Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

I recently had a post about The Panda’s Thumb refuting an argument in favor of intelligent design by Michael Egnor. There is now a “post” from Michael Egnor saying he was setting up sites such as The Panda’s Thumb and Pharungula by posting absurd arguments:

Over the past month I have engaged in what my friend Bill Dembski ludicly refers to as “street theatre”. My posts here have been an outlandish parody of the bona fide Intelligent Design position, liberally injected with many of the more simplistic errors of the Young Earth Creationists. My purpose was to see how far we could go before the gullible Darwinists realized they were being taken for a ride. The Discovery Institute has graciously aided (and abetted!) by allowing me a voice on this weblog and by giving me valuable feedback on my comedic output. Together, we have succeeded in duping the Darwinists (like the foul-mouthed duncecaps at the Panda’s Thumb and Scienceblogs).

Our ruse was bound to work for a while; after all, Darwinists eagerly want to believe that Intelligent Design is nothing but “dressed up” Creationism. However, I’m astounded we made it this far, as I truly feared that the Darwinian horde would catch on sooner—but they are even denser than we had expected. Bill Dembski wagered a bottle of Macallan that I would not persevere to this day—but I have, and I will collect. I also owe Casey Luskin a beer; his courageous acting in our podcasts deserves an Oscar.

At first glance this all seemed plausible. Egnor’s comments were so absurd that it is easy to believe that he was posting them as a prank. If this was all there was to it, it would not have been that great a prank. After all, so much absurd stuff comes from creationists (a.k.a. cretins) that it would be impossible for anyone to distinguish real nuttiness coming from an IDiot versus outlandish parody of themselves.

Wait, something seems wrong. If really caught in such a joke, wouldn’t Panda’s Thumb and Pharyngula be laughing at how hard it is to disntinguish such parody from what many creationists believe? If you take a close look at “post” by “Egnor” you will note that the masthead is slightly different from that of the real Evolution Views & News page at the Discovery Institute. Instead of “Discovery Institue” it says “Discover Institure.” The url also gives away the joke.

Great April Fools joke guys!