Pretending to think like Ray Comfort

The perverse and ungodly sex life of bananas


On the header to Ray Comfort's blog he claimed that his old video comparing a coke can to a banana was intended as a parody. No, this video is an intentional parody:



And this:


Can you see the difference? (Actually I have a hard time with some satire because there are so many religious believers whose beliefs sound like satire).

Ray also says:

Atheists edited the coke can from a video clip and sent it around the world, saying that I believed that the banana was proof of the existence of God.

But that's exactly what Ray did say, that God created the banana. And he still says it having never grasped what critics meant. Ray is an amazingly bald-faced liar (and I'm not sure if he knows he is lying he is so deeply immersed in the world of his delusions). Does he really think the coke can part added anything to his point? He was comparing one man made product to another. The old video is on YouTube and Ray comes right out and says it:



Note those words: "You'll find that the maker of the banana, the almighty God... Just like soda can makers, God has placed a tab at the top..." etc.. As many of my readers probably know already, that's not how things really happened, but stick with me, I'll take you deeper into Ray's mistakes. Ray clearly didn't know that bananas, like many of the other plants we eat (and animals for that matter), are a product of thousands of years of human selection. Man designed the banana. As far as being natural and wild goes, Ray could hardly have picked a worse example.

His fundamental point was that God designed modern bananas, and evolution isn't true, and on that point he is dead wrong. Wild bananas have seeds, ancient bananas were barely edible, but the common banana Ray used in the video was cultivated and made seedless. His banana example cannot sexually reproduce. It's a clone. Those bananas are grown from offshoots of the parent plant rather than through the process of sex and fertilization that might otherwise take place.

One result of that is that the banana's genetic information hasn't changed as much as it could have if it were mixing its genes up sexually and evolving that way. The problem is that the world of plant diseases has evolved and changed and our commercial bananas were in danger because they haven't kept up. However, genetic engineering may come to the rescue.

That ties into another question Ray doesn't understand -- why sex evolved. Recall Ray's comically inept understanding of sexual evolution:

"Darwin theorized that mankind (both male and female) evolved alongside each other over millions of years, both reproducing after their own kind before the ability to physically have sex evolved. They did this through "asexuality" ("without sexual desire or activity or lacking any apparent sex or sex organs"). Each of them split in half ("Asexual organisms reproduce by fission (splitting in half)." Ask A Scientist, Biology Archive, http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/bio99/bio99927.htm.)" -- Ray Comfort

Darwin theorized no such thing. Ray just bald-face lied to everybody again. Ray reads a few sentences from a science article and then thinks scientists are postulating that men and women were two separate species before sex evolved? How ignorant can someone get? There was no 'mankind', or anything remotely close to it when sexual genders evolved.

All sexually reproducing organisms derive from some very ancient common ancestor which may have been a single celled eukaryotic species. Many protists reproduce sexually, as do the multicellular plants, animals, and fungi. At the latest, sex may have developed in primitive ancestors that more resembled sponges and worms because there are some species of worm and sponge that are not quite sexually differentiated. Some worms are asexual. Plants haven't even differentiated much from each other as many plants can reproduce asexually. There are only a few animal species which have lost gender differentiation.

However, Ray isn't entirely wrong to point to sex if he wants to baffle "evolutionists" for there are indeed some profound mysteries to why sex evolved. Wouldn't parthenogenesis have a reproductive advantage over sexual reproduction? After all, with sex, half the species can't have babies. Well, Wikipedia's "Evolution of Sexual Reproduction" has some information about what scientists are actually proposing, but it's mostly rather abstract. And I could show you a good bit of probable answers to when and how sex evolved, but one of the big mysteries for me was why it evolved -- that is until I did a bit more research on Ray's bananas. With the banana we get a pragmatic example of why sex is necessary and why it dominates the animal kingdom.

As noted above, Ray, if geneticists (almost always "evolutionists") can't save the banana, may no longer have bananas to use in his videos. Ray's modern world would fall apart if there were no evolutionists.



Ray makes comically asinine remarks on his blog and his television series, regarding subjects about which he knows nothing. When Ray is called on his ignorance, instead of admitting he was ignorant of all this science, he simply lies, just like when he said the banana bit was him doing comedy on purpose. He obviously wasn't because the real story of the banana is a powerful argument for evolution which he doesn't believe happened.

By not admitting to his mistake he has clued us all into the fact that he will lie to cover his errors. Why? His ego perhaps, or perhaps he wants to keep his reputation among his followers who appear to be dumber than he is. When Ray is factually wrong, as he often is, he refuses to admit it (take his banana video, please). If he really wanted to convince us that he had some important truth to impart he wouldn't try to lie his way out of these jams he gets himself into. It's rare to find a Christian one can argue in good faith with. You'll note that none have shown up in the comments section on my blog to argue my points in a long time. Too many sacrifice my potential faith and trust in at least their honesty to protect their egos and cover over their ignorance, a task they generally fail to accomplish. They rarely enter into the arguments in good faith or with a sense of mutual exploration of reality. They always come apreachin':

Ray Comfort's devious ignorance amazes me yet again

This is kind of funny, Ray Comfort is challenging Richard Dawkins to a debate – and he is sweetening the deal by offering Dawkins $10,000:

http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=89453

Dawkins' last book, The God Delusion, sold over 1.5 million copies, and has been translated to 31 other languages. His books have been selling well since 1976 when he published The Selfish Gene, the book that put Dawkins on the map as an intellectual heavyweight. He has TV specials on British TV.

$10,000 is just chump change to Dawkins. It's probably asking for a bargain in light of Dawkins' speaking fees. And Dawkins has already said that he will not debate creationists because appearing with them gives them too much credit.

Ray Comfort is just an annoying nobody, a street corner preacher who would get too much undeserved credit from even appearing on stage with Dawkins. If you don't know who Ray Comfort is, check out this post and this one.

I, however, would debate Ray for half of what he is offering Dawkins.

I challenge you Ray to save $5,000 and debate me instead. Are you chicken, or does $5,000 mean nothing to you, Ray?

UPDATE:

PZ Myers, at Pharyngula, reports that Dawkins has heard about the challenge and made a counter offer. Dawkins will do it for $100,000, to be donated to the RDF. Comfort upped the ante to $20,000. It's not enough for Dawkins.

Ben Stein admits he has only a "little pea brain."

Ben Stein wrote this article, "Florida's Darwinian Interlude," for The American Spectator. He begins by asking a few "tiny, insignificant little questions" such as "How did the universe start? Where did matter come from? Where did energy come from? Where did the laws of motion, thermodynamics, physics, chemistry, come from? Where did gravity come from? How did inorganic matter, that is, lifeless matter such as dirt and rocks, become living beings? Has anyone ever observed beyond doubt the evolution of a new mammalian or aviary species, as opposed to changes within a species?" He then claims that Darwinism has no verifiable answers to them and then he admits to having only a "little pea brain" this way:

To my little pea brain, these are some pretty big issues about evolution, the origins of life, and genetics that Darwinism cannot answer. Now, to be fair, does anyone else have verifiable answers either? Not as far as I know.

Alas, what Ben Stein's little pea brain isn't able to grasp is that Darwin's theory doesn't need to answer most of those questions any more than Einstein's theory of relativity does, or Newton's theory on planetary motion, or Galileo's and Copernicus' theory of heliocentrism answers them. Those are still successful scientific theories in spite of the fact that none of them tell us how the universe started or where matter and energy came from? Would Ben Stein throw out Einstein, Newton and Galileo along with Darwin because they didn't provide answers? Would he insist that a Bible based "theory" about a flat earth and an earth centered universe be taught along with heliocentrism because none of the questions about where the matter, energy and the universe came from are answered?

Scientific theories have limited scope. The only questions Stein asks that are appropriate to Darwin's theory are "How did inorganic matter, that is, lifeless matter such as dirt and rocks, become living beings?" and "has anyone ever observed beyond doubt the evolution of a new mammalian or aviary species, as opposed to changes within a species?" And note that he only asks about mammalian and avian species. This is a clue that Ben Stein knows he is full of bullshit. He knows that we have observed the evolution of new plant species, insect species, amphibian species, and new "bacterial species."

Even though not directly observed by scientists we can be fairly certain that mammals like domestic cows and sheep, which probably descends from the wild mouflon of south-central and south-west Asia, are a result of humans using artificial speciation and selecting existing genetic variants within species or hybridizing different subspecies or breeds to create new species that are more suited to human use. We can be pretty sure that cows are descended from the extinct species of wild cattle Bos primigenius.

Also, the evolution of new species has also been observed in the fossil record numerous times which includes the fossil bird Archaeopteryx.

Now turn that question around and ask Ben Stein if anyone has ever observed beyond doubt the divine creation of new plant, insect, or bacterial species?

Ben Stein asks:

... if there are no answers that can be reproduced in the laboratory, isn't any theory about them a hypothesis or a guess? Isn't any hypothesis worth thinking about?

No. Evolution is not just a hypothesis or a guess, it is a theory. It's a theory where certain answers can be reproduced in the laboratory and in the field. It has lines of evidence no other theory about the diversity of life can touch. And no, not all hypothesis are worth thinking about and more importantly, they are not all science.

Florida did not (as Ben Stein was told) consider "legislation that would make it illegal to allow teachers or students in public schools to discuss any hypothesis about origins of life or the universe except that it all happened by accident without any prime mover or first cause or designer -- allowing only, again, the hypothesis, which is considered Darwinian, that it all started by, well, by, something that Darwin never even mentioned." Going farther Stein says:

... we know now that Darwin was wildly wrong about some subjects such as genetics, and, again, although he wrote about the evolution of species, never observed an entirely new species evolve.

That's partly true, Darwin was wrong about a few things, but not "wildly" wrong. He didn't directly observe an entirely new species evolve either, but he found significant evidence for his theory. Remember, Einstein never observed time slowing down and he only followed a beam of light in his imagination.

However, Darwin didn't write a Bible that's the supposedly infallible Word of God, so he's allowed to make a few wrong guesses. The theory of evolution has grown and expanded a lot since Darwin wrote that very old book. Yet after more than a hundred years of testing and challenges, Darwin's basic theory has held up with only minor corrections. What we've learned since then has only confirmed most of what Darwin theorized. For example, we now know that human beings and apes are genetically similar with human beings and chimpanzees sharing about 99% of their DNA. This genetic similarity is a confirmation of one of Darwin's basic ideas: that human beings and apes have a common ancestor. And Darwin created his theory before we knew about DNA. Darwin had no mechanism for evolution and he predicted one. That is the way science works. Theories are created to explain observations; theories generate predictions; predictions are confirmed or refuted. Our ability to read and compare DNA provided further confirmation of Darwin's theory far beyond comparing men and chimps.

We know that thousands of separate species are descended from a few common ancestors, which are descended in their turn from an even smaller number of common ancestors, you would expect that these ancestral relationships are reflected in DNA, and they are.

To Stein the proposed Florida school standards were "beyond Stalinism":

Stalinism decreed that only Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin knew all the answers, but it did not say that subjects they never mentioned could only be studied if the student guessed at what they might have said. The proposed law in the state of Florida was an anti-knowledge, anti-freedom of inquiry law on a scale such as has rarely been encountered. Maybe in Pol Pot's Kampuchea there were such laws, but they have been unknown in the USA until now.

Good grief! What a load of steaming, stinking bullshit. This guy is actually worse than Vox Day when it comes to psychotic hyperbole. Nothing in that above bit of quoted paragraph is true. Stalinism never decreed that only Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin knew all the answers. Florida's school board only established that evolution was a fundamental concept that every student should understand. And what the hell does "subjects they never mentioned could only be studied if the student guessed at what they might have said" even mean exactly?

... at the last minute, the state of Florida changed the proposed regulations. They backed off powerfully saying that only Darwinism could possibly make sense and said they would allow discussion of differing theories about the origins of life. That's the current proposal as I write this on the afternoon of the 19th of February.

Allowing discussion of differing theories about the origins of life may not be a bad idea because they need to teach kids why arguments like Ben Stein's are so utterly fraudulent. The fact that some people actually find Stein's claims convincing is solid evidence that we have failed to educate too many Americans.

I suspect the now omitted proposals would have been unconstitutional in any event (although this always depends on the court you ask). Freedom of inquiry is part of freedom of speech. That is basic. That is what America is all about. Whatever the proposed -- now discarded -- regulations were, they have nothing to do with freedom, very little to do with science, and not even much to do with Darwin, who had a lot more respect for freedom of thought than his henchmen in Florida apparently do.

Ben Stein thinks the omitted proposals would have been unconstitutional even though he doesn't seem to know exactly what they were, saying: "Whatever the proposed -- now discarded -- regulations were." If such regulations are so bad one has to wonder why it's the Intelligent Design advocates that tend to loose in court cases like Dover's Kitzmiller case.

Dr. Debra Walker of the Monroe County School Board noted in an Orlando Sentinel article that those counties passing anti-evolution resolutions are the ones where the students have the lowest scores in the state on the science portion of the FCAT.

The graph below compares the average raw FCAT scores of the counties that have indicated support for or rejection of teaching evolution with the statewide FCAT scores:


In those counties where evolution is strongly supported, FCAT science scores are significantly higher. In the counties where evolution education is strongly opposed, science literacy is below the state average. That ties in with my earlier post, "Religion as a force for ignorance and delusion," where I point out the inverse correlation between a country's religiosity and its per capita GDP.

Brownback Mountain

Doing my weekly blog reading awhile back I discovered a mountain of criticism on scienceblogs aimed at Kansas Senator and presidential candidate Sam Brownback's New York Times Op-Ed, "What I Think About Evolution."

Josh Rosenau made an important point in a humorous aside that I think needs more emphasis and explanation. Brownback had written this:

While no stone should be left unturned in seeking to discover the nature of man’s origins, we can say with conviction that we know with certainty at least part of the outcome. Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science.

Josh Rosenau responded:

This is roughly how we got to war with Iraq. We looked under a bunch of stones, found no evidence of ongoing WMD programs, concluded that any evidence which undermined the truth President Bush already knew "should be firmly rejected," and now our troops are stuck in the middle of a civil war.

Yes, Josh, Brownback has displayed exactly the style of thinking that leds people into the kind errors of the Bush administration has been making for years, and not just in Iraq. Every distortion of science Chris Mooney wrote about in "The Republican War on Science," from lying about embryonic stem cells lines to denying climate change, has it's origin in this style of thinking. Chris Mooney even touched on this style of thinking in his book and he called it Lysekoism, which is attempting to distort science in order to bring it into line with political orthodoxy.

It's only rough because it hasn't been given sufficient analysis yet. Fundamentalism isn't just an unjustified belief; it's a style of thinking that supports unjustified belief. It's more general form has been called "logical preposterism."

This is where you start with your conclusion and evaluate evidence depending on whether it supports your predetermined conclusion. Brownback is putting what is supposed to come last, the conclusion, first.

The most remarkable thing about Brownback's Op-Ed is how nakedly the logical preposterism shines through with statements like "we know with certainty at least part of the outcome," and "Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science."

Usually the Republicans try to veil and obscure their war on science so people don’t see the logical preposterism that underlies all their arguments. But in Brownback's Op-Ed logical preposterism and faith are synonymous.

If Hitler was a Darwinist...

Then why did the Nazis burn Darwin's books? Or, did they?

If you go to a website called “When books burn," an online exhibit sponsored by the University of Arizona Library, you'll find lists of books that the Nazis banned. On a page called "Lists of Banned Books, 1932-1939" you can page down to find this item 6 on the list of types of books Nazis wanted banned:

Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel).

That only shows Darwin's books were banned at one time, in one place by Nazis. It is possible that Darwin and Haeckel were promoted at some times and places because the Nazis were inconsistent. They had no coherent relationship to Darwin and evolution. Hitler had no interest in or understanding of the theory as evidenced by his writing.

I bring this up because in my comments section for "If Hitler was an atheist..." I got a comment from someone calling themselves "jewish philosopher" saying:

Hitler was not exactly an atheist or a theist. He was a pantheist and Darwinist.

"Jewish philosopher" (JP) is another clueless sucker who doesn't know the difference between Darwin's theory of evolution and its precursors and influences. However, JP is not as clueless as Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly. This is one of those ideas that the web hasn't yet absorbed but it's related my earlier post that debunked Hitler's supposed atheism. Unlike looking for "Hitler, atheist" on google which gets you many sites debunking the claim Hitler was an atheist, if you search on "Darwin, Hitler, evolution, Nazis" you get 539,000 sites the vast bulk of them trying to smear evolution and atheism. It is either ignorance or a dishonest attempt to score political points in the culture war on the backs of six million Jewish victims and others who died at the hands of the Nazis during the Holocaust. "jewish philosopher" has been suckered by them, writing on his website:

Hitler seemed to have believed in a sort of impersonal god of nature who wanted all life to achieve the greatest perfection possible through struggle, conflict, extermination of the weak and success of the strong. This, combined with German nationalism and anti-Semitism, was the essence of Nazism. Apparently, his god was the Darwinian force of nature. Hitler, while not exactly an atheist, was a post-Christian European.

There is no "perfection" in evolution as Darwin envisioned it. There is only the fittest and most well adapted. That term "greatest perfection" actually points to a religious belief. As Lenny Flank points out in his little assay, "Creationists, Hitler and Evolution," the claims that Hitler's actions were based on Darwinain evolutionary theory are false.

Look at any of the online English translations of Mein Kampf and you will find only one use of the word "evolution" and that is in a context which does not refer to biology, but to the development of political ideas in Germany: "This evolution has not yet taken the shape of a conscious intention and movement to restore the political power and independence of our nation." You will find no mention of Darwin. What you will find is this sentence: "For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities."

In Mein Kampf, Hitler writes that Aryans are the "highest image of the Lord," put here specifically to rule over the "subhuman" races:

"Human culture and civilization on this continent are inseparably bound up with the presence of the Aryan. If he dies out or declines, the dark veils of an age without culture will again descend on this globe. The undermining of the existence of human culture by the destruction of its bearer seems in the eyes of a folkish philosophy the most execrable crime. Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent Creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise."

Actions which aid the "subhumans" at the expense of the Aryan master race, Hitler declared, were an offense against God. So, rather than basing his racism on any evolutionary theory, Hitler based it squarely on his view of white Aryans as the favored people of God. Apparently he thought, like the Jews Old Testament, that he was part of God's chosen people. Concepts in Mein Kampf about "subhumans" the "purity of blood" are in no way evolutionary. They have more a pseudo-religious flavor than a pseudo-scientific flavor.

The concept of purity shows up in a different way in Leviticus where the blind and the lame cannot serve in temple, because they are unclean, and only unblemished lambs can be offered to God. The inferiority of the imperfect is part of the Bible. Jesus healed the blind and the lame so they could look good in the eyes of God, their creator, and he was himself offered as an unblemished lamb, so we all could be accepted by God. If it wasn't because of a zealous God, who was hard to please, all this would not have made any sense.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler listed Martin Luther as one of the greatest reformers and Luther was one of those who promoted antisemitism in Europe. Luther in turn was influence by anti-Jewish theologians like Lyra, Burgensis, (and John Chrysostom, before them). Luther's 1543 book, "On the Jews and their lies" proposed setting fire to Jewish synagogues and schools, to taking away their homes and forbidding them to pray or teach. Luther wanted to "be rid of them" and he wanted the government to deal with them. He requested preachers to issue warnings against the Jews. He goes so far as to say; "We are at fault in not slaying them" to avenge Christ's death. The Nazi government of the 1930s and 40s fit Luther's desires to a tee.

In discussing racial purity and "race-mixing," Hitler chooses not the words of evolutionary biology or eugenics, but of religion without even a light touch of eugenic pseudo-science. Aryan blood, lower peoples, racial mixture, racial poisoning, those are the concepts you find in Mein Kampf. If you think they have any origin in ideas about evolution, you're an ignorant twit who doesn't know what the theory of evolution is.

Neo-Nazis in America also use God and the Bible in support of racism. The Aryan Nation group wants to "serve the Lord of Glory and His Holy Race." The Ku Klux Klan says that only those of "Christian faith" can be members, and asks every new recruit "Do you believe in Jesus Christ?" None of their racist websites mentions "Darwin" or "evolution" or "eugenics" as a justification for any of their beliefs. Many of them are as creationist as Hitler probably was.

The connection of Darwin to Hitler is very round about and dishonest and it goes through eugenics. Ann Coulter’s book Godless (chapter 11, “The Aped Crusader”) is about Darwin and Hitler. Coulter wrote:

"The path between Darwinism and Nazism may not be ineluctable, but it is more ineluctable than the evolutionary path from monkey to man. Darwin’s theory overturned every aspect of Biblical morality. Instead of honor they mother and father, the Darwinian ethic was honor thy children. Instead of enshrining moral values, the Darwinian ethic enshrined biological instincts. Instead of transcendent moral values, the Darwinian ethic sanctified death.

So it should not be surprising that eugenicists, racists, and assorted psychopaths always gravitate to Darwinism. From the most evil dictators to today’s antismoking crusaders, sexual profligates, and animal rights nuts, Darwinism has infect the whole culture. And yet small school children who know that George Washington had slaves are never told of the centrality of Darwin’s theory to Nazism, eugenics, abortion, infanticide, “racial hygiene” societies, genocide, and the Soviet gulags.

In his magnificent book From Darwin to Hitler, Richard Weikart documents the proliferation of eugenics organizations in Germany around 1900, all of which asserted their “scientific imprimatur by claiming harmony with the laws of evolution.”
-- Ann Coulter, "Godless: The Church of Liberalism"

You don't need Darwin to have eugenics and in fact, Darwin cuts away at many eugenic concepts. Eugenics would have been better off if science had stopped before Darwin's theory became accepted because the creationist scientists before Darwin had a more eugenic-friendly idea of natural selection.

The creationist Edward Blyth had already in the 1830s, many years before Darwin, written about natural selection as a mechanism that weeded out the defective individuals, those who deviated from the species. He included a concept of God ordained perfection that Darwin eliminated. The aim of Darwin's evolutionary theory is to explain the origins of biological diversity. Edward Blyth and Hitler just credit "God" for that.

Blyth's version of natural selection was a mechanism to conserve the species, like most biologists believed in the generations before Darwin. Natural selection sustained what God created individually. What fell by time's decay, individuals who did not have the required strength, swiftness, hardiness, or attractiveness, fell without reproducing. They fell either to predators or disease or malnourishment. Their place taken by the more "perfect" of their own kind.

The idea of eliminating the sub-standard to keep the standard was there long before Darwin. Darwin's addition was that natural selection could even improve a species. The idea of species being created perfect in a creationist mind would not lead to Darwin's concept of evolution.

Natural selection ranked as a standard item in biological discourse, but with a crucial difference from Darwin’s version. For in Blyth's interpretation natural selection was part of an argument for created permanency. Natural selection, in this negative formulation, acted only to preserve the type, constant and inviolate, by eliminating extreme variants and unfit individuals who threatened to degrade the essence of created form. Natural selection had eliminated the less viable forms.

Darwin saw past that and realized that the variation could create new forms. Darwin changed natural selection around to mean evolutionary descent of all beings from a common ancestor, which was never Blyth's original contention at all. Another mental leap Darwin made was seeing humans not as specially created, but having evolved from animals and therefore subject to the same natural laws as animals.

It's Blyth's ideas that led to Eugenics, not Darwin's. And It's Blyth's ideas that modern creationists and Intelligent Design proponents still believe. They are projecting their own guilt on people who do not share it.

That's Michael Egnor, not Michael Ignore. Dr. Michael Egnor.

Michael Egnor is da bomb. No, wait, Michael Egnor is getting goggle bombed.

Michael Egnor is a neurosurgeon who has been expressing his support for intelligent design and against evolution. Dr. Michael Egnor has become something of a star on Panda's thumb because of his classically goofy creationist logic. Michael Egnor is also the new star of the Discovery Institute for the same reason.

So, some people are going to google bomb Michael Egnor and I'm doing a little bit here to help google bomb Michael Egnor.

Feel free to drop your own Michael Egnor link into my comments.

UPDATE: Tara C. Smith has a new blog post on Michael Egnor, called "Egnor just doesn't know when to quit."