and apparently, they casted me in the role of the villain.”
[3:12] Thunderf00t: Oh, I know, vanity and aspirational victimhood in one package. Yeah, damn straight, Anita Sarkeesian is pretty much exactly what you would expect from an unholy hybrid of Jack Thompson and that crazy woman from Amy’s Baking Company:
[3:29] clip from “Kitchen Nightmares Amy Bouzaglo Season 6 Episode 16 Part 1”: “I have issues with customers that are trying to be online bullies and say horrible things.”
“Online bullies?”
“I told them, I thought he was a loser, he was a moron.”
[3:38] Thunderf00t: So Jack Thompson claims that video games CAUSE SHOOTINGS. Glenn Beck claims that videogames CAUSE HACKING. And Anita Sarkeesian claims that videogames CAUSE SEXISM. Hey fellas, got a great question for ya: did the game Batman make you wanna dress up like a bat and fight crime as a vigilante?
[4:01] clip from “Jack Thompson on Nightline” “Centuries ago, it was the pamphleteers who were scolded for dragging down society. In the 50’s it was comic books, in the 60’s it was The Beatles.”
[4:10] Thunderf00t: However, meanwhile in reality with the sheer number of computer games played, the one thing that we CAN say with surety is that if there IS any link between behavior and playing computer games, it’s BLOODY weak.
[4:28] clip from “Jack Thompson on Nightline”: “Game industry lobbyists are quick to point out a total of 9 Federal Courts have rejected so-called “studies” that video games cause aggression.”
[4:35] Thunderf00t: But just so we’re clear how dishonest Anita was willing to be to come to this conclusion: she claimed that in the game Hitman: [Absolution] men were meant to get their rocks off to beating up the dancers and then controlling their dead bodies:
[4:49] clip from “Women as Background Decoration: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games”: “Players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters. It’s a rush streaming from a carefully concocted mix of sexual arousal connected to the act of controlling and punishing representations of female sexuality.”
[5:05] Thunderf00t: The problem was that no one who played the game DOES that. Trust me, I watched at least 40 playthroughs and none of them attacked the dancers, ‘cos in Hitman, you’re not meant to kill innocent people. Indeed, you get penalized for it. So how can Anita then claim that this game is making people sexist?
[5:26] Well, obviously she’s gotta go beat the living crap out of these virtual women herself, then drag their bodies around in a big circle—and you know it’s her doing it, because the body starts right by the body locker that she’s eventually going to put it into, and then she drags it around in a BIIIG circle over the other body to make it seem as nasty as possible. That is, in reality the only people who play Hitman as a fantasy to kill women and desecrate their bodies, are feminists like Anita Sarkeesian. Indeed, it’s kind of ironic that if you actually listen to what she says:
[6:01] clip from “Women as Background Decoration: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games”: “-derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters. It’s a rush streaming from a carefully concocted mix of sexual arousal, connected to the act of controlling and punishing representations of female sexuality.”
[6:16] Thunderf00t: Anita’s footage of this part of Hitman is quite literally the only footage that I’ve seen anything even remotely like this. And quite how Anita’s strange fetish for violence against women in computer games proves that games cause sexism—I’m not quite sure. But yeah, with arguments as rigorous as that, it’s quite CLEAR why she’s got the same winning ratio as Jack Thompson. I mean, Anita’s arguments here are about as convincing as suggesting that team games encourage team killing. And just to prove it, here is some POWERFUL footage of Anita going on a team killer killing spree.
[6:55] clip
[7:08] Or it’s like her going griefing in Minecraft—that’s the practice where assholes go and destroy worlds which took people DAYS to make—simply so she can claim that the game is there to encourage and reward people for going griefing in Minecraft.
[7:24] clip from “Jack Thompson on Nightline”: “And it makes him an object of scorn in the gaming world. Kids who wear ‘I hate Jack Thompson’ t-shirts can trade blows with his likeness in the game Mortal Combat.”
[7:37] Thunderf00t: Interestingly though, while Jack Thompson was being inserted into videogames as a character who could be killed in numerous, violent ways, like having his body fed through grated, grinding, bloody wheels of one sort or another—that really didn’t offend Anita’s sensibilities. Apparently men being fed into thrashing machines doesn’t count as sexism, or harassment, or online bullying. However, when someone made a much simpler version of that game with Anita:
[8:07] clip from “16×9 – Dangerous Game: Tropes vs Women bullying”: “The games are not meant as a threat. They’re not meant to intimidate. He goes on to say he was criticizing your project as a person in the media.”
“To make a game to beat me up and then hide behind this idea of ‘we’re just trying to have a conversation’—I mean, I don’t think anyone would buy that. Or anyone would think that that was an acceptable form of communication.”
[8:28] Thunderf00t: Oh no! This must be a unique hatred of women in gaming! Because remember, if there’s one thing that Anita has taught us, it’s that it’s ONLY sexist when it happens to WOMEN. Well, I’m done. Can I have another $160,000 now?
[8:45] “This videogame character is dressed too sexily. I don’t like it! Change it!”
“I’m dressed too sexily and you don’t like it? STOP OPPRESSING ME!”
Many thanks to Linda for supplying this transcript!
[0:03] clip from VenomFangX: “Jesus spoke about a second death. There are two types of death: mortal death, which is when our soul is separated from our body; and spiritual death, which is when our soul is separated from God. Adam and Eve had their souls separated from God the day they ate from the forbidden fruit. That’s why God kicked them out of the Garden. Now, that is also why we are born spiritually dead in our sins. You are dead in your sins, and that’s why Jesus said you have to be born again right now by repenting of sin and putting your faith in Jesus Christ. You will then be born again of the spirit of God and be able to remain with God forever. If you don’t do that now, during this life, you will remain separated from God forever.
[0:41] clip from The Terminator
[0:52] clip from VenomFangX: “I’m gonna make a challenge for ya. Do you wanna debate with me? Live? We’ll record it, post it on YouTube, make it a big event. We could even have one of those Mortal Combat screens, you know, me on one side you on the other. It’ll be crazy right? Let’s do it. It’ll be fun.”
[1:05] Thunderf00t: Well, it’ll be fun for me. But then again that’s because I’m not so stupid as to say that the Grand Canyon was formed at about five times the speed of sound.
[1:14] clip from VenomFangX: “If the planet flooded like the Bible says, the Grand Canyon could have been formed in about five minutes. The Grand Canyon could have been formed in about five minutes.”
[1:28] Thunderf00t: However the reason I have little interest in humoring you with a debate is exemplified by these videos. Put simply, someone who has repeatedly demonstrated such a crass lack of scientific understanding as yourself, is not in need of a debate, but an education.
[1:45] However you shouldn’t feel bad about this attribute as it’s so much pervasively true of all young earth creationists. Let’s see what gems you have for us this time:
[1:56] clip from VenomFangX: “The Bible says Noah only had to bring things that breathe with their nostrils. Fish don’t breathe with their nostrils, and I bet you even know that.”
[2:03] Thunderf00t: Aaaah, Noah’s Ark. It’s almost shameless that anyone could try and defend this. But let’s look at the facile point that Noah took nothing onto the ark that didn’t have nostrils. Well, sure that would’ve meant that Noah wouldn’t have to take any bugs on the ark. But then again it would’ve also meant the extinction of almost all insects and plant life on earth, and of course the humble earthworm and thereby ensuring that Noah and everything else on the ark would’ve starved to death on a dead planet.
[2:33] But then again, what about the whales? They breathe through their nostrils. Shown are the nostrils of the largest creature ever to live on the earth, the blue whale. I really would’ve loved to see how Noah got all the animals that
[2:45] clip from VenomFangX: “breathe with their nostrils”
[2:46] Thunderf00t: on the ark.
[2:47] clip from VenomFangX: “The Bible says Noah only had to bring things that breathe with their nostrils. Fish don’t breathe with their nostrils, and I bet you even know that. So insects breathe, not through their nostrils but through their skin, so no insects either. Now, the seas get saltier at an increasing rate every year. And if you take the rate in which they’re getting saltier in reverse time, about 4,400 years ago the seas would be totally freshwater.”
[3:08] Thunderf00t: Aaah, so the water was totally fresh 4,000 years ago, eh? Well, where did these come from? These are chalk cliffs. They’re known to be composed of microscopic shells of a form of creature similar to the modern phytoplankton called coccolithophores. These phytoplankton require two materials to make their calcium carbonate shells: firstly, calcium, which is dissolved in the sea water. Secondly, carbonate, which is usually obtained from carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
[3:41] The geological period of time in which these deposits were laid down is named after these chalk deposits; the Latin name for chalk being ‘creta’. In the Cretaceous period these areas were covered with oceans and the chalk deposits were laid down between 150 and 70 million years ago.
[3:59] Now comes the amusing bit. The raw materials required for coccolithophores to make chalk, or calcium carbonate, are a salt solution of the iron calcium and carbon dioxide. Now if the oceans were purely fresh water, as the creationist states, then where did these calcium carbonate deposits of coccolithophores come from?
[4:20] clip from The Matrix
[4:23] clip from VenomFangX: “Jesus spoke about a second death. There are two types of death: mortal death, which is when our soul is separated from our body.”
[4:31] Thunderf00t: I can only assume that by ‘death’ he means ‘brain death’. We’ve known for decades now that the only thing that causes irreversible death is the death of the brain. Once the neurochemistry goes south, it doesn’t come back.
[4:45] However, this is the thing: animals have brains that function on a very similar fashion to our own. Yet I somehow doubt that the creationist would argue that it’s impossible for animals to die, because they have no souls to separate from their bodies. Next of course comes the obvious question: we know our brains make our decisions, so what’s the purpose of the soul that the creationist speaks of? Why do those who claim that they have been ‘born again’ with souls have behavioral characteristics that are indistinguishable—or worse—than those who haven’t been born again with a soul? For instance, divorce rates and the such like.
[5:20] clip from VenomFangX: “-and spiritual death, which is when our soul is separated from God.”
[5:24] Thunderf00t: Okay, so the creationist is now saying we have a soul, and that there is a god. And that having your soul separated from god counts as death. Umm, okay. Well, I’m still struggling to see how if god is omnipresent and omnipotent, how you can ever be separated from him.
[5:40] clip from VenomFangX: “Adam and Eve had their souls separated from God the day they ate from the forbidden fruit. That’s why God kicked them out of the Garden.”
[5:47] Thunderf00t: Okay, so Adam was born with his soul alive, and killed it by eating forbidden fruit. So what did we learn? Well, in creationism it’s possible to kill your soul by eating.
[6:00] clip from VenomFangX: “Now, that is also why we are born spiritually dead in our sins.”
[6:04] Thunderf00t: Okay, so in creationism it’s not only possible to kill your own soul by eating, but it can also cause ALL the children you have to be born with dead souls.
[6:15] clip from VenomFangX: “You are dead in your sins, and that’s why Jesus said you have to be born again right now by repenting of sin and putting your faith in Jesus Christ.”
[6:23] Thunderf00t: Okay, so when you’re born, your soul is automatically tied to your body, but it’s dead. Then when you choose for your soul to come alive, uuh, how? What makes the choice? The dead soul, bad chemistry of life? Well let’s leave that for a minute and see where this goes.
[6:40] clip from VenomFangX: “You will then be born again of the spirit of God and be able to remain with God forever.”
[6:45] Thunderf00t: So your soul is born into a piece of bad chemical machinery, thanks to your ancestors not being picky enough about their diet. And now, if you manage to get your soul to come alive by some undescribed process, then you get to become a part of god.
[7:00] clip from VenomFangX: “If you don’t do that now, during this life, you will remain separated from God forever.”
[7:05] Thunderf00t: And if you don’t obey the creationist’s fantasy, then his fantasy will punish you for your disobedience. But of course the funny thing is the creationist’s fantasy would automatically kill the souls of all the babies who haven’t chose to have their souls born yet. That’s a pretty unpleasant fantasy.
[7:22] But now let’s compare what we know, and can PROVE with the physical evidence, to the creationist’s fantasy.
[7:30] clip from VenomFangX: “If you don’t do that now, during this life, you will remain separated from God forever.”
[7:35] clip from The Terminator
[7:49] clip from VenomFangX: “The Bible says Noah only had to bring things that breathe with their nostrils . . . 4,400 years ago the seas would be totally freshwater.”
Many thanks to Linda for supplying this transcript!
[0:03] clip from “LEE STROBEL The Case for a Creator Full documentary”: “If the universe looks like it’s fine-tuned for complex life, maybe there’s a fine-tuner. Maybe it was fine-tuned for life.”
“If we didn’t have the electromagnetic force you would have no bonding between chemicals. You would have no light and the list goes on. So you need all these sorts of fundamental principles have to be in place in order for life to occur. Wipe out one of those principles, wipe out one of those laws—no life.”
[0:28] Thunderf00t: Okay, so he’s saying that there’s only one unique way for life to exist. This of course is purely speculative creationist tosh. To demonstrate this point I’m going to go to the microscopic level of molecular dynamics. Shown is a molecular dynamic simulation of the bee sting protein called melatin. These simulations that are routinely used are very useful for the interpretation of experimental results and the predictions of microscopic behaviors of such systems. It’s a well-established and mature field of chemistry. There’s just one thing: there is no gravity whatsoever in these calculations. Nor is there any gravity whatsoever in the more detailed quantum mechanical calculations.
[1:12] Gravity is about 1000 billion billion billion billion times weaker than the electromagnetic force. It’s an irrelevant factor in the molecular forces which determine molecular dynamics. Which is why you can leave it out of the equation altogether.
[1:28] It’s also notable that life is remarkably robust to the absence of gravitational fields, functioning almost as well on the earth as it does in microgravity. Put simply, there is no reason whatsoever why you couldn’t get life functioning perfectly happily in a universe with no gravity.
[1:48] There are just four forces that we are aware of. That’s gravity, the strong, the weak, and the electromagnetic force. Now I’ve just shown that gravity is not necessary for the functioning of life. Further, a recent paper has suggested that a universe without the weak force would look largely indistinguishable from our current universe (Harnik, Kribs, Perez, A Universe Without Weak Interactions).
[2:09] So half of the forces that we know about are not essential for the functioning of life. So much for the creationist statement that everything needs to be perfect for life to function.
[2:22] But now let’s move on to the simple deceit of creationists:
[2:26] clip from “LEE STROBEL The Case for a Creator Full documentary”: “One example of this fine-tuning is the force of gravity.”
“Imagine a ruler divided up into one inch increments, and then stretched across the entire universe, a distance of some 14 billion light years. For the purposes of illustration, the ruler represents the possible range for gravity.”
[2:51] Thunderf00t: Yep, you always need dramatic music if you’re gonna play god and choose a new gravitational force constant to the universe. However if you want to play god, as the creationist seems intent on doing, then the limits for the gravitational constant is zero and infinity.
[3:06] However you cannot put an infinite number of finite-sized inch strips together on a finite distance—it’s impossible by definition. Like say, for instance a square with five sides. What the guy’s describing is simply mathematically impossible.
[3:23] clip from “LEE STROBEL The Case for a Creator Full documentary”: “In other words, the setting for the strength of gravity could’ve been anywhere along the ruler, but it just happens to be situated in exactly the right place so that life is possible. Now if you were to change the force of gravity by moving the setting just one inch compared to the entire width of the universe, the effect on life would be catastrophic.”
[3:45] Thunderf00t: Weell, in fairness, the animation was neat and the music was fine. However it’s still pointlessly speculative mathematical nonsense. The creationist demonstrating that he doesn’t understand mathematics is Lee Strobel, author of such books as The Case for Christ, The Case for Faith, and The Case for a Creator. The title of these books and his gesturing are unsurprising given that Strobel’s highest degree was not in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics—or any other scientific discipline for that matter—but law.
[4:16] Yep, that’s right. The creationist fielding the case for creation is a lawyer. Now at this point an inquiring mind will be asking ‘what is a lawyer doing making predictions about diddling with the fundamental force constant to the universe when he has no real scientific understanding of the one he currently lives in?’ In this sense, Strobel’s mathematically impossible speculation on the gravitational constant has about as much academic credibility as a burger-flipper lecturing a brain surgeon on cerebral aneurysms.
[4:47] The principle difference between lawyers and scientists is that scientists gain their reputation on track record based on what they can establish from the physical evidence and logical deduction. However for lawyers, truth is an irrelevance as the criterion that determines a successful lawyer is their ability to present a successful case, not their ability to establish truth; although obviously it helps for those who harbor a conscience if the two coincide once in a while.
[5:17] clip from A Few Good Men
[5:26] Thunderf00t: But let’s take another look at this case for a fine-tuned universe. There’s about 75 cubic kilometers of life on earth, while the volume of the earth is approximately one trillion cubic kilometers. That means that by volume the earth is approximately one billionth of a percent life.
[5:48] For me, this device is an example of fine-tuning. For this object, each of the thousand billion billion billion billion atoms are arranged—sorry, fine-tuned—for the purpose of human transport. Now if you found a rock of comparable size and found a fleck of iron in it the size of a pinhead that’s approximately the equivalent volume fraction of life on earth, would you conclude that the rock was fine-tuned for the purpose of being a car? So why would you conclude that the earth is fine-tuned for the purpose of life?
[6:23] However, it’s better than that, as the creationists in this video go on to argue that we are the only life in the Milky Way. Fantastic. The volume between us and the nearest galaxy is about five times [Equation]cubic kilometers. That means that the creationists are happy to argue that something where you find one part in [Equation] that works, means that that object is fine-tuned for that purpose.
[6:51] Now for the creationist to call this a fine-tuned universe for the purpose of life is like taking a billion earths and finding a single iron atom on one of those earths and then concluding that these billion earths are fine-tuned for a purpose.
[7:08] In summary, it is deeply unconvincing to try and argue that a universe which has essentially no life in it is fine-tuned for the purpose of life.
[7:24] clip from “LEE STROBEL The Case for a Creator Full documentary”: “Wipe out one of those laws—no life.”
“Maybe there’s a fine-tuner. Maybe it was fine-tuned for life.”
Many thanks to Linda for supplying this transcript!
[0:03] clip from “RRS vs. Kirk Cameron / Ray Comfort Nightline FULL”: “Listen to what two of the greatest scientific minds in history said about the design in creation: Sir Isaac Newton: “the most beautiful system of the sun, the planets, and comets, could only proceed from the council and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.” Albert Einstein—he said, “in view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no god.”
[0:33] Thunderf00t: Aaaah, quote mining; another favorite ploy of the creationist, using partial or misleading quotes from real scientists in the hope that some of their academic credibility will rub off on them. It’s trivial to do. For instance, these are the words of the devoted creationist Kirk Cameron and his partner Ray Comfort:
[0:52] clips from “RRS vs. Kirk Cameron / Ray Comfort Nightline FULL”: “You guys who believe in god are idiots. You’re small-minded people who are unintelligent. You don’t think.”
“There’s no god.”
“I’d rather go to hell than to believe in a megalomaniac like god.”
[1:08] Thunderf00t: This is the worst kind of deceit; worse in many ways than actually lying in that it is specifically designed to intentionally mislead people by either misquoting people or misrepresenting academic discourse (which is essential to the progression of science) as a weakness of a theory.
[1:25] It is also very noticeable these creationists plead with you to accept their views. In academic circles this would be instantly interpreted as a man with no case to present, which is why he resorts to such snake oil-salesman-style techniques.
[1:40] In academic lectures on research science, it’s taken that any argument presented stands on its merits. The lecturer is expected to present his case clearly, but any attempt to suggest that his arguments should be accepted based on the pleading or scoffing of the lecturer would be instantly greeted with academic skepticism.
[2:00] This sort of thing might fly in the pulpit and in political forums, but it has no place in the academic arena.
[2:11] clip from “RRS vs. Kirk Cameron / Ray Comfort Nightline FULL”: “You know if a Coca-Cola can was MADE, there must be a maker. When I look at a painting, how can I know there was a painter? Well the painting is absolute, 100 percent scientific proof there was a painter. Well a building is absolute, 100 percent scientific proof there was a builder.”
[2:32] Thunderf00t: Yeaaah, tell it brother! Just like rocks are 100 percent absolute proof of a rock-making god. Just like sunsets is 100 percent absolute scientific proof of a sunset-making factory. Yeah, just like a nearly perfectly spherical Mars is 100 percent absolute proof that there is a Mars-maker. Oh yeah, that’s right. I remember now. The reason we don’t think that sunsets are made by a sunset-making god is because we understand the origin of sunsets. We can still say that god did it. It’s just that that doesn’t advance our understanding of the world any. And it’s a path that leads to an intellectual dead-end.
[3:10] clip from “RRS vs. Kirk Cameron / Ray Comfort Nightline FULL”: “If it’s designed, there MUST be a designer.”
[3:14] Thunderf00t: This statement is of course tautological. But the question is how can you recognize design? For instance, crystals are among the most ordered objects in the universe. Yet we do not instantly reach for a crystal-making god to try and explain the existence of these highly ordered structures. Again, the reason we do not reach for a god to explain these structures is because we have a perfectly satisfactory naturalistic explanation of the origin of crystals.
[3:41] There is nothing wrong with a tautological statement that designed objects are designed. There’s nothing wrong with the statement that paintings, etc. are designed, simply as they have no plausible naturalistic explanation for their origin. However, there IS a naturalistic explanation for life. It’s called evolution. And before the creationists start coming out with their unfounded tosh about how ‘it’s never been observed’ and so on: it’s more than observed. The principle of evolution is used by the likes of engineers to design aerodynamic bodies—a sort of design without a designer.
[4:16] Indeed, even I myself have written such pieces of code. All you need is reproduction with variation, and environmental attrition and evolution intrinsically follows. This is not just some animation about the front end of an evolutionary algorithm, where the bugs are actually evolving to the environment.
[4:38] Well let’s just highlight the logical flaws of this typical creation argument that ‘designed objects such as paintings, buildings, etc. require a designer. Life looks designed, so it must have a designer’.
[4:51] Let me parody this creationist logic. Let me take a load of pebbles, and see if any of them perfectly fit a shot glass. The answer is no. Indeed I could keep on trying to get pebbles to fit the shot glass in perpetuity and never find one that fits it perfectly. Indeed, I could happily conclude that the only way for a pebble to fit the shot glass perfectly is if it were designed to fit the shot glass.
[5:17] Liquids however fit a shot glass perfectly every time. So, by the creationist’s logic, liquid must be designed to fit the glass. Now the reason this argument is bogus of course, is simply because the two objects being compared have different critical properties. In my case I am comparing deformable matter such as liquids to solids, and drawing the bogus conclusion that liquids must be designed to fit the glass.
[5:45] In the creationist’s case, they are comparing objects that are known to be manufactured, with objects that can evolve—that is, objects that suffer environmental attrition and reproduction with variation—and then drawing the bogus conclusion that life must be designed.
[6:08] clip from “RRS vs. Kirk Cameron / Ray Comfort Nightline FULL”: “When I look at this building, how do I know there was a builder? You can’t see him, hear him, touch him, taste him, or smell him. I mean, what evidence is there that there was a builder?
[6:18] clip from “Bob the Builder”
[6:27] Thunderf00t: Yeah, that’s right. You know there was a builder because you CAN see him, hear him, touch him, taste him, and smell him—although few builders would allow you to go that far. But even if you couldn’t see him, hear him, touch him, taste him, or smell him, you can watch builders building buildings all the time. And even if you couldn’t do that, you go down to the planning department and get the blueprints for the building and get the date the building was erected on and how it was made.
[6:53] clip from“RRS vs. Kirk Cameron / Ray Comfort Nightline FULL”: “When I look at this building, how do I know there was a builder? You can’t see him, hear him, touch him, taste him, or smell him. I mean, what evidence is there that there was a builder?
Many thanks to Linda for supplying the transcript to this video! 🙂
[0:00] Thunderf00t: First we had that fantastic Dove commercial:
[0:03] clip from “dove evolution”
[0:16] Thunderf00t: Then we had “Ban Bossy”:
[0:19] clip from “Ban Bossy”
[0:23] Thunderf00t: And now following close in its footsteps we have #LikeaGirl. The format is pretty generic, you wanna get this behind-the-scenes feel to make it seem less staged and more authentic. You know, “trustworthy”. And you know, maybe get a clapper board in there or something . . . Like the girl sitting down while someone says that you’re “recording audio” . . . despite the fact that that’s the only audio used in the entire video, which, by the way, cost about $130,000 to make. And then take a point that everyone can agree with, you know, like say for instance that women on magazine covers are Photo shopped and then just hope no one spots that the title of these, um, uh, PRODUCT PLACEMENT!
[1:18] I mean I just kind of scratch my head at this one. Are these people really getting upset about people using Photoshop to make themselves seem more beautiful than they actually are, when the very product that they are trying to sell you is meant to make you appear more beautiful than you actually are?—you know, appearance-enhancing cosmetics.
[1:40] I mean, to be honest, if you don’t find this being transformed into THIS a problem, then why do you really care about the Photo shopping? And that of course is just ignoring the fact that the whole thing was just a Unilever marketing campaign time “to coincide with the expansion of Dove brand artificial appearance-enhancing cosmetic soaps and cleansers” (Wikipedia “Dove Campaign for Real Beauty”). Uh—sorry, no, nothing to do with that at all. It was just about how much Dove brand cosmetics agrees with you about just how wrong it is for other women to try to be more beautiful than they actually are.
[2:17] clip from “An Apology to America from Newcastle and Elizabeth Hurley”
[2:31] Thunderf00t: Now we have another corporation with an ENTIRELY philanthropically motivated message. This time they want young, confused girls—about the time they get their first period—to know that a sanitary towel manufacturer knowsand understands their problems. And it’s got nothing to do with all that hormonal shit that kicks off in a woman’s body about this time. No, it’s all down to people saying ‘throw like a girl’.
[2:57] clip from “Always #LikeAGirl”: “So when they’re in that vulnerable time, between 10 and 12, how do you think it affects them when somebody uses ‘like a girl’ as an insult?
“I think it definitely drops their self-confidence and really puts them down, because during that time they’re already trying to figure themselves out. And-”
[3:14] Thunderf00t: Well isn’t that nice of them, to know that the corporation like this has your best interest at heart. In that sense, it’s a perfect viral advertising campaign for something that is intrinsically difficult to market.
[3:29] clip from “BodyformResponds :: The Truth”: “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but there’s no such thing as a ‘happy period’. The reality is, some people simply can’t handle the truth.”
[3:38] Thunderf00t: You get to engage with your audience without having to deal with all that icky stuff that’s usually associated with the subject.
[3:46] clip from “BodyformResponds :: The Truth”: “In the past, we tried to be more honest in our approach. In the 1980’s we ran a series of focus groups to help us gauge the public’s reaction to periods: the cramps, the mood swings, the insatiable hunger—and yes, Richard, the blood coursing from my uteri like a crimson landslide.”
[4:02] Thunderf00t: They get what they want, which is for teenage girls to have a positive association with Always sanitary towels. That is, as long as they don’t think about it too much. Buut we’ll come back to that in a second. If you wanna see how eye-rollingly badly this game can be played, just watch the Pantene commercial. Pfft. No clapperboard. Amateurs.
[4:22] clip from “Not Sorry | #ShineStrong Pantene”
[4:33] Thunderf00t: -where it insists that women keep apologizing like this isn’t something that EVERYONE does just to be polite—no, no. It’s only women who ever do this. Then, of course, what if women didn’t say sorry?
[4:45] clip from “Not Sorry | #ShineStrong Pantene”
[4:59] Thunderf00t: Yes, Pantene wants you to be one of those people who never says sorry.
[5:04] clip from “ORIGINAL VIDEO – Bitchy Resting Face”: “Because if we wanted to be constantly misunderstood, we’d try and talk to a deaf person.”
“Hey, Taylor—I think you might actually be a bitch.
“In real life.”
“You should’ve all been aborted.”
[5:24] Thunderf00t: Oh yeah! Everyone loves someone who never says sorry. Ain’t that so, Liz?
[5:29] clip from “An Apology to America from Newcastle and Elizabeth Hurley”
[5:50] Thunderf00t: Buuut joking aside, and coming back to the thinking about the ‘throw like a girl’ commercial—as much admiration as I have for how well-executed this marketing campaign was, it’s still BULLSHIT. Annd maybe this would be a good time for those ‘meee tooo’ Tumblr-type feminists to get a box of Kleenex in, because if you think the expression “like a girl” is what destroys the self-confidence of young women, then a hard stare at reality will likely cause a gendered panic-attack of apocalyptic proportions.
[6:24] The expression ‘throw like a girl’ probably has its roots in fairly obviousbiology. You know, guys tend to have almost twice the upper body strength of girls (Wikipedia, “Sexual dimorphism”). I know—it’s hardly rocket science. Add in there a spot of culture. You know, girls having less historical need to throw stuff than guys. And the fact that sports mostly focus on higher, faster, and stronger; which on a level playing field, with NO SEXISM whatsoever, is actually men in every category. And you would need a very special class of feminist idiot to say otherwise:
[7:05] clip from Feminist Frequency“Damsel in Distress: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games”: “The belief that women are somehow a naturally weaker gender, is a deeply ingrained socially constructed myth; which of course is completely false.”
[7:13] Thunderf00t: Aww, I know, let me taste those sweet, juicy, social-justice-warrior tears. Let me just say that again: on a level field, with NO glass ceiling and absolutely no sexual discrimination, men are faster, stronger, and better throwers. Yet, that’s not sexism you’re looking at. That’s just the reality of being a sexually dimorphic species.
[7:40] So, in demographic terms, little girls tend to be the weakest throwers of all. So guess what, this is simile—or metaphor, or whatever—for someone who throws weakly.
[7:51] Whoa—I know, rocket science! ‘But noo, the fact that little girls are the weakest throwers is clearly wrong because little staged girls in Barbie-pink and rainbow girl here can throw stuff too! to uplifting music which includes important demographics including sporty and token!’ And as with all advertising campaigns, absolutely no fattys and no uglys; because although you’re courageously battling for the self-esteem of young girls, the last thing that you want is your product associated with fat or ugly people. And the fact that you can confuse a teenage girl or actor or whatever into not understanding the difference between the meaning of ‘a girl throwing’ and the simile of ‘throw like a girl’
[8:35] clip from “Always #LikeAGirl”: “Yes, I kick like a girl, and I swim like a girl, and I walk like a girl, and I wake up in the morning like a girl because I am a girl. And, that is not something that I should be ashamed of.”
[8:45] Thunderf00t: I know, poor girl must go white with fear when someone says she’s ‘into shit’, or someone ‘eats like a pig’ or ‘I would kill for a royale with cheese’. But anyway, no—girls’ plummeting self-confidence is all down to the devastating metaphor of ‘throw like a little girl’.
[9:01] THIS is why girls’ self-confidence plummets during puberty. Well, that and of course being called bossy:
[9:08] clip from “Ban Bossy”:“When I was growing up, I was called ‘bossy’”
“I think the word ‘bossy’, is just, a squasher.”
“Being labelled something matters.”
“By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys.”
“And that’s because they worry about being called”
“‘bossy’”
[9:22] Thunderf00t: And as many a feminist has pointed out, when women have such heavy crosses to bear, and the fact that they think that women are such weak and fragile creatures that they really need to have to have their hands held to deal with these horrific social burdens, it must truly amaze feminists that ANY women make it to adulthood at all. All the while having that perplexed look on their face as to why the term ‘feminism’ has inexplicably acquired a reputation of being a CULT, where the only tenent is that you whinely embrace victimhood. GOOD JOB feminists. That’s EXACTLY the role model that young women need.
[10:03] But as for the viral marketing campaign, yet it struck a great blow. And it’s certainly fighting against propagating harmful stereotypes. And it’s made #LikeaGirl mean amazing things, like how you can destroy a teenage girl’s self-confidence simply by using the expression ‘throw like a girl’ or ‘bossy’.
[10:24] clip from “Ban Bossy”: “By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys.”
“And that’s because they worry about being called”
“‘bossy’”
[10:31] clip from “The Doctor Vs The Prime Minister – Doctor Who . . .”and “Ban Bossy” [LOL!]
[10:49] Thunderf00t: Well, in this new age of gender equality they should just learn to ‘take it like a man’. Always. Good job.
sure... guns are super hard to get in UK and EU, so it stopped the shootings, but now all the students are making b… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…3 days ago
Thunderf00t 