“Creationists don’t believe in science. They think ‘The Flintstones’ is a documentary”
The animated American television show The Flintstones (originally broadcast from 1960 to 1966) showed a working-class Stone Age family, with dinosaurs and humans living together. The show was a satire of the modern American family.
Some creationists believe that dinosaurs and man actually did live together, but evolutionists disagree. “Hey, wait a minute—I thought the Flintstones was a DOCUMENTARY” was a joke in a 1991 newsgroup. “The Flintstones’ is now a documentary,” Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) said in 1994. The NCSE used the Flintstones quip many times and probably popularized it. American comedian Lewis Black used it in his stand-up act by at least 2005.
Wikipedia: The Flintstones
The Flintstones is an animated, prime-time American television sitcom that was broadcast from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966, on ABC. The show, produced by Hanna-Barbera, fancifully depicted the lives of a working-class Stone Age man, his family, and his next-door neighbor and best friend.
The show’s continuing popularity rested heavily on its juxtaposition of modern everyday concerns in the Stone Age setting. The Flintstones was the most financially successful network animated franchise for three decades, until The Simpsons debuted. In 2013, TV Guide ranked The Flintstones the second Greatest TV Cartoon of All Time (after The Simpsons).
Wikipedia: National Center for Science Education
The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is a non-profit organization based in Oakland, California affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is a not-for-profit, membership organization whose stated mission is to educate the press and the public on the scientific and educational aspects of controversies surrounding the teaching of evolution and climate change, and to provide information and resources to schools, parents, and other citizens working to keep those topics in public school science education. It claims 4,500 members that include scientists, teachers, clergy, and citizens of varied religious and political affiliations. The center opposes the teaching of religious views in science classes in America’s public schools through initiatives such as Project Steve, and is regarded as the United States’ leading anti-creationist organization.
Google Groups: sci.skeptic
What people believe (Gallup Poll)
Jim Showalter
3/1/91
> However, 1/3 of them seem to have learned their history of life
>on Earth from The Flintstones.
Hey, wait a minute—I thought the Flintstones was a DOCUMENTARY.
Uh oh….
15 July 1994, Gazette Telegraph (Colorado Springs, CO), “Scientist: City on front line in evolution-creation battle” by Trudy Welsh, pg. B6, col. 1:
Evolution being one of the most misunderstood of the important scientific theories. One third of the respondents in a recent national poll, for example, believe dinosaurs and people existed at the same time. “‘The Flintstones’ is now a documentary,” she (Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education—ed.) said. “What is this?
Topeka (KS) Capital-Journal
Evolutionist says she is wary of creationists
Posted: Thursday, September 09, 1999
By ANDREA ALBRIGHT
LAWRENCE—Like Copernicus and Galileo before her, Eugenie Scott sometimes finds herself explaining science to those who are unwilling to listen.
Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, presented her opinions of evolution and creationism Wednesday night to a receptive crowd of about 300 at Plymouth Congregational Church.
The center, based in Berkeley, Calif., helps mount counterattacks on creationism in public schools.
Remarkably, Scott said, the discussion of the two topics often has to begin with an explanation of evolution, which is often misunderstood. For example, Scott said many people believe dinosaurs co-existed with humans.
“Only about half of United States citizens know the Flintstones was not a documentary,” she said. “A lot of people don’t know what evolution is.”
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
POSTED AT 10:15 PM EST Thursday, November 16, 2000
ANALYSIS
Religious beliefs are fair game
By SHAWN McCARTHY
Ottawa — Stockwell Day doesn’t want to talk about his religious views — at least not publicly during an election campaign.
The Canadian Alliance Leader was visibly angry this week when a reporter asked him to comment on a CBC Television documentary that said he believed in creationism, a strictly literal, biblical account of creation that rejects the theory of evolution.
(...)
Playing off the CBC report which claimed Mr. Day believes man co-existed with dinosaurs, Liberal strategist Warren Kinsella quipped: “I want to remind Stockwell Day that The Flintstones was not a documentary.”
Los Angeles (CA) Times
Adam, Eve and T. Rex
Giant roadside dinosaur attractions are used by a new breed of creationists as pulpits to spread their version of Earth’s origins.
August 27, 2005|Ashley Powers | Times Staff Writer
(...)
“Dinosaurs lived in the Garden of Eden, and Noah’s Ark? Give me a break,” said Kevin Padian, curator at the University of California Museum of Paleontology in Berkeley and president of National Center for Science Education, an Oakland group that supports teaching evolution. “For them, ‘The Flintstones’ is a documentary.”
YouTube
On Bush, Bible, Fossils, Evolution, and Reality
yoism5
Uploaded on Jan 26, 2008
A classic routine on George Bush, the theory of evolution, the Bible, fossils, and reality. To see more videos of Lewis (comedian Lewis Black—ed.) and others on evolution (and to download this video), see http://www.yoism.org/?q=node/32 http://www.yoism.org/?q=node/351
http://www.yoism.org/?q=node/22 http://www.yoism.org/?q=node/212 and
http://www.yoism.org/?q=node/3
4:50
“There are people who believe that dinosaurs and men lived together, that they roamed the earth at the same time. There are museums that children go to, in which they build dioramas to show them this. And what this is, purely and simply, is a clinical psychotic reaction. They are crazy. They are stone-cold-fuck nuts. I can’t be kind about this, because these people are watching The Flintstones as if it were a documentary.”
Google Groups: misc.survivalism
Re: A Third of Texans Believe the Flintstones Is A Documentary
Curly Surmudgeon
3/8/10
(...)
You forgot the punch line:
“Prindle says the results recall a line from comedian Lewis Black. “He did a standup routine a few years back in which he said that a significant proportion of the American people think that the ‘The Flintstones’ is a documentary,” Prindle says. “Turns out he was right. Thirty percent of Texans agree that humans and dinosaurs lived on the earth at the same time.”
Montreal (Quebec) Gazette
Updated: Mayor Coderre is … let’s say “inspired” by an old joke
BASEM BOSHRA, MONTREAL GAZETTE
Published on: October 20, 2015 | Last Updated: October 20, 2015 6:04 PM EDT
Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre seems to have fallen in love with a stone-age line about the Conservative government. The only thing is, it’s not really his line.
“If the government of Canada – who is really credible in matters of science and who think The Flintstones are a documentary – are trying give us lessons to win political points, I am not getting into it,” Coderre said a couple of weeks ago as he bashed the Conservatives for meddling in the city’s plan to dump raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River. He whipped out the Flintstones line again Tuesday at a press conference while addressing Poopgate.