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An evolutionist's point by point counter argument to Big Daddy
BIG DADDY: REVIEW BY TERRIBLE TOMMY
"Big Daddy" is one of Jack Chick's oldest tracts. Unlike many other old JTC tracts, "BD" has staying power. Why? Because it evolves! There have been four, count 'em, FOUR, incarnations of "Big Daddy," each leap forward occurring about 5-10 years after real advances in real science turn the older versions into tribble feces.
I saw the original Big Daddy way back in 1970 when I was a terrified-of-God-and-Hell (SOUTHERN!) Baptist minister's son, getting my ass kicked daily by big Virginia farm boys. One of the pre-doomed missionary activities that I was guiltily performing under this rather-brutal and occasionally bloody duress was the distribution of Jack Chick tracts, including "Big Daddy."
The guilt I felt, in addition to the regular "Protestant Dominican" guilt of the Baptist, was the guilt I had from passing out tracts whose verity I was beginning to seriously doubt, mostly because of the wonky science of "Big Daddy."
Mr. Chick has a whole series of tracts on the sanctified ignorance known as "Creation Science," which is really science the way Kool-Aid is really champagne. My stone favorite is "Big Daddy." Second favorite is "In the Beginning" with "It's Coming!" being a close third.
"In the Beginning" features THE Chick Super-Christian ("Brother Bob") witnessing to a student of Atheistic evolution. This tract features a toy dinosaur acting surprised in response to the declaration that "The Big Bang never happened." Chick also portrays The Serpent walking upright with hands and feet. Of course, the doubting student falls to his knees in repentance for believing in Satan's institutionalized lie of evil-ution by the end of the tract. Now he really, really believes in talking donkeys, houses catching leprosy and goats giving birth to kids with streaks because they mated while looking at streaked sticks: Really.
"It's Coming!" another companion tract to "Big Daddy," proclaims that the world-wide flood of Noah caused all the fossils to be formed. This little myth is covered with the usual glorious hysteria of Chick that we all know and love. There is some truly classic Chick-ery in this one, with a man riding a triceratops and tyrannosaurus rexes being loaded onto the Ark along with turtles, mice and mountain goats. Nowadays, Creationist Cretiens draw their Noah's Ark with long-necked apatosaurs sticking out side-by-side with the giraffes.
But onward to "Big Daddy?" which is surely the pick of the litter in the Chick-Hovind Creationist Crusade:
One fact that the astute reader will quickly pick up on is the composition of the characters in all of the "Big Daddy?" tracts: That never changes! As often happens with J. T. Chick's other tracts, the un-American, traitorous professor is identifiably Jewish, the "ready to conquer America for the Reds" college students are greasy hippies (with two flashing peace symbols, a long-haired proto-lesbian and a "Negro" in a dashiki and picked-out 'fro; somewhat anachronistic, there, Jack: There are no "De Barge" or punk rock fans at all.) Meanwhile, the "good Christian" student is another one of those Ken Doll clones with Pat Boone-type sweater and molded-on hair; blonde if I have to even say it. As others have noticed, he looks like the Hitler Youth's poster child.
Aryan Boy is all polite and calm while the Semite professor goes into hysterics at the drop of a hat, ultimately giving up his hard-earned tenure in an overdone plethora of sweat-drops. (For someone who loves the Jews, both Chick and his associate, Kent Hovind, sure do bash them a lot.) Very nice, for a college student's wet dream about professorial revenge, yes: But also about as unrealistic as the rest of Chick's fantasies.
Poor Jack actually expects his fairy-tale conversion junk to happen in real life. He honestly believes he has all the answers that any evolutionist could possibly want. What Chick fails to comprehend is that his arguments are long outdated, long ago discredited and totally, completely WRONG!
First of all, if anybody out there actually runs across a scientist/professor who actually goes into St. Vitus dance and sweat cascades just because someone simply mentions Creationism, e-mail the author, please: I want to audit some of this guy's classes.
Second of all, has anyone out there in Realityland ever attended ANY biology class that commenced with the professor asking about your personal faith in Godless Evolution? I CERTAINLY HAVE NOT! I've taken/slept through three (really accredited) college biology courses. Two of my Biology professors were good Baptists, one was a lapsed Catholic who believed in a more universal God: I talked to all three of them about religion: None were atheist. (Definitely not ME! I LOVE science and I am a devout Pagan!) All of them simply taught facts as they were known, including all of the many unmistakable evidences for evolution.
Finally, as an amateur scientist, let me just say that if the only facts which science really had to offer were the "Dr. Dino" facts that the cartoon Christian in Chick's tract has to offer, anyone with half a brain would have to toss away evolution as a silly fraud. I sure would! To the corkscrew-like minds of Christian Fundamentalists, it must truly seem that the Evolutionists are blithely, completely ignoring all of this very clear, scientifically-plausible evidence for their sacred, infallible Special Creation.
This doctrine of the perfect Bible runs very deep in the Christian psyche; they get very upset when it is meddled with. Just witness all the good Christian Love in the classic movie "Inherit the Wind," not to mention Little Rock around 1957! And leave us not forget (as the evangelicals conveniently have) the shameless Baptist-and-Pentecostal support for the KKK in their accursed 1920's revival (a fact my mixed-blood family remembers all too well: It's the reason I'm a life member of the NRA.) And leave us not forget all those cars in Protestant church parking lots around 1968 with "Wallace for President" stickers on their bumpers.
Creationism is, and always has been, one of the major impetuses for Manifest Destiny, White Supremacy and other illusions. Us Heathen consider homo sapiens sapiens to be exactly what s/he is: A multicolored mutant primate.
Chick, like his Creationist mentor "Dr." Kent Hovind, lives in his own cartoon world: Something that makes his Christianity so much fun to mock, since these clowns take their own mythology entirely too seriously. In case you aren't aware of it, it is the Chick-pickin' Fundy who is the most likely to go into the screaming, sweat-drenched hissy-fits when his mythos is refuted, not the putatively "Jew-boy" professor.
A number of "Anti-evolution facts" that were preached in the original BD have been discarded in favor of more modern twists. One such fact was the absolutely hilarious contention that scientists had produced a barrel of oil from ten pounds of garbage in less than an hour, thus proving that it did NOT take millennia to form oil deposits. As usual, the students in the background called out: "In less than an hour?" "Wow, we didn't evolve!" And also, as usual, there were absolutely no scientific references to any such experiment.
Anybody who knows anything about organic chemistry can produce the same methane that is commonly known as "swamp gas," in just minutes in the laboratory. The actual process, out in the wild, takes much longer than just a few minutes. This "oil Creation" nonsense, which is more of the same, has long since been dropped.
Another purely idiotic "proof" was the spotted moth in England. This was in the original BD. Basically, what happened was simple: In England, after the aerial pollutions from the Industrial Revolution had caused the trees to darken in color, a species of spotted moths were forced to turn dark themselves to avoid the birds that preyed on them. Chick has his Jew Prof declaring that this darkening "proves evolution."
All the Magic Christian need do is trot out the incantation "I'm sorry, sir---"and the infidel Yid whirls away in his usual sitz bath of sweaty frustration. As it turns out, this spotted moth argument wound up being one of Creationism's most embarrassing booboos. There is a wide section in Talk Origins all about the spotted moth and its unmistakable evidences for evolution. Needless to say, Chick and his brother Creationists now treat the Spotted Moths like Chick's Arch-enemies, the Catholics, treat pedophilic priests: By quietly ignoring the subject and hoping it will go away.
Thirdly, there was the "Thousand-year-old snail" proof that radiocarbon dating is all false. This had to do with the "silly sign-tists" taking a sample from a fresh mollusk, then measuring it with radiocarbon dating and obtaining the result: "Dead one thousand years." As usual, the students cried out: "A thousand years?" "Wow, we didn't evolve."
For anyone with any familiarity with science whatsoever, this is pure ignorance, right up there with "If the Earth is round, why don't we fall off?" A thousand years is a tiny click in the ages measured by the processes of radioactive decay and analysis. That's like saying that meter-sticks don't work and the meter is a Satanic illusion because you cannot measure 1/1000th of an inch on a meter stick.
Let me put it to you this way: Try getting into your car and driving EXACTLY .4 miles per hour. You can't? Aha, this is proof that speedometers don't work! Miles per hour are an illusion! Hallelujah! NOW try going exactly 1,500 miles per hour. You can't? There's double proof---at least as good as anything else the "Creation Scientists" provide. Soon, we'll be electing officials to get this devil-inspired mythology of speedometers put out of our precious, God-given automobile industry!
Bottom line: When you want to measure .4 or 1,500 miles per hour, the conventional speedometer is not much good. But for the NORMAL operating range of 5-120 m.p.h. on the typical auto, the speedometer works just fine. And so do the modern scientific methods of radiocarbon dating.
Most of these same nonsensical arguments are also held up as real science by a person known as "Dr." Kent Hovind. Kent Hovind is a real Elmer Gantry type, a proven liar and swindler who frequently debates real scientists at schools and colleges. This uber-fool is well known in biological circles as being the most bull-headedly stupid Creationist (next to Mr. Not-a-Pope Chick) out there fighting to have his concatenated fairy tales taught as real science in public schools.
Dr. Hovind also has a bogus "$250,000 reward" for any scientist who can prove evolution. He also claims that a totally "impartial" board of judges will evaluate the contributions. Hovind constantly taunts the scientific community with this as-yet unclaimed prize, loudly proclaiming that the "evil-utionists are afraid to challenge me!" (And then Dr. Hovind turns lead into sulfur trioxide and beats up the purple-striped Martian grizzly bears with his bare Christian fists, as it plainly says in The Book of Sid, verse 3:16.)
This non-existent challenge has been repeatedly proven to be a hoax, as are the "panel of judges" and the two-hundred fifty thousand smackers Hovind lays claim to. The conditions Hovind sets are very similar to "Disprove the existence of Santa Claus." (Watch out for those Santa-ologists: They've got Kirsty Alley!) His "panel of judges" is almost as believable as John "Gold-digger" Smith and his "witnesses to the Golden Plates of Mormon;" i.e. not at all.
Hovind himself is a loudmouth bully of the type that delights in picking fights for other kids at school. As the recipient of many black eyes, school-wide nicknames and other tortures at the hands of said righteously-enraged bullies, I recognize the type very well. Every pose, every posture, every nostril-curling question of "Dr." Hovind during one of his pseudo-scientific gabble-fests is the mirror image of such sadists.
Hovind invariably starts off by saddling his opponents with cutesy-but-demeaning nicknames and gets his Christian listeners intoxicated with derisive laughter, one of Christianity's favorite substitutes for dope and sex. Then, once the Moral Presumed-majority is properly sedated, Hovind goes on to crowingly declare an entire heap of his nonsensical Creationist piffle left over from the Dark Ages as proven scientific facts.
Any scientifically-literate opponent is not able to deal with this Great Barrier Reef of mythology in any reasonable length of time. Thus, the great Dr. Hovind is able to declare yet another victory for Christ and move on to his next appearance.
Now, here's a SHORT list of Chick/Hovind's individual arguments, with their answers provided by REAL scientists:
GLUONS, NON-EXISTENCE OF: In Big Daddy, JTC has his Hitler-Youth-poster Christian absolutely HUMILIATING the spineless infidel Jew before the entire class. His list of Creationist "science facts" has floored ever argument of the professor. The Creationist has wrestled the Jew to the mat with his Biblical-based "proofs" of Creationism. Then Super-Christian springs the BIG QUESTION:
"Sir, what is the binding force of the atom?" The evil atheistic Jew (an oxymoron?) declares "It's gluons!" while thinking "GOTCHA!"
Mr. Chick then has his Aryan Christian declare: "Gluons are a made-up dream. No one has seen or even measured them...they don't exist." (Of course, I could say "The Himalayas are just a made-up dream...they don't exist." I still wouldn't try flying through them instead of over them!) Then the saintly W.A.S.P. goes on to ask how the atoms could possibly hold together: If gluons are "a made-up dream," they should all fly apart.
The Professor has no answer (He must have slept through "Intro to Physics" back at Harvard.) The White Christian Warrior even forces the infidel Yid to repeat himself, stuttering: "I-I don't know---you tell me"as the inevitable Jack Chick "Diaphoresis for Jesus" sweat-drops pour down the Professor's cowardly head. Glowing with triumph, the Christian Stormtrooper quotes Colossians 1:17. On this flimsy and theologically-incorrect basis, the blonde student proclaims: "It says that Christ, the Creator, 'Is before all things, and by him all things consist (are held together.)'"
Tah daaah.
If you are really stupid enough to believe that Jesus is really, REALLY holding all the sub-atomic particles together, you'd be better off being a Hindu: Lord Ganesh has more arms and would be better at holding the atoms together-and even He would be bollixed by anything more complex than a carbon atom, since He only has six arms.
And, after this, I wonder if "Creationist astronomers" are going to start seriously arguing that the planets move in elliptical orbits because angels are pushing them around.
REAL ANSWER: And that, dear friends, is Jack Thomas Chick cutting a thick slice of Farmer Brown's prime cow manure. One is mindful of the good Christian Men of Knowledge balking at accepting the "un-Christian, pagan" Democritan system of atomic structure when the atheist Humanist scientists were all worrying over the Daltonian.
So where is the proof that Chick and Hovind are plucking clouds of non-existent pixie dust? Simple:
Neither Jesus nor Ganesh, but gluons, real gluons, hold the atoms together. But Mr. Chick and Dr. Hovind sail right through quantum theory like Dr. Wile E. Coyote into a tunnel painted on the side of a mountain. Just because Mr. Chick and "Former Science Teacher" Hovind are too ignorant to understand the mechanics of sub-atomic forces doesn't mean they magically stop existing, Biblical doctrine to the contrary.
Quarks and gluons are realities, not lies and fairy tales. These sub-atomic forces are very well documented and extremely well studied: What do you think all those durn cyclotrons are for? One simple trip to the Web under "Sub-atomic Physics" would show what a load of Christo-centric crock this myth truly is. Since both of these "Profits of god(sic)" have been repeatedly advised of this, yet continue to preach their same tripe, that makes this particular chestnut into a demonstrably direct, out and out LIE!
VESTIGIAL ORGANS: In "Big Daddy," Jack's Nazi Nazarene attacks the evolutionary ideas about vestigial organs. But first, let's see a good quote which is to be found at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/glossary.html:
"Vestigial characters The definition used in this article is a working definition. A vestigial character is a character that for all intents and purposes has no obvious or important function, yet is structurally similar to functional characters in other species ("importance" here is measured in terms of function, i.e. effects on organismal fitness). If the character appears reduced and rudimentary compared to the same structure in other organisms, and the structure has obvious important functions in the majority of other organisms, then it is considered a vestigial structure. The most rigorous test is to remove the character and observe the organism's viability and reproductive success. If these remain unchanged, the character is definitively vestigial."
The professorial Hebrew points out the coccyx which is vestigial. Getting as close to angry as he ever does in the entire comic, the "Heil Jesus" Hero proclaims: "There are seven muscles attached to it---it isn't vestigial."
Really? The human appendix is vestigial and it's attached to the entire alimentary tract. Does that mean that the appendix has some secret place in "God's Plan?" Maybe it clicks on and is "held together" when you fall on all fours and accept Jesus. Glory!
WHAT?!!
HOVIND/CHICK'S MYTHOLOGICAL DESCENT OF MAN
Another Jack Chick tract trick is presented in his "descent of Man" chart. This display pretends that old evolutionists' hoaxes, exposed long ago by SCIENTISTS, are still being taught and taken as gospel truth by modern teachers. This nonsense is repeated in the Chick wall-poster which my parents actually possess (and will not part with, though I've tempted them with money.) Like the Creation Science seminars of Not-even-a-Dr. Hovind, Jack Chick's poster plays up the Christian trick of using humor to lubricate Jesus enough to make him slide down the potential convert's gullet without a gulp (Hey! Swallowing Jesus; maybe THAT'S what the appendix is for!)
The Born-again Christian gets a chuckle from the bulldog with the bone in its mouth. (I wondered where Fang was.) Also, there's the scary eye peeking out of a knothole in the tree, the Neanderthal's crutch and the scientist kneeling and smiling while he offers a skull to his god, the monkey. Is it my imagination or does the scientist also look Jewish?
The Xtian idiots will laugh at these jokes while completely missing the fairy-tale nonsense that is preached as science by Anti-pope Chick.
The up-from-the-monkey list starts out with Lucy, which Chick claims as being recognized as nothing more than an "ordinary chimp" by "most experts." This is a new tidbit, plugged into the Big Daddy melee only recently. It is also one of the biggest direct LIES that Chick and Hovind both tell. In fact, a big part of their non-existent "evolution of man according to evil-ution" nonsense pivots on this non-fact, proclaimed by non-existent scientists and non-experts.
The truth is that Lucy and her contemporaries have been proven to be the unmistakable progenitors of humankind. Consider this quote from Lenny Flank's excellent web-site, found at http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/hominid.htm:
"Nearly all authorities agree that Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy) was the earliest member of the upright-walking line that led, some four millions years later, to modern humans. And, as we will now see, the 'Lucy' hominids shared a mixture of characteristics which puts them squarely in the gap between primates and humans."
The confusion of St. Jack the Clueless and Dr. Dimwit Hovind comes about thusly: There is a pygmy chimp called the "bonobo," which comparative anatomists and microbiologists have determined are the best living prototypes for the common ancestor of humans, gorillas and chimps. Lucy was related to the bonobos, as we are, but absolutely, positively NOT a chimpanzee!
Neither Chick nor Hovind mentions the name of one single "reputable scientist" who supports the claim that Lucy was simply a chimpanzee. The truth is that neither infallible-Pope Chick nor "Dr. Dino" Hovind understand the various interrelations of these various hominids, the same interrelations that a C-average High School football player understands with no problem.
St. Jack's next tells of Piltdown man, which was a fake, and Nebrasaka man, which was an error; both were quickly corrected within a very short time of the hoaxes being perpetrated. And please note: It was them Darwinist devil-worshipping Evil-ution Sign-tists who detected and exposed the frauds; not the putative "men o'God."
Jack's next example is a real monkey wrench in the gonads for Christian Creationism. Heidelberg man is a perfectly good, perfectly acceptable late erectus fossil; certainly not modern human, but far more like human than any ape. This has been confirmed and re-confirmed by forensic scientists, people who make their living teaching osteopathic doctors their trade. No offense (well, some offense) to Dr. Dingo and St. Chick-en thief, but I tend to trust the word of such Sign-tists a whole bunch more than I trust a herd of credible fools who prove their Creation science by "praying about it."
Peking man is a real human ancestor, a very early erectus find. As Massah Mo-fo Chick-en Poopie hath done saith in his word, the original fossils were indeed lost, although excellent casts remain. Real casts made by real scientists, from which studies are STILL being done: No fakery or trickery indicated. The hilarious irony is that Chick cast aspersions on these genuine casts, then swallows without a gulp the completely FAKE Paluxy "man-tracks" which Jack's surrogate, Bob the Mega-Christian, proclaims to show that man and dinosaur existed side by side. This hoax has been anathematized by other Creationist think-tanks ("Thou-shalt-NOT-think-tanks?"), but Chick and Hovind continue to believe and preach it.
Next in line is "New Guinea Man": I remember New Guinea Man in the first BD. He was in amongst the other mordant ignorance of Chick's "Descent Of Man" fairy tale from the very first tract. One Fundy child of my acquaintance actually used this confused, unscientific list for their science project. If memory serves me right, they were laughed out of the gymnasium. Can you say "Haw Haw Haw?"
I have looked and looked and looked for "New Guinea Man" in every evolution source I am aware of: Talk Origins, Lenny Flank, Smithsonian, Library of Congress and all the College and High School textbooks I could lay my hands on. Aside from one, count 'em ONE, obscure reference in a Creationist's book referred to on the Web (Evan Shute, "Flaws in the Theory of Evolution") there IS no New Guinea man! Talk about a Straw Man argument, this is it!
The truth is that there were fragments of a human skull found in New Guinea which was carbon-dated to about 5,000 b.c.e. It was never claimed as any intermediate step of human evolution by ANY scientists in any publication. Yet Chick continues to publish "New Guinea Man," the evolutionary step that never was.
Next, there are the Neanderthals, which, according to Dr. Hovind and Br. Chick, was nothing more than one single skeleton of an old Frenchman who had suffered from arthritis. The average Fundy will then go "Awwww, how STUPID!" and feel immensely superior to those atheistic-humanistic Satan-inspired Evil-utionists while their Fundy Bible-based delusions are simultaneously reinforced. People pay big bucks for this garbage.
Let's ignore the fact that osteopathic scientists have hundreds of arthritic skeletons and can easily demonstrate the differences between a Neanderthal skeleton and a Homo sapiens skeleton. There may be examples of arthritic Neanderthal skeletons, but there are many more perfectly normal Neanderthal skeletons.
Then let's ignore the microbiological proofs of evolution in general and the relation of modern humankind to the Neanderthals in particular. That's probably "all just a lie," too.
The major wall that the Chick-Hovind Creationist Crusade runs into head first are all the Neanderthal campsites and the graveyards attached thereunto, including early examples of the Neanderthals' religion and reverence for the dead. If the words of Pope St. Chick are true, then at one time in history, there was an entire CULTURE of arthritic Frenchmen running around burying their dead and lighting cook fires.
Can you rhyme that with: "Full spit?" Jack Chick certainly can and the Holy Ghost told him to call it "Big Daddy."
As I said before, this is a SMALL list: The Eminent Doctor Hovind has entire libraries of books, including coloring books for kiddies, starting with "A is for Adam" all proving the verity of Young Earth Creation, along with proof that the Earth is flat and square and was created at 3:30 p.m. on Sept. 20th, 6006 b.c.e. by a Three-Headed White Man. This is ignorance almost beyond belief.
However, being an American Pagan (Wiccanish Voodruid) who was raised as a "shoutin' Hally-luyer" Baptist by parents who I totally love and whose church was actually visited by one of Dr. Hovind's associates, I know for a fact that people---real good, decent people---really believe this crap: Not just believe it but buy books full of it and teach it to their children as science. Hovind's ass-ociate even sold a number of books on Creationism to the assembled Chretiens: Said books being more of the same re-rehashing of myths and misunderstood science, all preached by the Prophets Chick and Hovind for no small amount of money.
Since neither these skollers uv Gawd nor their audience has the mental-emotional resources to find out otherwise, this entire Young Earth mythos gets told and re-told as Gospel Truth. And, sometimes, legislated into the kinds of medieval law we came to America to escape from.
Ain't Christianity grand? No. But Chick Tracts ARE a lot of fun!
Big Rating for Big Daddy: D++++ for "Dummy," "Dunce," "Dullard" and "DUH!" as in "Praise DUH Lord!" (Also "Praise DUH Gods I'm a #^@$!ing PAGAN!")
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