I have been upset of late with leading politicians who have made statements supporting the teaching of intelligent design in schools. (Note, some humorous stuff further down).
Intelligent design is a somewhat clever conspiracy, a manufactured campaign funded by some wealthy conservatives, to undermine the teaching of science and the separation of church and state. And now President Bush, Senator Frist, and Senator McCain have all made irresponsible statements giving support to this pseudoscientific claptrap. I have wanted to write something useful on the subject, but I have been thinking about it a little too seriously and frankly it is a really a waste of time to argue about it.
Fortunately, I have run across a few people who have taken on the subject in ways that I appreciate.
For one, Bill Maher, on August 19, 2005 from his show real time said:
“New Rule: You don't have to teach both sides of a debate, if one side is a load of crap”
”…And the reason there is no real debate, is that intelligent design isn't real science. It's the equivalent of saying that the thermos keeps hot things hot and cold things cold, because it's a god.”
And America’s finest news source (outside of the Daily Show), The Onion, reported on a similar development in another branch of science “ Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory” (Note: please do not spend any time thinking that this is a serious article—my wife started to get irate when for a few paragraphs she thought it was true.)
And finally, you simply cannot spend enough time learning about the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. If intelligent design is to be taught in the schools, then so ought the spaghetti monster theory. I think I’ll order a t-shirt. Thanks to Mike Sager for pointing out this delicious theory.