"I also doubt they are calling themselves Sissy with any kind of ironic intent"

What is it? The bleached remains of some long-ago army column defeated by enemy forces or perhaps the forces of nature in desert warfare? Look a little closer and you'll see the remains of a family of tiny Pantry Moths — who knew that's what mealy worms turned into? — who had lived out their lives inside an old can of Ghirardelli chocolate powder in the farthest reaches of our kitchen cabinets. We tossed the chocolate powder but learned a thing or two about death by chocolate and parallel lives.

"I just looked at Sissy Willis's blog. The person (I am still not clear what sex/gender the person is) does not seem to be sane," writes commenter Matt Penfold at PZ Myers's science blog Pharyngula in response to an admittedly provocative comment we had left there ourselves this afternoon. We are intrigued with Mr. Penfold's scientifically-challenged powers of research and analysis, not to mention his tenuous grasp of the language:

I also doubt they are calling themselves Sissy with any kind of ironic intent. Which also suggests their grasp of English is as bad as their understanding of climate change, or since they seem to consider the current Pope to be some kind of hero, their grasp of morality.

They/themselves/their? Didn't you mean she or he, sir? Had Penfold delved a bit further, he might have been puzzled to learn that along with Pope Benedict XVI, Charles Darwin is one of our intellectual heroes. But then for him, the debate is over, the scientific consensus is in, and Sissy Willis is insane. Talk about parallel lives.

Comments

[goomp]

Pitiful Penfold.

[goomp]

Pitiful Penfold.

[Donna B.]

Your link took me to Pharyngula for the first time in over a year. I tired of his hateful sarcasm (and his commenters') even if I agreed with them about something.

It's truly an echo chamber there.

Almost of the Science Bloggers are liberal, but the most interesting of them don't wear their politics on their sleeves and actually write about science. Or shoes.