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.
One problem is that some exponents of ID are simply taking up Darwin's wager, while others are adherents to Wilberforce's natural philosophy. Not many are "young earth" fundamentalists but some of their supporters seem to be. Many scientists who oppose ID seem unaware that this debate ever happened, or that they belong to a school of philosophy.
"When life begins (after conception)" is a fact of science related to biology.
When existence begins is asking "which came first the chicken or the egg".
Some have immediate practical concerns and some are rountable bullsh*t.
How much of what you learned in chemistry was theoretical?
Did they describe which elements came first in the big bang or did they stick to just the molecular structure?
Care to point to a public school library with a Bible? Seeing as how there are issues when students try to write papers on religious figures, I doubt that it is common in schools. Same with prayer groups.
Care to point to a public school library with a Bible?Most would have it. It's a bit difficult for me to point out a specific school sitting all the way over in Sweden, but I can however refer you to Roberts v. Madigan (1990) in which the judge deems removal of the Bible from the school library unconstitutional.
Snippet: “In this age of enlightenment, it is inconceivable that the Bible should be excluded from a school library. The Bible is regarded by many to be a major work of literature, history, ethics, theology and philosophy...”
In other words, he follows the traditional creationist playbook. I note that wideawake seems to be using approach "A" in response to your well-written post on why "IC" has fallen and it can't get up.
Thanks. I hadn't been following this thread, and I love to watch what happens when devotion to unreality is rewarded.
Anybody else see the irony?
No, because I actually understand the field, and know that what superficially appears to be an element of "ID", isn't (or at least needn't be in practice).
No it isn't, but thanks for playing.
When you ever learn the *actual* difference between theories and laws in science, get back to *us*.
Hint: Theories do not "graduate" to laws. They are two different kinds of description, and cover different regions of knowledge.
The following grossly oversimplifies things, but if it had to be reduced to a bumper-sticker sized description, it would be something like, "laws summarize *how* things behave, theories explain *why* they behave that way."
Indeed, and being "ill-defined" is a direct consequence of evolutionary change. If life had been "designed", on the other hand, one would expect a lot clearer delineation between "products".
Yet speciation is asserted.
Because it does occur.
Extinctions are asserted as a mechanism,
One of the mechanisms, yes -- are you trying to imply that extinctions *don't* actually occur?
yet we know mergers exist and are ignored.
Don't be ridiculous -- they are not "ignored". Where did you get such a false impression?
I'd bet the genetic algorithms Junior mentioned used mergers and extinctions.
Do you have a point here?
NS has a lack of results.
This claim of yours is utterly false. Where did you "learn" it, a creationist pamphlet? You certainly couldn't have gotten it from reading the primary scientific literature, since there is no "lack of results" there.
It does not produce like other UNDERPINNING theories.
Again, I have to wonder where you acquired such a bizarrely tranparent false belief.
We're teaching our kids crappy science,
Well someone's been teaching *you* a crappy distortion of the actual science, that's for sure.
Perhaps it's something like my experience with my nephews. Back when they were much younger, my wife and I were "babysitting" our two nephews while their mother was away for the day. At one point they began squabbling, as brothers will do, and one came running to us to try to get us to settle their dispute. My wife just told them both to knock it off and find a way to get along, "or else". One of the nephews began to complain that this wasn't fair, and began to tell his side of the story, so I told him one of the facts of life: "Boys, when it comes to childhood squabbles, the feeling of most adults is that we really don't care who might be right or wrong on a trivial matter that will be forgotten tomorrow anyway, we just want to the noise to stop."
I get the impression that the moderator had a similar attitude tonight. As long as blood's not being spilled, he expects people to work it out between themselves, or else he'll send *everyone* to their rooms to restore the peace.
If that's the case, I can't say that I blame them. The moderators probably have their hands full all the time just handling articles posted from "do not post" sources, gross obscenities, disruptors, trolls, racism, spam, mentions of illegal activity or threats of violence, and other such "critical response" items. I doubt they have much time or energy left to play referee on run-of-the-mill online disagreements, or because someone is offended by someone else, even when the offense is justified.
Fine. Then given the statement, "If I observed X, I would conclude that ID is wrong," what would X be?
That's because ID postulates two separate claims, one of which is not falsifiable and one of which is. It claims that there are biological structures that could not have evolved, and that is falsifiable. It also claims that there was an intelligent being that designed life. That is the claim that is not falsifiable.
What about him?
That's a new and enlightened attitude. The Mods used to take the Gary Larson "Lemmings on Vacation" approach.
For the unfortunates who don't know Larson, that approach would be, "Shut up or I'll drive this car off the next cliff."
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