Sunday, January 27, 2008

Atlas of Creation


The Atlas of Creation uses 759 heavy, glossy pages to illustrate its author's view that the scientific theory of evolution is just plain wrong. The thick, 11-by-15-inch tome, with hologram-like images on its cover, was written by a mysterious Turkish man, Harun Yahya (whose real name is Adnan Oktar). Nearly every page features brilliant color photos of fossils and animals, all which supposedly prove that creationism is correct, and evolution is balderdash.

On page after page, the same formulaic argument appears, which is typified by this quote from a page with a photo of a 150-million-year-old shrimp fossil:
"Since shrimp first came into existence, they have always displayed all the same organs and characteristics as they have today and have undergone no changes in all that time. This shrimp fossil shows plainly that evolution is an imaginary scenario" (p. 110).

The book has been mailed unsolicited—at undoubtedly ludicrously high postage costs-—to scientists, academics, members of Congress, museums, and now apparently think tanks across the United States. Copies have also turned up in France.


Excerpt:
"All the living creatures in the fossil record appear intact and in their perfect forms. For instance, before crocodiles and squirrels, there exist no fossils belonging to any strange creature partly resembling a crocodile, and in other parts to a squirrel or other living creatures. Squirrels have always remained squirrels, and crocodiles have always remained crocodiles. All these facts reveal that the claim of the theory of evolution, that 'Living beings have gradually evolved over millions of years of time' is simply a product of imagination."

Bathroom Graffiti

Ferem has spent the past several years collecting and compiling photographs of exceptional bathroom graffiti, making for the perfect bathroom book. Divided up into thematic sections like "Men’s Rooms," "Women’s Rooms," "Art" and "Politics," unlike other graffiti books, the examples in Bathroom Graffiti are not so much about graffiti as an art form as much as they are about graffiti as the result of personal expression, which will never find its way into galleries or ad campaigns. (more...)

Dr.Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation

Evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson presents "letters" from sexually frustrated animals, birds, and insects who ask "Dr. Tatiana" to explain some sexual oddity. You'll learn why one stick-insect copulation lasts for 10 weeks (to prevent other males from gaining access to the fertile female) and why the black-winged damselfly's penis has bristles (to scrape out his rival's sperm). You'll learn that male and female orangutans masturbate with sex toys fashioned from leaves and twigs, that slugs are hermaphrodites with penises on their heads, and that females in more than 80 species eat their lovers before, during, or after sex. You'll also ponder human sexuality when you learn that "monogamy is one of the most deviant behaviors in biology" and "natural selection, it seems, often smiles on strumpets."