Pigeon chess

The TL;DR version of this article.

Someone is wrong on The Internet

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"Pigeon chess" or "like playing chess with a pigeon" is a figure of speech originating from a comment made in March 2005 on Amazon by Scott D. Weitzenhoffer regarding Eugenie Scott's book Evolution vs. Creationism: An introduction:

Debating creationists on the topic of evolution is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon — it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory. The pro-creationist reviewers of this book clearly demonstrate this to be true.

As such "debating techniques" are not limited to creationists, the phrase has entered the general Internet lexicon, together with the source quotation, which is sometimes cited as an anonymous "Internet law". The reference to creationists is usually replaced with whatever group the user is arguing with.

Even the Bible advises against this sort of thing, in Proverbs 29:9: "If a wise man contendeth with a foolish man, whether he rage or laugh, there is no rest."

Andrew Schlafly was similarly described for his contributions to Usenet talk.origins in 2002: "I tried it for a while, but arguing with Andy is like playing chess with a small child who doesn't know the rules."

The 2007 cartoon "King me!" by Rudis Muiznieks uses a similar joke:

(Above image copyright © 2007, Rudis Muiznieks, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License)

See also

• Not even wrong
• Fractal wrongness
• Dunning-Kruger effect
• Monkey typewriter theory — with enough pigeons and chess boards, we could find a grand master

External links

• Playing Chess With Pigeons - talk.origins veteran Troy Britain's blog