Satirical Monsters More Competition for Darwin

The Ledger ^ | December 11, 2007 | John Chambliss

[SubGeniusX]

E-mails offer Polk school officials a view of the origin of life they say is just as valid as intelligent design.

LAKELAND | The Flying Spaghetti Monster has stretched its noodles to Polk County.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster, or FSM, is a satirical group that pokes fun at intelligent design. It first emerged in 2005 during the debate in Kansas over whether the belief should be taught in science classes.

The group has sent dozens of e-mails to Polk County School Board members demanding that the idea of a Flying Spaghetti Monster creating the world receive classroom equal time with other views. The e-mail campaign began after four of seven board members said in November that they supported teaching intelligent design in addition to evolution.

While the idea that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world lacks backing in the scientific community, the point, according to those promoting the satire, is that neither does intelligent design.

FSM dates to 2005 when Oregon State University physics graduate Bobby Henderson sent a letter to the Kansas School Board saying "there are multiple theories of intelligent design."

"I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster," Henderson wrote.

"It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him."

Polk board members' support of intelligent design came to light after they learned the proposed science standards for Florida schools listed evolution and biological diversity as one of the "big ideas" that students need to know for a well-grounded science education.

Evolution, the theory that organic life developed and diversified through small changes over millions of years, is opposed by some evangelical Christians and Orthodox Jews who believe in a literal biblical interpretation of the Earth's creation. Intelligent design holds that living organisms are so complex that they must have been created by some kind of higher force.

E-mails to board members can be seen on the Flying Spaghetti Monster Web site at www.venganza.org.

Here's one of the e-mails:

"I agree that children should be exposed to all sides of a scientific debate, but it is my fear you may leave out a theory that is equally as valid as traditional Intelligent Design," said one.

"I am of course referring to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I'm sure you all know that the theory of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has much greater support in the scientific community than traditional Intelligent Design. You would therefore be doing a grave disservice to the students of Polk County, and science in general, if you were to leave this ever so important theory out of your curriculum."

Most School Board members declined comment, or did not return phone messages when asked about e-mails or telephone calls from supporters or detractors of the proposed science standards.

Board member Frank O'Reilly, who supports the new science standards, said he received about 50 e-mails from FSM supporters. "It's a lot," O'Reilly said. "Most of them are from the spaghetti monster."

In an e-mail, Henderson said he can't explain the idea for the FSM.

"I tell people it was combination of lack of sleep and divine intervention," Henderson said. "But the church has evolved into what it is today."

Henderson said he put out the open letter in 2005 to the Kansas School Board as a joke and it "snowballed from there."

Now, Henderson said there are more than a million Google results for Flying Spaghetti Monster.

"No telling where we will be in 10 years, 100 years, 1,000 years," Henderson wrote. "I heard Christianity started as a joke, too ... so who knows?"

Henderson said about 95 percent of the 60,000 e-mails he's received are positive.

He keeps his home address a secret and has had a "few death threats'' that he was concerned about.

"But the majority of Christians don't have a problem with our Church," Henderson wrote. "We try to be as tolerant of their beliefs as they are of ours."

Known as Pastafarians, Flying Spaghetti Monster supporters dress up as pirates. The Web site sells shirts, iPod covers and car stickers.

Currently on the Web site, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is wearing a Santa Claus hat.

Conservative voices outside of Florida also have chimed in on the science standards debate.

CitizenLink.com, an arm of the James Dobson-led group, Focus on the Family, urged its readers to take action to include intelligent design in the classroom by e-mailing the state.

So far, at least one state board member said she will vote against the new standards. Donna Callaway said she will vote against the proposed standards because evolution "should not be taught to the exclusion of other theories of origin of life," the St. Petersburg Times reported.

The state vote, which was planned for January, will likely be in February because two public meetings about the proposed standards were added in January.

The first meeting will be Jan. 3 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at The Schultz Center for Teaching and Leadership in Jacksonville, 4019 Boulevard Center Drive.

A second meeting will be Jan. 8 in Miramar from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Everglades High School. 17100 S.W. 48 Court.

The new standards have been praised by scientists. (To see the proposed standards go to www.flstandards.org.)

Lawrence S. Lerner, professor emeritus of physics and astronomy at California State University in Long Beach, who has examined science standards in the various states, has graded Florida's proposed standards as a B+.

Lerner, who gave the previous standards an F, said that the proposals have the potential to be among the best in the nation.

"It's an enormous improvement," Lerner said. "The (current) standards were poorly written and bad all along."

The inclusion of evolution into the standards was imperative, Lerner said.

"When you ignore evolution, it is like trying to teach physics without Newton's Law," Lerner said. "It (evolution) is dealt with quite well (in the new standards)."

[Mr. Jeeves]

How true. But hordes of Huckabee supporters are going to be gunning for you, now. ;)

[Shryke]

Um...do you mean “opponents”?

[Elpasser]

Ridicule and satire ... always a reliable substitute for scientific debate and discussion.

Wonder how funny that will be for these guys when they DO meet their maker? (which they inevitably will)

[ASA Vet]

source?

[SubGeniusX]

[ontap]

http://www.darwins-theory-of-evolution.com/

[ari-freedom]

evolutionists can’t back their claims in the lab so they make jokes. ah the fruits of public education at work

[Shryke]

Why do you hate the Savory Baby Flying Spaghetti Monster?

[ASA Vet]

Your source:

Registrant Organization:All About God Ministries, Inc.

[Nathan Zachary]

"The TOE doesn’t address origin."

Sure it does. Nothing exploded and is the building block of everything. Those rocks formed out of nothing, then came alive. Because the rocks couldn't see where they were going, they developed eyes, and once those rocks had eyes, they could see that they weren't really going anywhere, so they developed legs, or fins. (depending on which you think came first, swimming rocks or walking ones) Then the living rocks became hungry, but because they were the only "living" thing, there was no food, so some of the living rocks turned into food. Then the living rocks realized they couldn't eat the food, so they developed mouths. But they found the food rock hard to chew, so they developed teeth. Then they realized they couldn't swallow, so they developed throats. I'm sure you can figure out the rest. Just use your imagination, practically any evolution model will work. If you believe life came to earth from some other gallaxy, just remember it had to form from nothing exploding and forming everything as well, expoded nothing turning into gases, gases forming matter, matter forming rocks, rocks coming alive after mysterious space rain clouds came and rained on them for millions/billions of years.

[Constantine XIII]

LOL, reading the comments, it’s clear that some people need to learn to take a f’n joke. XD

In this thread: people who never smile.

[ari-freedom]

“Why do you hate the Savory Baby Flying Spaghetti Monster?”
-

who came up with that quote? ah I know! millions of years of evolution! to say otherwise would be a science stopper.

[Buggman]

So, basically the idiots who think this is a valid counter-argument are ceding the argument that ID should be taught in science class, but insist on having a theological debate about the Designer's nature and form in that same class.

Funny, that.

[DaveyB]

The ID question is not one of "is it valid science?" but what is valid science. For centuries the scientific method, as proposed by Bacon, was an inductive approach to test ideas by subjecting them to repeated, and verified observations. Bacon, a devout Christian, thought this method would help men to take dominion of God's creation and glorify him. The modern methods that some call science, including evolution and ID, are not limited by the inductive approach of classical science. The new methods lack observable, repeatable and verifiable data. While it is true that creationism is not scientific, neither is evolution or ID. But it must be stated emphatically, just because something falls outside of the limits of science does not make them false. Unscientific does not equal false and scientific does not equal true. However using the scientific method (classical) some ideas can be proved to be false; however, no ideas can be proved to be true - such are the limits of induction.

[Shryke]

So, basically the idiots who think this is a valid counter-argument are ceding the argument that ID should be taught in science class, but insist on having a theological debate about the Designer's nature and form in that same class. Funny, that.

Let's see all your research PROVING that the FSM didn't create everything. I want to see it. In a bowl. With alfredo sauce.

[ontap]

Here’s another one : by the way the source I quoted you is almost word for word from Darwins book.

http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/evoldef.htm

[Nathan Zachary]

"Your source:"

Oh, so only sources written by evolutionists are to be valid, right?
Never mind the scientists who happen to believe in intelligent design, even though the complexities found in biological science suggests intelligent design. Evolutionary belief eg faith means that all you have to do is keep throwing that handfull of dirt up in the air, eventually despite all odds it will land that one time as a fully loaded Lexus.

[Non-Sequitur]

As opposed to those who debase science by presenting theories as fact.

You mean like the Theory of Flight or the Theory of Gravity?

[Nathan Zachary]

"Let's see all your research PROVING that the FSM didn't create everything. I want to see it. In a bowl. With alfredo sauce."

First, cough up some grant money. Then I'll prove to you, that the FSM itself was in fact created by the evolutionary process of eggs falling in wheat fields, trampled and mixed together by dinosaurs, and rained on, trampled some more, squeezing this now biological goo through small holes in the earths crust, zapped by a freak lightening storm, becoming a living thing.

[SubGeniusX]

Theory of Relativity