Moonage SpaceDream

My buddy over at BadAstronomy just absolutely goes bonkers over the intelligent design argument.  Now, I know some scientists.  I don’t really know him, we just disagree on some things occasionally.  However, he seems to be handling this issue as most scientists would, especially those that try to mathematically calculate how far it is to something that existed millions of years ago and isn’t now what it was when they saw it.  In other words, they try to argue this issue logically.  Now, given the somewhat unfounded nature of intelligent design, it would take someone who believes a non-physical entity that has existed millions of years and is now what it was then even though no one has ever seen it to believe in it.  So, it kind of struck me as odd that astronomers particularly would be so down on it from the beginning.  However, apparently some others are seeing the issue as I have figured it for a long time.  Quit fighting with them.  That’s what they want.  By fighting with them, you boost their perception that you are taking them seriously.  Alan Boyle nails what I have felt for a long time.  The best part is quoting Eugenie Scott:

“We will never solve this problem by throwing science at it. Science is necessary but not sufficient to solve this problem. We have to look at this problem of evolution and creationism in this country from a very broad perspective.

No, you won’t.  You may win in court occasionally, and at the polls occasionally, but it will forever be a distraction to real science if you keep validating their argument by trying to throw FACTS at it.  Here’s one solution that’s kind of floating around:

So what’s the remedy? “My recommendation is simply … to no longer talk about ‘Darwinism,’” Kutschera said. “You could say that Darwinism is one man’s outdated ideology of the 19th century. And Darwinism sounds like Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism … that’s a problem. The second point is that it must be made clear that the modern theory of evolution is in part anti-Darwin. Darwin did not, for instance, take into account the principle of evolution by cooperation.”

Darwin also did not take into account what is rapidly becoming an even more famous “Darwinism”, the very popular “Darwin Award”.  An example:

Youtube has about 78 movies in this genre, there are LOTS of others out there.

Now, intelligent design can NOT explain things like this.  However, the person in this video did not die.  Therefore, “Darwin’s Law” does NOT occur, and the incredibly stupid are allowed to pro-create.  In other words, people don’t have a clue what Darwin’s Theory even was any more.  This can’t be blamed on Republicans in Kansas.  The roots of this multi-definition of what Darwin theorized goes back to about 1879 or so with a fella named Oscar Schmidt in “Popular Science”.  So, arguing “Darwinism” with people who don’t have a clue what you’re talking about is somewhat moot.  Now, what these new people are suggesting is to keep Darwin completely out of the subject.  Call it something else, like “natural progression”.  Now, since all the “Intelligent Design” people have been “trained” to shoot down Darwin, this totally fubars the entire debate for probably another 100 years or so.  And, “natural progression” sounds so lame, no one’s gonna get too fired up about it.  And, it totally eliminates the confusion people have now that man, by defying “natural selection” via social services, is rapidly turning into apes.  Which I think is what really has the “intelligent design” people so scared.  There is a lot more evidence to support the turning into apes now argument, thanks to the internet, than there has ever been supporting that we were apes in the first place argument.  Which is what makes the “intelligent design” argument so appealing to those that have already become “that way”.

And, now a word from my “sponsors”:

Coincedence?

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