Howler Monkeys

 
Back in the olden days before blogs, we had the newsgroup talk.origins where the battle between evolution and creation was fought. The newsgroup still exists and it's still very active.

One of the most famous anti-evolutionists on talk.origins was a man named Ted Holden. He was witty and prolific, as well as being a famous internet kook. Ted didn't like the fact that he had to defend himself against attacks from scores of people so he coined the term "Howler Monkeys" to describe the chorus of evolutionists who joined in whenever a creationist appeared. (Ted wasn't exactly a creationist in the traditional sense. There was very little about Ted that was "traditional.")

Here's a posting from Ted Holden in 1995 ...

The clique which dominates talk.origins sees themselves as heroes, doing battle with the powers of darkness in an effort to prevent a return to the dark ages. I once noted that, to any outsider attempting to present anything other than the standard lock-step glop on t.o, they present what amounts to a sort of a tribal reaction, what one might expect from a tree-full of crows confronting a hawk or a tree of howler-monkeys encountering a leopard. The crew has since adopted the term "howler-monkeys" as a heraldic device, or metaphor, and refer to themselves as "howler monkeys" as a badge of honor.

Ted is right about the term "Howler Monkeys." Many people on talk.origins were proud to call themselves Howler Monkeys and meetings of talk.origins participants were called Howlerfests. We had a Toronto Howlerfest in 2005 that brought talk.origins regulars like the Canadian cousin of Prof. Steve Steve (see photo), PZ Myers, Canadian Cynic, John Wilkins, and Jeffrey Shallit who have gone on to to become bloggers. You may have heard of some of these talk.origins alumni.

Many of you don't know about Howler monkeys. Ms. Sandwalk just sent along this National Geographic video of Howler monkeys in action. I don't think she meant it as a compliment.

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