Re: [asa] custom ASA "chicken crossing road" jokes

I like how you worked the apparent age spin into the YEC answer below.
It occurs to me that this is an interesting way to compare our
impressions of different camps. Your take on OEC includes different
prominent flavors, I think, than my impression --- granted, though that
each of these camps is itself nebulous and has a variety of sub-camps. I
re-included my complete original set below yours.
--Merv

Schwarzwald wrote:
> Funny! I'll give the list a try myself.
>
> Why did the chicken cross the road?
>
> YEC: The question itself is invalid - the chicken never crossed the
> road. Everything was created in the form we're now familiar with a
> short time ago - including the road, the "Speed Limit 50mph" sign, the
> roadside billboard advertising Chuck E. Cheese coming up on the third
> exit, and the chicken itself was already on the other side. "Crossing"
> was never necessary, and any chicken tracks found in the dirt by
> geologists are either misunderstandings or active deception.
>
> OEC: Talk of "the road" and all things associated with it does not
> require believing that these things always existed in the form we
> currently know them. Indeed, a proper understanding of context
> indicates that it's entirely possible this road and the signs were
> formed over quite a long period of time. The chicken, however, did not
> need to cross the road when the appointed time came - and while there
> may have been some chicken-like creatures on the side of the road
> opposite them, these were not "chickens" in the fullest sense of the
> word, nor are they truly related to actual chickens.
>
> Atheist: The idea that the chicken crossed the road is no longer a
> theory - it is a fact. Furthermore, the development of these chickens
> was by no means intended or guided, and suggestions to the contrary
> are magical, superstitious speculations inherited by primitive and
> shamanistic cave-fowl. Random chance and material necessity is able to
> explain the development of chickens, roads, engines, seatbelts, cars,
> PennDOT, Amtrak, and everything else without needing to involve talk
> of design or agency. Really, who needs magic when an infinite
> multiverse can explain everything concisely?
>
> TE: The chicken crossed the road - this much we can be certain of,
> unless there was some conspiracy to make all evidence look as if the
> chicken crossed the road when in actuality it didn't, which is
> unacceptable. Nevertheless, there are indications - not scientific,
> mind you, but still valid - that the chicken's crossing of the road,
> the road itself, and all other things involved did involve some manner
> of guidance, foresight, and cooperation with an agent. You'd like to
> hear me explain in detail how this is so? Wait, is the darwinist and
> atheist in earshot? I... really have to be going now.
>
> Darwinist: Not only are we certain that the chicken crossed the road,
> we are certain that darwinian mechanisms are capable of fully
> explaining absolutely every detail of development which took place in
> this gradualistic crossing. And any explanation that seems
> evolutionary and valid yet not darwinian is entirely compatible with
> darwinian theory in the larger sense. As a matter of fact, if it's
> true, it's darwinism. Darwinism can explain why you prefer belgian
> waffles to pancakes for breakfast. Wait, you prefer pop tarts? We can
> explain that too. What do you mean some of these explanations sound
> vague and silly? Even if that's the case, the alternative is... is
> just too dreadful to think about.
>
> IDer: Why did the chicken cross the road? Interesting question. Well,
> maybe the chicken never crossed the road - but if it did cross the
> road, Darwinian mechanisms are utterly inadequate to properly explain
> just how this took place. Design is apparent and certain, with
> examples in abundance throughout nature - oh, is the atheist and
> darwinist in earshot? Let's talk louder to tick 'em off! What, they
> said our claims are religious rather than scientific? That's
> preposterous! We can only identify design, but we make no claims about
> the designer's identity or... hey, are they gone? Good. Okay, yeah,
> it's absolutely God.
>
> (I tried to give each side some equal amount of tweaking, hopefully
> that comes through. :)
>

> Merv had written: Just to add some intellectual depth to all the
> debates, I thought I'd add this in. This was equal-opportunity parody.
> I even make fun of my own favored position (or what I know to be
> others' caricature of it). Enjoy ---or tweak it or add to it.
> --Merv
>
> Why did the chicken cross the road?
>
> YEC:
> Road-crossing by chickens is a post-fall activity. Now that we all
> have to toil for our living, the chicken must toil too. Ever since the
> first blissful pair of chickens disobeyed the creator and decided to
> take a stroll across the road of knowledge of good and evil, now
> they’ve been looking for roads to cross everywhere.
>
> OEC:
> It may have been millions of years ago, but somewhere back then there
> was a “fifth day” in which God said: “let birds fly above the earth in
> the open expanse of sky and fill the earth.” So the chickens…? Well
> they tried. Lord knows they tried. But they just couldn’t make the
> glorious heights and distances like their more lofty cousins. What
> they lack in flight ability, though, they make up for in perseverance.
> They are going to fill the earth by any means necessary; and if this
> means crossing a few roads, so be it.
>
> Atheist:
> The fact that chickens cross the road at all is such a meaningless,
> pointless exercise. How could a loving God consign his creation to
> such menial and dangerous activity? Since we can already explain all
> road-crossing behavior in evolutionary terms, this makes God’s
> existence superfluous, and highly unlikely.
>
> Evolutionist:
> A chicken “road-crossing gene” must have conferred adaptive advantages
> to the more adventuresome chickens, naturally selecting for them.
>
> TE:
> A chicken “road-crossing gene” must have conferred adaptive advantages
> to the more adventuresome chickens, naturally selecting for them. (Oh
> ---and God was involved.)
>
> Darwinist:
> We’re still working on the details of exactly how, but we DO KNOW
> THIS: natural selection and meaningless random mutations are the ONLY
> possible mechanisms that will determine why the chicken crosses the road.
>
> IDer:
> You know, this is an interesting genre of jokes. It couldn’t have
> started other than by intelligent assembly of all the components at
> once. Because, you know, we can talk about a chicken… and that’s not
> very funny. Or we can look at a road … that doesn’t really work
> either. But a chicken crossing a road! Now we have something. All
> these people that imagine primitive jokes about a road which then
> somehow acquire a humorously advantageous chicken mutation ---well
> they must just be low-watt bulbs.
>
>
>

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Received on Sat Jul 18 11:22:39 2009