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.
Since the whole point of the experiment is to demonstrate that the complexity is in fact reducible, there is no need to try again.
Puleese!
The big enders and little enders fought over eggs. Though I don't agree with their view, I do recognize the importance of the Egg, and their struggle. We're talking about Gnocchics...flour and potatoes. It is strictly a substitute religion. Sure it can taste good for a while, but that's the evil of it. It takes good people away from real noodles.
And it's French.
DK
That can be shown by simply describing simpler subelements, without the need for any experiment.
Hardly. Evolution has not been replicated in an experimental setting either before or after ID.
Who then?
Some intelligence which, while unable to create matter ex nihilo, is able to manipulate it subtly enough to create living things.
Like the Demiurge of the Gnostics, for example. Or the Satan of the Albigensian Cathars.
Sorry. Too many experiments on drug-resistance in microorganisms, etc, give the lie to that sound bite.
Our emmisary has already been there, along with many other pastafarians. An upstart from a food fight could hardly compete with Magi bearing sugar, butter and the most precious tiny marshmallows.
And we competed successfully with Popeye. Olive Oyl helped as she was an extra virgin convert to Rotini.
DK
Sounds like the ID folks.
Some say that nonbelievers can convert in the after life. The great collander strains true.
DK
Really? How many of these microorganisms became different species in response to drugs?
What, another snarky comment devoid of rational argument?
Keep proving my point.
What is the definition of species for germs?
DK
Really? Most problems with evolution evaporate when one actually knows the evidence available.
Not it isn't. How would it be falsified? What tests could you run on it? What predictions does it make?
Shouldn't that guy be a midget?
You miss the point.
The insinuation is that the designer which ID postulates is simply identical with the personal God of the ancient Hebrews described in Genesis.
That is simply not so.
The Elohim of Genesis could fit the bill, but another entity which does not share all his attributes (like omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, etc.) could also fit the bill.
ID postulates an intelligence or intelligences - not a specific one.
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