How many sides is that, again?

UPDATE:  Thanks, Paul, and carlos morales!

ANOTHER UPDATE:  Wow, this one's getting some mileage!  Thanks to Garfield Ridge and Habitable Zone, too, neither of which I had heard of before.  The blogosphere, she is a wonderful thing.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE:  Thanks also to pwyll of Carnal Reason, who unsuccessfully tried to trackback here.

Also, please bless me, readers, for I have committed a serious blogospherical sin.  The cartoon is not my own, as I'm not that talented--I found it somewhere on the net, and for the life of me I can't remember where.  While I should have been careful enough to give credit at the time, I want to try to do so now, so if anyone knows from whence it came, please let me know.

I'm truly sorry for that.

Comments

[Rob]

Awsome. e=mc^2 vs magic. perfect. On one hand, hard verifiable observational science. On the other hand, alot of handwaving and superstition. Reminds me of "almost any rational hard science theory" vs evolution. It saddens me to see what "scientist" have done in the name of "science" vis. evolution. You know what the've done? They've created a new religion. (one that requires alot more faith than Christianity, that's for shizzle) A state-sponsored compulsory religion that we force upon our kids. Uhh, no thanks, count me out. Besides, most states aren't trying to introduce ID as a competing theory, they just want to present the scientific evidence that refutes evolution and let the kids research and decide. What is everyone afraid of? That kids will think for themselves and see the man behind the curtain? (you had to know I'd leave a comment.. :-} )

[Obi-Wan]

Heh--yup, Rob, I figured as much. But don't misunderstand--I appreciate ANY comments, especially those that disagree with me. Actually, I have a rather long essay bubbling in my brain, seeking maturity, and in large part it answers the last comment you left regarding evolution not being scientific. Coming soon.

[Rob]

Good to hear. Looking forward to it. btw, since I left my email on this site (and only this one) I've started getting the dreaded "\/1agra" ads in the mail.. looks like your site got spidered. No biggie.. I am posting a fake address here now though.. is that a problem?

[Obi-Wan]

DANG. I've been wondering how long it would be before something like that happened.

You know the email link in my upper-left sidebar? Typepad says that, hey, it's ok, my actual email is encrypted to prevent this sort of thing. I have gotten a couple of spam emails, but not much. I suppose I assumed they did something similar to protect those who post comments. Silly me.

The basic idea behind requiring an email addy is to prevent spambots from taking over comment threads. I wasn't going to worry about such things until they actually happened. And the LAST thing I want is to make it harder for people to leave comments at all, such as requiring Typekey registration or something.

By all means, do whatever you think is best. One suggestion (that I use myself on other sites): make your email address "spam-resistant" by inserting extraneous characters that humans can easily recognize and remove, e.g. email@REMOVETHISdomain.net, or something similar. Get creative. What I do truly dislike is the idea of "drive-by" or anonymous comments for which no one is held accountable. But until SMTP is reworked, we're left with imperfect solutions to a big problem.

[Rightwingsparkle]

Not according to this scientist. http://www.techcentralstation.com/080805I.html You guys gotta open your mind a bit...;-)

[Obi-Wan]

I read that, and counted several statements by Mr. Spencer that are simply wrong--not at all matters of mere opinion or point of view. A comment is not a place I can address them all, but the most egregious of them is the claim that there are no transitional fossils.

I was going to count how many are listed here, but I couldn't count them all in a reasonable amount of time. The crux of the problem, I think, is that people are conflating seperate problems, and using words with disparate definitions in a way that only increases confusion--such as the very definition and nature of science itself. But that's just me, maybe.

Good grief--what would you say if you were at a lake somewhere and actually saw a fish wriggle up out of the water onto the shore, take a few gulps of air into actual lungs, and take off crawling to another lake some distance away, breathing air as it went?

You'd call it a lungfish. Sheesh, we have transitional forms alive today.

Oh, by the way, everyone--the only way I can find to insert actual paragraph breaks into comments is by manually inserting a <.p> tag (without the dot, of course).

[pwyll]

I tried to give you a trackback on this, but it didn't seem to work. Nice cartoon.

[Obi-Wan]

Thanks, dude. I hope you know it's not mine. I'm not that talented. Trouble is, I don't remember where I found it.

Oh, And I've been having the same trackback problem off and on for a couple of weeks now. I've talked to Typepad about it, but they have no idea yet why it happens.

[Lucy]

No, evolution is not a "religion". A religion not only describes a certain "model" of existence--but by necessity an entire ethical structure. Evolution does not provide any kind of ethical "shalts" or "shalt nots". It does not even really provide a broad view of the nature of existence--but only some aspects of it. So, please, let's not embarass ourselves by calling the theory of evolution a "religion". I might as well call Newtonian physics or the theory of relativity a "religion". It makes no sense whatsoever. How lame.

[Julian Sanchez]

Judging by the scrawl on the bottom of the cartoon, I'll take a stab and say you got it from the Philadelphia Inquirer, the 8/4/05 issue.

[writing a dissertation]

Blogs are good for every one where we get lots of information for any topics nice job keep it up !!!