What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again. A disappointing public debate between popular US science telly presenter Bill Nye, and creationist zealot Ken Ham took place this week about whether creationism was a valid scientific position. Howls of anguish, cheers of victory and stifled yawns from supporters of both sides echoed round the internet. Hope for enlightenment was dashed though, as Ham trotted out the same old zombie canards, and Nye did his futile best to best them. 

Alas there is nothing new under the sun. And nothing was gained from this exercise in vanity except for giving the cretinism of creationism a big stage. One commentator noted that Bill Nye lost the debate by agreeing to do it. If you wrestle with a pig, the pig likes it, and you get dirty. Or, as Richard Dawkins has said when asked to share a stage with various creationist brainwrongs, it looks better on your CV than mine. Or "never argue with an idiot: the best possible outcome is that you win an argument with an idiot."

In the dull afterglow of this less-than edifying evolutionary showdown, there’s been lots of grumbly analysis. But Matt Stopera at Buzzfeed won by asking 22 creationists to grin like monkeys and pose what they presumably thought was a zinger of a challenge to science. They’re amusing, baffling and pitiable in equal measure, and here are my answers.

1. Bill Nye, are you influencing the minds of children in a positive way?

Yes! What a guy.

2. Are you scared of a Divine Creator?

Not nearly as much as I am scared of the Japanese Giant Hornet, which is bigger than your thumb, can fly at 25mph and has the added advantage of actually existing.

3. Is it completely illogical that the Earth was created mature? ie trees created with rings … Adam created as an adult …

Completely. You don’t sound convinced, my bearded friend.

4. Does not the second law of thermodynamics disprove evolution?

Yes it does not. I mean, it doesn’t. Your weird grammar is bewitching. But your grasp of physics is not. The Second Law of Thermodynamics roughly states that energy can only flow from a hot body to a cold one in a closed system, and that the measure of this is called entropy, which only ever increases. You’re parroting the argument that a living cell appears to contradict this, by maintaining order in their cellular innards. Alas living things are not closed systems. You’re using one thing you don’t understand to explain another. Your problem here is really with physics. Can you take it up with those guys please? Shoo.

5. How do you explain a sunset if their is no God?

Really? Not even creationists argue that the Earth’s rotation on its own axis disproves evolution. Christ alive, to be excluded from that club for being a bit dim is harsh. Oh and: THERE.

6. If the Big Bang Theory is true and taught as science along with evolution, why do the laws of thermodynamics debunk said theories?

See 4. That’s only 21 really, Mr iPhone Extra-from-the-Professionals

7. What about noetics?

Eh? Are you in the wrong list? What about cheese? Or pottery? Or tiny tiny bats?

8. Where do you derive objective meaning in life?

Where? Can you remember when you last had it? I think it’s in the glove compartment.

9. If God did not create everything, how did the first single-celled organism originate? By chance?

Aah, now we’re talking. The best-fit theory currently is in white smoker hydrothermal vents around four billion years ago, where an energetic disequilibrium provided by proton gradients swirled in and out of porous serpentenised olivine submarine rock. More details in Creation, by me, out now! Thanks for asking!

10. I believe in the Big Bang Theory … God said it and BANG it happened!

Interesting theology. This is broadly called Deism, a view that the universe, obeying natural laws is an expression of a sort of absent landlord Creator, who set up the rules, and then hasn’t really shown up for about 13.82 billion years. It’s noteworthy that given the popularity of fundamentalist Christian views currently, some of the US Founding Fathers were Deists – oh wait this isn’t what you meant is it?

11. Why do evolutionists/secularists/humanists/non-God believing people reject the idea of there being a creator God but embrace the concept of intelligent design from aliens or other extraterrestrial sources?

They don’t. I mean, we don’t. Decent evolutionary biologists support neither intelligent design nor panspermia.

12. There is no inbetween … the only one found has been Lucy and there are only a few pieces of the hundreds neccessary for an “official proof”

I’ll help you out here. I presume you are talking about transitional fossils, and Lucy, the 40% complete specimen of Australopithecus afarensis. There are literally thousands of transitional fossils – ones that show features in common with distinct later species. I like Tiktaalik the best, an ugly brute with some fishy gills, land-lubbing lungs, and some bits that were in between (a wrist joint connecting to fins).

13. Does metamorphosis help support evolution?

Yes, well spotted. The post-birth transformation of a tadpole into a frog is a means of eliminating competition between young and mature as they’re in completely different ecological niches. Clever eh?

14. If evolution is a theory (like creationism or the bible) why then is evolution taught as fact?

Do all you guys have beards? Evolution is a fact: species change over time. Even Ken Ham acknowledges this. Evolution by Natural Selection is a theory in the scientific sense, meaning a set of testable, predictive structures and ideas that explain the observed facts. It’s not the same usage as in my theory that all you guys have beards because you’re hiding something you’re ashamed of.

15. Because science by definition is a “theory” – not testable, observable, nor repeatable, why do you object to creationism or intelligent design being taught in school?

Wait, what? Science isn’t a theory. Who said that? Science is a way of knowing stuff. You’re not even trying.

16. What mechanism has science discovered that evidences an increase of genetic information seen in any genetic mutation or evolutionary process?

Oh I don’t know, genome duplication? Mutations that add or change function? Increased genetic diversity in a population? There are loads if you can be bothered to look.

17. What purpose do you think you are here for if you do not believe in salvation?

To have a good time. All the time.

18. Why have we found only 1 “Lucy”, when we have found more than 1 of everything else?

Here, let me Google that for you, unusually shaven man. Wikipedia lists at least nine Autralopithecus afarensis specimens. Seek and ye shall find. Someone said that, can't remember who.

19. Can you believe in “the big bang” without “faith”?

I don’t have to believe in the Big Bang, my reassuringly bearded friend. The evidence for it is overwhelming. Scientists have to keep trying to find ways to show it’s wrong. And no one has yet.

20. How can you look at the world and not believe someone created/thought of it? It’s amazing!!!

It is amazing! And even more so when discovering how it works and how it came to be, rather than simply repeating a modern misreading of a 2,000-year-old book written by Palestinian goatherds.

21. Relating to the big bang theory … Where did the exploding star come from?

21. A Supernova? What’s that got to do with evolution? In other random questions: Did you know the name ‘Supernova’ was coined by astronomer Fritz Zwicky? His contribution to neologisms is more impressive, as he also invented the term "spherical bastard" for people who were bastards from any direction.

22. If we come from monkeys then why are there still monkeys?

22. YES, BINGO! Creationist house! Even your arch-doofus gouda-brained leaders tell you that this not-even-wrong mouthfart shouldn’t be used in arguments. You know how people say "there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers"? Wrong again, dur-brain!

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I only brought out this silly Warney utterance reporting on the show "LOST MY SANITY IN A-FREAK-A", to make sure our kiddies realise THAT WARNEY WAS JOKING. We don't want our kiddies to learn pseudo-sciences from a master googler who could have joined the mad Scientologists, for all we know....

 

 

http://media.smh.com.au/video-news/video-world-news/drunk-monkey-terrorises-patrons-7222784.html

Former Australian international cricketer Shane Warne has died aged 52 of a suspected heart attack in Thailand, Fox Sports reports.

Key points:

• He was found unresponsive in his villa in Thailand, his management says
• "Warnie" is regarded as one of the finest cricketers in history and helped rejuvenate the technique of spin bowling
• He took more Ashes and Test wickets than any other Australian before retiring in 2007

 

"Shane was found unresponsive in his villa and despite the best efforts of medical staff, he could not be revived," according to a statement from Warne's management quoted by Fox Sports.

"The family requests privacy at this time and will provide further details in due course."

Royal Thai Police have told the ABC Mr Warne was holidaying with four people in a luxury villa on Koh Samui.

Mr Warne’s body has been sent to Koh Samui Hospital, where an autopsy will be carried out.

His friends are expected to be speak [sic] to police on the island today.

His death came less than 24 hours after fellow great Rod Marsh died in hospital, having suffered a heart attack last week.

Warne made his Test debut for Australia in 1992 against India and played his last Test in 2007, at the end of Australia's 5-0 Ashes victory over England.

A leg-spinner, he set a world record of 708 Test wickets which has only been broken by Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan.

He is also the only batsman to have scored more than 3,000 Test runs without a career century and has taken more Ashes wickets than any other Australian.

 

READ MORE:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-05/shane-warne-dies-of-suspected-heart-attack/100884710

 

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Condolences to Warne's family and friends...

Cricket Is Political, and Shane Warne Knew It

BY

FREG J. STOKES

 

Popularized by the dying British Empire, cricket is a sport that has always been riven by class politics. The career of Australian bowler Shane Warne, who died earlier this year, offers a microcosm of this history.

In the months since his death, cricket fans have adorned Shane Warne’s statue at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) with a curious tribute. At the famous bowler’s feet, jars of vegemite, tins of baked beans, and cans of Victoria Bitter form a praetorian guard. These humble offerings reflect Warne’s public image as a working-class larrikin. It’s a legacy that contrasts starkly with Sir Donald Bradman, Australia’s most revered cricketer, and an otherworldly, upper-class figure.

According to Wisden, the ultimate reference book on the game, both Bradman and Warne deserve a place on its list of the five greatest cricketers of the twentieth century. Their stories — as well as those of the other three cricketers on Wisden’s list (Jack Hobbs, Garfield Sobers, and Vivian Richards) — provide insight into the geopolitical and class tensions that have shaped the history of the sport.

Patricians and Plebians, Batters and Bowlers

Shane Warne is the only specialist bowler to make it onto Wisden’s list. This imbalance hints at a half-forgotten class division in cricket: that between batter and bowler. In the Victorian era, batting was seen as an elegant pursuit for amateur gentlemen, while the hard labor of bowling was allocated to working-class professionals.

Unlike rugby, which split into two separate codes along class lines — Union for the elite and League for the proletariat — cricket maintained its unity by refining an internal division of labor between the classes. While this division has faded over time, it has also resurfaced in different guises.

For example, in the middle of the twentieth century, the Australian cricket team was riven by a conflict between Bradman, the patrician, protestant batsman, and Bill O’Reilly, an Irish Catholic spin bowler with ties to the Australian Labor Party. After retiring, O’Reilly held on to the grudge, advising the English team on how to dismiss Bradman during the 1948 Ashes tour.

As Australia’s two greatest cricketers, Bradman and Warne embody this old distinction. Bradman is treated as a quasi-divine figure: a methodical, mechanical angel descending from above, slaying with a bat rather than a sword, with a barely human Test batting average of 99.94. Warne, fleshy and flawed, strove upward from below, an incredible bowler who could also bat, with a top individual Test score of 99, agonizingly short of a century.

Warne performed the role of working-class culture hero with aplomb, despite becoming rich enough to own mansions on two continents and take up house flipping as a postretirement hobby. The master of spin kept the devotion of his home crowd at MCG, whose chants of “Warnie” could still be heard at his memorial service in March this year. The same crowd booed then prime minister Scott Morrison when his attendance at the event was announced.

Every year at the Boxing Day Test match, the class conflict in cricket plays out when Mexican waves roll around the MCG. As the wave passes through the Melbourne Cricket Club’s Members’ Reserve stand, bastion of the local elite, the cheers from the rest of the crowd transform into vigorous booing.

Despite this incipient class consciousness, the anger of Australian sports crowds can also turn against other targets, as the booing of Australian Football League (AFL) player Adam Goodes attests. Goodes carried on a tradition of Aboriginal players who have taken a stand against racism in the game. For this, from 2013 until his retirement in 2015, fans continuously booed him during games. At the time, Warne leapt to the defense of the sporting “public,” tweeting that they could “boo or chant whoever’s name they want,” and that the reaction had “nothing to do with being racist.”

When he sided with a predominantly white crowd attacking an Aboriginal player, Warne reflected Australian cricket’s own racist history, which is rooted in settler colonialism. In 1868, a team of Aboriginal sportsmen became the first-ever Australian cricketing group to tour England. Despite this, since then, only a handful of Aboriginal players have represented Australia internationally. Aunty Faith Thomas became the first Aboriginal woman to play in an Ashes team in 1958. The first Aboriginal player to break into the national men’s team was Jason Gillespie in 1996.

The activism of Aboriginal footballers such as Nicky Winmar, Michael Long, and Adam Goodes has at least created a debate around racism in the AFL, albeit one marred by the ongoing racial vilification of these players. Australian cricket, on the other hand, with an overwhelmingly white national playing list throughout the twentieth century, has tended to ignore and erase this history of conflict entirely. In that sense, cricket is the quintessential Australian settler-colonial sport.

Anti-colonial Cricket

Jack Hobbs, England’s representative among Wisden’s top five, cuts another contrast against Warne. While Warne’s legacy includes pig-ignorant tweeting, endless sexting and extravagant pizza tributes, Hobbs was seen as an exemplar of working-class humility. Just as Warne now epitomizes a certain brash, aspirational Australian self-image, Hobbs, the most prolific batter of the early twentieth century, came to represent an English ideal of modesty and moral rectitude.

Remarkably, Beyond a Boundary, the most widely acclaimed bookon cricket, was written by the Trinidadian Marxist C. L. R. James. According to James, Hobbs exemplified a vision of English propriety that began to fall apart in the 1930s, when the violence of the Bodyline tour and the decline of the British Empire played out in tandem.

During this Ashes tour, the visiting English captain, Douglas Jardine, instructed his bowlers to deliberately target the bodies of Bradman and the other Australian batters. While Jardine’s tactics won England the series, they also enraged Australian spectators and damaged diplomatic relations between Canberra and London.

The other two players in the Wisden top five, Garfield Sobers and Vivian Richards, both represented the West Indies. Sobers, the game’s greatest all-rounder, led the team during its initial rise in the 1960s and early 1970s, while Richards captained the side during the peak of its dominance in the 1980s.

As James foresaw, the West Indian teams of this era came to embody, on the cricket pitch, the anticolonial struggle of the newly independent Anglophone nations of the Caribbean. This was a sporting manifestation of the Black Liberation movement, expressed through Richards’s explosive batting, inflicting crushing defeats on English and Australian teams.

Warne’s international test debut came in 1992, just as the West Indies team began to decline and Australian cricket entered a new golden age. Warne retired from Test cricket in 2007, with his career spanning Paul Keating and John Howard’s tenures as prime minister. His career also played out alongside the rise and fall of the Australian republican movement, which did not exactly reach the dramatic heights of the West Indian independence struggle.

While a skilled player, Warne did not rise to the same political stature as Richards. By engineering the defeat of the Republican movement in the 1999 referendum, John Howard ensured that the British monarch would remain as the Australian head of state. At the same time, as if to salve a wounded national pride, Warne provided a bouffon sideshow by bamboozling English cricketers in one Ashes test series after another.

In 1993, Warne bowled former English captain Mike Gatting around his legs. In Adelaide in 2006, he inflicted the same humiliation on star batsman Kevin Pietersen. Although England maintained its symbolic political dominance over Australia, Warne ensured Australia at least retained its dominant position in sport.

Warnie Against Global Warming

Warne’s feats in the Ashes did not carry the same political charge as Viv Richards’s heroics did for the West Indies. The Australian bowler’s relationship with the English team was defined by friendly rivalry rather than anti-imperialist fervor. In general, Warne tended to be apolitical or reflexively conservative, as his comments on Adam Goodes demonstrate.

However, late in his life, Warne did become a surprise advocate, taking action against climate change. After reading a specially commissioned report, Warne expressed concern that rising temperatures would have a negative impact on players and sporting facilities and may even make it harder for grass to grow on cricket pitches. From vapid tweeter, Warne transformed into cricket’s answer to Greta Thunberg, calling for solidarity with cricketers from parts of the world most vulnerable to global warming.

It’s an instructive change of heart. When presented with concrete examples of an ecological and social disaster affecting the sport that he loved, Warne hopped off the fence and spoke out. Warne’s stand on climate change — along with Viv Richards’ heroism on the pitch — show that even in a sport popularized by a dying empire, there’s a transformative potential.

 

READ MORE:

https://jacobin.com/2022/08/shane-warne-cricket-class-bradman-afl

 

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