Wherein I take out my disgust with humanity on my friends list.

[thez]

Okay, QUICK QUESTION HERE: is there anyone, ANYONE reading this now that has trouble understanding why creationism should not be taught in science class?

Because apparently, there are a lot of people in this country who DONow, my FL is filled with delightfully cool and smart people, but humor me and let me break it down for the imaginary fucktards

Comments

[shinikius]

who considers Creationism a science? I don't think I know anyone besides some supreme right wing Christians who would. I've always considered it a theory which would hence classify it as a philosophy not even a religion per say.

But like you said, people are indeed so very stupid.

[thez]

A disturbingly large number of people consider it a science. Read the article.

On second thought, don't. You're already ill. There's no need to aggrivate your condition.

[foofasaurus]

Maaaan, I've been seething over this, myself. It was the first time I'd heard that 'Intelligent Design' is supposed to be science now. Do you happen to know how the HELL they rationalize that? I'd look into it, but I've the feeling it'll make my brain go SPANG.

[thez]

I have NO IDEA how they rationalize it, but I have a feeling that it's like asking how the kids of iusedtobelieve.com came up with their crazy ideas. Of course, in the case of the Intelligent design proponents, the whole thing is far less charming.

[foofasaurus]

You know, I'm half certain that it wasn't even about them actually believing it. It was about wanting something -- in this case, creationism being taught in public schools -- and not being able to get it their way, so they decided 'what the hell, let's do it their way' ... and in the process lost sight of some pretty fundemental and important principles of their side.

[orangutan]

What annoys me most is . . . LOOK. In theory, one of the most important purposes of science class is to teach children the scientific method, which AS IT SO HAPPENS has that little cavaet "Don't make your evidence fit the theory, make the theory fit the evidence."

Intelligent design? So totally a bad, bad case of the latter. (Old-school Creationism at least has the decency to not hide religion behind a thin veneer of carefully selected facts - they just go straight at it and say "Genesis is true" which is, comparatively, delightfully straightforward.) Teaching it to kids undermines the scientific principles they are meant to be learning, and puts the whole damn system out of whack.

[thez]

"Old-school Creationism"? Hee, I like that phrase.

Anyway, I agree with that sentiment there. Intelligent Design really pushes my buttons even when not in the context of whether or not it should be taught in schools because faith is about feeling, not proof. I have far more respect for the Creationist who says "I believe this because I feel that it's the truth."

[foofasaurus]

The article I read earlier when I first heard about this broohaha was really quite proud of declaring Intelligent Design as not being about faith. It was a very "no, we think faith is silly too, honest! here, have some made-up facts!" And that, right there, lost my respect for the movement.

Way to forget that faith isn't a bad thing, assholes. I'm sure your God of choice would be really impressed that you, in fact, turned your back on faith and demanded 'scientific' proof of something that (at least in theory) shouldn't *have* to be proven.

... I don't want them teaching that kind of attitude to kids, religion or no religion. Principles, dude.

Pointless political rant

[ilyag]

The policies of this country are determined by individuals who the general, often-uneducated population select based on how closely the person agrees with their often-uneducated opinions. There are NO academicians in any section of a democratic government, there never have been, and there never will be.

Those who don't know are the ones who set the policies, those who know are the ones who can only complain. When they complain, the policy-makers get offended and resort to insults. Thus there is, always has been, and always will be a general dislike of academicians in all democratic governments.

There's a slightly more dangerous point to be made, however: The American public school system is one of the worst among the civilized industrial nations. This breeds ignorance among the population, which perpetuates the distrust of academicians and elections of increasingly incompetant politicians, and the result is a slow but steady downward spiral of society.

[thez]

So you feel like shouting too, huh?

(Pointless rants are the meat of LiveJournal.)

[neherenia]

Z, I think you will feel much better once you have been touched by His Noodly Appendage.

http://www.venganza.org/

(totally work-safe, totally enlightening!)

[thez]

!!!

Cannot find server! :(

[neherenia]

You'll be missing a lot of the graphs and other important empirical evidence, but you can at least experience the rest of it. http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:aRW6p2mQDDwJ:www.venganza.org/+pastafarianism&hl=en

Hopefully the site comes back soon; they probably had a power outage or something.