Just glorious. That's really all I have to say about that.

Most encyclopedias do not have the PC-be-damned-balls to include pics of Hitler alongside Darwin, and to include little nuggets of wisdom like "Joseph Stalin was greatly influenced by the work of Charles Darwin" in their articles about evolution. Conservapedia has the guts to tackle the subjects that pussy-footed peer reviewed journals won't even touch. My only complaint is that after reading the entry, I still don't know what Pol Pot thought about evolution. Clearly, Conservapedia has some work to do.

...he's Phyllis Schlafly's son.

You have to admit, looking at that family in particular, evolution does not seem to be happening.

Since facts seem to have a liberal bias (that is, they don't conform to superstitious bullshit), then what's a good conservative to do, but make up his own set of facts that matches up nicely with his belief system?

I'm almost glad that there are people who are so stupid that they buy this shit. Less competition for the rest of us. We need to keep a segment of the population happy to exist on the lowest rungs of the ladder - they come in handy.

If only that were true... unfortunately, as my father says, "shit floats to the top."

The problem with maintaining an underclass of ignorant, easily led morons is, of course, that sometimes they get elected to office and start leading each other around.

...Lenski and his graduate students ran this experiment for 11 years. They maintained 12 separate cultures of e.coli bacteria, and recorded three separate mutations that finally allowed some cultures of the bacteria to metabolize citrate.

Furthermore, Lenski froze samples of the bacteria cultures at regular intervals so that other scientists could go back to any point in the experiment and re-run it from that particular point. That's what science is about; replicating others' results.

It boggles the mind that after a well-constructed 11 year experiment, a ground-breaking scientific paper, and meticulously maintained records and samples, that some know-nothing blowhard like Schlafly (a law degree!) would have the nads to insinuate that the whole thing was fraud. I bet Schlafly spent a whole hour thinking of how he would crush Lenski.

Conservapedia is an embarrassment.

The home page of conservapedia has a Google page rank of 5. This is relatively high (Salon's is 7). Note in the quote the over use of the phrase "theory of evolution." This is a search engine optimization technique to increase page rank for searches on "theory evolution."

I noticed there is a create account link. I bet you get all sorts of conservative solicitation if you sign up. I for one will never know.

Based on everything I've read. 12 separate populations, raised over 20 years, under, presumably, identical conditions, and after 31,500 generations something changed. It's fascinating that it could happen that quickly, and somehow amazing that they could keep things going so long. Of course, I have trouble keeping houseplants alive more than a season.

It's so nice to see scientists interacting with the public. We really need more of this "on the ground" education. Of course, most of the Conservapedia fans won't be convinced, but one or two might find cracks in their anti-evolution wall.

And, Andrew... you take Conservapedia entirely too seriously. I turned my husband onto it recently, and he was the same way. Personally, I find it to be worth hours of entertainment on rainy saturdays when I don't want to clean house. It provides valuable insight into authoritarian thinking and right-wing fallacies. Where else can you get so many facts about what a significant portion of Americans believe about the world in a single source without having to visit any odd museums?

The most likely goal of this attack on Science is to kill/reduce basic science funding.

I'm so used to conservatives making crap up that the statement regarding evolution "Just 13 percent say that God was not involved" went into my cerebral trashcan as soon as I read it. But if you think about it, it's probably true, although it doesn't have the importance that the Conserv-O-pedia people think it has.

If you believe in God -- which the vast majority of people do -- and you accept that evolution is valid, then logically you have to believe that God was involved with evolution, because God has to necessarily be involved with everything. Frankly, that 13 percent figure seems a little large to me given this.

Now I don't believe in intelligent design or any of that nonscientific hooey, so don't label me as such. The looneybin right argues that God and evolution are incompatible, so don't you all spout the same baloney.

Please don't taunt these guys, they might quit. Conservapedia is simply the funniest thing on the Web, honestly the Onion couldn't make up stuff like that. If you check it out, the talk/history pages are the BEST! All this internecine feuding and cliqueing and petty tyrannies, it simply cannot be beaten. We should do everything we can to encourage them and urge them on in their good work. I do hope Dr. Lenski abjectly apologizes and writes them an obsequious letter (containing ridiculous information they will accept uncritically, natch).

My parents taught me that it was cruel and ungentlemanly to taunt and laugh at the mentally handicapped. But in some cases, like this, it is just too too hard to resist. Conservapedia is an internet treasure, a rare gem of neurotic lunatic obsessive idiocy not seen since William Reich's Orgone boxes.

In addition to its conservative fan base, articles like this one attract curious people who want to visit the conservapedia to see just how ridiculous it is. I first got turned on to it a couple of years ago and it was fun for a while to see how these clowns redefine their world. It can be quite fun, sort of like perusing the Urban Dictionary http://www.urbandictionary.com/ .

Now, as other here noted, one of the problems with democracy (!) is that if you have a population of morons, you will have no shortage of morons elected to public office. It's getting to the point where I'm ready to support some sort of weighted vote system (no, I'm not sure exactly how that would work). Some people clearly have a much better understanding of what goes on in this world than others do, but everybody's votes all count the same.