How many darwinists does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Cartego Delenda Est ^ | April 17, 2006 | Matteo

[JCEccles]

Charles Darwin: None. But if it could be shown that the bulb entered the socket without a series of clockwise turns, my theory would absolutely break down.

ACLU: None! We have separation of church and state in this country.

Eugenie Scott: None. To say a Darwinist did it is not a scientific explanation.

Panda’s Thumb: None. To say that light bulbs don’t screw themselves in is not a testable proposition. You can’t prove they don’t. That would be an argument from incredulity. You are committing a ‘Darwinist Of The Gaps’ fallacy.

Generic 1: None. Time and chance are sufficient. Eventually it is inevitable that the bulb will be in the socket. Say, in a billion years.

Generic 2: None. The quintessentially non-random process of natural selection is sufficient. Those objects capable of giving off light when screwed into sockets will be in sockets. Those that aren’t will be in the trash.

Richard Dawkins: None. A light bulb that gives off 1% light intensity is very much worth having. A bulb sitting on the shelf at the supermarket gives off a certain amount of light. One in the cupboard at home gives off more. One five feet from the socket gives off more, and one two feet away even more. One in the socket gives off the most of all. It is therefore inevitable that the bulb will reach the socket.

Stephen J. Gould: None. The bulb jumped into the socket when no one was looking. Gradually. It’s called punctuated illumination. And then we have to be careful about non-overlapping illuminarium.

Kenneth Miller: None. The bulb was already serving a function: providing rigidity to its corrugated packaging on the supermarket shelf. Co-option did the rest.

Theistic Evolutionist: All of the above explanations are substantially correct. But the more important question is the meaning of the light.

Philip Johnson: One.

Michael Behe: One.

Stephen Meyer: One.

William Dembski: One.

Guillermo Gonzalez: One. But isn’t it interesting that other light bulbs allowed the Darwinist to see what he was doing as he screwed in this light bulb.

Darwin Chorus: Oh, yeah? Which Darwinist? What is his name? If you won’t tell us that, you’re being disingenuous, and therefore no one screwed in the light bulb!

Flying Spaghetti Monster: Two. But don’t ask me how they got in there. Oh. 'Darwinists'? I thought you said 'fruit flies'.

Michael Ruse: Are you trying to create a theocracy? The light bulbs in the reeducation camps will be depressingly dim. Unless they use candles. Do Christians know how to make fire?

Internet Infidels: First answer this: How many priests did it take to burn Galileo at the stake? Huh?!?

Panda’s Thumb: If a Darwinist had screwed it in, it would be an efficient fluorescent, not a wasteful incandescent. Therefore no one screwed it in.

Talk.Origins: We’ve observed all kinds of light bulbs in all kinds of sockets: flashlights, automobile headlights, Christmas tree lights, Las Vegas marquees. There is nothing special about this light bulb and this socket.

Richard Dawkins: None. Darwin made it possible to feel fulfilled sitting in the dark.

Update: Richard Dawkins has accused me of leaving out one of his best arguments, so I add it below:

Richard Dawkins: To say that it took a Darwinist to do the screwing in of the lightbulb is to explain precisely nothing. The obvious question becomes: Who did the screwing to create the Darwinist screwer? And who did the screwing to create that screwer? There would have to be an infinite regress of screwers. And if you invoke some invisible, mystical Unscrewed Screwer (for which we have no credible evidence) to start the whole thing off, why not just say that the lightbulb screwed itself in and be done with it?

Eugenie Scott: No one doubts that the light bulb got screwed into the socket. The only debate is over the details.

Richard Dawkins: Evolution is the study of light bulbs that look as if they’ve been screwed into their sockets for a purpose.

Daniel Dennett: Perhaps we should keep fundamentalist light bulb inserters in cultural zoos so future generations can see how “in the dark” they really are!

[theDentist]

My Niece: "Mom! The light's out."

[MNJohnnie]

None. In Darwin Theory the Light Bulb screwed itself in.

[Antonello]

Show me a light bulb population that reproduces and passes heritable traits to its progeny and I'll see the foundation behind these jokes.

Otherwise, while I get them, they just lack the kernel of truth they need to be funny.

[dead]

Who needs light? Just sit in the dark and wait for God to change the bulb.

[2nsdammit]

None: There is no such thing as a "Darwinist"....

[Thatcherite]

OK, I smiled at these, I even laughed at some of them. Good effort.

So I've still got a sense of humour. But could you really not laugh at your own side, and think of some funnier answers from the ID crowd? I bet some of the evos can... And is there not room for some Gish/Ham/Wells/Bishop Wilberforce comments in there too?

[Thatcherite]

eg:

Hovind: If the lightbulb was screwed in more than 6000 years ago then scripture has no meaning.

Ham: The absence of a lightbulb from the socket is consistent with a recent global flood.

Glenn Morton: Nothing that ICR taught me about electricity turned out to be true.

I'm sure others can do better.

[stacytec]

Nihilist: Nihl. It isn't initiator or the end result, its the screwing that matters.

[JCEccles]

Eric Pianka, PhD:All this talk about energy wasting light bulbs, the mental offal creation of man. Man, the scab of the universe. There are too many light bulbs already. The world passed the safe point of balance in 1922 when the city of Juarez, Mexico, replaced all its oil lamps with electrical light fixtures. Yet more light bulbs are made every year, billions more. Stupid people buy light bulbs. Smart people don't need artificial lights, maybe one. What we really need is a light-activated disease to kill all the pople who work in light bulb factories. That might sound radical, but the earth that lives on after us will praise us. I dream of a world where mankind and his lightbulbs are extinct, where the world is fired with the glory of lampridae pteroptyx, and the soft hazy glow of my bong.

[Richard Kimball]

How many mice does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Just two, but it's tough getting them in there.

[Right Wing Professor]

If God had wanted you to have light bulbs, he would have created one for you. In fact, in usurping God's prerogative, you are clearly a liberal atheist. Repent!

[AntiGuv]

The Johnson/Behe/Meyer/Dembski answer is actually: One that doesn't seem to exist.

[Mamzelle]

re: Richard Dawkins: None. A light bulb that gives off 1% light intensity is very much worth having. A bulb sitting on the shelf at the supermarket gives off a certain amount of light. One in the cupboard at home gives off more. One five feet from the socket gives off more, and one two feet away even more. One in the socket gives off the most of all. It is therefore inevitable that the bulb will reach the socket.)))

LOL--this was great...

[Conservative Texan Mom]

Why do we assume the light bulb was screwed in? Maybe it grew it's own socket for the purpose of producing light. So, now the question is what environmental conditions necessitated the need for light. Why did it not merely adapt to the dark? Perhaps it did, which is why it has no eyes. Was it a cave dwelling bulb that evolved into a light bulb because light increased it's changes of survival. Could the light actually be an adaptation to the sense of sight without eyes. This would make sense when one takes into consideration the fragility of a light bulb. If it were to rely on other senses, such as touch, and hearing, the possibility of smashing itself against a rock, or falling off a ledge would be greater than avoiding those things all together. Now, did the light bulb loose its legs because it no longer need to travel to explore its environment since its environment is now illuminated?



THREE YEARS LATER



How did the evolution of the Darwinist ability to screw in the light bulb effect the evolution of the bulb? Did light bulbs stop producing their own sockets because it was no longer necessary? Did light bulbs evolve into the different species, incandescent, halogen, florescent, etc, to compete for the beneficial affects toward survival that result from the relationship with the Darwinist?....

[Oztrich Boy]

Charles Darwin: None. But if it could be shown that the bulb entered the socket without a series of clockwise turns, my theory would absolutely break down.

Therefore Darwinism is accepted in the USA, but not in places where light bulns only require a 15° turn to lock into place.

[FDNYRHEROES]

How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb?

Just one, but the bulb has got to want to change...

[Thatcherite]

Behe: The irreducible complexity of the socket convinces me that it is perfectly designed to kill small children who unwittingly poke their fingers into it. This could not have evolved, therefore it was designed. I knew it was my lucky morning when I looked at my horoscope and saw Uranus rising.

Dembski: The probability of the lightbulb-socket combination arising spontaneously by chance is less than 1E-720. What better proof of an omniscient creator could there be?

Denton: I look at the universe around me and I perceive that it is perfectly fine-tuned for the spontaneous evolution of lightbulb-socket combinations; they are absolutely certain to appear in this Goldilocks universe of ours. What better proof of an omniscient creator could there be?

Flew: All my life I've been an atheist, but Mr Behe's argument has convinced me. The flying spaghetti monster exists.

Flew: I regret my previous comments, which were made before anyone introduced me to Miller's masterwork, the incandescent coil unspun.

Miller: Behe claims that lightbulbs and sockets are irreducibly complex, but look here, I've managed to make a perfectly serviceable mousetrap out of the cable shroud and the aluminium bulb-neck. (laughter from audience)

[Thatcherite]

One last one!

Meyer: Like my colleagues Behe, Denton, and Dembski, I agree with Dawkins Darwin was right when he discovered that the lightbulb and socket share common ancestory. However I am absolutely certain that at some stage a Designer did something to influence their development (but like my colleagues I'm not sure who the Designer is, what He did, how He did it, why He did it, when He did it, or where He did it)