Time Cube!

Back in graduate school, I was the department librarian. It was a mildly boring chore, but I also got to be the recipient of a lot of "self-published" papers folks felt needed to be seen by the scientific community. Most of these were harmless, a handful wacky and one or two... well... one or two your really had to think about for an hour or two to find the crackpottery. Or at least I did.

PZ Meyers, Science blogger extraordinaire, is getting some interesting mail in the crackpot range:
EVOLUTION IS ENTIRELY FALLACIOUS.
MEIOSIS CASTRATES EVOLUTION.KARYOTYPES DISPROVE EVOLUTION.THE BASIC MECHANISMS SAID TO BE DRIVING EVOLUTION ARE ENTIRELY INADEQUATE,UTTERLY INCAPABLE OF PRODUCING NOVEL KARYOTYPES,NOVEL FEATURES,NOVEL FUNCTIONS.
1)EVOLUTION'S PHYLOGENIES ARE TOTALLY INCOMPATIBLE WITH KARYOTYPES;
2)THERE IS NO MECHANISM TO GENERATE NOVEL KARYOTYPES THAT ARE FERTILE(meiosis,homology,synapsis,centromeres etc.);MEIOSIS CASTRATES EVOLUTION BY FAILING TO PROCEED IF ANY CHROMOSOMES FAIL TO PAIR UP WITH HOMOLOGOUS PARTNERS.SEXUALLY REPRODUCIBLE KARYOTYPES THEREBY FIXED!EVOLUTIONARY PROGRESSION OF CHROMOSOME NUMBERS IS TOTALLY INCOMPATIBLE WITH THE MECHANISMS OF MEIOSIS.
ORIGIN OF KARYOTYPES WILL NEVER BE EXPLAINED BY EVOLUTION.
3)KARYOTYPES CANNOT TOLERATE ADDITION OR REMOVAL OF NOVEL OR NATIVE CHROMOSOMES;KARYOTYPES ARE TOTALLY INCOMPATIBLE WITH EVOLUTION.
4)FULLY INTEGRATED,EXQUISITELY ORCHESTRATED,INTRICATELY INTERLINKED FUNCTIONS OF CHROMOSOMES REQUIRE INHERITANCE OF COMPLETE AND ORIGINAL KARYOTYPES-TOTALLY INCOMPATIBLE WITH EVOLUTION;
5)SHEER SIZES OF CHROMOSOMES DEFY EVOLUTIONARY CONJECTURE
6)EVOLUTION CANNOT PRODUCE NOVEL FEATURES OR FUNCTIONS(too many separate but simultaneous and synergistic mutations would be required-see below)
meiosis renders evolution infertile
meiosis will not reproduce unmatched chromosomes etc.etc.etc.

If follows the standard format for eyecharts, big text getting smaller and smaller as it goes down (with some interesting color variations I've never seen before). You know, just like the papers in PhysRevD. Full text here


One of the readers points out the similarity to a famous piece of internet foolishness:


Judging by his formatting and typographical preferences, I'm surprised he didn't claim that evolution is also impossible because of Time Cube.
Posted by: Sean Foley July 4, 2006 02:57 PM

Okay, so here's what I am thinking: I should start a blog catalog of these type of obscuria nonsensica. Categorized them not by subject matter, but by insanity style:

Category 1: logical conclusion reached by ignoring incontinent facts

Category 2: illogical conclusion reached by false assumptions

Category 3: logical conclusion reached with a pure state of self consistent but wrong assumptions
Category 3a: Must propose new physics/laws of nature/mathematics
Category 3b: 3a + must also be rejected by journals/PhD committee

Category 4: illogical conclusion reached through dogma
Category 4a: Must have interesting fonts/capitalization
Category 4b: Cat 4a + Must contain supervillian-esque rant about the scientific community
Category4c: Cat 4b + Must contain "why won't you respond are you too afraid/stupid/closeminded/offyour meds" rant

Category 5: illogical conclusion reached by setting an epileptic chimp in front of a keyboard and posting the result as "proof"


So, on the Horvath scale, FoxNews weighs in at a mere Cat2 , PZs writer scores a full 4C, and the current administration's war policy comes in at ... well... I think that's kind of obvious.

TIME CUBE!