Panda's Thumb and Hexley, the hoaxing platypus
by Krauze
The Panda's Thumb proudly quotes the following from Wired:
Apparently feeling pressured by Tux, supporters of Darwin, an open-source version of the Mac OS, decided they needed their own mascot. The result is Hexley, a curious platypus who in some images is portrayed with horns and a pitchfork "“ enough evidence for several intelligent design theorists to offer him as proof of the satanic origins of evolutionary biology.
No evidence of these "several" intelligent design theorists is presented. So I did a little digging. I managed to find only a single website using Hexley as proof of the satanic roots of evolution. What's worse, the page is an obvious parody. The short Wikipedia entry specifically mentions the Hexley hoax, which was featured in other medias back in 2001.
A little tip, Panda-bloggers: If you didn't spend so much time taking pictures of yourself sticking your hands up the butt of a panda puppet, you might have time to figure stuff like this out for yourselves.
April 29th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
LOL. And notice that not one of the PhDs in the comments section took a breath long enough to suspect this was all a hoax. Hey, this is not the first time the critics have been easily snookered by the infamous Dr. Richard Paley.
Comment by MikeGene — April 29, 2007 @ 5:07 pm
April 29th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Here's another atheist they snookered. . .
Comment by mcromer — April 29, 2007 @ 5:36 pm
April 29th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
Reading those comments made me mourn a little bit for humanity. Well, except the software daemon comments. That amuses me, working in tech myself.
Thought Provoker, could you consider for a moment that this amuses the PTers because they think it's funny that anyone would link evolutionary biology to Satanism because of devilish attributes on a mascot for something called "Darwin" If it were true, I'd probably find it a little funny for the same reason. This is of course supported by the quotation you gave – they would find it even funnier because they use an OS with even more devilish mascot (I would submit this as a better example of pride, actually).
By the way, you keep bringing up the About Us page. For all your talk of provoking thought, you sure do seem to want to stifle discussions on certain topics.
Comment by thechristiancynic — April 29, 2007 @ 6:44 pm
April 29th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
The link is made because it feeds into a useful stereotype. Much easier to argue against strawmen.
Comment by Bradford — April 29, 2007 @ 7:18 pm
April 29th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Here's another one they snookered.
Comment by MikeGene — April 29, 2007 @ 8:20 pm
April 30th, 2007 at 12:43 am
Here's one getting snookerede by a different website.
Comment by Krauze — April 30, 2007 @ 12:43 am
April 30th, 2007 at 3:40 am
TP, stop cluttering every thread with your favorite topic. You are welcome to discuss the topic of the thread, but any further tangents will go down the Memory Hole.
Comment by Krauze — April 30, 2007 @ 3:40 am
April 30th, 2007 at 7:28 am
LOL. Reed writes, "Note to Krauze: at no point in time did we take the Wired comment as anything but a joke at the expense of people like you." Er, yeah, right. No one at PT would ever really believe that several intelligent design theorists believe in the satanic origins of evolutionary biology.
Look, it is not surprising that the critics would be snookered by this. It's easily explained as confirmation bias.
Comment by MikeGene — April 30, 2007 @ 7:28 am
April 30th, 2007 at 9:54 am
I agree that the stereotype is a part of it. It would also explain why Cartwright lumps TTers in with creationists ("people like you").
This is about how I imagine this played out:
"Hey guys, look at this funny joke about those ID creationists! They really think that Hexley is proof of the Darwinian link to Satanism! What idiots!"
"Oh, hey, guys, that was just a joke. We just bolded that one false statement because we knew it wasn't serious, not because we thought it was."
Comment by thechristiancynic — April 30, 2007 @ 9:54 am
April 30th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Oh, but Reed! I wasn't being serious when I implied that you were being serious about creationists being serious that Hexley was proof of the satanic roots of evolution. I was just using a completely wrong statement to make a joke at the expense of people like you.
Or something like that.
Comment by Krauze — April 30, 2007 @ 12:26 pm
April 30th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Wow, someone sounds a little cranky, but that is no reason to beat up on Prof. Steve Steve.
A little tip Krauze, at no point in time did I take the Wired comment as anything but a joke. If you paid more attention to my "pop culture" posts on PT and DRN, you will see that I often make posts about instances where the media makes fun of creationists. I've mentioned Family Guy, Robot Chicken, a few websites, etc.
Oh yeah, why do you think the Hexley post was filed under Humor?
And I have considered the idea that you are not being serious, but if that is the case I have decided to play along.
Comment by Reed — April 30, 2007 @ 12:39 pm
April 30th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Hi Reed,
Perhaps you can answer this: How does Wired falling for an old hoax constitute a "joke at the expense of people like" me? Who are "people like me", anyway?
Comment by Krauze — April 30, 2007 @ 1:36 pm
April 30th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Hi Krause,
You wrote…
Thank you for the confirmation that I am still welcome to post here. And while you may disagree, I thought the ethical status of this particular Panda's Thumb post (Hexely) was very much on-topic.
As for my "favorite topic", I would rather talk about an ID proposal like mine or even yours if you have a link to it.
For the record, I don't agree with anyone making a "joke at the expense of people like" you.
By the way, were you quoting Reed or yourself? I think Reed said ""¦poking fun at intelligent-design activists and creationists". Are you (and TT) intelligent-design activists?
Provoking Thought
Disclaimer: withheld for this particular comment, will be included on future comments
Comment by Thought Provoker — April 30, 2007 @ 5:46 pm
May 1st, 2007 at 12:30 am
Hi TP,
I was quoting Reed, who said that he thought it was "a joke at the expense of people like you."
Comment by Krauze — May 1, 2007 @ 12:30 am
May 1st, 2007 at 5:18 am
What's depressing about this is that by the next three repetitions, the myth will have been elevated to the status of well-known fact, and searches on the internet will come up more often than not with the false version.
Comment by Exile From Groggs — May 1, 2007 @ 5:18 am
May 1st, 2007 at 8:41 am
For the record, I'm not a Panda's Thumb blogger so I'm free to pose in pictures, with their panda puppet, to my hearts content.
"The guy with his hand up the Panda's Bum."
Comment by Nic George — May 1, 2007 @ 8:41 am