Stodge.org

The fundamentalist Christian “creationist” website “OverwhelmingEvidence.com” is a little bit crazier than usual these days: When it first set-up by conservative theologian and part-time mathematiian William Dembski, it was intended to be a debating forum where teen creationists (i.e. more ignorant than the standard Internet creationists) could jaw about the latest exciting theories from the “Discovery Institute”, the American pseudo-science organisation dedicated to destroying materialst science and Darwin’s theory of Evolution.

OE.com is notable amongst “Creation Science” blogs in that it eschewes any form of editorial control. You can sign up and start blogging immediatly. This has resulted in a unique opportunity: Imagine a group of ignorant non-scientists witrh a grudge against established biology pretending to know better than the people with genuine scientific qualifications. What is the possbility that a satirist or three might slip in and post articles that send up the whole thing?

Commentators on the site “Panda’s Thumb” and “90% True” have recently started observing out that a number of posts on OE seem ludicrous even by creationist standards. It’s as if the creationists suddenly stray off-message and have started saying what they really think. The ID movement is not usually noted for it’s honesty and openness.
For example, this utter nonsense has sparked a debate of over 150 comments. I did not find a single one from the ID apologists dismissing the original article worthless work of mystical puff. The article in question argues that “materialism” has failed science, and the only way for science to make any progress is to abandon “nihilism” and embrace Jesus.
I can only assume that the ID crowd are so paranoid about their failing theories that they are prepared to embrace just about anybody who agrees with them regardless of how absurd their proposition.
Here is an article that purports to advocate a “scientist” called Kazmer Ujavorsy who claims that ID theory has enabled him to cure cancer by the means of orally ingested semen. He could just try paying for sex - I’m sure it would be easier. And how about an article that intends to settle this time-old debate by the means of an animated flash game.

I can no longer distinguish the genuine cranks from the crank impersonators who seem to be just as active on the board. For example I’ve noticed that posts by authors “HaEris” and “Quizzlestick” have also appeared on the possibly satirical conservative website “Shelley The Republican“.
Some of these names might be clues about their author’s intent: HaEris may be a contraction of “Hail Eris”, the greeting given by Robert Anton Wilson’s fictional “Dischordians”, in his anarchic sci-fi novel Illuminatus. The Dischordans are a secret society dedicated to spreading chaos in a society which they believe has become overwhelemd by forces of control and order and stupidity. Is a “dischordian” the sort of person who might enjoy making fun of these creationists in denial? Possibly.

My lesson from this is that genunine proponents cannot distingusih between genuine ID articles and the fake satirical ID articles. If the hard-core IDers are prepared to accept stuff that is intended to be nonsense on an equal footing with their own earnest pseudo-science babble, then I think we can safely conclude that there is no practical difference between the two.