Field sketch by an eyewitness. Note the prettiness.
Courtesy of Joplin Expats, I am delighted to reveal a scientific breakthough in Magical Flying People Research. I present, without further ado, the discovery of Lepidopterapithicus joplinia — the Southwest Missouri Butterfly Angel.
After the tornado passed over them, the mother asked her daughter if she was OK.
The little girl said she was and said to her mother,
“Wasn’t it pretty?”
Her mother asked her what she meant.
She replied that she saw a lot of butterfly people.
“Did you see the butterfly people in the sky? They were carrying people in the sky.”
They were going into the sky with people and there were a lot around the two of them.
Besides the butterfly story about the mother and child taking safety in a ditch, I have heard of two more.
This is not the only report, and if anything has any truck in science, it’s numerous heartwarming anecdotes.
I am forced to retract my previous hypothesis, when I stated that only bird-winged magical flying white people made sense.
This is now inaccurate. The new updated chart will cost you $250.
Descriptions vary, from just being “big butterflies” to butterfly people proper. We can assume that they have shapeshifting powers. No size range is given, although if they’re carting folk into the sky, they must be of considerable size and strength, far surpassing any known flying creature (with the exception of the roc and Superman, of coursen). The jury is out on what relation Butterfly Angels have, if any, to the fairy folk (Homa fata).
Their behavior doesn’t seem too dissimilar from the traditional Hallmarkian angel: they are prone to selecting certain arbitrary people from the wrath of their vengeful employer. More research is required to explain why some people are selected for salvation while others are given the shaft. Perhaps their antenna can detect gullibility, like how some bloodsucking insects can detect cholesterol levels. They seem to breed in turbulent atmospheric conditions. If they are anything like normal angels, their growth is fueled by ringing bells, shafts of sunlight, the laughter of happy families, and small field rodents.
This is a revolutionary new step in Thaumaturgical Ornithothropology. As soon as I get both an expedition team and my tornado engine put together, more revelations will be forthcoming.
Alas, butterfly angels have nobody to save THEM from neither natural disasters nor underpaid lab assistants.
This is an embarrassing comic, and not just because of the shitty Photoshop filters. It also exposes a nasty little secret of mine. I hastily drew this when I was in college to convey what social anxiety is like. It’s basically like every moment of your life, with few exceptions, is a job interview where the potential employer, receptionist and janitor are giving you the stinkeye the whole time. Also you’re onstage at the Apollo. The whole time.
“Interesting, if TMI disclosure about your mental illness. Now what does this have to do with Skepticon?”, you ask.
Yeah, I’m not going to do slides of my trip to Skepticville after all. Sorry. Just going to talk about feelings and such.
I attended Skepticon for the creation museum field trip on Friday, and the first day of talks. And I had personal goals to accomplish:
Give out business cards (say, have you visited my store? It’s ace, and skeptic friendly!)
Make friends and don’t be an avoidant dope. I refer to this constantly as “schmoozing,” to make it sound less like a basic skill most normal people have and more like X-treme Advanced Socializing for the Master Social Engineer. Please bear with me. It’s my insecurity talking.
There were many high points, schmoozing-wise, at Skepticon, such as getting the nerve to chat with Joe Nickell and sending him on a wild Strafford chupacabra hunt (I hope it went well). I even got on that little video I posted previously. But you can’t force your brain to rewire, otherwise ex-gay therapy would work.
The hardest part was when I got myself invited to a secret dinner with some of the headliners. (Long story, but the short version: I just happened to have a car with empty seats at the right time). I drove some people to the location, and we were all gunning to go to this place, and we arrive and get some drinks…
And my brain completely shuts down. I should divulge my typical reaction to meeting up with someone I know peripherally.
Me: Oh hey! I know you! You’re that person I know off the internet!
Person I Know Off the Internet: Oh, hello!
Me: *CATASTROPHIC SOFTWARE FAILURE*
I then resort to pathetic attempts at tedious small talk, and hover around in the hopes that they will learn to love me via osmosis. This reaction I have doesn’t just apply to e-celebrities, but also anyone that I have met on Facebook or Twitter or e-mail. I want to leave, but I can’t. I just shut down and stew in an effort not to cry.
What’s ironic is that at this dinner I was sitting next to JT Eberhard. If only I had known. But his speech is Sunday evening. I go home Saturday.
—————–
On Thanksgiving night after Skepticon, I have a breakdown. It’s not unusual, but this is the first one I’ve had in front of my boyfriend. I didn’t want him to ever see this, but it was inevitable. That may be part of the reason I’ve never had a significant other until a few years after college.
I just goofed up big at my onstage-at-the-Apollo job interview. Here it comes, whatever “it” is.
It doesn’t come. One of the perks of having an awesome boyfriend is that he doesn’t tell you “you need to just get out more.” Don’t have to stew in silence anymore on that front.
Afterwards I notice JT’s talk is up on the internet. Me and the BF watch it together.
I tell the BF. “I’m crazy.”
I hear something I didn’t expect. “I’m crazy too.”
More crying, only it’s happy crying now. The imaginary Apollo audience goes “awwwww,” the imaginary receptionist averts her eyes and looks ashamed.
Skeptics know more than most how the human brain can betray you. They should take up JT’s word and start championing understanding of mental illness. Next year, I will not try to stew in silence.Who knows who else is trying to do the same thing you are.
You know what I’m thankful for? I’m thankful that I got all these goddamn ponies done.
Darrel Raycehorse
David Fitzgeegee
I’m especially grateful to the ones who use iconic logos in their work. Instant cutie mark!
HePinto Mehta
Also, those rumored to be involved with babies somehow.
Elippizzaner Yudkowsy
I have no idea if this pun works or not. I think I went mad and just started lumping letters together.
Dan Bronco
Dan Barker is NOT jumping. In fact, he is in the middle of an epic pratfall that he hasn’t realized is happening yet.
Richard Carriage
Richard looks all hardcore. But I imagine anyone with Joss Whedon tattooed on their ass would.
Prancer Greenberg
I had never heard of this guy and didn’t get to attend his talk, so all I had was a small photo and a rumor that he liked tea. I hope to make up for my lack of knowledge by giving him badass steampunk wings.
Did I get everyone?
It's my pony, and I'm sick of puns. So Kaje it be.
If you recognize my cutie mark, I’m willing to bet that you did NOT play with My Little Pony when you were little. Unless you borrowed some for your dinosaurs to eat.
The last batch of Skepticon ponies will come. I still have to do Dan Barker, Richard Carrier, David Fitzgerald, Spencer Greenberg, Hemant Mehta, Darrel Ray, and Eliezer Yudkowsky (thanks Wikipedia!) and it looks like I have my work cut out for me. I’m not familiar with some of these people, as I didn’t attend the last day. If you’re one of these people and have a horrible horse pun or cutie mark in mind, let me know! I will also have a post on how critical thought affects my social anxiety, and vice versa. And the Skepticon post proper.
But! Have to work! So here’s a video for Thanksgiving. It’s about skeptics giving thanks, shot by the Dallas Fellowship of Freethought. I pop in at the 8:30-ish mark. Enjoy!
I’m still compiling all my thoughts on this year’s Skepticon. Quick preview: AWESOME.
But before I do that, I must share these. They were inspired by these My Atheist Pony shot glasses, designed by Katie Hartman and Kelley Freeman to promote the event. I love them, but we need more. MORE DAMMIT. So I made more with General Zoi’s Pony Creator. Here they are.
You want to get some easy scientific street cred? Just wear this shirt! You must be a pretty badass adventurer to inspire such a film franchise.Who can doubt you? It’s printed on your freaking shirt!
All of my swear-wordy shirts can be found here. You know, Everybody Draw Mohammad Day is just around the corner! Also my infamous Skepticon shirt (you know…that one) can be found in several styles and colors!
You remember how Branson is Las Vegas for Ned Flanders? Well, not yet. It’s missing a crucial component– a multi-million-dollar salmon-colored temple of lies. Enter Rod Butterworth:
This is really God’s vision, not mine. In the summer of 2007 I visited several dinosaur museums in different states (including one in Branson, Missouri) that were totally evolutionary in philosophy. One day in September 2007 I was literally meditating about this while resting and it suddenly came to me like a vision from heaven—Branson needs a creation museum.
Are Christians even supposed to meditate? Anyway, they got incorporated and got concept drawings up, but they only got an actual museum up just recently, in nearby Strafford. Somebody in the Joplin Freethinkers forwarded this news to everybody, and I was like “OMG OMG OMG WE GOTTA GO.”
I called ahead to see if they were open, and while that was the case, it seems Dr. Butterworth wasn’t going to be there that day. His assistants would guide us through. He didn’t ask our group name, so I didn’t mention it.
Saturday came, and a whopping three of us headed to Strafford. We got there about 25 minutes before it opened, so we had a look around. Oh boy. I realized this wouldn’t be as fun as I had thought.
The interior
Calling the current location a hole in the wall would be getting your expectations up. Try a dent in a very steep incline. It’s a tiny little office space sandwiched between two other buildings. The windows were littered with Jurassic Park decals and vinyl toy dinosaurs. I secretly praise the indifferent universe that more members didn’t make the trip, for I smelled disappointment on the horizon. Either that, or it was the “Kuntry-Fied Cafe” across the street. Disappointment smells like delicious greasy spoon food; it’s an easy mistake.
To further compound the awkwardness, the two assistants that accepted us were super nice, cheery and gracious. They were completely unlike Dr. Sharp and other professional creationists I’ve met, who usually treat everyone around them like a mark. Our snark glands deflated, and we settled for biting our tongues as we were given the grand tour.
Different, Fake Evidence for a Different View
The mantra of this museum is the same as the big one in Kentucky- “same evidence, different views.” “We all work from the same evidence,” our guide told us, “we just have different ways of interpreting it.” Which is true, somewhat. Scientists go at things from an empirical, naturalistic perspective. Creationists make shit up. I’m not exaggerating; every single piece of evidence on display was either a blatant misinterpretation, an outright hoax, or wishful thinking.
Our guides showed us this evidence that the scientific community supposedly ignored. They wish. We had Ica stones, the London Artifact, polystrate fossils, the chameleon art that Dr. Sharp was hawking, T-Rex “blood cells“, the “living fossils disprove evolution” fallacy, the “monsters like Nessie and the Thunderbird prove that evolution is false even though those animals haven’t been proven to exist and are probably bullcrap anyway but wevs” canard. All items on display, all previously debunked or irrelevant from the start.
There was one I hadn’t seen before that caught my attention. It was a man/dino footprint from the Paluxy River in Texas. If you follow the topic, you already know about Paluxy’s infamous hoaxes, but our guide beat us to the punch. He admitted that most of them were phonies, but this one looks like the real deal! It even says on the printout-”verified by spiral CT scan!” Yet the evolutionists won’t let this information out to the public!
It caught my attention, because this is what the *coughcough* fossil looks like:
It’s not often a dinosaur print resembles a Lucky Charms marshmallow shape. Here’s a graphic for those of you not attuned to the fact that animal tracks aren’t normally flat and cartoony looking.
By "prepared a graphic" I mean "screencapped my Powerpoint." Don't hate.
When I got home I whipped out my google o’ nine tails and found out I wasn’t the first evolutionist to cover-up and ignore this thing. In creationist parlance, “covering up” is jargon for “looked at and dismissed as the obvious fake it was.” So creationists tried to salvage a source of bogus artifacts by presenting an even more bogus artifact. That works, I guess.
Did Not Do the Research
No. No, it is not a lemur.
Along with the humbug and fallacies and strawberry Newtons (yum!) were a lot of mistakes that seem to have been made out of sheer laziness. Fossils were misidentified, names were mispronounced, theories that haven’t seen the light of day since the late 70′s (hello, swamp-dwelling hadrosaurs!) were touted as current mainstream consensus.
“But but but,” you say, “scientists make mistakes all the time! You’re always harping about how that’s your biggest strength!” Ah, but there’s a difference, which was demonstrated to us when we reached the subject of hominids.
In 2009, scientists uncovered remains of an early hominid called Ardipithicus. There was an ensuing media frenzy, and it turns out that it wasn’t as closely related to us as hyped. It’s still closer to us than chimps, though. Still an ape. Still a hominid. Our guide, however, told us that Ardi was debunked as “just a lemur.” That’s a little beyond laziness. It’s almost as if they’re deliberately lying to make the other side look bad. In science, mistakes are bugs in the system and are weeded out. In creationism, it’s a feature that’s selected for. That’s the difference between the two sides. That, and we have better taste in music.
Perhaps I protest too much though. These people believe in fire-breathing dinosaurs.
The Puzzling Possibility of Parasaurolophus Pyrotechnics
Remember when Dr. Sharp failed to deliver that doozy last time? Well, Dr. Butterworth and company came through, so eat it Sharp! We were escorted to the back to watch the above video, after which our guide elaborated on the remarkable abilities of Parasaurolophus.
Parasaurolophus. Not depicted: burninatin' the peasants.
Parasaurolophus was a lambeosaur, which is a duckbill dinosaur with a funky-ass head crest. After much theorizing and study, most scientists now think the crest was used to produce sounds. They even reconstructed the sound with computer models.
But some creationists, spearheaded by Duane Gish, like to think it stored hot chemicals in his head and shot it out in self defense, like how the modern day bombardier beetle shoots it out of its butt. Therefore fire-breathing. Therefore dragons. Therefore Jesus.
These guys get facts about the bombardier beetle and their own Biblical monsters wrong all the time– I challenge you to Google them yourselves, since I’m getting hyperlink fatigue– but everyone everywhere is mum on the possibility that Parasaurolophus could do this. Could it? I love dinosaurs, but I’m not an accredited Parasaurolophus expert. So I called someone who is.
I contacted Dr. Thomas Williamson, curator of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. You remember that Parasaurolophus sound reconstruction? He was behind that. I asked him if it was even possible.
“Wow,” he said, “that’s one I haven’t heard before.” Don’t blame me, man. Blame the evolutionist conspiracy.
Dr. Williamson politely disagrees. There’s no living analog of an animal with a bombardier-like ability to shoot hot liquid death out its honker, he told me. The crest was a thin structure and there was no evidence of any chemical-spewing bits. Most damning of all, however, was the fact that this crest was part of the respiratory tract. Inhaling toxic chemical residues doesn’t sound like evidence of good design to me.
But hey, science changes all the time. Perhaps when the CMOTO gets their funding they can use their spiral CT scans and make their own damn Parasaurolophus burnination simulation.
Computer reconstruction of fire-breathing Parasaurolophus. Verified by spiral C-T scan.
Winding Down
After the video was over, we were itching to end the awkwardness of the whole affair. We thanked our hosts, helped ourselves to some free literature, said goodbye to the Madagascar hissing cockroaches and made tracks to the nearby pizza joint. We felt dirty, and a little bit dumber, and I personally felt a little jealous because that rinkydink tourist trap had more Carnegie figures than I do (I collect those). A trip to the Springfield zoo helped us recoup.
Hopefully, if and when they get their big building, we’ll make another trip, and this time we won’t feel like schmucks.
Or better idea– we could just go to a real science institution instead. Like the nearby Dinosaur Walk in Branson!
This Thursday I’ll be presenting an even more laborious Powerpoint presentation at the Joplin Freethinkers meeting! It’ll be at Southwest Missouri Bank, Zora and Rangeline. 6:30 pm! Be there!
Hey you! Wanna indoctrinate your kids in evilution?
Featuring Eugenie the Freethinker T-Rex, Blue the Marine Iguana, Booky the Book and friends!
Then come on down to the Joplin Public Library, where the good folk of the Joplin Freethunkoids have erected this unholy shrine *coffcoffspearheadedbymecoff* to empirical knowledge.
You can pummel an ox comatose with all these books!
Don’t worry, concerned guardians; we present both sides of the debate so your children can draw their own conclusions. You guys get a whole corner and a blurb!
BALANCE
It’ll be up for the entire month of February, so bring your Valentine’s Day sweetheart. Enjoy a romantic dinner under the soft glow of 10 common misconceptions about evolution, printed on multicolored construction paper.
And it’s not even finished yet! Be sure to check out Evolution Display 1.2, which will have real ammonite fossils! And photos! And given the reactions some people have, maybe a pipe bomb or two!
Oh man I wish you could see the people in this picture! Biggest dorks ever!
Come down and see it! It probably covers more of the subject than your kids will encounter in 12 years of public school!
“One box of Cocoa Puffs…will you be paying with cash or credit today, sir?”
“Yep. I’m coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs today. Like Sonny, my rational (ordered) mind is often swayed by emotional (disordered) lapses.”
“….o…kaaaay…I’m more of a Trix fan myself…”
“Those kids in the commercials really need to open their minds a little. Explore the possibilities. Scientists will dissect dead rabbits and say sugary cereal isn’t any good for them. With us simple folk, we know that good food is meant to be enjoyed.”
“Riiiiiight…$9.53 is your change. You have a good day, sir!”
“You too!…
…
…teach intelligent design in schools!”
———————————–
Meanwhile, someone’s complaining about animals again! We always appreciate your input, Burne-
This is an unacceptable breach into Burney Johnson’s domain of rabid, obsessive specisim. I recommend that he sneak into Ed’s territory and pee on something that belongs to him. Like a chair or something. That’ll put him in his place, the way God intended.
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