Enroll for your MSc in Anfrodology today!

It is my pleasure to introduce you to one of the most exciting new disciplines in academia today. The study of anfrodology examines the origins of hobbits, and studies the journey of these scrappy little creatures through life. The subject asks whether development is progressive, and whether hobbits are the pinnacle of creation, before quickly answering both questions in the affirmative.

In some ways anfrodology is a 'new' subject. For example, no one had heard of it before it was created out of thin air a few hours ago. But at the same time, it's also a very 'old' subject, in the sense that we can make up history too.

Few universities offer the degree, and even fewer employers recognize it, so you'll be entering an exclusive club by enrolling. But hold on! Don't take my word for it. Browse the curriculum and multitude of benefits to studying for a master's degree in anfrodology, then take my word for it.

Curriculum

Fun fact! The word 'curriculum' comes from the Latin curriculum, which means 'cucumber' in English.

1. In the first semester, students will take a philosophy of science module which encourages them to challenge their preconceptions. The class, 'Everything you learned about evolution in high school was wrong (and you're a bad person too)', prepares students for the rigors of participating in scarcely credible seminars and stretching their trust in their teachers to near Christian proportions.

2. Concurrently, students enrolling for Autumn 2009 will be the final class to take the module 'The Origins of Woman', in which they will discover the shocking truth that she is the result of a chance mutation from a turnip. Since she has plateaued developmentally ever since, a concept science calls 'stagnation', woman will not feature at all in future syllabi. Syllabye bye!

3. Students will then take the highly popular module, 'Turnips - Our Intellectual Inferiors?' During the course of study they will learn exciting Truths such as the progressive nature of development, aided by an archaic looking 19th Century Pyramid of Life learning companion.



Fun Fact! If it can't be depicted triangularly, it can't be true.

4. In the second year (surprise, there's a second year!) students will be foremost concerned with a module called 'Pure Blind Chance - Secondary Deity and Motor of Change'. Considered a highlight of the course, students learn how development is entirely the result of randomness and luck. Learning to properly worship Chance as a servant of Frodo absorbs much of students' time, but through doing so they learn how it is responsible for all of life's creations, and discover why no transitional fossils such as Australopithecus or Homo habilis exist.

5. Learning in the second year is augmented by seminars on 'Theories are the Worst Kind of Science'. Students are taught how the rules described by any theory could easily change at any time, as soon as next week, because by definition theories are unproven. The seminars involve a thought experiment, which encourages students to imagine a system whereby creatures slowly develop across millennia through a passive selective mechanism, resulting in the continued propagation of certain species due to the suitability for life of observable random mutations. Through suspending their disbelief via this absurd example, students learn how the natural laws governing the universe could easily be different.

Fun fact! Increasing paragraph length is a sign of poor planning.

6. In the second semester, students learn how natural mechanisms should dictate their ethical creed in the module 'Morality - Slaying the Fickle Beast'. Students must complete an end of year project, which consisted last year of helping the Malayan lesser crested warbler into early endangerment to make more room for the Malayan greater crested warbler.

7. The final module, a case study on irreducible complexity, teaches students how to apply what they have learned in the real world. In previous years, students have had to write theses on the irreducible complexity of each stage in the evolution of the eye: from a single photosensitive cell, through a collection of such cells, to the development of 'pinhole camera' eyes, protective lenses, and ending with the multicellular complex ocular organs of hobbits. That's a lot of irreducible complexity!

But wait, there's more!

Anfrodology degrees feature additional benefits that other subjects don't share. For example, anfrodology students get the opportunity to travel to the Gondor-Mordor border for excavation work. Due to recent political developments, there is currently an abundance of fresh proto-fossils, a biological compound not unlike a corpse.

Also, scripture reading is heavily encouraged. We consider it a type of 'distance learning', because it challenges students to see how far away they can get from observable reality before they stop making sense.

What you'll get from studying with us

• Reinforcement of your opinions and an offended sense of self-righteousness whenever anyone contradicts you
  
• Next to no life experience outside the subject itself
  
• Herpes, thanks to the campus-wide ban on condoms

Intelligent (but not perfect) design

Fig. 1, Not that intelligently designed

The credibility of a belief, be it theological or otherwise, is often made or broken by its stance on evolution and creationism. There is an enormous amount of pressure on deities to take credit for designing species past and present, and many find the prospect of glory too much to resist. Just last week, Tom Cruise buckled and admitted to creating a species of nematodes in his image.


Fig. 2, Scientists believe that egg thing next to the worm
is probably Katie Holmes

The source of this pressure is twofold: first, it lends credence to religious dogma that may not have been written contemporaneously. Second, it helps to demonstrate the omnipotence of the deity in question.

But Frodology is not bound by Christian dogma, and Frodo can prove His omnipotence in other ways, such as through His mastery of Rock Band.

The Faith’s ethos is best summed up by the views of our resident scienceism expert, Frodologist Prof. J. Toss, who has read an entire book on the subject. “At first glance, the creatures of the planet do seem intelligently designed. The inclusion of breathing and sight in many organisms was really quite clever. Making reproduction fun was certainly a coup, and the inclusion of the appendix in our own species demonstrates a certain divine sense of humor”.

However, to take just our own species, we certainly aren’t perfect. Prof. Toss points to our shortgevity and susceptibility to diseases by way of example. “Including a ‘sleep’ button might have been helpful to people suffering insomnia, and ‘plug and play’ organ swapping would be a real boon.”


Fig. 3, Hot swappable stomach, ISO13485 compliant: "a real boon"

Professor Toss thus concludes that, while we certainly show signs of intelligent design, there’s a lot left wanting. After all, a dog shows signs of intelligence. The lack of such obvious attributes as described above suggest that we are in fact not the work of an omnipotent being. Instead, it is now obvious that we were designed by an evolutionarily primitive god.

Some observers have called our Creator the “special needs god”, but Prof. Toss prefers the analogy of the baboon. “He was probably too busy playing with His own ass to fix a lot of obvious flaws in His designs.” The professor suggests that His failure to stamp out human vices such as jealousy, hatred, and transfats, demonstrates considerable lack of emotional maturity on the part of the Almighty.

By contrast, more evolutionarily advanced gods have created things like quantum physics and conceived of the seventh dimension. Our God appears on burnt pieces of toast.


Fig. 4, Evolution of the gods

As can be seen from the illustration, the most advanced gods obviate the need for their own existence through achieving utter perfection.

At this point, Frodologists will be concerned to know how evolutionarily advanced their Messiah is. We are proud to report that Frodo has never even considered taking credit for designing humans. He is of the opinion that if Jehovah wants that ignominious distinction, He can have it. Frodo is however hard at work on designing the Human 2.0. Reviving a German project initially begun in the 1940s, Frodo has gone back to the drawing board to overhaul our species’ design. The US Army has expressed interest in funding the project, while Georgia Tech is providing the necessary expertise. Frodo is confident that the new model will be a success. "As a hobbit, I'm much more evolutionarily advanced than the Creator of the Human 1.0. Natural selection actually finished off all His ilk yonks ago. He's the last one left!"

Unfortunately, as lack-witted as our Creator may be, He has got a crack team of lawyers. They are currently threatening to sue Frodo for an injunction over copyright and patent abuses in connection with the design of the Human 2.0. As the Creator of the Human 1.0, He is believed to have exclusive rights to the design.

The case continues.

Frodassic Park

Dinosaurs have long been a sticking point for creationists ever since they entered stage left in the 19th Century and started taking Victorian logic for a joy ride. It’s been wildly entertaining watching Christians pour through the Bible ever since, trying to account for how these petrified skeletons could have ended up on Earth when, as everyone knows, the planet is no more than 10,000 years old.

Here is a selection of a few favorite chestnuts:

• Since God created every creature on the 6th day, He must have created Dinosaurs that day too. He was just a little preoccupied when he wrote it all down later and neglected to tell anyone about it.
  
• Before Adam & Eve’s little transgression, all animals were vegetarian and none died, making the choice of claws and sharp, pointy teeth purely an aesthetic one.
  
• Two of every kind of dinosaur found their way onto Noah’s Ark, having presumably discovered a way to improve the vessel’s buoyancy first.
  
• Having survived the flood, they sort of just, well, died out, in a manner much more precise and conclusive than that suggested by evolutionists. One possible candidate behind the extinction is hunting by man, despite the fact that the latter had just been decimated by unseasonal floodtides too, and presumably wouldn’t have risked the survival of their own species by hunting creatures with 12 inch-long teeth.

Feel free to check the accuracy of these summations at answersingenesis.org. Incidentally, if all the answers are in Genesis, presumably that makes the rest of the Bible redundant.

Frodology does not take this route. We do not attempt to squeeze a whole epoch of capricious, prickly reptiles into the pages of a book where they have no wish to be. It would be like trying to make a monkey wear a hat that’s too small. As nice as it might look, it just wouldn’t fit. The fact is that Frodo spent his time on Earth with some pretty crazy looking creatures, but we can’t conscionably call any of them dinosaurs.

Instead, what Frodologist scientists have realized is that dinosaurs are actually totally fake. Indeed, early classifiers must have agreed, as ‘dinosaur’ is Latin for ‘just a pile of bones’. Their sudden appearance in skeletal form in the 1820s seems just a little transparent. Have you ever noticed how the combination of an alligator, a giraffe, a rhino, and something with a really long tail looks kind of like a dinosaur?


Looks kind of like a dinosaur

Paleontology isn’t even a genuine discipline, as it was invented by Joseph Smith in the middle of the 19th Century following the issue of a warrant for his arrest for fraud. At that juncture in his life, Smith was between cons and beginning to despair of ever parting thousands of gullible people from their cash. He initially coined the word ‘paleontology’ to cash in on the dinosaur craze, but later abandoned it to focus on starting Mormonism, as even he felt that the deceit was a little insidious.

But no one can get away with such an ambitious hoax indefinitely. In the end, it was the Victorian appetite for the ridiculous that gave the game away to our team of scientists. In an era where all walks of life readily swallowed ideas as preposterous as cure-all elixirs, Dracula, socialism and penicillin, is it any surprise that dinosaurs were readily accepted as plausible? Of course all of those ideas are totally preposterous by modern standards, dinosaurs included. Even the names are a bit loopy. Stegosaurus? Sounds like a plastic toy. Velociraptor? Yeah, it's fast, we get it. The same goes for the megalosaurus, tyrannosaurus, and thesaurus. If those wily tricksters had set the bar of credulity just a little lower, we might still count ourselves amongst the duped.

I just thought you should know.