Cain’s Wife and Joe Biden — Free Fire Zone

We’re having a very slow weekend for news. Ol’ Hambo has so little to write about that he’s re-cycling a clunker from five years ago that one of his speakers wrote, titled Does It Matter Where Cain Got His Wife? We ignored it when it first appeared, and we don’t have much to say about it now.

The subject of Cain’s wife really fascinates Hambo, because he wrote his own post about it a year ago, and that’s when we wrote Where the *BLEEP* Did Cain’s Wife Come From? Anyway, the subject is back on Hambo’s website once again.

Elsewhere on the internet, there’s even less going on, so once again we have to entertain ourselves. Therefore, we’re declaring another Intellectual Free Fire Zone. Are you happy with the political situation in America? Tell us about it. Or maybe you think Biden is the biggest idiot in the universe. If so, tell us about that.

Use the comments for the discussion of pretty much anything — science, politics, economics, whatever — as long as it’s tasteful and interesting. Banter, babble, bicker, bluster, blubber, blather, blab, blurt, burble, boast — say what you will. But avoid flame-wars and beware of the profanity filters.

We now throw open the comments to you, dear reader. Have at it!

Copyright © 2022. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

Creationism’s Greatest Challenge Since Darwin

This one is very exciting. It will not only be challenging for creationists, but also for you, dear reader. Bear with us; all will be explained.

We found an astonishing article at the Phys.org website. It’s titled Dolphin females have working clitoris, anatomical evidence suggests. Assuming that got your attention, we’ll give you a few excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]:

Like humans, female dolphins have a functional clitoris, according to a study appearing January 10 in the journal Current Biology. The findings are based on the discovery that the clitoris-like structure positioned in the vaginal entrance of bottlenose dolphins has lots of sensory nerves and erectile bodies.

We know that you’re intellectually stimulated, so here’s a link to the published paper: Evidence of a Functional Clitoris in Dolphins. Okay, back to PhysOrg. They say:

Scientists have known that dolphins are highly social. They have sex throughout the year as a way of forging and maintaining social bonds. It had been noted also that dolphin females have a clitoris in the vagina in a spot that would make stimulation during copulation likely. There’ve also been reports of females rubbing each other’s clitorises with their snouts, flippers, and flukes.

Shocking! Absolutely shocking. After skipping a bit to maintain our exceptional journalistic standards, they quote the published paper’s first author, Patricia Brennan. She’s an assistant professor of biological sciences at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts:

Brennan said they got curious about the dolphin clitoris while studying the evolution of vaginas in dolphins. “Every time we dissected a vagina, we would see this very large clitoris, and we were curious whether anyone had examined it in detail to see if it worked like a human clitoris,” she says. “We knew that dolphins have sex not just to reproduce, but also to solidify social bonds, so it seemed likely that the clitoris could be functional.”

We don’t need to give you any more excerpts, because we know you’ll be clicking over to PhysOrg to read it all for yourself. Oh wait — we can’t leave this out:

The researchers note that there’s been little study of the clitoris and female sexual pleasure in nature. In fact, even the human clitoris wasn’t fully described until the 1990s.

Okay, dear reader, now here’s your assignment: While keeping your remarks tasteful in accordance with this blog’s high standards, explain why none of the creationist websites we follow has yet mentioned this research. And also explain — if you can — why Yahweh (or the intelligent designer — blessed be he!) would create such a sinful feature for humans — and then bestow it on dolphins.

Copyright © 2022. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

Discoveroids’ Top Ten for 2021 — #2 & #1

[Imagine Twilight Zone Music] You are about to leave reality and travel into another dimension — a dimension of the mind, a dimension that exists beyond the laws of nature, unknowable by evidence and reason — a wondrous land of Oogity Boogity! You have embarked on a journey into the realm of miracles and mysticism, where your only guide is faith. There’s a signpost up ahead: Next stop — The Drool Zone.

At last our year-end adventure reaches its thundering climax as we arrive at the summit of the Discovery Institute’s list of their Top Ten stories for the year that just ended. These are the momentous events that have thrilled the Discoveroids and their generous patrons.

We’ve already discussed the first eight items on their impressive list — see #10, and then #9, #8, and #7, and then #6 and #5, and then #4 and #3.

And now, on the first day of the New Year, we bring you the Top Two items that appeared last year at the Discovery Institute’s creationist blog. We know how anxious you are for this information, so with no delay we being you #2 Story of 2021: Caltech Finds Amazing Role for Nonctenoding DNA.

As they’ve done with all the other items in their latest Top Ten list, they don’t give the title of (or a link to) their earlier post — only the date when it appeared at their creationist blog. They say this one was originally posted on 03 December. It’s about junk DNA, so we ignored it when it first appeared. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]:

Scientists at Caltech may have sounded the final death knell for the “junk DNA” myth.

Yeah, yeah — there’s no such thing as junk DNA. Every precious atom in your genome was deliberately placed there by the intelligent designer — blessed be he! We’re scanning their post to see if there’s anything else worth posting here. Well, okay, here’s the final paragraph:

This is a paper to remember. It shows in hindsight the fruitfulness of the ID perspective over the evolutionary one. Evolutionary thinking dismissed these non-coding RNAs as junk. ID thinking would have approached the unknown with the premise, “If something works, it’s not happening by accident.”

Magnificent, wasn’t it? And now, at last, we arrive at the Discoveroids’ Number One post for 2021: Happy New Year! #1 Story of 2021: Cambrian Explosion Goes Nuclear.

They say it’s something they originally posted on 08 April of last year, written by Günter Bechly, a Discoveroid senior fellow. We didn’t bother to blog about it when it first appeared. Like the other Discoveroids, Günter seems to suggest that the Cambrian Explosion is when the Intelligent Designer was super busy designing organisms. Here’s an excerpt:

Charles Darwin was quite aware that the sudden appearance of animals in the fossil record poses a major problem for his theory, but he hoped that this problem was due only to our insufficient knowledge of an incomplete fossil record, and therefore will dissolve over time with future research. However, 150 years of paleontological exploration after Darwin has made the problem far worse: not for nothing is it called the Cambrian Explosion.

That’s what we’re dealing with. You can click over there to read it all — if that’s your pleasure. We’ve already spent too much time on it.

Now you’ve seen what the Discoveroids regard as their Top Ten items for the year. We don’t know what to say about it — except what we said after last year’s list: it’s a tragic pile of [*bleep*]. What’s your opinion, dear reader?

Copyright © 2021. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

Curmudgeonly Happy New Year — 2022

The year now ending has been a strange one. Regarding creationism, things couldn’t get much better. Of course there are creationists — lots of them — and people like ol’ Hambo continue to flourish. But so what?

There has been no crazed, tyrannical creationist activity to worry about. There are undoubtedly crazy legislators — at both the state and national level — but somehow they’ve been able to restrain themselves. Perhaps it’s because they’ve had so many other crazy things to keep them busy, but regardless of the reason, we’ve had no creationist legislation to worry about.

Also, there’s been no creationist litigation. Creationists aren’t suing school districts or universities to get their nonsense into the curriculum. There’s an ark-load of craziness about getting other stuff into (or out of) the curriculum, but at least for now, we don’t have to worry about creationism.

So get out there tonight, dear reader, run around with a lampshade on your head, blow your horn, and watch the ball drop in Times Square.

We expect tomorrow to be a news-free day, except for a big — really big! — announcement from a creationist outfit in Seattle, babbling about their Number One story for the year now ending. We’ll probably blog about it, but we’re in no hurry.

The biggest blogging event for your Curmudgeon this year has been all the software changes here at WordPress. It’s been annoying to keep up with it, and we’re not aware of anything we regard as a genuine improvement. But we’re still here.

Because there’s nothing happening at the moment, we’re declaring this post to be the old year’s last and the new year’s first Intellectual Free Fire Zone. We’re open for the discussion of pretty much anything — science, politics, economics, whatever — as long as it’s tasteful and interesting. But beware of the profanity filters.

Hold on! Wait! Before we throw open the comments, we’ll follow our tradition and conclude with our famous guarantee of quality:

Self-Proving Truth Certificate

Everything written by the Curmudgeon in this blog is true. The presence of this Certificate is your proof. Our logic is undeniable.

All right! The comments are open. Have at it, dear reader. And Happy New Year!

Copyright © 2021. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.