Dickhead of the Year: Kirk Cameron

And not because he's a fundie. Because he's a drooling, slavering, idiotic fundie. And his inanity is well demonstrated in a video he's produced with fellow lamebrain Ray Comfort on the subject of evolution: "The Evolution Zone" (a play on "The Twilight Zone"--did you get it? Huh? Did ya?).

Now, I'll admit I have a slow connection and am working my way through the video stream, with ever-thinning patience, you understand, so you should visit Dispatches From the Culture Wars for a complete synopsis. I knew what was coming, but my jaw dropped at about the point where Comfort claims that "evolutionists would have us believe [. . .] there was nothing. And then there was this "Big Bang," and out came the sea and the land, and the birds, etc." Yes, you read that correctly.

By this point anybody who hasn't navigated away from the page hosting the clip will have realised that Cameron and Comfort know sweet fuck all about evolution. Do they take the path of humility and seek to educate themselves on the topic before they embarrass themselves further? Nosireebob! Here's what they propose to do. They're going to talk to "true believers" in evolution who speak what they call "the language of evolution." "True believers start off sounding like experts, but because there's such a lack of factual evidence for the theory, start to use words like "we surmise," "we believe," "perhaps," "maybe."" Comfort tells us to watch out for these keywords as we view the sequence that follows.

Now, at this point, some of you might be expecting a series of interviews with zoologists, biologists, paleontologists--people who actually know what they are talking about, and who are qualified to speak with authority on the topic of evolution. Well, you're expecting far too much. You see, that would have been too easy. What these clowns do instead is find random people in the street who will say, when asked, that they accept evolutionary theory. They then proceed to ply them with questions ranging from "How did it begin?" and "What caused the Big Bang" (questions that don't fall within the remit of evolutionary theory in any case) to "When we were under the water, do you think we had lungs or gills?" and my favourite: "So . . . here is this animal that comes out of the water without lungs, and so he comes out with gills and then goes Puff! Puff! Puff! and then runs back in the water and then keeps coming out until lungs develop? Wow! . . . Was he male or female?" There's more: "Do you think we could have evolved from horses?" As you might guess, the responses are stumbling and uncertain--which to you and me will signal that the respondents (as they freely admit) know very little about the theory they support (or perhaps they have been caught off-guard by the ludicrous line of questioning)--but to Comfort and Cameron indicate that the theory itself is suspect. What a pair of snake-oil salesmen they are!

I'm up to the part where we return to the studio, and Cameron is telling us how the problem with evolution is the lack of transitional forms. "The supposed transitional forms exist only in the imagination (points to head here) of evolutionists." He's wrong, of course. And Cameron: archaeologists don't dig up fossils. Paleontologists do that. (Or should that read "palientologists?") According to Cameron, Homo Neanderthalensis was just "an old man with arthritis!" I can't bear to watch . . . and yet I can't look away.

You have been warned.
UPDATE: Cameron and Comfort have been responsible for similar shenanigans previously.

UPDATE II: Regarding "Dickhead of the Year," it appears we have a new contender. Wot a spud!