The Scientific Case Against Craterism

Barringer Crater, Arizona

We beg you, dear reader, to indulge your Curmudgeon as we engage in a bit of weekend parody. Having observed the chicanery of creationists, we feel that their style of argument can be applied to virtually anything. Behold, our refutation of the theory of meteor craters — Craterism:

1. Craterism is only a theory. It has never been proved.

2. Meteor craters have not been observed to happen, now or in the past.

3. Meteor craters have never been reproduced in the lab. Craterists can produce micro-craters, but have no laboratory evidence of macro-cratering.

4. Craterism is not scientific. It makes no predictions and is untestable.

5. The second law of thermodynamics prohibits meteor craters.

6. The odds against a random rock falling from the sky, striking the earth, and making a crater are astronomical.

7. Hitler’s military tactics were based on craterism. No craterism, no Hitler.

8. Meteor craters are not mentioned in the Bible, nor are “rocks from the sky.”

9. Craterism is a product of materialism and a Godless, naturalistic worldview.

10. Belief that rocks can fall from the sky promotes hedonism and amoral, animalistic behavior.

11. Thomas Jefferson said: “Gentlemen, I would rather believe that two Yankee professors would lie than believe that stones fall from heaven.”

12. Aristotle didn’t believe in Craterism. Nor did Galileo, Newton, or Einstein. Einstein said: “God does not play dice!” Are you smarter than Einstein?

13. Anyone who thinks there are rocks in the sky has rocks in his head. It takes more faith to believe in Craterism than it does to believe in the Tooth Fairy.

14. A so-called “meteor crater” could be the result of a volcano, or a sinkhole, or just a subterranean depression. Or — although the Craterist mind can’t grasp such a concept — it could have been designed to look like that. Craterists can’t prove otherwise! All they have is a “just so” story that one day, millions of years ago, a rock fell from the sky. What kind of a theory is that?

15. Craterism is a theory in crisis! Scientists are abandoning craterism because they know it is not supported by evidence. In ever-increasing numbers they are turning to IC — Intelligent Crater Theory.

The Intelligent Crater Theory Manifesto

Craterism is a “theory” that claims large rocks can fall from the sky . What damage can it do to young minds when they are indoctrinated with this “theory” promoted by so-called crater-scientists about a purposeless, chaotic, random world? How many lives have been destroyed by contemplating the meaningless absurdity of life when there is the constant fear of rocks falling from the sky? Clearly, such a precarious existence is too horrible to contemplate. How many suicides have been caused by the Craterist view of life?

What you rocks-from-the-sky cultists refuse to admit is that your “theory” was proposed and refined just before the 20th century, the most bloody century in mankind’s history. Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot were all Craterists. Marx could have never have written Das Kapital if he didn’t believe that large rocks fell from the sky. Why do you fear the truth? Are you afraid they’ll cut off your government grants?

Do you think your schemes are unknown to us? Do you imagine we are unaware of how you whisper to our daughters: “Why preserve your chastity, young maiden, when at any moment a rock may fall upon us from the sky?”

Your materialistic Craterism is leading our women astray by robbing them of all hope of the future, of any reason to plan for the next generation. You are destroying the most basic foundation of our society — the family! — with your rocks-from-the-sky blasphemy! All of these lies are merely to satisfy your animalistic lust. Have you no shame?

Have you ever considered the tragic implications of your materialistic Meteor Crater Theory? Face the truth, for once in your wretched life! If everyone believes that random rocks can fall from the sky at any moment and kill us, then life has no meaning. Why shouldn’t we all run around raping and killing each other? Why study, why work, why save, why worry about morality, why care about the future? Everyone should just let the government handle things, while we lie back in a drug-induced stupor, engaged in animalistic fornication. Is that the kind of world you want?

Anyone who has daughters should homeschool them, to protect them from the Craterist propaganda that you and your ilk spread through the monopoly that Craterism enjoys in the government school system. We shall not rest until the evil of Craterism is expunged from our schools!

How do you know that a crater was caused by a falling rock? Can you prove it? Were you there? Gravity may have been different in the past. No one knows what the atmosphere was like, or what conditions on the ground were like. You have no idea what you’re talking about. Your whole Craterist “theory” is nothing but guesswork.

Face the facts! A so-called meteor crater is irreducibly complex. You have the central depression, the outer ridges, the rim, the debris field, the erosion — how could all of these features have flown together by purely random events? The odds against that are at least 1⁷²⁰ to one. If ever there was an undeniable example of Design, it’s the so-called “meteor” crater.

What we have in Arizona is an unwitnessed event, one which can’t be reproduced in the lab (except as absurdly unpersuasive micro-impacts), an event comprised of numerous features which can’t be explained by themselves, but only as part of an integrated whole, an event which can’t be dated due to the unreliability of radiometric dating techniques, an event which thus far has received only Godless, naturalistic “explanations” in the form of rocks randomly falling from the sky, an event which — even if it happened as long ago as the naturalist Craterist scientists claim — can’t be verified due to their ignorance of conditions so long ago, an event which seems to defy the odds by its very uniqueness, an event which miraculously mimics the shape of recently-observed crop circles — and this is the event which Godless naturalistic scientists want to teach to our children as a purely natural event.

So that you will know how your foolish Craterism fraud is coming unraveled, here we expose your cult’s website for all to see: Barringer Meteor Crater, which discloses the identity of your cult leader, Daniel Barringer, whom you no doubt worship in the dark of night as you dance around your crop circles, which symbolize your satanic craters.

The Founders of this great country did not believe in the blasphemy of Craterism. They had hope for the future. They built this nation as a Shining City on a Hill, as an example to all mankind. And now the Craterists claim that some random rock will come crashing down from the heavens to flatten the glorious work of the Founders. What un-American nonsense these deceivers preach!

Wake up!! The fraud of Craterism serves those who would be our masters. The fruit of their materialistic theory can only be despair and death!

[See also: The Scientific Case Against Powered Flight.]

Copyright © 2009. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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My Defense, by James Corbett

Background: Last week we posted the news that Corbett Loses “Superstitious Nonsense” Trial, informing you that one of James Corbett’s comments in his California classroom — that Creationism is “superstitious nonsense” — had been ruled by U.S. District Judge James Selna to have violated the Constitution’s establishment clause. Here is the court’s 37-page ruling (a pdf file).

Yesterday, James Corbett visited our blog and posted a comment in his defense. This case is significant; therefore, we are presenting Mr. Corbett’s statement as a stand-alone article:

My Defense

Over two thousand years ago Socrates faced a court for refusing to recognize the gods acknowledged by the state, importing strange divinities and corrupting the young. The judges sent Socrates to his death. He accepted the sentence of the court and committed suicide by drinking a cup of hemlock.

The only virtue for Socrates was “knowledge.” He reached it by questioning the most deeply held beliefs of his students by which I mean all of Athens and ultimately all of us. What troubled the Athenians about Socrates, however, was not listed in the charges. His crime was that he prompted people to think.

His provocations exposed the Athenians’ shallowness of belief and mindless deference to myth. Socrates was judged because he was successful in provoking his students “examine their lives.” [his words] Those who guard the myths must try and strike down any who teach young people to think and question, because myths often shrink in the light of reason, draining power from those in authority who benefit from belief.

There are thousands of teachers who agree with Socrates that, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Every teacher who makes a student think takes the risk that he will be attacked by parents and others who see themselves as guardians of cherished political and religious myth. The teachers willing to take that risk should be rewarded, not punished. After the verdict, the Athenian court asked Socrates what his punishment should be. He responded that he should get free meals at the Pyrataneum, a celebration hall for Olympian athletes. Socrates went on to explain that those who passed judgment were not harming him, but rather themselves. He said, by killing him they corrupted their own souls and revealed the weakness of their own belief. A true believer does not fear that a few questions can undo years of parental teaching. Those who would “protect” students from self examination have little faith and great fear.

Chad Farnan, the boy who sued me, was an average student, who admitted under oath that he did not do the required reading for the class. If Chad’s lawyers, the “Advocates for Faith and Freedom” and his parents were actually concerned with protecting the boy, why didn’t they simply come to me and ask me to explain my comments? Neither they nor the Farnans ever expressed concerns to me nor to any administrators before they came to school with attorneys and reporters in tow to drop a lawsuit on the desk of Tom Ressler, our principal. Perhaps more importantly, the Farnans were aware long before Chad took my class that I go out of my way to be provocative. Every year in July, I send a letter home to students who have signed up for my class. Chad admitted under oath that he received that letter. The letter says, in part:

Most days we will spend a few minutes (sometimes more) at the beginning of class discussing current events from either the Orange County Register or the L.A. Times. I may also use material from a variety of news websites. Discussion will be quite provocative, and focus on the “lessons” of history. My goal is to have you go home with something that will provoke discussion with your parents. Students may offer any perspective without concern that anything they say will impact either my attitude toward them or their grades. I encourage a full range of views.

I included my home phone number and e-mail address in that letter and encouraged parents to contact me if they had any concerns. Chad admitted under oath that my lectures prompted many discussions with his parents. I might add, that in 20 years in the CUSD, I have never had a complaint filed against me, save this one.

Every teacher in California (this was a federal case after all) now works with the knowledge that any student, at any time, and in violation of California law, can sneak a tape recorder into a classroom, record the teacher and use an out-of-context five second comment as a bludgeon to threaten, to intimidate and, ultimately, to destroy the teacher’s career and good name.

Challenging myths is dangerous, but it is the essence of getting students to think for themselves. The Athenian judges, like some parents today, would have students accept myth without question, because myth is the foundation of their parental, political and/or religious authority. Ms. Farnan objected to my challenging the myth of the Puritans as a pious people who fled religious intolerance to found America. As Ms. Farnan sees them, the Puritans are quaint pious people with buckles on their hats and shoes as portrayed in the national mythology, but they may also be seen as intolerant, misogynistic and homophobic religious bigots who hanged Mary Dyer, a Quaker girl, for preaching something other than Puritan doctrine and several other women for the crime of “witchcraft.”

Questioning may make students and parents uncomfortable, but students have a right to think for themselves. It is not “bullying” to demand that students think.

Ms. Farnan also objected to my challenge of another national myth, that the USA was founded as a “Christian” nation. There is some truth to that notion, but embracing that myth and excluding other views can be used to unfairly gain political advantage. Another view of the founding fathers can be seen in the writings of Thomas Jefferson, the man who authored the Declaration of Independence. He translated the Bible. The last words of the Jeffersonian Bible might shake Ms. Farnan’s faith: “There laid they Jesus, and rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher, and departed.” There was no resurrection for Jefferson, he rejected all the Biblical miracles, as contrary to reason. I doubt his view would be called “Christian” by Ms. Farnan or anyone else. James Madison, who penned the Constitution, warned, “Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.” If Jefferson and Madison were alive today, I doubt they could be elected. The guardians of the national myth would rise up and smite them as unbelievers.

We respect the guardians and their myths at our peril because history (and science) changes and improves with knowledge, but the same force damages myth based on belief. That’s why the guardians fear the knowledge begat by questioning. For them, “knowledge” is gained in rote memory of approved truth. They chant in the school, temple, church or Mosque and fool themselves into thinking they’ve acquired knowledge.

All those teachers, and there are many of us, who understand the value of questioning sacred myths serve this nation as faithfully as other patriots. What is true will be strengthened. What is false will be destroyed, as it should be. Such teachers should be honored. There is no greater gift teachers can give to students than to teach them to think. Don’t sue them for it. Try taking them to the Pyrataneum for dinner, conversation and a cup of coffee, no hemlock.

Jim “Jesus Glasses” Corbett

Copyright © 2009. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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