That nut is on the panel

lynski · 14-10-2010 10:57pm #1

That origin of the species denier is on the panel -- why is he getting air-time?

strobe · 14-10-2010 11:06pm

lynski wrote: »

That origin of the species denier is on the panel -- why is he getting air-time?

The panel isn't exactly...... (......if there was a legitimate/good Irish current affairs/ debate or topical comedy show it's name would be here).

I guess they figure it would be good for a laugh.

mohawk · 14-10-2010 11:07pm

He gets ait time because his ideas are crazy which makes for potentially interesting tv!! The guys on the panel thought he was crazy too. There was some serious eye rolling going on.

mikhail · 14-10-2010 11:33pm

Dara O'Brian doesn't chair that show any more, does he? He'd have eaten him alive.

Hector Mildew · 14-10-2010 11:41pm

lynski wrote: »

That origin of the species denier is on the panel -- why is he getting air-time?

I missed it, which one are you talking about?

mohawk · 15-10-2010 12:07am

Hector Mildew wrote: »

I missed it, which one are you talking about?

John J May -The guy that wrote the book reponsible for the scariest thread on A&A 'the origin of specious nonsense'. Just thinking of that thread makes me want to facepalm.

Zombrex · 15-10-2010 12:14am

Ireland is a small country, and the Panel is not particularly prestigious. I would say he is on it because he was prepared to go on it and RTE will have anyone just to ensure they have someone.

Zombrex · 15-10-2010 12:17am

It is on RTE Player if anyone is interested, he is the second guest so it is near the end.

I really can't watch it, it is too cringe inducing (I can't watch things like The Office, and that isn't even real).

Can someone else watch it and tell me what it was like

Dave! · 15-10-2010 1:33am

These idiots won't know how to respond to moronic ramblings

Agreed that Dara O'Briain would piss all over him

mohawk · 15-10-2010 1:44am

Dave! wrote: »

These idiots won't know how to respond to moronic ramblings

Agreed that Dara O'Briain would piss all over him

With things such as:
Dara O'Briain on the appendix: "Why would God put it in you when it does nothing but randomly kill you for no reason?"
"If we were truly created by God, why do we occasionally bite the insides of our mouths?"

Logic and reasoning will get you nowhere with that guy so there is no point getting into a debate with him. Nod and smile I say

Zillah · 15-10-2010 3:18am

Wicknight wrote: »

Can someone else watch it and tell me what it was like

It made me feel a little ill at first. A TV show composed of one lunatic and a group of people who don't understand science come together to debate evolution. In their defence, they do turn on him and portray him as the lunatic he is, and the audience is clearly against him, just a shame no one could soundly explain why what he was saying was so stupid. My favourite out take is from Mr May: Evolution cannot be true because it results in a "loss of lack of information". When challenged with the lack of evidence for God's existence he started talking about the Earth moving through space and wow isn't that amazing.

Also Craig Doyle is a moron. He didn't try to say a single thing until the end where he held up the book, and he couldn't even pronounce the name right.

Ugh, humans.

Shenshen · 15-10-2010 9:54am

Bugger... I was planning on watching the panel last night, but fell asleep

Dades · 15-10-2010 10:03am

Zillah wrote: »

Also Craig Doyle is a moron. He didn't try to say a single thing until the end where he held up the book, and he couldn't even pronounce the name right.

If Craig Doyle was a colour it would be beige. Dara O'B ftw.

JimiTime · 15-10-2010 10:07am

This is my summary of it.

1. John J May seemed quite fumbly in his articulation, and not very edumacated in the subject matter.

2. The panel were ready to tear him down. I think they seen it was an easy target for some derision.

3. Even through his fumblings, he ended up looking like the informed one, as the panel clearly had no clue.

What it showed me, was that people like those on the panel like to hop on the bandwagon of, 'stupid evolution denier', when they clearly have no clue of why they deride it other than, 'Smart people say its stoopid to deny it'. Blind trust is what it came across as to me.

Dades · 15-10-2010 10:13am

JimiTime wrote: »

3. Even through his fumblings, he ended up looking like the informed one, as the panel clearly had no clue.

Well I suppose being knowledgeable about claptrap you can at least come across as being knowledgeable about something. Doesn't change the fact that in this case it made him look craaaazy, rather than a bit affected.

JimiTime wrote: »

Blind trust is what it came across as to me.

In the same way I don't know how my television works so I have blind trust that it isn't in fact a box with tiny people performing in it for me.

housetypeb · 15-10-2010 10:26am

One of the guys did mention the clovis people, for example, as a rebuttal to Mays waffle about mankind being only six thousand (around) years old. May then went into a waffle about one convention of scientists in sweden who couldn't agree on carbon dating.

JimiTime · 15-10-2010 10:33am

Dades wrote: »

Well I suppose being knowledgeable about claptrap you can at least come across as being knowledgeable about something. Doesn't change the fact that in this case it made him look craaaazy, rather than a bit affected.

If he looked 'crazy', it was only to those who are informed about the subject matter. To an average Joe like myself he seemed simply like a tabloid journalist stirring the pot. TBH, when he started I thought, 'Ohhh, this is gonna be fish in a barrell'. Then nothing came of it. I was very surprised.

In the same way I don't know how my television works so I have blind trust that it isn't in fact a box with tiny people performing in it for me.

If you think thats a valid comparrison, I'll leave you to it.

It still stands though, you have people feeling that they can deride someone who denies darwinian evolution, without actually having any real clue why it is deridable other than 'Clever people say its so'.

Dades · 15-10-2010 11:03am

JimiTime wrote: »

If you think thats a valid comparrison, I'll leave you to it.

It still stands though, you have people feeling that they can deride someone who denies darwinian evolution, without actually having any real clue why it is deridable other than 'Clever people say its so'.

Well, as pointed out once or twice in the thread already, it would be better if people knew more about their origins.

But I'd far quicker forgive someone accepting blindly the reality than someone spouting with gusto the utter nonsense that May does.

The Mad Hatter · 15-10-2010 11:23am

Did he bring his tennis balls?

ColmDawson · 15-10-2010 11:25am

JimiTime wrote: »

It still stands though, you have people feeling that they can deride someone who denies darwinian evolution, without actually having any real clue why it is deridable other than 'Clever people say its so'.

I agree with your broad point here, that it's too easy to ridicule someone who has ideas that conflict with the accepted norm, even when you don't know much about the subject. Overwhelming scientific consensus, however, is something I am prepared to trust without having expert knowledge of my own.

Panda · 15-10-2010 12:02pm

FFS May is such a maddening man, i heard him plugging his book on the radio a few weeks back and thought "how the hell is this tool getting airtime" and thought that was the end of it.

But then hes on the ****in tv.
ARRRRGH, if they were going to take the piss out him they could have at least done it right.

I really think his book only got published because the publisher (Original Writing Ltd.) knew it would be controversial and might sell some books.

Hopefully they're wrong.

Dades · 15-10-2010 12:06pm

Panda wrote: »

I really think his book only got published because the publisher (Original Writing Ltd.) knew it would be controversial and might sell some books.

Original Writing is a vanity press - i.e. the author pays to have the book published.

Not surprising.

JimiTime · 15-10-2010 12:19pm

Dades wrote: »

Well, as pointed out once or twice in the thread already, it would be better if people knew more about their origins.

But I'd far quicker forgive someone accepting blindly the reality than someone spouting with gusto the utter nonsense that May does.

Its one thing accepting blindly, its another thing to snigger or deride someone who doesn't accept it, when you don't know much about it yourself. There is a difference between saying, 'I don't know alot about that, but I accept the scientific consensus as I trust scientists and their methodologies', and saying, 'Ha ha, ye fool not believing all the sciency stuff. Crazy freak.'

robindch · 15-10-2010 1:02pm

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Did he bring his tennis balls?

And did he show up in a pink limo with a few large-breasted ladies?

John May should have been in the gorilla suit.

Wisco · 15-10-2010 1:14pm

I just watched it....want to smack that guy in the face.
On the bright side, he did look like a bit of a rambling idiot who goes on and on about the 'proof' in his book but I'm not so sure about the veracity of said proof.
I did think Neil Delamere tried to say a few intelligent things in a rebuttal but didn't really get a chance to say much.
Catch it on RTE's player if you haven't seen it- good for a laugh anyway, although definitely not nearly as funny as when Dara O'Briain hosted.

cypharius · 15-10-2010 3:32pm

For anyone who missed it.

http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1082698

Galvasean · 15-10-2010 3:36pm

Dades wrote: »

In the same way I don't know how my television works so I have blind trust that it isn't in fact a box with tiny people performing in it for me.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA?????????????????????????

I agree with JimiTime's point. I seems cheap and tactless to ridicule the guy for going against the grain when they know sweet buzz all about what the are talking about either. Now if Dara O Briain was on that would be a different story...

Improbable · 15-10-2010 6:56pm

What really gets my back up is that he goes on and on about his "proof" that evolution doesn't happen on a biochemical basis which is just flat out WRONG. I can go into the lab right now, set up an experiment on directed evolution in a couple of hours, run it for a couple of weeks and show hard evidence for evolutionary change. But he'll come back with some moronic response like "Well, the bacteria didn't turn into a chicken, therefore evolution doesn't happen." It's not that he's trying to be difficult on purpose, it's simply the result of someone talking about a subject in which they have no real understanding. For practically everything he says, the counter-argument of "Argument from personal incredulity is not valid" works. The fact that he doesn't get that is the most annoying thing.

recedite · 15-10-2010 8:05pm

The guy managed to insult pygmies (a wrong mutation), and also Leitrim people (he only counts people who live in cities, hence his rationale that there was nobody before 6000 years ago):)
The pro comedians should have exploited those gaffs for a good laugh.

robindch · 15-10-2010 10:21pm

Improbable wrote: »

The fact that he doesn't get that is the most annoying thing.

I think it's in the introduction to Volume one of Bill Hamilton's Narrow Roads of Gene Land that he says that as he got older, he began to suspect that a significant portion of the population suffered from a mild cognitive impairment which rendered them incapable of ever being able to understand evolution, regardless of how simply it was explained to them.

I'm inclined to agree.

recedite · 15-10-2010 11:29pm

I'm a Leitrim pygmy, and I'm very annoyed. :mad: :mad: :mad:

That nut is on the panel

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