Dec 30 2005
Behold His Noodly Appendage!
I’m probably(as always) behind the times here, but have you heard about the Flying Spaghetti Monster? This is a real hoot, a creation of Oregon resident Bobby Henderson, in response to the current so-called intelligent design idiocy that the nation is currently dealing with(one of many).
He espouses another alternative ID theory, that the world was created by the aforementioned FSM. He’s gone so far as to write to members of the reality-challenged Kansas school board(the ones that are putting ID in the public schools now, ensuring that no Kansas high shool graduate will ever go to M.I.T. or Yale). In his letter, he threatens legal action if FSMID(Flying Spaghetti Monster Intelligent Design) isn’t taught alongside evolution and that other ID theory. Apparently this is more well known than I thought, it even got a mention on CNN. The funniest thing about the site is the ‘hate mail’ page. Some of the insanity includes many letters from Christians speaking of bad things they’d like to do to Mr. Henderson that are decidedly un-Christian(or maybe not, there was that little Inquisition thing a while back). There’s also quite a few from people that really believe that this is all for real. Their intelligence is astounding. Is ‘ur’ some hip new red state way of spelling ‘you’re’?
As one who closely follows the doings of good ol’ Christian wingnuttery, I’ve been following the ID debacle quite closely. Not like you’d care, but I even wrote a paper on it for my class last semester. It is truly amazing how little that people understand science. This has many angles, of course. I feel scientists could do a much better job of explaining science(and the scientific method in particular) to Joe Six-pack. It’s not an easy task, because it requires a bit of an attention span-maybe if they could somehow ’sex it up’ and put some boobs on it, it would finally get to the masses.
But it’s not so simple. For example, let’s look at the ‘Daubert Criteria’(thanks to Wikipedia):
In its 1993 Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals opinion, the United States Supreme Court articulated a set of criteria for the admissibility of scientific expert testimony, in effect developing their own demarcation criteria. The Daubert Standard governs which evidence can be considered scientific in United States federal courts and most state courts. The four Daubert criteria are:
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The theoretical underpinnings of the methods must yield testable predictions by means of which the theory could be falsified.
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The methods should preferably be published in a peer-reviewed journal.
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There should be a known rate of error that can be used in evaluating the results.
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The methods should be generally accepted within the relevant scientific community.
Ok, I’m sure you got the gist of that, now can you think of a way to put that in a CNN blurb that can get the point across in just a few minutes? See what I mean? That’s part of the problem.
Of course, when one is guided by faith, especially that of one who believes the Bible is the infallible word of God, and to be made aware of and to have one’s children be taught something that shakes the core of their worldview and belief system is not an easy thing to deal with, and were I on that side of the fence, I would be doing the same thing. However, as much as I understand it, I am by no means sympathetic; no one is forcing them to hold onto their anachronistic belief system. They cross the line when they try to force something faith-based into the world of the fact-based, in order to justify their beliefs.
Scientists can and should do more to make science more accessible to the public. They are never going to be able to convince the fundamentalists. They don’t require ‘evidence’ to believe what they believe, so the presentation of more evidence will not change anything.
There’s been a major victory for reason though. The Dover, Pennsylvania ID case has been ruled unconstitutional. Although it’s a bit lengthy, I highly recommend reading the ruling by federal judge John Jones. You can read it here. Let’s just say, he gives us one of those ‘he says what we all aready know and have been thinking since this whole thing started’ moments:
‘In summary, the disclaimer singles out the theory of evolution for special treatment, misrepresents its status in the scientific community, causes students to doubt its validity without scientific justification, presents students with a religious alternative masquerading as a scientific theory, directs them to consult a creationist text as though it were a science resource, and instructs students to forego scientific inquiry in the public school classroom and instead to seek out religious instructions elsewhere.’ (p. 49)
‘After a searching review of the record and applicable case law, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking an permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed an illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980’s; and (3) ID’s negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. As we will discuss in more detail below, it is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research. (p. 64)
And what he says about the board member ringleaders:
Finally, although Buckingham, Bonsell, and other defense witnesses denied the reports in the news media and contradicted the great weight of the evidence about what transpired at the June 2004 Board meetings, the record reflects that these witnesses either testified inconsistently, or lied outright under oath on several occasions, and are accordingly not credible on these points. (p. 105)
and with a sharp uppercut to the jaw:
As we will discuss in more detail below, the inescapable truth is that both Bonsell and Buckingham lied at their January 3, 2005 depositions about their knowledge of the source of the donation for Pandas, which likely contributed to Plaintiffs’ election not to seek a temporary restraining order at that time based upon a conflicting and incomplete factual record. This mendacity was a clear and deliberate attempt to hide the source of the donations by the Board President and the Chair of the Curriculum Committee to further ensure that Dover students received a creationist alternative to Darwin’s theory of evolution. We are accordingly presented with further compelling evidence that Bonsell and Buckingham sought to conceal the blatantly religious purpose behind the ID policy. (p. 115)
The people of Dover are quite pissed about being the laughingstock of the nation(well, actually that would be Dubya, but he’s getting so dangerous it’s not so funny anymore). An op-ed in one of their newspaper even hoped that perjury charges would be filed against the board members.
ID proponents remind me of the hardcore Bushevik supporters; they keep citing the same old discredited shit and hope you won’t notice. A day or two before the ruling, a writer to my local paper was citing the whole much-discredited Michael Behe irreduccible complexity crap. And there are still WMD’s in Iraq… and O.J. is still looking for the real killers.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster might be getting some competition…
Coming up….
The Musical Saga of John D. Ryan
and…
Is it time to take the gloves off when confronted with irrational belief systems in regards to public issues?
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