In which I ramble, or in other words: a regular day

[stoney321]

First, Happy Birthday to my big sis, beadbeauty who is way old today. (HAHAHA. Seriously, though, Tiff: science is coming up with all sorts of ways to reverse the horrors of the aging process, so buck up, little camper. Good thing you sell that skin cream, huh?) Note to readers: she's only 22 months older than me, so I'm being facetious.

Also, I meant to post about this the other day, but I'm a spazz. There was an AWESOME NOVA program on PBS (our public broadcast channel, for those out of the US, and you can watch it online) about putting "Intelligent Design" on trial. Hooo boy, not much makes me crazier than people trying to pass off their religious beliefs as science. What it is that bothers me specifically is how much of a bully tactic "ID" is: it's clearly one loud group's version of the "creation" story. Where's the equal time for the other creation stories? Thor? Ra? Muhammed? The Sun God and the Spider Woman? Pang Gu inside the Big Black Egg? (Yes, I studied my Joseph Campbell.) And why not have all Christian faiths represented, not just Southern Born Agains' version? Ridiculous.

Oh, also? It's SCIENCE class. If you want to teach your kids a mythological story about some supernatural being grabbing clay and making us to look like him (I always think of that Far Side cartoon with God making snakes by rolling clay in his hands. "These are a cinch!" Heeee!), or whatever your religion's creation story is, then teach your kids that AT HOME and AT CHURCH. Public school is not the place for indoctrination. Believe what you want, just... keep it out of our public schools. Before I log out to get back to my word count (20,843 so far, eeep) I'll leave you with a reminder of how far we've come in the world of science... Hahahaha.

Comments

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

Wasn't that NOVA special awesome? I mean, they even went with a whole Law & Order theme (which made me go AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!).

It had everything. Misuse of actual scientific papers (and how much did some of those clinical paper authors want to cut a bitch). Plagiarism. Incompetent search and replace from creationism to intelligent design in the "linking fossil" (AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!) between draft cycles. Packing a flier in with the Of Pandas and People textbooks stating that it was religious material.

Plus: Lying! Videotape! Circular firing squads from the intelligent design camp! Threats of violence! Threats of divine retribution! Actual family fracturing! With Special Guest Commentary by Darwin's Great-Great-Great Grandson!

Plus, admission on the stand that in the intelligent design/creationist view, astrology could be considered a science.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!

The only thing missing was the sex! (WOO-HOO!)

I was following the Dover case at the time over on Pharyngula (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/), and at the time it seemed like the creationists came across as hopelessly incompetent in defending themselves as something other than religious dogma. I put it down to "observer bias" because, Lord, I didn't think it was possible for the "ID people" to be that clueless.

As it turns out, Pharyngula (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/) understated their incompetence, really.

Plus, the ninth-grade-level discussion of evolutionary theory, biology, microbiology, genetics, and paleontology was mad cool.

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

Oh my goodness, the ineptness of the group trying to get that "Of Pandas and People" book. I laughed when I saw that flier that claimed it was religious. I loved the school teacher's dry face upon finding that. "This pretty much says it all."

However, I was very disturbed by that professor at Berkley with his "Wedge" theory. People like that - bull-headed, one-track mind bullies with an agenda - upset me with their lack of regard for anyone else's thoughts.

And Charles' Darwin's ancestor! That was just too delicious. Oh man, I forgot about how Astrology falls under the category of science by the ID definition... WHAT A BLOW!

[copykween.livejournal.com]

LOL. Sounds like a WONDERFUL trufax documentary right there! Dern, too bad I missed it!

In completele agreement with no church in the classroom. And to everything else you said.

LMAO @ The Far Side.

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

Oh, so you know, that link up there to PBS has a viewable online version of the program, if you find yourself with an hour and a half to kill. :D

[julia-here.livejournal.com]

Gary Larson was heavily influenced by one of my favorite teachers, Grover Krantz; I ended up drinking red wine out of a human skull with both of them, once, which falsely indicates that I am a much more interesting person than is, in fact, the case.

The amount of bad thinking used to reconcile Genesis 1&2 with observable reality makes me seasick. (Actually, the first 50% of the bad thinking goes to ignoring the internal contradictions in the first two chapters of Genesis, but who's counting?) The way the Discovery Institute has taken the well-documented and geologically important phenomenon of the Missoula Flood to its breast while ignoring the quarter-mile of stratified shield basalts, each with evidence of erosion and soil formation atop, over which that flood burst forth, is all the evidence of guilt I need.

Julia, why new-earth creationism is so important to the political right doesn't bear close examination because of the danger of destroying one's remnant scraps of respecrt for humans.

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

And I believe during the Dover, PA trial was when the huge dig in Canada showed WITHOUT A DOUBT the evolutionary chain of the Cambrian explosion of species. Oh, sweet sweet science, how I love you.

You've met (and drank wine out of a skull with) Gary Larson? That's very cool. I think The Far Side is one of the best cartoons/comics ever created. It's STILL funny, and some of them still lay me down, laughing.

[julia-here.livejournal.com]

This was in 1977, so long ago, before he had hit big- he was in Pullman, visiting Grover for whatever reason; I think it may have had to do with exhuming an Irish Wolfhound and cleaning the skull for display. Physical Anthropologists have very special tastes.

I knew Lynda Barry and Matt Groening much more closely, since they were at TESC when I had a boyfriend there who worked with them. Says something about my place in the grand scheme of things that I have tenuous social connections with a bunch of cartoonists.

Julia, mostly unconnected

[lynnenne]

They're all liars. I created the universe five minutes ago, and all of you are my little sockpuppets with fake memories. I insist they teach this theory in school as creation science!

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

Liar. Everyone knows The Church of the Flying Spagetti Monster is the one true faith.

[diachrony.livejournal.com]

Heathens. The One True Church is that of the Invisible Pink Unicorn (blessed be her holy hooves)!

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

Repent or you will wound in a hell where you have alfredo sauce but no linguine and meatballs with no spagetti. Also known as the land of the South Beach Diet.

[lynnenne]

Hahahahahahahaha. In lieu of a Spagetti Monster muppet, I present you with a puppet!Angel icon.

Wait! It just occurred to me. Joss is god! We should be teaching about HIM in schools!

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

Ack! You're right.

Forgive me Joss for being a blasphemer.

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

Um, I think you're confusing the new translation (in simple English so more people can have access to The Truth) with the parts left out of the original, Lauralonian translation, which states clearly that life began on my birthday in 1972.

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

I'm reform myself.

We believe that spirals are a viable alternative to macaroni.

[lynnenne]

Lauralonian

*snort*

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

This whole country seems more and more to believe in half truths and fake science. Evolution is one of the more obvious showdowns but rational thought seems to be getting short thrift in many areas.

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

Rational thought - wherefore art thou, Rational Thought?

I mean, I thought most Southern Christian faiths (as they seem to be the ones pushing an agenda on the rest of us) had reconciled the Genesis story with science years ago? Faith = faith. Science = science. A =/= B.

[tabaqui]

Yaargh. I saw some of that last night, before cold meds made me pass out. The utter idiocy of the ID people just boggles me. What boggles me even more is their insistence that *their* religion be in the schools, and that if it's not it's a huge conspiracy, and oppression, blah blah, but if someone tried to put pagan or Buddhist or Jewish or any *other* religious beliefs into the curriculum, they would about die of hysterics.

Hypocritical idjits.

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

*refills your humidifier*

Oh, you're exactly right! It would be AWESOME to see a Muslim group say, "Fine, you can have your ID/Christian text book, and we want - because equality, etc. - to have the Koran and our Creation story in textbook form as well."

*G*

[anelith.livejournal.com]

Waaah?!! We missed such a fantastic show?!! I am going to immediately hie me to the Tivo to see if it will repeat. Yes, I know we can watch it online, but having four of us crowded around the little computer monitor will not be fun. Well, I say four, but Nathan might not be all that interested... ANYWAY, thanks for the heads up!

(while I'm there, I'm going to set up to record Pushing Daisies too!)

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

I KNEW you would be interested in it. Anne, it was WONDERFUL. ALl of the scientists appeared to be truly baffled that the ENORMOUS amount of facts/data that support the theory (and from almost every branch of science from archeology to molecular chemistry!) was being challenged by such linear-thinking ding dongs.

(Yay! Let me know if you're as taken with it as the Mister and I are!)

[dovil.livejournal.com]

My favourite one was a creationist came to our school and told us that evolution couldn't be true because the Bombadier Beetle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_beetle would explode as it was being 'evolved'. I suppose it would be wrong to yell 'Jesus Christ' at such stupidity, but at least it would be kind of apt.

We also had someone come in to our school when we were being taught evolution in high school, but this is the same school that had a fundo headmaster who got in the evangilists to come speak at our school assemblies. Then, and this is at an all girls school, would make us do a uniform expection where we had to go up on the stage and walk past him and he'd check our skirt lengths.

EWWWWWWWWWW!

[dovil.livejournal.com]

Uniform INSPECTION.

ME NO SPEAK ENGLISH!

[entrenous88.livejournal.com]

Hi! I am all for teaching the earth borne on the back of the turtle creation story.

I hope your writing continues well tonight! I am all fuzzy-headed, and may go to bed soon, so I think I am done with my some-hundred words (too lazy to find the site and count the words right now, which is very lazy indeed).

[draconin.livejournal.com]

This is an incredibly interesting program and thank you for pointing it out. ID is fortunately not an issue in Australia as religion here does not have quite the degree of fundamentalism that it increasingly seems to in the US. However, I have had people raise ID with me sometimes and it's nice to have the ammunition to be able to answer thoroughly.