Richard Hammond: evolution is cobblers

[Don Alhambra]

Writing in the Daily Mirror here (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/columnists/hammond/tm_headline=evolution-is-a-bug-s-game--&method=full&objectid=19090871&siteid=89520-name_page.html), Richard Hammond says:

EVOLUTION is, I have learned this week, cobblers. And I have learned it with the help of an insect called the May Bug.

...

They are the most stupid insects ever invented. And so how come evolution, if it's so great, hasn't engineered them out? How could these bugs continue as a species without the intervention of the Hand of God, if only to pop them back on their feet on an hourly basis?

It's hardly going to be possible for them to get round to reproducing if they spend their lives on their back with their legs in the air, is it?

That was an unfortunate turn of phrase but you take my point. So, evolution? Bah, humbug. Well, May Bug.

That bang on the head (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hammond#Vampire_Dragster_Crash) must have been worse that we thought. What a cock.

[grendelfreak]

Is this a parody of creationism or is he really claiming that a supposedly retarded bug is kept alive because god keeps flipping them the right way up?

[trendkill]

"Cobblers" is an adjective? What a load of multiple shoe-repairers.

[Non-praying Mantis]

"Cobblers" is an adjective? What a load of multiple shoe-repairers.

Mmmm....cobblers a la mode! ;)

NPM

[Nialler]

The Mirror has quite a big readership - and it's not of the most discerning type.

It's a pity that he would do this - but is entirely typical of the Top Gear mutual-masturbators - who appear to believe that they are equipped to comment on anything and everything. There is no end to their genius.

Nor any beginning.

[JPD]

This is really unfortunate. He formerly presented a sort of science show (Brainiac on Sky) so this has come as a bit of a surprise. Or maybe he's playing Devil's Advocate. Being "controversial?"
I don't believe that he believes that evolution is not real. He says:

Quote: "AND so the hornet, you might argue, is an example of a creature evolved to the point where it can carry out seemingly impossible feats of violence.

Maybe, but there are insects that do as much to disprove the theory of evolution as the hornet does to support it. "

[JPD]

If he is speaking truthfully about what he thinks then:

Quote: "Just because a few archaeologists and scientists have dug up some wonky old fossils, they claim that it proves evolution works.

.......shudder.

Please tell me that he doesn't really think this because this would be just so sad.

[JPD]

Maybe him and James May (copresenter on Top Gear) have fallen out and James is irritating him. Hence the May bug.

[espritch]

They are stuck, their stumpy limbs waving futilely in the air. Their only hope at this point is that one of my daughters discovers them and proffers a stick for them to grip.

In many cases, this does happen, as my two girls now spend approximately 23-and-ahalf hours a day seeking out stranded May Bugs.

I don't think the article was intended to be taken seriously.

[chieftain]

Someone should introduce him to the Babel Fish argument for the non-existence of God.

[Nialler]

I don't think the article was intended to be taken seriously.

I'm sure that it wasn't. That style of exaggeration is very Clarkson, by the way, and very very tired.

[Gooch's dad]

"Cobblers" is an adjective? What a load of multiple shoe-repairers.

"Cobblers" is cockney rhyming slang for "balls", as a shortening of "cobblers awls".

[Don Alhambra]

I don't think the article was intended to be taken seriously.

I'm sure that it wasn't. That style of exaggeration is very Clarkson, by the way, and very very tired.

Thing is, there are enough people reading it who will take it seriously. :( Mainly because of the huge amount of ignorance out there about what the ToE actually means.

[JPD]

I'm sure that it wasn't. That style of exaggeration is very Clarkson, by the way, and very very tired.

Heck, find a way of communicating that isn't set to become a cliché!

I really like Clarkson's style - give me that over a "let's be nice to everyone" liberal any day.

...just waiting for the false dichotomy accusations to start flying. Heh heh heh!:D

[JPD]

Thing is, there are enough people reading it who will take it seriously. :( Mainly because of the huge amount of ignorance out there about what the ToE actually means.

I think that worrying about what Daily Mirror readers think is fairly low down on the list. They think about as much as Sun readers do.

[skinumb]

It's called irony folks.

[Wolfie]

There used to be this really good joke about newspaper readers - I can remember the punchline but I can't remember all that precedes it (and I have tried Googling!).

It went something like this (and I welcome corrections and additions from those who might remember the original) - sorry to you non UK people - this does refer to UK papers:

People who read the Times think the country ought to be run as it used to be.

People who read the Telegraph think that it still is.

People who read the Express think that the country ought to be run by those who are the employers.

People who read the Mail think that the country ought to be run by the middle managers.

People who read the Guardian tnichk teh cuontyr shuodl be rnu by an intlletcaul eltie. (NB: The Guardian used to be notorious for its typos!)

People who read the Mirror work for the people who read the Mail.

People who read the Morning Star think the country ought to be run by another country.

People who read the Sun don't care who runs the fucking country as long as she has big tits.



Anyone remember Jasper Carrott's Sun Reader jokes?

[Codec]

There used to be this really good joke about newspaper readers - I can remember the punchline but I can't remember all that precedes it (and I have tried Googling!).

I'm sure I heard it before the series, but I think it was iconically defined in Yes, Prime Minister, in the episode A Conflict of Interest. See the quote at the bottom of the page.

Anyone remember Jasper Carrott's Sun Reader jokes?
Sure do, can't recall many of them now. Except the Sun readers armed robbery, where they had sawn the wrong end off the shotgun.

[Wolfie]

Codec: I heard the newspaper joke when I was still at school - which predates Yes, Prime Minister by a good few years! However, I do remember a cleaner version of it in that show.

[Oolon Colluphid]

I suspect that Hammond's comment reveals two things. Two things, however, about us.

Hammond is using an outrageous straw man for comedy value. I'm sure he is fully aware of it: it's called irony.

That means he could be overestimating (in our estimation!) the knowledge of evolution of his audience. Hammond would be mad to say this sort of thing in the US, where, as you know, people make his sort of 'argument' against evolution for real. But he's not in the US, he's here in the UK. Where people generally do have some vague idea about evolution. Or at least where St David Attenborough's programmes have been available for at least forty years (and largely back in the two-, three and four-channels only days, remember them?). So while Joe Brit might not fully understand what straw men are involved here, he'll see it is a straw man intuitively. Some won't, but that's not Hammond's fault, but the fault of Blair, Vardy and the city academies ;).

The other thing it reveals is that we here in E/C are way, way too sensitive to slights against evolution. It's understandable, given the US's problems and the sort of monumentally ignorant folks we see here from time to time. But again, the problem is ours. The piece is funny. I mean, let's get a grip here:
They are the most stupid insects ever invented. And so how come evolution, if it's so great, hasn't engineered them out? How could these bugs continue as a species without the intervention of the Hand of God, if only to pop them back on their feet on an hourly basis?
The whole piece is a damning indictment -- if you're daft enough to read it straight -- of God!

Dear God, please grant my colleagues the wisdom to spot humour...

[Don Alhambra]

My bad. :( I am definitely hypersensitive...

[Jet Black]

if I were to reply, I would reply with a similar argument about a designer - what designer could really be stupid enough to come up with such a pointless insect, while at the same time designing such wonderfully complex and exquisite things such as leprosy and (pick things from Winace's IG argument). The catastrophic collapse of the may bug population is evidence of evolution doing its work.

[post tenebras lux]

What is wrong with Hammond or is The Daily Mirror edited by a total prude? The 'funniest' thing about maybugs is their name:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/96/Feldmaik%C3%A4fer_%28Melolontha_melolontha%29_w_3.jpg/180px-Feldmaik%C3%A4fer_%28Melolontha_melolontha%29_w_3.jpg
Melolontha melolontha aka cockchafer

Hammond should have called his article: My two lovely daughters and the cockchafer" :wave:

[DMB]

I think that worrying about what Daily Mirror readers think is fairly low down on the list. They think about as much as Sun readers do.
Ah, but you don't know what depths of ignorance there are out there. :D
When I was a teenager back in the dim and distant 1950s I used to spend every university vacation working in the offices of a laundry. The offices were staffed mainly by teenage girls who had left school at 15. We used to have an hour's lunch break when we gathered together and had a bit of food and a chat. The office intellectual was looked up to because she read the Daily Mirror. None of the others showed the ability to do even that. I used to get The Times at half price because I was a student and they didn't even recognise it as a newspaper (in those pre-Murdoch days it was a broadsheet with very few pix). In 1959 there was a considerable celebration of the centenary of The Origin of Species. None of these girls had ever heard of Darwin or evolution.

[JamesBannon]

Hammond is using an outrageous straw man for comedy value. I'm sure he is fully aware of it: it's called irony. Yeah, it was funny.:D

[profplum]

Is this a parody of creationism or is he really claiming that a supposedly retarded bug is kept alive because god keeps flipping them the right way up?


At least it's not George Hammond, the "Scientific Proof of God" person. Then he'd be serious.

[profplum]

There used to be this really good joke about newspaper readers - I can remember the punchline but I can't remember all that precedes it (and I have tried Googling!).

It went something like this (and I welcome corrections and additions from those who might remember the original) - sorry to you non UK people - this does refer to UK papers:

People who read the Times think the country ought to be run as it used to be.

People who read the Telegraph think that it still is.

People who read the Express think that the country ought to be run by those who are the employers.

People who read the Mail think that the country ought to be run by the middle managers.

People who read the Guardian tnichk teh cuontyr shuodl be rnu by an intlletcaul eltie. (NB: The Guardian used to be notorious for its typos!)

People who read the Mirror work for the people who read the Mail.

People who read the Morning Star think the country ought to be run by another country.

People who read the Sun don't care who runs the fucking country as long as she has big tits.



Anyone remember Jasper Carrott's Sun Reader jokes?

:D

I read the snarky comments about the Sun in the first few responses and wondered when this extended joke would show up. Glad to see that I wasn't disappointed. There is a version for the U.S.

The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country
and who are very good at crossword puzzles.

USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but
don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their
statistics shown in pie charts.

The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the
country -- if they could find the time -- and if they didn't have to leave
Southern California to do it.

The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.

The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need
the baseball scores.

The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a
country ... or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that
they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are
handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal
aliens from any other country or galaxy provided, of course, that they are
not Republicans.

The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running
the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the
train.

The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while
intoxicated.

The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery
store.

None of these is read by the guy who is running the country into the ground.