Ken Ham:
The chicken was miraculously created already being on the other side of the road. If you accept the authority of God’s Word, you shouldn’t believe that the chicken actually crossed the road through natural processes. Besides, were you there?
Richard Dawkins:
Actually the chicken didn’t choose to cross the road, but instead the selfish genes that control the chicken did so. Anyone who believes the chicken crossing the road had some higher purpose is completely delusional.
Maybe that can serve as a lampoon for both of us! Regarding BioSemiosis … feel free to come up with something and add it here. I probably missed a great many of our number here whose “signature style” should be capturable. Help me out!
micro (not macro)-evolution acceptor:
Okay just because a couple photos show a chicken toward the far end of the road, and there appears to have been an inch or two movement between the photos, that doesn’t mean we can deduce that the same chicken traversed the entire road. All we see is a chicken on the same side of the road --and it is still the same chicken. Just because chickens can move small bits doesn’t mean they actually cross entire roads. Any chicken you allegedly saw on the other side of the road from this chicken was always an entirely different chicken.
Here are a couple I remember seeing in other venues…
this one could be for you Casper! (but attributed to Einstein originally):
Who is to say that the chicken is crossing the road? It is just as valid to conclude that the road is moving underneath the chicken.
Unfortunately I had to delete some of the posts in this thread, and I split several off into a new thread entitled, “Mervin’s poor attempts at humor.” Please refer to my post, “Appropriate topics for discussion on the Forum,” which specifically forbids inflammatory topics unrelated to origins, such as same-sex marriage, abortion, and road-crossing chickens.
Eddie: What frustrates me is that, even though I’ve asked hundreds of times, not one TE/EC leader has given me a straight answer to the question. What we get instead is discussion about the role of mating pressures and genetic drift in compelling said chicken to engage in this improbable behavior. And, of course, plenty of accusations that invoking a designer in getting the chicken across the road somehow diminishes God’s sovereignty (which also misrepresents the ID position, as I’ve also repeatedly pointed out). What’s missing is an exhaustive interaction with robust Christian theology pertaining to this question. Where are the articles systematically engaging with Augustine, Aquinas, Irenaus, Calvin, Kuyper, and Hodge on the subject of divine sovereignty and poultry behavior? Is this so hard to ask?
Jonathan_Burke: I think the best evidence points to the origin of this fanciful chicken story during the reign of the Babylonian King Marduk-apla-iddina II. Attached is an eye-catching infographic which explains why I’m definitely right, despite the fact that almost no serious scholar agrees with me.
benkirk:
Seriously?
Are you going to make your point or keep wasting my time?
“Vein” is a strange choice of words here, and I will now assume a broad set of motives behind it.
I have a hard time accepting your apology as sincere. [quote=“Mervin_Bitikofer, post:1, topic:5053”]
Why did the chicken cross the road?
[/quote]
Only someone who is laughably ignorant of the current trends in biology would ask such a silly question.
Hugh Ross: If you look very closely at the original Hebrew in 1 Kings 4:23, you can see that the Bible correctly predicted both modern studies of poultry behavior and the development of asphalt road surfaces, as well as automobiles.
Many TE chickens say this, and many TE chickens say that… The Behe (peace be unto him) will be attaching a designed flagellum to each chicken’s pygostyle.
Ted Davis:
We can trace poultry road traversal activity back at least as far as antebellum America and even far into the century before – at least in the new world. Benjamin Silliman was aware of certain entertainments of broad class-mixing appeal that included such things as boxing and cockfights. It was a hard life for the chicken in those days, and one easily imagines that not a small contingent of chickens may have emigrated in search of a better life. Those lifestyle habits do not just rapidly disappear and may help explain the unsettled and highly transitory status of poultry populations today.
Normally my typos are when my ignorant fingers embarrass me by hammering out the wrong “there” or “their” even though I quiet well no the difference … but this typo I accidentally put in Bernie’s “quote” with its extra ‘g’ is quiet serious (and humerus). I’m surprised none of you caught it. I hope Bernie never makes a poster with a similar mistake, as it would change his message … just ever sew slightly!
Sorry that this gets away from the serious and scholarly subject at hand that we need to address.
Hitchcock proved that the tracks later mistakenly identified as “dinosaur footprints” were in fact produced by enormous ancient chickens, who were so large that they actually stopped all traffic when they rambled onto highways or crossed roads. He further argued that the awe and wonder they instilled in onlookers constituted powerful evidence for the existence of an omnipotent Creator–and also evidence for the Creator’s benevolence, since he had created chickens so large that they feared not the occasional encounter with a tractor-trailer. They were in fact intelligently designed to eat the drivers of trucks exceeding the speed limit, thus keeping the whole order of nature safer for its organic inhabitants.
