Friday, April 10, 2009

nothing....can't....explode. and that's SCIENCE.

A couple of terms you might find useful when viewing some of this guy's YouTube video library:
  • Poe's Law, slightly paraphrased, says that however over-the-top and blatant your satirical portrayal of the views held by religious fundamentalists, a) some people will mistake it for the real thing, and b) somewhere out there is a non-ironic one even more barkingly extreme. No-one quite seems to know whether Jesusophile is a satirical performance artist or just a cretin; all I'll say is if it is satire then it's bordering on genius. The proof that condoms give you AIDS is particularly priceless. It's a vagina full of AIDS! Do you want a vagina full of AIDS? No.
  • If it is for real then what we have here is a textbook example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Which basically says: one of the effects of low intelligence is that you lack sufficient intelligence to be able to make a realistic assessment of your own intelligence. Or, just to get a bit Rumsfeld for a minute, to know how much you don't know. Next time you see a YouTube video or blog post that ends (once you've weeded out the Poes) "atheism PWNED!!!" or "take that, evolution!" or (my favourite) "checkMATE!!" you can nod sagely to yourself and murmur "Dunning-Kruger effect" as you stroke your beard and puff ruminatively on your pipe-stem.

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