Repent Sinners: The line for the Beer Volcano forms in Heaven (pt 1 of 5)
One year ago I encountered something that would change every aspect of my life. I haven't spoken of it in any detail until now, as I was a bit overwhelmed by it's greatness. And having no idea how to convey this feeling, I decided to start out with a short history lesson before getting into the awesome bits.
The year was 2005 and the "theory" of Evolution was being attacked in the state of Kansas. It's opponent was a little known religious theory called Intelligent Design, and the battleground was the Kansas Board of Education.
For those of you that don't know, Intelligent Design was created only a few years earlier by the conservative Christian think tank The Discovery Institute. And by created I mean plagerized, from the intial theories of Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, William Paley, and other original thinkers. Some of whom thought God was a man who lived on a mountain, threw thunderbolts when he was angry, and had women fuck cattle for shits and giggles. Now Intelligent Design was created primarily to be a wedge argument against Evolutionary Theory, as a way to slip Creationism into school curriculum. To put it simply, Intelligent Design proposed that and intelligent being created everything in the Universe.
But the real genius of this "theory" was in it's marketing. Fueled by the success of Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution by Michael Behe and published in 1996, a grassroots campaign began touting Behe's hypothesis of Irreducible Complexity (IC is when a single system of well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherin the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. Behe commonly uses the bacterial flagellum as an example, while William Paley used a watch for the same argument 200 years earlier.) as proof that their were numerous holes in Evolutionary Theory. Soon claims of vast "gaps" in the fossil record appeared, as well as claims that their wasn't a single example of a transitional fossil or species, and that Evolution was "only" a theory all were commonly heard arguments. But when they were largely ignored by the scientific community due to their sheer innacuracy, gave way to even more grandiose statements such as Evolutionary Theory had no scientific foundation and that it was purely a matter of faith taught the atheistic scientific community. Even pseudo-intellectual, and possible space alien, Ann Coulter made a recent televised claim that "There is zero evidence for Evolution."
On top of these outright false claims, ID proponents did an excellent job of portraying themselves to the general public as being on equal ground with Evolutionary Theorists within the scientific community. They refused to participate in discussions, panels, or TV interviews unless they were allowed the same number of panelists and time asto speak as Evolutionary Theorists. It was a subtle but highly effective way of implying that their were as many ID proponents as Evolution proponents. ID'ers simply had one goal, to give the impression that their really was a controversy, where none existed, and somewhere along the line the American public bought into their rhetoric, as the American public is prone to do. And with that cloud of doubt firmly seeded, Intelligent Design made it's move not only in Kansas, but on school boards across the country.
The Discovery Institutes' goals were fairly obvious, create a wedge argument using Irreducible Complexity and other scientific sounding jargon as a means to falsely show holes in Evolutionary Theory, then supply ID as merely an alternative "theory". The key to this whole plan, was to make people think choice, rather than fact, was the ultimate goal to teaching.
But there was a hole in this approach. By using Intelligent Design as merely a wedge argument, it didn't open any avenues in which Intelligent Design could be tested or peer reviewed, much less proven. All of these being requirements for any hypothesis to be considered scientific in nature. So the ambiguous nature which was so effective in altering public perception, not only made it's alterior motives plainly obvious, but brought about it's eventual downfall.
But this battle also opened up the doorway for a true education champion to emerge. One independent of both Evolutionists and Intelligent Design proponents. This champion was the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
To be continued one week from today, or whenever I feel like getting to it. Whichever comes last.
The year was 2005 and the "theory" of Evolution was being attacked in the state of Kansas. It's opponent was a little known religious theory called Intelligent Design, and the battleground was the Kansas Board of Education.
For those of you that don't know, Intelligent Design was created only a few years earlier by the conservative Christian think tank The Discovery Institute. And by created I mean plagerized, from the intial theories of Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, William Paley, and other original thinkers. Some of whom thought God was a man who lived on a mountain, threw thunderbolts when he was angry, and had women fuck cattle for shits and giggles. Now Intelligent Design was created primarily to be a wedge argument against Evolutionary Theory, as a way to slip Creationism into school curriculum. To put it simply, Intelligent Design proposed that and intelligent being created everything in the Universe.
But the real genius of this "theory" was in it's marketing. Fueled by the success of Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution by Michael Behe and published in 1996, a grassroots campaign began touting Behe's hypothesis of Irreducible Complexity (IC is when a single system of well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherin the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. Behe commonly uses the bacterial flagellum as an example, while William Paley used a watch for the same argument 200 years earlier.) as proof that their were numerous holes in Evolutionary Theory. Soon claims of vast "gaps" in the fossil record appeared, as well as claims that their wasn't a single example of a transitional fossil or species, and that Evolution was "only" a theory all were commonly heard arguments. But when they were largely ignored by the scientific community due to their sheer innacuracy, gave way to even more grandiose statements such as Evolutionary Theory had no scientific foundation and that it was purely a matter of faith taught the atheistic scientific community. Even pseudo-intellectual, and possible space alien, Ann Coulter made a recent televised claim that "There is zero evidence for Evolution."
On top of these outright false claims, ID proponents did an excellent job of portraying themselves to the general public as being on equal ground with Evolutionary Theorists within the scientific community. They refused to participate in discussions, panels, or TV interviews unless they were allowed the same number of panelists and time asto speak as Evolutionary Theorists. It was a subtle but highly effective way of implying that their were as many ID proponents as Evolution proponents. ID'ers simply had one goal, to give the impression that their really was a controversy, where none existed, and somewhere along the line the American public bought into their rhetoric, as the American public is prone to do. And with that cloud of doubt firmly seeded, Intelligent Design made it's move not only in Kansas, but on school boards across the country.
The Discovery Institutes' goals were fairly obvious, create a wedge argument using Irreducible Complexity and other scientific sounding jargon as a means to falsely show holes in Evolutionary Theory, then supply ID as merely an alternative "theory". The key to this whole plan, was to make people think choice, rather than fact, was the ultimate goal to teaching.
But there was a hole in this approach. By using Intelligent Design as merely a wedge argument, it didn't open any avenues in which Intelligent Design could be tested or peer reviewed, much less proven. All of these being requirements for any hypothesis to be considered scientific in nature. So the ambiguous nature which was so effective in altering public perception, not only made it's alterior motives plainly obvious, but brought about it's eventual downfall.
But this battle also opened up the doorway for a true education champion to emerge. One independent of both Evolutionists and Intelligent Design proponents. This champion was the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
To be continued one week from today, or whenever I feel like getting to it. Whichever comes last.