-Poe's Law
It's often hard to figure out whether something is a parody or real. There are so many examples on Fundies Say The Darndest Things of ridiculous statements that it seems like they must all be parodies. Yet many of the most ridiculous beliefs and statements are genuine - take, for example, the crocoduck.
Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort actually believe this is an argument against evolution - the fact that we can't find a crocoduck (or other species which are a mix of two currently existing species), in their minds, disproves evolution. There is always the chance, though, that Kirk and Ray are just pretending to believe that nonsense in order to make money from their merchandise, but as far as I can tell they seem legitimate.Recently I have started reading a blog which, for the longest time, I was on the fence about. Calvinists 4 Conservatism seemed to be too outrageous to be real. One of their most recent posts is entitled The Loch Ness Monster Disproves Darwinism. This might seem to be a blatant sign that they are a parody, but is this any less ridiculous than thinking the crocoduck disproves evolution? The amount of time that went into the blog (there are numerous posts, dating back as far as December 2007), along with the many comments which often were praising the blog's content, lend the blog a bit of credibility as legitimate. However, the fairly good grammar and the lack of typos made it seem likely that it was a fake - it seems surprising that anyone dumb enough to write the content of that blog in earnest would be able to write coherently, let alone as articulately as the blog is written.
There is no point in which the blogger says "Haha, this is all a joke". There is no "winking smiley or other blatant display of humor". For a while, I was willing to concede that it was likely that this blog was real. However, that was before I read their Spam/ Personal Attacks / General Rules page, which states "At C4C, we are tolerant to opposing viewpoints on this website, even if we do want them suppressed in society" and "Finally, respect people’s right to privacy _ unless you’re dealing with an abortion." This seems like pretty blatant parody material, so I've concluded that the blog must be a parody.
If you get a chance, look through the blog and let me know if you agree with my conclusion.
