You are indeed blessed.
Posted on 08/24/2005 6:51:49 AM PDT by Quick1
Topeka — From Darwin to intelligent design to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
The debate over teaching evolution in Kansas public schools has caught the attention of a cross-country Internet community of satirists.
In the past few weeks, hundreds of followers of the supreme Flying Spaghetti Monster have swamped state education officials with urgent e-mails.
They argue that since the conservative majority of the State Board of Education has blessed classroom science standards at the behest of intelligent design supporters, which criticize evolution, they want the gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster taught.
“I’m sure you realize how important it is that your students are taught this alternate theory,” writes Bobby Henderson, a Corvallis, Ore., resident whose Web site, www.venganza.org, is part FSM tribute and part job search. Karl Gehring/Journal-World Illustration
Karl Gehring/Journal-World Illustration
“It is absolutely imperative that they realize that observable evidence is at the discretion of a Flying Spaghetti Monster,” he wrote to the education board.
Henderson did not return a telephone call for comment. He says in his letter that it is disrespectful to teach about the FSM without wearing “full pirate regalia.”
Board member Bill Wagnon, a Democrat, whose district includes Lawrence, said he has received more than 500 e-mails from supporters of FSM.
“Clearly, these are just supreme satirists. What they are doing is pointing out that there is no more sense to intelligent design than there is to a Flying Spaghetti Monster,” Wagnon said.
Intelligent design posits that some aspects of biology are so complex, they point toward an intelligent creator.
ID proponents helped shepherd a report and hearings that have resulted in science standards that criticize evolution and have put Kansas in the middle of international attention on the subject.
John Calvert, of Lake Quivira, the lawyer who was instrumental in writing the science standards that criticize evolution, said he had seen the FSM e-mails, and was not impressed.
“You can only use that misinformation so long,” Calvert said. Calvert said the science standards do not promote intelligent design, but show that evolution has its critics.
Wagnon and the three other board members who support evolution have written Henderson back, saying they appreciated the comic relief but that they were saddened that the science standards were being changed to criticize evolution.
Of course the book isn't closed, but in order to open the book *in a science* class, you'd better bring some hard positive evidence. Simply saying 'the current hypothesis isn't 100% proven, therefore it must be wrong' won't cut it.
Tell you what, people...there is a gold-standard empirical proof. If I can eat the Spaghetti Monster and he can pass through my system in three days unchanged...nay, not unchanged, but resurrected, glorified, transfigured, I will believe. Otherwise, the F.S.M. will end up where all discredited myths inevitably end up...in the s**t.
You have an extremely low threshhold for what you consider "brilliance", apparently.
Show me the hypothesis for ID that is testable and falsifiable
Quite simple. ID hypothesizes that an irreducibly complex organ is not replicable through a random process of natural selection. Create such an organ in an organism which did not previously possess it in a lab through a randomized process and voila! You have tested ID and found that it can be falsified.
Ask The Imam: Does gravity exist or is it made up? Unknown, 2000-08-27
We do not understand your question as everything existing is made up.And Allah Ta'ala Knows Best
Mufti Ebrahim Desai
FATWA DEPT.
???
I hadn't brought conservatism up.
it is not your exclusive bailiwick and you give it a bad name
Conservatism will always have a bad name no matter how much spineless CINOs modify it to satisfy postmodernist cultural tastes.
I care more for truth that reputation.
Aha! It's no longer the Theory of Evolution; It's the Fact of Evolution.
True. Nor is nonscience a substitute for science.
Your side continues to lose ground in this debate partially because of the weakness of evolutionary theory and partially because of your childish attitude.
Evolutionary theory is backed with mountains of evidence. have you read or understood any of Ichneumon's posts? Here's a recent one. Does ID have anything but arguments from astonishment? They haven't shown up here. Has ID been expressed in scientific terms yet? (Is it capable of falsification? What does it predict, and where will it lead?) Thus far, ID backers have presented nothing even remotely resembling answers to either question to the debate followers here on FR.
The "childish attitude" you term a "bad joke" is an example of reductio ad absurdum, a technique used to discredit an argument by demonstrating that if followed to its logical conclusion it would end in absurdity. The specific example you cited illustrates that ID enthusiasts are attempting to use an entirely spurious "debate" on ID to get it into science class. To date, there has been no scientific debate, only a debate between those who understand science and those who don't.
Why are scientists so sure of the origins of life when they cannot even "determine" when life begins after a child is conceived?
Certainly there are enough case studies possible that such a determination should be able to be reached.
There are those who say that "when life begins" should be left up to each state. THAT'S bad science.
You should be pointed out that almost ALL evolutionists, on this thread or off this thread are WRONG.
They are not even getting the name of the debate correctly. They are not Evolutionists, but NS supporters. Or Lamarkians. Or whatever. If "Scientists" can't even get the title of the debate right, how can they proclaim anything is true.
IDer's are arguing over the evidence, lack of it, and poor science.
Evolutionists have constantly overstepped the utility of NS. The Texas prof that would not recommend a Med Student if they did not agree to Evolution (NS)...moronic dogma. Teachers in HS that proclaim to kids that their parents are stupid for their religious beliefs...sure helps with the debate. There are many examples, but we've heard them ad nauseum.
This thread is a perfect example. Let's make fun of religious people, and then scratch our heads when they go to school boards and make demands, or elect ones that fit in with their religion.
Of course anyone that would worship a limp noodle, when the beautiful spirals of Rontini are available, would worship anything.
Of course, the FSM is satire. Sure.
DK
The evolutionists were angry to have "this is a theory" pasted on textbooks.
You are indeed blessed.
Semantics, semantics....Wideawake used a lower case "t". There's a huge difference between "Theory" and "theory".
You're not proposing schism are you?!?
Thou shalt put no other noodle before him.
"Quite simple. ID hypothesizes that an irreducibly complex organ is not replicable through a random process of natural selection. Create such an organ in an organism which did not previously possess it in a lab through a randomized process and voila! You have tested ID and found that it can be falsified.
Wrong. The theory of evolution already falsified your conjecture, before it was announced.
Your irreducible complexity is hand waiving, accompanied by simplistic and erroneous models. The IC model itself is junk that results in a calculation that says the model itself is junk.
"The designer is not necessarily God according to the Judaeo-Christian definition, for example."
Who then?
They are strictly a sect, late comer's to the Pasta Pantheon. Giver of pain and pleasure indeed. They do not compare to Rotini. Apply some holy oil (extra virgin of course), vineagars of Balsam with an offering of sundried tomatoes and pesto...how can they compare.
DK
Always happens when comparing apples and oranges..
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