Intelligent Design

Ben Stein has a new movie out: Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. The film is a documentary about how intelligent design is pushed out of classrooms by “a new anti-religious dogmatism” where “scientists and educators are not allowed to even think thoughts that involve an intelligent creator.” Reread that so you get the full effect. These are the producers of the film telling us, in their own words, that anti-religious dogma is controlling what educators are allowed to think. I thought Ben Stein was supposed to be intelligent... Kinda makes you long for the days of Ferris Bueller, doesn’t it?

The thing is, the film is not actually a documentary; it is merely creationist propaganda masquerading as debate. When you have proponents of evolution speaking as a montage of Nazi propaganda footage rolls in the background, something is amiss. Call me crazy, but I’m pretty sure if I played an address from the Pope over footage of Hitler, people would accuse me of being anti-Catholic... a little discretion, that’s all I ask.

The creationist propaganda has two key problems with evolution. First, they decry evolution as “just a theory.” Second, they argue that since evolution can’t prove where life originated, it should not be taught. While these complaints are patently absurd to begin with, I’m going to give them more attention than they deserve and respond to them, because dammit, this nonsense needs to stop.

First point: evolution is just a theory. True! Score one for the creationists! The problem with this claim is that we also base a whole lot of science class around some other theories; gravitational theory for example. Yes, gravity is a theory too. Or atomic theory. It’s just a theory, same as evolution. According to proponents of ID, we should stop teaching children about gravity, or that matter is made from atoms. The name of the game is consistency; you can’t have it both ways.

The key problem stems from a misunderstanding about the word theory. When proponents of ID hear the word theory, they assume the colloquial meaning, like when you go out drinking and come up with your theory of why women act the way they do. But a scientific theory is another matter entirely; a scientific theory is based around observations and data, which you use to formulate a hypothesis, which is then tested in controlled experiments until a theory can be written in a manner that is falsifiable (this simply means that someone can come along later and test your claims and disprove them; nothing is ever “proven” in science). The “theory” of intelligent design is based around the idea that there is a God, and this immediately makes it non-falsifiable, as it is impossible to test for the presence of the divine. Thus, it is not a scientific theory, and has no basis in a science class.

Point number two: evolution can not prove where life originated. True! They’re batting a thousand... but then again, evolution doesn’t claim to answer where life originated. You can’t argue that a theory is invalid because it doesn’t address something it never intended to. That’s like saying gravitational theory is nonsense because it doesn’t explain why water feels wet, or the theory of relativity is bunk because it doesn’t tell you why alcoholism runs in your family. Just because you think evolution should address the origins of life does not mean it will.

Evolution does not seek to answer the question “Where did life start?” It seeks to answer the question “Why is life so diverse?” We could have a world with only one species in it, and that lone species would be life. But there are millions and millions of species, of all shapes and sizes, in all environments around the planet. Evolution explains how that happened. And it does a pretty damn good job of it too; evolution is the most tested theory in the history of science. And, through all these tests, evolution has not been disproved in a single peer-reviewed study. Not a single one. That seems like a pretty solid foundation to work from to me.

So there’s absolutely no reason to teach intelligent design alongside evolution. Teach it in religion class with the other fairy tales. But secretly, I hope these ID proponents are right, at least in some way. I hope there is a God; a good, Christian God. I hope that these ID theorists all die (I’m not advocating violence here, but I’m not shedding a tear when these folks pass), and they ascend to Heaven. And they see St. Peter at the pearly gates, and walk up to him. And he greets them and welcomes them to Heaven. And then he says, “You’re the intelligent design guys, right? I have a letter here from God for you. Allow me to read it to you:

Dear sirs,

In the beginning, I created the Heavens and the Earth. And it was good, but a bit dull. So I added life. And yes, it was me, none of that “lightning hitting a mud puddle...” seriously, who would believe that nonsense? And I saw that life was good, but after a few hundred million years I got bored with the same 5 microbes swimming around doing nothing. So I came up with a plan; a wonderful genius idea, the likes of which the world had never seen.

What if I made it so that, every now and then, a mutation would occur in an organism? These mutations would be random; some might be horrible, and lead to the death of that individual. But occasionally a mutation might prove useful. This mutation may make the organism more likely to survive, more likely to reproduce, to pass the mutated genes down to the next generation. And these mutations, if they helped an organism survive and reproduce, could get passed on, and spread, and lead to new adaptations, to entirely new species. Life could evolve.

I put my plan into action and I watched life explode. New species were popping up right and left. Most were worthless. Some were grand. I watched the dinosaurs tear shit up for hundreds of millions of years. Then they died off, but some mutated and became birds. I watched the rise of the mammals. I watched the apes leave the trees, set off across the plains. I watched natural selection in action as it led to the evolution of larger brains. I watched these apes develop intellect, and I wept. Finally, a species that could understand the brilliance of my grand design! I decided to give them souls — yes, I did indeed do that — so they could join me in Heaven and I could converse with them about the glory of the world that I had created and let lie, the dynamic evolution of life itself that led to their very being.

And now you assholes are running around fucking my shit up! Evolution was the single greatest miracle I ever performed! And don’t give me that virgin birth shit; Jesus is Joseph’s son. Don’t get me wrong, he was a great man, and I love him, but you’re running around claiming I coveted some carpenter’s wife, well that’s just not true. And now you’re spreading this bullshit about how my greatest miracle is a lie! Fuck you, you arrogant asshole cocksucker pricks! You make it sound like I just snap my fingers, *poof*, there’s a camel... Life doesn’t work that way! You do your part to make millions of people believe in a fucking lie over the grandeur of what billions of years of glorious circumstance has led to, all according to a process of my design... Well, I guess you’ll have plenty of time to think things over while you’re burning in Hell for all eternity! Oh, that’s right! You ain’t getting into Heaven bitches! Maybe you can “intelligently design” a way in... but I fucking doubt it!

In closing, fuck you, yada yada yada,
God

Wouldn’t that be grand?

Speaking of grand, now that Grand Theft Auto IV is out, I’m never writing another word ever. This game is just tits! As of this moment, it is the number one best reviewed game of all time according to both GameRankings and MetaCritic. Fucking A.