Morons of the Internet: The Wessex Scene (15/09/2018)

This is the segment where I scour my favourite forums around the internet and find some particularly interesting articles about current affairs told in the words of my favourite human beings.

In this edition we dedicate yet another rant to bullying student journalists. The 'journalist' in question here not only looks like a twat, and thinks heavilly filtering a profile picture makes you look professional and credible, but also calls himself a radical journalist. Whenever I see the words 'radical' and 'journalist' in the same sentence alarm bells instantly start ringing, but surely The Wessex Scene would never settle for ideological crap with their rigorous quality control. So without further ado let's see what well reasoned arguments have been in their opinions section lately.
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https://www.wessexscene.co.uk/politics/2018/08/30/im-literally-a-communist-is-communism-relevant-today-part-2-investigating-death-tolls/
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Ah, the relevance of communism in this day and age. A big question actually, but unfortunately one this journalist has not bothered to answer. There is a first part to this article which roughly answers the question, but I can't be assed to address that because it's just really dull. Not that the second part is much better, but there are far more juicy hottakes to analyse here. Don't ask me why this article needed to be separated into two sections, but clearly this second part is just excess baggage that should have been edited out.

You can instantly see just how great this article is going to be by the quality of the introduction. Wait, hang on, there isn't one. I've often found that letting the reader find their own way around a news article is the best way to get your point across, especially when you don't actually introduce them to your central argument. I don't actually know what The Black Book of Communism is the quintessential source of, but I can only assume this writer believes it to be some sort of holy relic for those damn capitalists. Once again it seems that I've stupidly made the assumption that The Wessex Scene could manage to produce a quality persuasion piece.

I have a big issue with the limited evidence you provide for discrediting this Black Book. Your primary concerns for rebuking this legitimate source are firstly creative differences, and secondly the poor handling of an already excruciatingly high death toll. You're refuting a whole book based on these two minor points, and not actually providing any counterarguments to support the purpose of the article. There may well be sloppy and biased scholarship found within this Black Book, but by no means does this absolve Chairman Mao of his sins. If we take a gander at a book described as 'the most detailed account of China's great famine' we find a similar estimate of 45 million deaths. Surely two sources can't have got their decimal points in the wrong place. This figure doesn't include the various other political atrocities associated with the Mao regime, just fucking famine. Even if the decimal point is in the wrong place that's still 4.3 million deaths. That's an absurd number of casualties to just brush aside. I'd also like to add that the reasoning behind that second point is really fucking tenuous. It's so easy to point fingers at who is ultimately responsible for The Second World War, so just adding millions of deaths that aren't necessarily based on the direct actions of political regimes makes this comparison all the more ridiculous.

I don't think this writer is particularly fond of capitalism. I'm not sure what gave it away, but it might be the phrase 'capitalism kills' being shouted into the readers face. Saying that in a serious article doesn't at all make you sound hysterical. It's like we're back in 1963 again. We've already seen how communist regimes have killed literally millions of innocent people, but this writer has taken the novel approach of completely ignoring these victims and instead blames only capitalist regimes. Do I detect a double standard? Surely you wouldn't find such shocking bias in a Wessex Scene article. Here we'll happily ignore the benefits capitalism has bought the world, such as an increased GDP, the decrease in global poverty, and the increase in life expectancies, because making rash statements is the only way to conceal the blood of millions. Obviously communist regimes have never launched direct assaults on foreign nations, and its' well accepted by deluded morons that nobody ever invaded Afghanistan in the 1970s. I suppose the lack of communist assaults is why Kabul is so nice at this time of year.

There's no point in pretending this is a serious exploration piece anymore, as you just hold the two opposing sides to completely different standards. The Black Book of Capitalism surprisingly isn't scrutinised the same way as its counterpart, yet this is the primary evidence of capitalism's evil nature, even if the methodology was slated when the shoe was on the other foot. The main point in this piece is creating a false dichotomy where you can only pick and choose between communism and capitalism, with this writer arguing that because communism killed fewer people it should be seen as a relevant way of thinking. If your best advert for a radical change is that theoretically not as many millions will die then I think you need to change your approach. What's even worse is this rose-tinted analysis of communism. Just pathetic excuse after pathetic excuse as to why we should just forgive murderous tyrants. Maybe Stalin didn't purposely cause a famine, but it's still a crippling fault in his regime. I still fail to understand how a failed effort to prevent famine strengthens your point. For some reason it's now fine to experience severe famine if it's not on purpose.

Oh ok, executing prisoners is now fine if you keep it to 4%. We'll ignore that people are being fucking executed and instead blame biased propaganda for making the execution of criminals sound like an atrocity. How deluded do you have to be to start spouting out this nonsense? Once again we're making pathetic excuses for systematic murder. It doesn't matter if your nation is experiencing desperate war years, and I can't seem to recall Britain executing prisoners during these same years, so maybe executing people should be treated as an inexcusable action at any time. There's also this terrible comparison between historically flawed regimes. It would be a much better idea to compare Soviet regimes to capitalist nations of today because the central argument refers explicitly to modern ideologies. Instead we start comparing socialist regimes to equally flawed systems of governance, therefore getting this skewed view of positivity where a slightly shitter regime is triumphed over a catastrophically shit one. Still, these terrible comparisons don't hide the fact that this murderous ideology is at fault for the deaths of millions despite your claims that this way of thinking is false.

I'm not going to let this champagne socialist try and hide the truth by brushing over the atrocities of the last 100 years. Even this biased piece of trash can't hide from the fact that Mao's idiotic ideology was directly responsible for the murder of millions, but in reality this is just the tip of a very bloody iceberg. Can you honestly say we live in a world where these socialist regimes haven't killed millions when leaders such as Stalin and Mao committed some of the worst atrocities the world has ever seen? If communism hasn't killed millions then who is at fault for the millions killed by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia? Who is responsible for the forceful separation of Berlin and the creation of an oppressive regime inside East Germany? Who is responsible for the political executions and forced labour camps in Cuba? Who is responsible for the ongoing human rights abuse in North Korea? Who is responsible for the murders associated with land reforms in Vietnam? Who is responsible for the mass killings in 1980s Afghanistan? It's irrelevant if capitalist regimes have killed more people than the examples listed here, and has no bearing on whether the events listed above actually happened. Arguing that capitalism has killed more people is detracting from this critical point that socialist regimes have historically ended in catastrophic failures. When will you address this giant elephant in the room?

We unfortunately never get to find out if communism is relevant today, as the question is never answered. Furthermore the title and the actual article have nothing to do with each other. This article is just an excuse to bash capitalist regimes whilst sweeping aside the very real atrocities caused by communist regimes. You sir really are not a radical journalist, but rather just a radical moron, shitting out your contrived propaganda that's masquerading as an informed debate. I don't know why this Black Book is made out to be the great guardian defending the whole world from communism, but you don't need to read this particular book to see how badly certain communists regimes failed during the 20th century. Proclaiming communism as acceptable because it doesn't kill quite as many millions of people as you think certainly isn't a good line of argument, and paints an overly simplistic picture of a very complex debate. I find it disgusting that you simply deny the suffering of millions whilst living in your ivory tower, making weak excuses for murderous tyrants. This is revisionist history at its very worst, and your attitude is excusing genocidal maniacs and even offering them words of support. Here is all the evidence you will ever need that the relevance of communism in this day and age shouldn't be determined by radical lunatics.

Morons of the Internet: Living Whole

This is the segment where I scour my favourite forums around the internet and find some particularly interesting articles about current affairs told in the words of my favourite human beings.

In this edition we have one of those irritating stay at home mums who has managed to look around the cesspits of the internet and declared herself an expert on a subject she knows next to nothing about. Normally I'd just ignore idiots like this, but on this occassion one has decided to try and take on parents who vaccinate their children, and so like the knight in shining armour that I am I've decided to rid the internet of the shit spewed out by these demon.
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http://www.livingwhole.org/to-the-parent-of-an-immunocompromised-child-who-thinks-my-kid-is-a-threat/
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To put this post into context I think it's important to mention that this lady was responding to the anger of another parent over the recent outbreak of measles in the US. The angry parent makes the perfectly reasonable argument that because her child has a specific form of cancer, and therefore doesn't have an adequate immune system to take vaccines, she is unable to be protected from illnesses such as measles if other parents refuse to vaccinate their children.

For some reason this perfectly reasonable cry for help from a powerless parent angered some stay at home mum called Megan Redshaw, who despite claiming she cares about the child with cancer, evidently doesn't give a shit about kids with measles. She is far happier not adequately protecting kids from this debilitating disease. I don't care what hormonal emotions are surging around her body, but these feelings have clouded her judgement and seriously affected the security of her own children. Megan, you may like to compare yourself to a female bear, but by writing this piece of shit it's clear you have the cognitive ability of one, and nothing else. Nobody is claiming your children are unimportant, they just think you're a fucking idiot. Let's quit with this attitude that your some oppressed martyr sacrificing the safety of your children for the greater good, when in fact this way of thinking has the very real potential to put whole areas of children under serious threat. Is it now starting to make sense why people don't respect your opinion? Just because you have an opinion on a topic doesn't mean you're informed on the subject.

There's a damn good reason why organisations such as the CDC and the NHS are projecting the idea that measles is making a return, and that's because that's factual information. Data from the UK shows that the country experienced 56 cases of measles in 1998, whereas ten years later that had shot up to 1370. Similarly in the US there's also been rises in measles outbreaks throughout the previous few years, with the added bonus of outbreaks in 2008 being attributed to unvaccinated individuals.  Nobody is claiming measles is only being caught by solely unvaccinated individuals, but rather they are often the primary cause of these outbreaks. And yes, you madam are a key cog in this medical negligence and must share the blame with other moronic parents that don't vaccinate their kids.

The reason why you don't often see images of vaccinated kids with severe ailments is because adverse reactions to vaccinations are incredibly rare, whereas measles sadly is not. Life-threatening injuries from vaccines are possible, but this is vastly outweighed by their potential benefits. For some reason you have the fucking balls to take the high ground on objectivity when you produce this pathetic slander. I doubt you even know what the fucking word means. I get it, you believe your kid was one of the unlucky individuals who displayed adverse effects from vaccines, although whether that's actually true is another matter. However, your child does not represent a trend. Your child does not have a 240% increased risk of developing autism from the MMR vaccine, and you might want to read the small print in the article you've sourced, as the producer's notes very adamantly admit this statistic is complete bullshit. There are in fact multiple meta-analyses of these studies, with the common findings being this relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism being non-existent. And yes dear, these meta-analyses are far more reliable pieces of information than your retracted nonsense.

Funny how you don't provide evidence that the rate of measles declined prior to the vaccine being introduced. It's almost as if reality is different from the thoughts in your primitive mind. Not only would the fewer natural occurrences of measles prior to the introduction of the vaccine provide zero evidence that the measles vaccine works, but statistics show a dramatic decrease in measles cases after the vaccine was first implemented in 1963. It's almost as if this horrible condition doesn't have to be a common childhood disease if you take the necessary precautions and vaccinate your fucking kids.

For an added bonus the idea that measles can protect children against more serious ailments such as cancer is also highly misleading, which is a shame as it's the only fucking point you bothered to source. You can do all the research you want, but funnily enough if you're shit at it the results aren't going to make you sound more informed on the subject. I just can't comprehend how someone can end up at the conclusion that the measles vaccine puts both babies and adults at a greater risk when the evidence clearly doesn't allude to this idea at all. I don't know what's so difficult to comprehend, but when a vaccine has the effect of dramatically reducing cases of a disease it greatly reduces the risks of people contracting the disease. That's reduce the risks, not cause the fucking disease you bellend.

Just to confirm, 73,000 people died due to complications from measles worldwide in 2014, with the risk of death being approximately 0.2%, which interestingly is a lot more deadly than the approximate 0.001% risk of serious injury from the MMR vaccination. Once again you didn't actually read the source you provided properly, as vaccines were not the cause of the disparity between age and fatality rate, and the webpage even strongly advocates for the use of the MMR vaccine. We've now got to the stage where we can't even cherrypick our own sources without them completely contradicting our point. In any case, this point doesn't detract from the fact that all age groups have a decreased risk of contracting measles overall if they are correctly vaccinated, which your provided source is very keen to point out. I'm not quite sure why you think it's strange that young children and the elderly are the most vulnerable, but surely that's to do with them being vaccinated, and not at all with mortality trends.

Maths is the latest skill to be added to your long list of weaknesses, as 140 children certainly aren't enough to describe vaccines as killing literally 'thousands' of children. Interestingly you just provide a website rather than actual data for your statistic on MMR vaccine deaths, so I actually did the hard work for you and found a lovely analysis that concludes the evidence that vaccines lead to death is inadequate and to a reject a causal relationship between the MMR vaccine and death. I don't know where you're getting those estimated figures from, but my bet would be from straight out your arse.

It's not bringing your child up in a bubble if you're adequately protecting them from diseases that can KILL THEM. You even admit that your kid is a potential threat to others, and yet you don't give a shit. It gets worse, as in your sadistic mind it's the other parents who are in the wrong. How can you be so fucking ignorant? We can all bang on about anecdotal stories, which is something you criticised the mother of the cancer-ridden child for doing earlier, but these cases do not represent trends.

Let's put your examples into perspective. The MMR vaccine has a 95% rate of success for children over twelve months of age, which is adequately above the 92% vaccination rate required for herd immunity. Of course vaccinated children can still carry the disease, but that's further encouragement to vaccinate your own kids to prevent the disease from spreading through populations. Vaccines do indeed have life expectancies, although I couldn't find an accurate estimate as to how long the MMR vaccine provides immunity for, but what is clear is the need to vaccinate the vulnerable at certain ages. And yes, of course people with vaccinations can get ill. What are you expecting from vaccines? Fucking immortality. There seems to be this assumption that vaccines will magically make you immune to disease, which isn't true, as they merely minimise risk; a risk that you're exacerbating. You have the audacity to lecture us in this condescending tone like you've just dismantled every argument from medical professionals. These individuals have extensively trained and dedicated their lives to saving others, so how about showing them some fucking respect and stop lecturing them like some sort of expert? You on the other hand cherry pick information, and despite your claims do not provide peer-reviewed studies, and even when you do you manipulate the information into your shitty little pseudoscientific world. I'd like to see direct quotes from the package inserts you've sourced because I can't find any of the conclusions you've just shat out of your gaping gob.

You just can't get it into your thick skull that diseases cannot be spread through populations if there is sufficient immunity, and it's idiots like you that prevent this from happening. Somehow the innocent mother is apparently at fault for not providing her daughter with the genes for protective immunity. Seriously, fuck you. If you think passing on natural immunity is a more effective system than vaccination then I've got some bad news for you. Just a quick look through the pages of human history and you'll see just how badly humanity succumbed to diseases without the aid of methods such as vaccines. That natural immunisation against measles was such a good strategy that this woman even admitted earlier that measles has historically had high rates.

Imagine thinking that a decreased chance of contracting a potentially fatal disease is sacrificing the health of your child. We've already been through both the effectiveness and safety of the MMR vaccine, so instead I'll just tell this woman to go fuck herself again. She claims there's been no double-blind placebo controlled study, but it's clear that selected vision is playing up again, because here is one of those studies that you claim doesn't exist. I bet you a million pounds it completely annihilates your argument. And hey, for an added bonus here's a scientific review of your alleged concerns.

Just fuck off. Of course herd immunity applies to vaccinations. But wait, it gets better. The source for this ludicrous claim is from 1933. Fucking hell. That's right, you've managed to deduce that herd immunity doesn't work in the case of MMR vaccines a good 30 years before the vaccine was first administered. Just fantastic. In the near century since that archaic study was last relevant we've seen how herd immunity has eradicated smallpox in the 1970s, or more recently rinderpest in 2011. If you claim to be a fan of herd immunity the least you could do is actually understand the basic principles of it.

Christ, you're now lecturing people on misleading others. I doubt I've ever been faced with such an obnoxious weasel as you madam. I'm not going to repeat myself on how herd immunity has succeeded, and how vaccinations being temporary really isn't a big issue, but I'd just thought I'd add that the link you provided for herd immunity failing in vaccinations no longer exists. The source was also from a website called 'Natural Immunity Fundamentals', so most probably would have been biased propaganda in any case. Now you come to mention it the second link no longer exists either. Just incredible sourcework dear. And yet you claim in the comments section that you have the ability to effectively research. I call bullshit. You may believe I'm the one living under a rock, but I can tell you that's a much better place to live than up my own asshole.

It's great that there are a variety of lifestyle choices people can do to reduce the risk of measles by up to 50%. Interestingly however vaccinating your kids is 95% effective, and is therefore far more effective at reaching the herd immunity threshold than this natural bollocks you stupid bitch. Even the WHO, the very people you cite, claim the measles vaccination has saved over 20 million lives in the current millennium, resulting in an 84% drop in the death rate. The logic then gets even worse. It turns out going to the hospital increases the chances of your children getting ill. How can that possibly make sense in anyone's head? Why this is seen as a good counterargument I will never know as it's completely contradictory. You begin by saying that people admitted to hospital don't catch measles, which is evidence for it being harmless, and then go on to state that people shouldn't be bringing children into hospitals with the infectious diseases that you've admitted in the same sentence are completely harmless. I also don't understand how this supports your argument. You've been constantly bleating about not letting kids live in bubbles, yet when an environment presents itself with a large number of viruses for that good old natural immunity you cower at the prospect. Maybe that's because these ailments are too potent even for this tough woman, who would rather her child contract the relatively harmless measles, which doesn't at all kill thousands of people each year. Just in case you missed it, this pathetic tough mum attitude is being made towards a parent whose child is immunosuppressant. She's calling measles harmless towards a child without a fucking immune system, which doesn't make her sound like an asshole at all.

I just don't know how anyone can ever get through to you. With all your points you just have to blame everything apart from unvaccinated children, even when the evidence points the other way. How can you so willingly revel in your own ignorance? I'm not going to go over herd immunity for the third time, but it's worth repeating the idea that if illnesses are unable to spread they don't pose a threat. It's all very well suggesting these other precautions, but why are we promoting these strategies as alternatives instead of implementing them alongside a method that is proven to work? Also, health advisory bodies do educate parents on these matters and specifically advocate vaccination programmes. You just choose not to listen to advisory bodies that find you at fault.

Your shitty attitude continues into the next paragraph by again denying any sort of responsibility for your negligence, and since you asked for a causal relationship between unvaccinated children and the exposure of immunocompromised children I'll give you a nice bit of reading. There seems to be this attitude that because germs and microbes are everywhere in life we shouldn't be protecting our children against them. Surely you must be able to see that there is a very fine line between a child catching a common cold from unsanitary conditions, and measles from simply not vaccinating your kids.

Then the shitty attitude reaches a 10/10. Just look at the disgusting attitude displayed in that last sentence. This poor child, through no fault of its own, has a compromised immune system, yet you can't get your head out your own ass and show some common decency. But it gets better than that dick move, because you then actively blame the other mother because she allows her child to live in a bubble. WHY THE FUCK DO YOU THINK THE MOTHER PROTECTS HER DAUGHTER!? It's almost like her child doesn't have a fucking immune system. How the fuck can you sit there and take the moral high ground when you behave in this vile manner?

By the way, did you know that none of those studies relate to the type of cancer the child you're referring to has? You still haven't figured out what a trend is yet because the studies cited here refer to very specific illnesses and in no way paint the picture that measles is an overall beneficial condition. Again, please refer to the Cancer Research article from earlier that explained very nicely why this isn't a good argument. I also wonder why that particular CNN article was taken down. Surely it couldn't be because it failed to meet journalistic standards. No, I'm sure it's because these absolute idiots are also in on this big conspiracy, which I guess is why you've sourced them multiple times in this piece. The beautiful irony in this is that your article on making a vaccine has also been removed, which just fills me with pure delight.

What doesn't fill me with delight is the next disgusting comment. You start wishing children could contract measles in order to help your theoretical cancer-ridden child. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you? You need a visit to an asylum, not parental responsibilities. You would happily sacrifice your own child's safety in order to prove your point, using the suffering of other children for your own benefit. Let's get this straight, you are not Edward Jenner. You're a fucking idiot, so stop playing with the lives of children. I'm not even going to properly respond to your final comment that directly compares the lives of unvaccinated children to European Jews in the 1930's. The sick mind who thinks that's an acceptable and reasonable argument to make shouldn't be worth a single second of my time.

Maybe I shouldn't be conversing with this demonic bitch, but I do have my reasons for writing this rant. Mostly it's because I enjoy a good moan at the expense of other people, but perhaps more importantly I needed to highlight just how crazy this way of thinking is. How anyone could deduce that any of the arguments presented are in any way rational is beyond me. It's all very well parading around with your law degree, but this makes you qualified to lecture on law, and not medicine. Just because you claimed to have researched the subject doesn't shield you from idiocy. Interestingly you didn't mention where you graduated in law, which I would have thought you would have jumped at the chance to do if you graduated from any half-decent institution. Surely a person as knowledgeable as this would easily get a job in the medical field, but as far as I'm concerned you're just a mother, and mothers don't get precedence over conventional scientists when it comes to scientific arguments. Not only do you owe the mother of the immunocompromised child an apology for your disgusting behaviour, but you also owe the readers of your article an apology for the blatant misinformation found throughout. Obviously that's not going to happen, as this article proves pure ignorance is your way of inflating your sense of self-importance.

Reviewing Bude Tunnel

How can you not be amazed by that masterpiece? When I first viewed Bude Tunnel on TripAdvisor I just knew I had to pay my respects. In all honesty I never expected my review to be published, yet alone reach double figures in likes. The best part however is that my review was actually quoted in The Sun newspaper, meaning some poor employee has had to sift through my bullshit claiming Bude Tunnel is a 'true engineering wonder of the world'.

I'll leave a copy of my review down below, but I highly reccomend a look at the other reviews of this amazing structure. Some of them are just brilliant.


'Bude Tunnel is quite simply a wonder of the modern world. As soon as I first gazed upon this glorious cylindrical masterpiece I knew I had found perfection in tunnel form. For me Bude Tunnel, The A282, and Teeside University are the most poignant examples of engineering excellence and morality found anywhere in the world. I'm truly shocked that any person would dare turn down an invitation to gaze upon the majesty of these marvels.

As I finished the last of my Stella cans from the nearby Sainsbury's I was struck by the sudden realisation that one could walk for such distance in a straight line without getting wet. But Bude Tunnel is far more than a shelter. Throughout my spiritual journey down the tunnel I fell in love with every stunning panel, every expertly placed metal beam, every misplaced shopping trolley. It's a British triumph on the same level as whole milk. A British victory over the elements and inefficient tunnel design of the same magnitude as Waterloo. I thank God every day that I was born at a time where I could witness Bude Tunnel. Whilst visiting an inferior tunnel in the picturesque cultural hub of Croydon I was reminded of these words:

'Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.'

Bude Tunnel is a clear reminder that whatever the future of Britain holds we will still be able to rally behind the greatest monument the world has ever seen. It's a true symbol of The British Isles, and a beacon of sophistication to shine across the world. Brexit means Brexit.'

The Wessex Scene Bruno Bonus: Woke Thoughts at 3AM

Someone needs to give The Wessex Scene a reality check. I've featured a number of their articles on this blog, but as sure as Southampton University dropping places in the league tables The Wessex Scene is always willing to print any old shit. Here we have a quick taste of their completely pointless shit from our good old friend Bruno Russell. We've previously featured Bruno's nonsense, but it seems he's still blurting out his worthless opinion on subjects he doesn't understand in the name of student journalism. I'll only call Bruno a moron in moderation here, as it's clear this is not a serious piece exploring complex subjects, and if I go too hard he'll threaten legal action. This article is, however, a great illustration of why you shouldn't post any old shit on the internet, no matter how desperate you are for content. Remember, this shit got published.
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https://www.wessexscene.co.uk/opinion/2017/11/19/woke-thoughts-at-3am-what-came-first-the-chicken-or-the-egg/
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Isn't it nice seeing Bruno tackling such crucial questions? I'm not saying this is a step down from his previous articles, but his next venture is probably going to be debating whether the latest Sia album is great or fantastic. It should be noted that neither of these writers has any background in biology, or even science in general, so I don't know why a student publication would end up taking woke thoughts from this lot. Are the Southampton science faculties illiterate or something? This isn't a problem for our Bruno, as he's decided to get his woke thoughts from the street. I don't know if asking people on the street at 3am is the best method to get reliable information, but surely Bruno wouldn't be using uninformed opinions to bulk up this pointless article.

Hang on a minute, Bruno's been interviewing people outside a Hull Job Centre. Surely even Southampton students possess at least one more brain cell than these clinical morons. This is surely enough evidence to put the royal charter that gave Southampton university status on a bonfire. Never have I seen such a classic example of idiots feeling they need to share their opinion just because they can. And yes Bruno, I'm looking at you.

The first response actually sounds perfectly reasonable. It may be completely wrong, but at least they're concise and get to point. Obviously, this is not a quote from Bruno, although maybe this individual could act as a ghostwriter for Bruno's next Wessex Scene article so as to ensure we get the same level of shit, but it's shit that takes up less of your life to laugh at. It's quite easy to pick this argument apart considering chickens are not the only animals that lay eggs, with many examples of egg-laying organisms throughout the fossil record that predate chickens. We'll get to these examples later in the article.

Not content with one incorrect statement the article then gives us a double dose of idiocy. How the second quote was allowed to be published is beyond my comprehension. There's so much wrong in that one sentence it's simultaneously filling me with rage and making me howl with laughter. This is the worst attempt at someone attempting to be an academic since the last Bruno Russell article I read. I suppose we have to start with the big flaw. It should be common knowledge, but apparently some students are unaware that a chicken is not a fucking mammal. I shouldn't even have to source that simple fact. This fucking idiot then claims that chickens are the closest related birds to dinosaurs, which is obviously complete bullshit considering they've been domesticated from an extant species. The reality is that phylogenies are constantly changing with new evidence, and without complex genomic data it's simply not possible to accurately claim chickens are the closest relatives of dinosaurs, which is a very complex clade of reptiles in itself. The first wild chickens arose around 3 million years ago, whereas birds as a clade diverged from reptiles almost 100 million years before the arrival of chickens. That's a lot of time even in evolutionary terms, and certainly enough time for different breeding mechanisms to evolve. Needless to say chickens did not evolve from mammals, and if anything the inverse scenario is more likely. Mammals and birds diverged separately on the phylogenetic tree, and you have to go back 180 million years to find their most recent common ancestor.

I can assure you that the crap spewed out by this simpleton certainly isn't evolutionary biology. Furthermore, I don't know why this false scenario would mean the chicken must come before the egg, because we know for a fact that dinosaurs laid eggs, so why wouldn't this logic lead you to conclude the egg came first? I don't know what the fuck is going on, but this isn't scientific reasoning. My worry is how bad the other comments must have been to not get included in this shitshow. If that level of stupidity wasn't edited out then what was? Come to think of it why wasn't this article cut from publishing?

Oh Bruno, Bruno, Bruno. Please, I implore you, just stick to the arts. You are correct to say that speciation occurs in gradual steps, and that categorising species is often subject to debate, but that doesn't mean the process is 'vague'. As we're dissecting this argument on an evolutionary timescale we can clearly identify distinct phylogenetic changes from one clade of organisms to another. With both genetic and morphological data we can accurately draw distinct lines between the chicken and its ancestor, and without these lines taxonomy would be full of people like you muddying the waters with your philosophical crap. We're describing gradual evolutionary changes over potentially millions of years, and not one competent evolutionary biologist would stand by this reductionist view of evolution. 'Bruno Biology' on the other hand is full of irrelevant questions like 'is there a moment a human becomes a human?'  Can you just fuck off with this philosophical crap for once in your life? If two humans reproduce then a human will be born in the next generation, not a fucking swan. Over time humans may start to reproductively diverge for a whole host of reasons, and then we start to see the process of speciation occurring quite clearly. There's a clear lack of knowledge towards evolutionary processes here, so let's stop with these mental gymnastics.

We can simply explain this quandary by imagining an ancestor of a chicken evolving a method to produce eggs over many generations, with these organisms eventually evolving into the modern day chicken. The concept of a species doesn't actually factor into this response, we're merely examining the evolutionary changes across generations. It's that simple. We don't need Bruno to concoct this monstrosity of a response because it manages to needlessly complicate an issue with a fuckload of irrelevant jargon. It barely answers the fucking question, and I get the impression this was merely a response for Bruno to massage his own ego so we can all gaze in wonder at this amazing solution to an age-old problem. Shocking how a response this revolutionary has only managed to scrape the barrel at the world's shittest publication.

Ten bucks on Bruno having fuck all to do with this response. This response actually answers the question, it's succinct, and keeps to the point. It's still a terrible response, but at least I don't have to crack The Davinci Code to understand the main argument. Again, this is clearly not a response from a person who knows the area, and there are a number of inaccuracies to note. For starters species don't breed with eggs, rather sexual reproduction stimulates the fertilisation of eggs. An important distinction, but mainly just an issue with syntax. Similarly there's also the problem that the third paragraph isn't even written in clear English, which lowers my already terrible opinion of the editing team at The Wessex Scene. However, these are minor flaws when compared to the scientific ignorance on display.

The big issue is once again the clear lack of understanding about evolution, or 'the Bruno response' as it's most commonly known. It's simply not enough evidence to stick pins in evolutionary events and view the process of evolution as some linear event. For all we know chickens could have evolved to reproduce without eggs and over time evolved their own specialised egg. That scenario is not at all likely, but it is possible that a suppressed gene may suddenly mutate, highlighting the idea that evolution is not merely acquiring characteristics on a chronological timeline.

The bad news for Bruno is that this question has already been answered. We've already seen evidence that the egg preceded the chicken, and considering chickens were domesticated mere thousands of years ago it's a stretch to assume that chickens have undergone huge evolutionary changes in their breeding mechanisms. Bruno simply has no evidence to suggest the contrary. I'm sure these facts won't shut him up, but I do think it's important to hammer into his thick skull that this amateur analysis is of no use to anyone. You may think you're an expert in philosophy, but that doesn't mean that expertise translates into subjects that you clearly have no background in. I know The Wessex Scene don't have the balls to tell you this, but please stop writing uninformed shit that you think passes as journalism. That's a jab at The Wessex Scene as well. Stop publishing any old shit. You start to get the feeling the shredder at The Wessex Scene is cocooned in cobwebs by this point. This article should have been thrown straight in the bin. It's a fucking joke.